Down-to-Earth Aid for Stargazers : UCLA Astrophysicists Lean on Ventura College Shop for a Better Scope

UCLA’s astrophysicists were stumped. They had a contract to build a one-of-a-kind, $2-million telescope, but their machine shop lacked the high-precision tools required to fabricate some basic parts.

What they needed was a state-of-the-art laboratory, one that offered digital computer lathes and technicians skilled at turning blueprints into three-dimensional steel.

So brainy UCLA turned to the brawn of Ventura College’s machine shop.

“They have one of the more sophisticated shops around,” said UCLA physics professor David B. Cline. “We’re very happy to work with them.”

Cline and University of Texas physicist Irvin Fenyves, two internationally recognized astrophysicists, have asked Ventura College’s machine shop to manufacture parts for their high-resolution, gamma-ray telescope, an instrument that scientists hope will help shed light on the origins of the universe.

The scientists want to have the instrument launched into orbit from the U.S. space shuttle in about five years. Failing that, it may float high above the earth from a helium balloon. In any case, it will collect and beam data back to Earth that could provide information about black holes and the “Big Bang” theory.

The unlikely collaboration between UCLA’s physics department and Ventura College’s machine shop illustrates an increasingly common phenomenon in higher education, Cline says.

Whereas big universities have no shortage of theoretical scientists, they often lack the machining tools and the practical technicians, those hands-on experts with the greasy fingernails who can translate scientific concepts into real-life components.

“UCLA doesn’t quite have the facilities that its reputation would lead you to believe,” said Ty Foshe, a UCLA research assistant who is helping coordinate construction of the gamma-ray telescope.

Community colleges, on the other hand, usually specialize in teaching students the basic skills that help them find work in local industry. At Ventura College’s machine shop, that means jobs in the high-tech corridors of the Conejo Valley and the Oxnard Plain, says Scot Rabe, who heads the school’s machine technology department.

Twice a year, Rabe meets with local firms to discuss what types of skills they seek in machining graduates. The high-tech firms have also helped Ventura College win $1 million in state grants since 1986. The money has been spent on machining equipment that uses computers to design and manufacture parts. Students are trained on the same state-of-the-art machines they will use in private industry.

“I could place 10 people today if I had them,” says Rabe, who teaches machine technology to about 80 students. Graduates of the three-semester program can expect to start at $10 an hour and move up quickly, he adds.

The missing link in the UCLA-Ventura connection was provided by Sergio Montiero, a UCLA astrophysicist who also teaches at Moorpark College. When UCLA began casting about for a lab to manufacture some of its telescope parts, Montiero suggested Ventura College.

‘Good Technicians’ Needed

“We were looking for good technicians, and that brought us together,” Montiero says. “Scott Rabe is very competent. He does a good job.”

Cline and Fenyves toured the Ventura College machine shop late last year and came away impressed. They supervise the project jointly for the Department of Defense, which foresees weapons applications for the device.

Cline also found it appealing to involve community college students in a sophisticated physics project where they could use their budding skills. Since the students are not paid, the program had the added appeal of providing UCLA with free labor.

“We can benefit and they can benefit,” Cline said. “We hope to send some UCLA students up there this summer.”

So far, 10 Ventura College students have worked on the UCLA telescope project. Their first task was to fabricate parts for an “argon purifier” that eventually will be fitted inside the telescope, Rabe said.

As the telescope hurtles through space, it collects gamma rays, high-energy light particles. When the gamma ray travels through the argon gas in the telescope, the impact causes an electron to break loose from the argon atom. Scientists measure the energy generated by that electron to help them determine where the gamma ray originated. The gamma rays may have traveled as far as 10 billion light years through a wide variety of cosmic phenomena before approaching Earth.

The gamma ray telescope is not like an optical telescope, in which light shines directly through the instrument and into a scientist’s eye.

In this process, light, in the form of a gamma ray, beams out from the star, lands in the telescope and indirectly is forced by the argon to produce an electrical signal. That signal is fed into a computer, which creates an image that scientists analyze.

The UCLA telescope will be about 5 feet tall and 3 feet wide. Its construction and the remaining aspects of its design will keep the astrophysicists and the machine shop students busy for up to 5 years, Montiero said.

A Bumpy Start

However, the project has gotten off to a bumpy start.

Because of what Cline and Rabe call a “miscommunication,” the Ventura College students welded a metal coil onto the argon gas canister in a way that may have weakened the molecular structure of the metal can. This forced UCLA to take the part to a private electroplating shop in Santa Monica, where the canister was repaired at a cost of several hundred dollars, the scientists say.

Cline said the foul-up was one of the unavoidable pitfalls scientists face when designing and building a device that has never been attempted.

“That happens in any project. We’re very happy with Ventura College’s work. We plan to use them in the future,” he said.

Added Rabe: “We’ve learned a lot from that error. It’s just a matter of being more careful and having better communication.”