Astronomy, Education, Rocketry

High School Students
Aim for Space

NASA MSFC Photo
Students of Fredericksburg High School in Texas launched the Redbird 9-H, shown above, at White Sands Missile Range, N.M. in August 2000. Designed and built by the students, the 185kg, 7m solid fueled rocket reached over 10km in altitude and significantly exceeded the altitude of the previous Redbird 8-H launch.

While most high schools across the US struggle even to raise science and math education achievement to rudimentary levels, some high school programs and students manage to reach stratospheric heights in science and engineering accomplishment.

Rocket Powered Learning

For example, the Fredericksburg High School AeroScience Program has gained fame for its use of advanced high power rockets that are designed, built and launched by students. (See the above photo). A Redbird 10-H, scheduled to launch this Spring, may reach 30km in altitude and provide up to 30secs of microgravity.

The excitement of rocketry motivates the students and the hands-on training provides tremendous benefits in making abstract concepts concrete.

These very low cost sounding rockets can in turn provide launches for microgravity experiments developed by other students not involved in the rocket project.

The success of this progam inspired a group at the Marshall Spaceflight Center to begin its Student Launch Initiative. This program brings high powered rocketry projects to local high schools and colleges in the Huntsville Alabama area.

Stellar Access for High Schoolers

Most US students grow up in heavily light-polluted urban or suburban areas and have never seen the vast canopy of brilliant stars and planets above them, much less examined any of them with a powerful telescope.

To attack this impoverishment, a group of high school students developed the Student Telescope Network. This project, supported by the Youth Activities Committee (YouthInAstronomy.org) of the Astronomical League, was developed to

"...enable high school students interested in astronomical observing, to access a telescope with digital camera in a remote dark location via the internet, and to pursue basic observational research."

The article Student behind global telescope network - CNN.com - Apr.13.02 describes how Ryan Hannahoe and other high school students developed this system to provide high school students around the world access to a high powered telescope in an area with little light pollution (see the New Mexico Skies observatories).

(See the Robotic Telescope section for more about these facilities that are accessible to both students and amateur astronomers.)

We can hope that these rocketry, astronomy and other exciting student projects will entice more students into science and engineering. (See the Space Education section for more

Preview the Space CD

The National Space Society sponsored a space song contest in 1998. A CD called Ad Astra with the top placing songs and other space inspired music will be released later this year by Prometheus Music.

You can now listen to some of the songs on the CD at MP3.com - National Space Society CD. Also, some works-in-progress versions can be streamed from the NSS CD page at Prometheus.

A sampler CD of the disk was sent to people throwing Yuri's Night parties and this editor was also lucky enough to get one. (Many thanks goes to Eli Goldberg of Prometheus Music.)

I'm very impressed by the songs. Some of them could be chart toppers if they ever reached a wide enough audience. Ranging from rock to Celtic in style, the collection celebrates space exploration with thoughtful as well as darn danceable tunes.

Venture-ing into Space

The Ventures Play Telstar + Ventures in Space
Amazon : US UK (HobbySpace commission links)

The rock instrumental group The Ventures were hugely successful during the 1960's and continues playing today. (They've sold over 90 million albums.) The band's unique multiple-guitar sound took the California surf rock style around the world.

One of the bands earliest successes was their cover of Telstar just as the version by the Tornados reached the top of the charts.

The Ventures Play Telstar album became one of their biggest sellers; so much so that many Americans came to assume that the song was originated by the Ventures. (Note that Leon Russell, who attained solo fame in the 1970's, played the keyboards on Telstar.)

The Ventures in Space album was not quite as successful but is considered their most influential work. They created exotic "spacy" sounds on their guitars that rivaled those from synthesizers. Many musicians of the psychedelic and classic 60's rock era claimed the album as an inspiration. Keith Moon, for example, the drummer for the Who, called it his favorite album.

See the review Ventures in Space posted recently at SurfRockMusic.com.

Sign the Planetary Society Petition
in Support of Space Exploration

The Planetary Society is the largest of the space activist organizations with over 100,000 members. It focuses particularly on space science projects.

The Society is currently fighting to save the missions to Pluto and Europa from funding cuts by NASA, which is looking for ways to save money due to big Space Station overruns.

Let Congress know that you support space exploration by adding your name to the Planetary Society's petition.

If you are not a member, join the Planetary Society to support not only its political efforts but also its many projects like the Space Sail (due for launch later this year) and the Red Rover educatonal program.