OSU Physics Student’s Radiation Detector Collecting Data Aboard The International Space Station

Students at Oklahoma State are researching on a global scale. One student helped design and build something that will help detect radiation in the atmosphere launching their work to new heights. 

“Being a problem solver is probably one of the best qualities you could have,” said Tristen Lee, who studies physics at Oklahoma State University. 

At Oklahoma State -- solutions require knowledge of what’s hidden. Lee is an OSU physics Ph.D. candidate who knows the only way to solve problems is to recognize they exist. “I’ve lived a large part of my life here,” Lee said. “I didn’t know that I’d be doing stuff quite as out of this world like this.” 

Physics professor Eric Benton has spent the better part of two decades studying radiation in the atmosphere. “Supernova, the sun, other stars spit out high energy particles,” Benton said. 

He said the atmosphere protects people on the ground but the higher a person travels in the air – the less protection. “It’s relatively safe here,” Benton said. “We know that radiation can lead to harmful things like increases in cancer.” 

Pilots and astronauts are at a greater risk. Lee designed this Space Tissue Equivalent Dosimeter or SpaceTED. It’s a small, simple metal box on the outside but it gathers complicated radiation data on the inside. “Basically, it has the same sensitivity to radiation as human tissue does,” Benton said. 

Their device is already collecting data on the International Space Station. “It went up on a Space X Falcon 9 rocket,” Lee said.  

Benton said SpaceTED collects data once every two weeks. Lee receives the data in an email and then it’s up to him to make sense of it. “That’s the physics part of it,” Lee said. 

Protecting people, Benton said, is possible when we see what’s hidden. “Try to understand this; measure it more accurately,” Benton said. 

It takes people with knowledge from the past and the future to help people prepare for what lies ahead. “Then it all comes together at the end. I will be prepared to take on even bigger things,” Lee said. “The future looks pretty bright.”