Student Back From NASA Camp
R.Vishnuvardhan, a Class VIII student of Good Shepherd International School, Udhagamandalam, is just back from Huntsville, Alabama. He was among the 38 students selected from the school to attend the space camp organised by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). “The camp was like a dream to most of us. Imagine meeting and interacting with the NASA astronauts,” Vishnuvardhan says. “We even saw real space ships and rockets,” he adds. The eight-day camp offered training in mathematics, science, engineering and technology. The students were taken to various departments of NASA and given booklets on rocket science and space technology. It also had presentations and lectures by astronauts. Apart from Good Shepherd School, Udhagamandalam, students from Bangalore, Ahmedabad, were part of the camp. Students from Japan, Korea and Europe, Canada, U.S.A., too took part.
“The best thing about the camp was that we were trained by a very senior space research scientist Dr.Vonteesen, who was part of ‘Operation Paper Clip,’ the military and intelligence exercise that extracted scientific talent from the Nazis during World War II in 1945,” he says. The camp is organised by NASA to draw youngsters to space science. “Some of the astronauts were fond of children and wanted to share the wealth of their experience and information with us,” Vishnuvardhan says.
Through short activities such as space missions, weightlessness, moonwalk, rocket building, robotics and simulator training, the students got hands-on experience of space science. “We could also watch the real world applications of mathematics, science and engineering, which will help our understanding of key concepts,” he says. According to Vishnuvardhan, the space camp was not just about space flight training.
It also involved meticulous planning, excellent interpersonal and communication skills, self-confidence, and team work. The students were divided into groups of eight, led by an experienced scientist who assisted them in building rockets and even launching them. “We experienced 1/6th gravity, high G forces just how real astronauts do,” he says.
