We are writing the systems software and building a GUI for iOS and Android which monitors and controls a plant life-support system prototype that is funded by NASA to research making a hospitable artificial environment on Mars. The final product should display sensor data to any user who is curious about how the project is going and also allow the systems engineers to check the status of the relevant data, perform tests, calibrate the sensors, toggle the actuators, etc. through an interface which does not require a CS background and allows greater specialization amongst the team working on it.
Between Blue Origin's successful landing of a booster on a sub-orbital launch and SpaceX's even more impressive landing of the Falcon 9's rocket booster on a mission that launched 11 satellites, an incredibly impressive amount of progress is being made on the space transportation problem. Back-of-the-envelope calculations place SpaceX's feat in particular at reducing the variable cost of space transport by a factor of three-hundred.
However, there has not been matching progress on life-support systems. When we get to Mars, we still have to figure out how to live there. That makes this kind of work critical. Successful completion of this project will create a framework in which it will be incredibly easy for engineers to work on the system while simultaneously generating interest in the cause in general.
Because interplanetary civilization.
- Integrating front-end and back-end.
- Embarking on learning the ways of AngularJS.
- No prior experience working with the people on the team.
- Running multiple diverse threads in parallel and putting it altogether successfully at the end.
- Mitigate the risks by staying motivated. Success is a function of effort.
