Bhubaneswar, May 5: Her torus-shaped space colony design has earned Prateeksha Das a $2,000 scholarship from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa).

Being the highest-scoring individual of the Ames Space Settlement Design Competition, the Class XII student of Ispat English Medium School will also get the Bruce Clark Memorial Scholarship for her entry, “Paradise Reclaimed”.

Her project is a space colony designed to accommodate about 10,000 people. The colony, torus in shape, is done on a lunar surface and the entire construction work will be done by telerobots, says the project.

Galactic cosmic rays and other heavier nuclei will be used to shield the colony from hazardous cosmic rays, X-rays, gamma rays, helium nuclei and protons. Oxygen will be continuously prepared by electrolysis of water. There will be a carbon dioxide sensor to measure the amount of carbon dioxide and arrangements made to remove excess of it. There will also be a temperature controller to regulate temperature as done in ACs. Since hydrogen is most abundant in space, it will be used for transportation. For production of food, aeroponics technique (a process of growing crops without the use of soil) will be used by spraying the plant’s roots with nutrient rich solution. Inside the colony, an artificial sky will be created using a projector to project landscapes put into filmstrips onto the top of the torus-shaped colony.

“The student will receive a $2000 scholarship award and along with her sponsoring teacher, she will get a chance to attend the National Space Society’s International Space Development Conference at the Intercontinental Chicago ’Hare Airport Hotel on May 28-31 in Chicago,” said a letter from National Space Society director Lynne Zielinski.

Prateeksha has also been invited to give a presentation at the conference and provide a poster for the poster presentation. “I’m very happy on being selected. All credit goes to my parents and teachers who guided me through the project,” said Prateeksha.