On December 9, 2022, MDZ announced a project that made the people of Mendoza proud: Mariano Tassin and Lara Gauna, two students from UNCuyo, had just won a contest promoted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), along with three other participants from San Luis . A year and a half later, the young people will travel to the United States after being invited by the space agency to present their project and see the facilities.
It all started with the Space Apps Challenge competition, an international hackathon that covers 300 cities located in different regions of the planet. Basically, the contest It is based on a series of challenges posed by the space agency that the young people gradually overcame. In this context, the “Mars 3D Home” project, a cabin whose characteristics would allow four astronauts to live in Mars For one year, he was chosen among the ten best in the world. In addition to Tassin and Gauna, Ivana Trento, Ián Pereyra and María Llarte, all from San Luis, also collaborated.
In dialogue with MDZ, Tassin reviewed the achievement and explained how they are preparing to visit one of the most interesting places in the world. “Professionally, many doors and new opportunities opened to us, particularly our incorporation into the Spacebee technologies team, winners of the same contest in 2023, in which we are developing the “Rovertito” project, an ultra-low-cost lunar rover with which we plan to reach the moon. Also the opportunity to take courses and participate in cool meetings,” he said.
Source: courtesy of Mariano Tassin
And he added: “Personally, it changed my way of seeing my profession, with which I feel much more involved than before, as well as growing in terms of confidence in myself and in the team that surrounds me when it comes to face new challenges.
The beginning of a wonderful story, the help they need and what expectations they have
“We found out from a talk given by The Mars Society Argentina, the NGO that organizes the event, which they gave at our facu in 2019,” warns the UNCuyo student about the beginning of the story. From that moment on, as he tells it, everything was limited to making the decision to move forward and embark on the adventure. “Everything that happened afterward was half a movie. I never thought that life would lead me to have these cool experiences,” he explains.
Received the invitation of the POT, now the challenge is to get to the United States. The prize includes the possibility of visiting the facilities of the North American space station but not the tickets to that country. For this reason, the young people launched a campaign together with The Mars Society Argentina from which they are selling a book related to Mars to pay for part of the trip, although they clarify that any help will be welcome. For those interested in contributing to the cause, you can obtain more information on the Instagram social network account @mars.argentina.
The importance of science for the country
As he prepares to travel to North America, Tassin responds to the query of MDZ about the current state of science in the country. “I think there are several advances, we have not only the projects that we have done that won the POT Space Apps and also that of the boys who won in 2023. There is also the rove project, which I hope will be given to us. I can mention INVAP, which is a company from Río Negro specialized in satellites that was involved in the development of ARSAT.”
Although the dates have not yet been confirmed, the young man affirms that it would be positive for more and more people to participate in the Space Apps that will take place in October. “It is a very nice experience, I had a great time, both when I was a competitor and when I had to be a mentor last year. I think it is something super valuable to join these types of initiatives to compete, test and learn, I think that It is just a friendly place in that sense too, although you have the pressure that it is a contest and that everything happens super quickly due to the format of the contest and so on, it is a super cool place to learn, to meet people, to share experiences and I think that is very rich, so I invite them to do that, to participate,” Mariano concluded.
