Students in schools across the United States are participating in space programs, thanks to assistance from the National Space Grant Act passed in 1988 by the US Congress. The grant established a College and Fellowship Program and NASA took on the job of managing the higher education program.
This month, the Oklahoma State University Microgravity Team, known as the OSU Space Cowboys, spent 10 days at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The six students experienced a weightless environment, testing the design of inflatable space habitats, which may be used someday as manned stations around Earth, the Moon and Mars. Appropriately, the mission also simulated lunar gravity and the gravity of the red planet.
New Mexico State University (NMSU) is the lead institution in that state for the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium. Its purpose is to promote a strong science, mathematics, and technology education base from elementary through secondary levels. The 2006 Space Foundation “Space Report” indicates people who work in the space sector earn twice what employees earn in other sectors of the economy.
The Consortium gave $245,000 in scholarships statewide to students enrolled at New Mexico State University, the University of New Mexico, Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute ,and the New Mexico Institute of Mining & Technology. Their research is being conducted in various areas, including environmental science, physics and astronomy, earth and planetary science, mechanical engineering, and nuclear engineering.
Additionally, Spaceport America in New Mexico provides an annual rocket launch for students and faculty statewide. The students are to design experiments that use the environment of suborbital space to answer scientific and engineering questions. Their experiments are launched on a SpaceLoft XL UP Aerospace Rocket.
The student payloads in May varied depending on the school. New Mexico State University’s payload collected data in terms of altitude, acceleration, temperature, cosmic radiation and magnetic field in order to understand how the flight components operate in sub-orbital space. The University of New Mexico used sensors for pressure, temperature, light, acceleration, and a gyroscopic. Community colleges had similar sensors and a Geiger counter. High school students collected data on the flight of the rocket. Their pressure sensors collected barometric measures and accelerometers to indicate how high and how fast the rocket flew. Now, students are set to analyze their data and present their results.
Watch a video of the OSU Space Cowboys in action.