Go fly with NASA

[propforce]

Here's an opportunity for all you university students...<br /><br />Hands On <br />Aviation Week & Space Technology 08/16/04 <br />author: Frank Morring, Jr. <br /><br />A graying NASA gives undergraduate engineers a taste of space in hopes they'll make a career of it. Microgravity flights on aircraft for student experiments are used as a no-strings enticement to promising candidates.<br /><br />For six weeks this year, four days a week, a half-dozen two-person student teams have donned flight suits for 1.5-hr. flights on NASA's KC-135A reduced-gravity aircraft. While on board they go "weightless" for 20-25 sec. at a time, 30 times or more, as the 40-year-old plane arcs through 8,000-ft. parabolas over the Gulf of Mexico.<br /><br />The students have won the right to fly by proposing, building and demonstrating experiments that test something in the microgravity environment the KC-135 produces at the top of the parabolas. Many get college credit for the work, which mimics real-world testing carried out on the same airplane for International Space Station and space shuttle applications. Most of the students have a blast, too.<br /><br />"WE STARTED FLYING students in '97, and the objective has always been to [foster] interest in science and technology and to show there are some interesting things they can pursue," says Donn Sickorez, university affairs officer at Johnson Space Center. "We know it's a long haul if you're studying engineering and technology."<br /><br />Former JSC Director George Abbey launched the student flight activity after learning of a similar program run by the European Space Agency. Like many high-technology operations in the U.S., NASA faces a demographic wall of retirements, while university enrollment in science and engineering disciplines declines.<br /><br />Interest in the program has built over the years to the point that in 2003 about 70 teams flew of the 110 that proposed experiments. Overall, more than 2,000 students have flown. The idea is not t <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[lunatic133]

Oooooh, I want to go! Wouldn't do them much good preaching to the converted though. Better send a "swing voter" so that we can gain more allies <img src="/images/icons/wink.gif" />