Aggies tackle health on Mars

As NASA sets its sights on a manned mission to Mars, it faces a deadly challenge: maintaining human health in zero gravity.

Without the resistance of fighting against gravity, astronauts’ bodies lose both muscle and bone density at a dangerous rate. Their cardiovascular systems also decline dramatically faster than they would on Earth.

Astronauts can fight these effects with exercise, but exercising in zero gravity comes with a massive array of complications. Exercising astronauts must be tethered to their devices to avoid propelling themselves away. Traditional weights are useless, but friction-based resistance builds up heat and increases fire risk. Even breathing can be deadly: exhaled carbon dioxide (CO2) does not naturally dissipate, but remains clustered around the breather’s head. Without careful ventilation, an exercising astronaut can unknowingly suffocate themselves. 

NASA has addressed these problems with exercise equipment designed for lunar missions and service aboard the International Space Station (ISS). However, the weight of these devices makes them untenable for the long voyage to Mars.

The solution

The Aggienauts, a team of five seniors at Texas A&M University, have designed, machined and tested a device that could be the solution. As part of NASA’s Spring 2026 Design Challenge, the team received $300 and an open-ended challenge to address exercise in space.

Over the course of two semesters, biomedical engineering students Samuel Corrigan, Samantha Goebel, David Gonzalez, Gavin Moore and Emily Nelson successfully created a fully functional prototype that provides astronauts with adjustable zero-gravity resistance training — weighing in at 1,050 pounds less than the lightest existing equipment used on the ISS. In fact, the final product is so light that Corrigan can lift it over his head.

Starting with a used VersaClimber exercise machine, the students modified, fabricated, 3D printed and water blasted together a vertical climbing machine that uses adjustable air pistons to generate resistance. It can be arranged to suit a wide variety of user heights and features an integrated app to adjust settings. It also sports powered air fans to remove dangerous CO2 from the user’s face.

The Aggienauts benefitted from expert guidance, including Texas A&M vice president and retired astronaut Col. Michael Edward Fossum. Over his 19-year career as an astronaut, Fossum spent more than 194 days in space, served on three spaceflights and accrued 48 hours on spacewalks.

Fossum’s insights into life without gravity helped steer the team towards practical solutions, from rethinking NASA’s existing devices to simple quality of life features like an electronic tablet holder to allow astronauts to watch films as they exercised. 

Over its year of development, the Aggienauts’ device earned numerous accolades, including second place overall in the NASA Texas Space Grant Consortium Design Challenge and first place in both the live presentation and peer review categories. They also placed third overall in biomedical engineering for their senior capstone project at Texas A&M’s Engineering Project Showcase.

For the Aggienauts, the success of the project hinged on constant attention to detail.

“Gavin was iterating to the day of the design contest,” said Corrigan. “We would all be thinking that we were done, and he would say, ‘No, we’ve got some more we can add.’”

From simple aesthetic choices to complex engineering upgrades — like doubling the device’s safety factor by shifting to double acting cylinders, which could generate the same amount of resistance with half the heat-building friction — the Aggienauts wanted every element of the project to go above and beyond their target goals. Moore even solved the CO2 problem with fully powered ventilation fans that he installed on the day of the design contest as the team was packing the device.

“In space — in microgravity — little things matter,” said Moore, “We don’t want to just meet our thresholds. We want to exceed them.”

That attention to detail won them more than just competition awards.

“We actually got to talk to one of the NASA employees who tested it,” said Goebel. “He was up in the parabolic flight test doing the VersaClimber. He said that it was his favorite one to try out, which was really cool for us to hear.”

The future

For those students preparing for their own capstone projects, the Aggienauts advise focusing on personal skills first, rather than relying purely on engineering knowledge.

“Establish a good relationship with your group,” said Nelson. “This is more like personal relations than technical work, but you’re going to be working with them for a year. If you ever need help on something, it’s best to establish a good relationship with those people up front. You can always learn the technical aspects later. If you make a bad start with your whole team, that’s something that takes a lot more effort to fix. “

The Aggienauts believe that this relationship empowers students to learn more than they ever could on their own.

“The advantage of capstone is that you’re working as a team and not competing with anyone on your side,” said Gonzalez, “A lot of us are overachievers who want to be the best. Capstone is a place where you can relax and say, ‘I can learn from this person. They’re really good at this. I’m not so good at this, and that’s okay.'”

By James Cavin, Texas A&M University College of Engineering

###