WAPATO, Wash. — Wapato High School freshman Luis Moreno was surprised when he saw how expanding gases of two apples cracked a quarter-inch thick polycarbonate container in half.
“I was surprised because polycarbonate can take a lot,” he said of the clear plastic-type material used to store the apples for a NASA project.
For the past four years, the Wapato High School Robotics and Engineering Club has worked to develop a packaging method that would allow apples to stay fresh longer in space without any refrigeration. The end goal is to ship apples to astronauts on the International Space Station.
On Wednesday the club will be among 75 others — out of 300 nationwide — invited to present their findings to top scientists at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Their project was selected by NASA in 2014, and is part of the High School Students United with NASA to Create Hardware, or HUNCH program.
“It feels amazing,” Moreno said recently at his school’s science lab. “I’m very excited. To be one out of 75, that’s really great.”
Sprawled across a nearby table were the polycarbonate containers used to store the apples for weeks at a time in order to monitor their respiration. The students built electronic devices to monitor the apple’s gas conversion over time.
The goal is to define the baseline of an apple’s respiration rate to configure a packaging that will slow down the apple’s respiration to a point that will allow it to be stored for three months without refrigeration.
The average shelf life of an apple without refrigeration is about three weeks, said engineering teacher and club adviser Christopher Beyrouty.
The project is student driven, and it was the students who asked NASA how an apple could be kept fresh in space, he said. Being the first students to ask such a question, NASA accepted the project and adopted it into the HUNCH program.
“The neat thing is the students are the experts in this,” he said.
Figuring out how to keep an apple fresh for people on a space station is only fitting for students from this area, said club member Jesus Gil, a freshman.
“This study right now makes sense because we’re in an agricultural area,” he said.
Club members have ruled out vacuum seal as a storage method because the lack of oxygen speeds up apple respiration, Gil said.
Now, the club is studying how to use air and apple gases to create a balance that will slow respiration, or put the apple to sleep.
Gil said he’s excited to see the progress made in coming years, and plans to stick with the club.
“Science is like one of my favorite subjects — I’m learning so much,” he said.
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