NASA Teams with Students for Space Station Training Equipment

NASA Teams with Students for Space Station Training Equipment

02.17.05


Steve Roy
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
(Phone: 256.544.0034)
News release: 05-018

NASA has a "hunch" high school students can help meet a real need in the
U.S. space program. In a Feb. 17 ceremony at the Huntsville Center for
Technology in Huntsville, Ala., NASA officials signed a Space Act Agreement
with two North Alabama high schools to build cargo stowage lockers for
International Space Station training here on Earth.

The Space Act Agreement is a partnership between NASA and the schools
participating in the High School Students United with NASA to Create
Hardware project, or HUNCH. More than 120 high school students from the
Huntsville Center for Technology and Brewer High School in Somerville, Ala.,
are developing practical skills by building 30 cargo lockers, using
materials provided by NASA.

HUNCH helps provide students with insight into a world they might otherwise
never experience. They meet with engineers at NASA'S Marshall Space Flight
Center, view current training hardware and build equipment that meets a
specific need in NASA's Space Station payload training program. Space
Station crews and ground support personnel will use the equipment to
practice conducting science experiments that eventually will be performed in
space.

"It's a great opportunity for NASA to join with these high schools in an
effort that's beneficial to all of us," said Teresa Vanhooser, acting
director of the Marshall Center's Engineering Directorate. "They are
building the hardware we need to continue our exploration of space. And at
the same time it may inspire these young people to choose careers in science
and engineering."

Students have been working on the project since last summer and have
completed two lockers. They are involved in the total process -- from
drawing plans, to machining parts, to final assembly. Students and
instructors presented the two finished products to NASA during the signing
ceremony.

The HUNCH project was started in November 2003, and is sponsored by the
Marshall Center's Engineering Directorate, in conjunction with the Space
Station Payloads Office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Students
from eight Houston-area schools and one in Laurel, Mont., also participate
in HUNCH. Two more North Alabama schools -- Scottsboro High and Madison
Career Academy -- are scheduled to join the project in coming weeks. An
estimated 375 students currently are building various Station training
hardware.



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Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info