CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. — About 2,984 kids have peppered several NASA Orion EFT-1 mission engineers and scientists with questions in the past two days, all in the name of space education.
, a program of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, connects classrooms to field work. In this case the museum, in partnership with United Launch Alliance and Lockheed Martin, has been video-conferencing with classrooms across 10 states, allowing kids to directly interact with engineers and scientists live from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.
It’s intended to engage young minds and inspire future careers in the sciences. And the fact that it’s held in a rocket bay with an enormous Delta rocket booster as the backdrop doesn’t hurt.
“We take the students to an interesting place they don’t have access to themselves and introduce them to some interesting people … so they can maybe become a scientist or an engineer working in a field like this,” the museum’s planetary science curator Steve Lee said. “The kids are just lit on fire after something like this. They really feel a connection both to the place and to the people that they meet.”
Taking kids remotely to events like dinosaur bone digs or space missions like STS-125, the 2009 space shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, is central to the program. Although the museum is based in Denver, the program is nationwide.
Once accepted as a participating classroom, the students prep for their Q&A by watching a pre-produced video, allowing for classroom discussion ahead of time.
Then, it’s go time. The Orion-related video conferences took place Tuesday and Wednesday, primarily with middle school students. Interests ranged from radiation protection for astronauts to Orion’s onboard systems. However, there was one topic with which the kids were simply obsessed: Mars.
“They’re really interested and fascinated by the re-entry and how the heat shield can dissipate heat — how it can get so hot outside, yet it’s 72 degrees in the crew module, so we talk all about that and materials we’re using,” said Lockheed Martin engineer Heather McKay, who fielded questions at Kennedy Space Center. “They ask about if there are beds inside the crew module (there aren’t). They want to know that human element — what’s it like.”
Colorado-designed and -made early Thursday morning. It will be hurtled to space on a ULA Delta Heavy IV rocket, orbit Earth twice and splash down off of Mexico’s Baja Peninsula about four hours later.
The Scientists in Action program falls in step with Centennial-based ULA’s goal of focusing on STEM education, however, there are multiple reasons it’s beneficial, said Chris Chavez, the company’s director of government affairs and communication.
“The workforce is aging, and we need to replenish the pipeline that was inspired by the Apollo era. Also, it’s just a national imperative that we, as Americans, explore space,” he said. “From a ULA perspective, what is more unique than launching rockets? Kids get very excited about rockets.”
That excitement is perfectly channeled into something as iconic as Orion’s EFT-1, McKay said.
“This is a really big deal. It’s the first step to deep space. Someday an astronaut will leave the first footprints in the red dust of Mars, and we’ll look back and say it all started here,” she said. “They have these awesome questions and these inquiring minds.”
The students who participated in the Orion EFT-1 discussions will have a second round of conferences in January with ULA engineers at the company’s Alabama production facilities. Chavez is looking forward to hearing the questions from the kids when they see how rockets are made.
“To have that diversity of thought around what are kids thinking and what are they dreaming of is wonderful,” he said. “A question that a little girl asks in the classroom could change her life. She could be the next one to walk on Mars.”
Laura Keeney: lkeeney@denverpost.com, 303-954-1337 or twitter.com/laurakeeney
Updated on Monday, December 8 at 10:30 a.m.: This online archive has been updated to reflect the total number of school kids who participated in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science-directed Scientists in Action Program during the NASA Orion EFT-1 launch.
