The sky's no limit

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to put an experiment into space. Students across the country have a chance every year to enter a contest sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Some winners help put their projects on a space shuttle or rocket. Others receive scholarships to Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala. Every winner gets a special award presented by a NASA representative – sometimes by an astronaut.

Through the NASA Student Involvement Program (NSIP), six competitions are offered each year. Students can compete as individuals, teams, or entire classes. Contests are open to students in kindergarten through high school. Contests range from studying the land, air, and water in a small site on Earth, to planning a mission to Mars.

For some of the competitions, students design projects that may actually be launched into space. "Sometimes students have a better chance to put their experiments into space than scientists or engineers," says Farzad Mahootian, NSIP's director. Many scientists are waiting in line to get their projects onto a space shuttle. But the winners of the Space Flight Opportunities contest have a guaranteed slot and all the help they need from NASA.

Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook, Ill., has produced a number of winning teams in the past few years. Physics teacher Lynne Zielinski supervises the efforts and stresses that kids don't have to be geniuses to join in and even win. "Some of the experiments have been pretty simple," she says. "And even on a complex project, students get a lot of help from teachers and scientists." Seniors Stanley Von Medvey and Joel Senner are members of the Northbrook team that created an experiment called Environment 2.0. Last June, it was sent into space aboard a suborbital rocket. The experiment monitored the environment inside a rocket during flight. That's something even NASA experts want to learn more about.

"We measured acceleration, magnetic field, pressure, temperature, and radiation," Stanley says. "It was pretty exciting, watching the rocket go up and knowing your experiment was in there." Team members are still analyzing data from the sensors in the rocket. Joel is also working on putting the results to music.

"We're using the data from the different sensors to add different tonal qualities to 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,' " he says. Ms. Zielinski explains that scientists have done this before, turning data into music to get a better understanding of results. (Glenbrook students' projects are on their site: gbn.glenbrook.k12.il.us/GADGET/home.htm.)

There are two categories for the contests that are sent into space. One involves placing projects on a space shuttle. The other is for projects that can be launched from a small rocket that flies above the atmosphere (called a "sounding rocket").

Each year, four projects are selected as flight-worthy for each category. The eight winning teams get a free trip to Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island, Va., during Student Flight Week in June. There, students with space-shuttle projects prepare their experiments for delivery to the Kennedy Space Center. Teams with projects that will ride on the sounding rocket prepare their projects and, if weather allows, watch the rocket launch.

Anat Cohen worked on an "aeroponics" experiment at Glenbrook that was chosen for a shuttle launch. It studies how plants grow in space.

"It was really a great experience," she says of her trip to Wallops. "They were very good to us, very friendly. They showed us all around the facility, gave us coats with our names on them, and let us go through a launch sequence. It made me want to work at NASA." Her project is still waiting for its shuttle flight.

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