Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

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National Space Society Officer and Director to Receive Prestigious National Space Educator Award

Monday, March 18th, 2013

Lynne F. Zielinski, National Space Society (NSS) officer and director has been selected by the National Space Club as the 2013 recipient of the National Space Educator Award. This prestigious award will be presented this Friday, March 22nd, 2013 at the 56th annual Robert H. Goddard Memorial Dinner at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Since 1982, the award has been given annually to secondary school teachers who mentor students in the field of space, science, and technology. Recipients are also given a $1,500 grant and a plaque for their respective school.

“Lynne Zielinski is the first two-time winner in the thirty year history of the National Space Club National Space Educator Award. After being selected in 1988 for exemplary work motivating students to do research by planning and flying experiments on the Space Shuttle, she did not rest on her laurels,” said National Space Club Award Chairman Kerry Joels.

“She spent the next quarter century expanding her students’ opportunities to participate in space science research, encouraged dozens to pursue science and engineering degrees, and expanded community awareness of space science. Her career is an impressive and exceptional model for a space educator,” he added.

Zielinski has been a member of NSS’s Board of Directors and Chairman of the Education and Outreach Committee since 2006. She also serves on the NSS Executive Committee as Vice President of Public Affairs. She annually organizes the activities that attract hundreds of students to the NSS International Space Development Conference for the NSS/NASA Ames Space Settlement Design Competition.

“We are pleased to join the National Space Club in honoring such a deserving and forward-thinking educator with the National Space Educator Award,” said Mark Hopkins, NSS Executive Committee Chairman. “We are especially proud that Zielinski was selected for her over 30 years of noteworthy accomplishments in bringing science and math to life for thousands of students and teachers through space and technology.”

Her 32-year career as a physics, astronomy, and space science teacher at Glenbrook North High School in Northbrook, Illinois has been highlighted with numerous accomplishments, including participation in the Teacher In Space program. For Zielinski’s full biography, please visit www.nss.org/about/bios/zielinski.html.

Past recipients of the award include Teacher in Space educator astronaut Barbara Morgan and Challenger Center founding chair Dr. June Scobee Rogers.

Posted in Education, Lynne Zielinski, National Space Society | No Comments »

NSS Announces Partnership with New Mexico Museum of Space History to Preserve the History of Space Advocacy

Friday, October 19th, 2012

Las Cruces, New Mexico - October 17, 2012 - The National Space Society (NSS) and the New Mexico Museum of Space History (NMMSH) announced a new partnership on Wednesday for the establishment of a permanent home for historic records chronicling the development of the space activist community and the U.S. space industry.

This alliance is the result of four years of discussions and negotiations about the disposition of the Society’s archives (which go back as far as the mid-1970’s when Wernher von Braun founded the National Space Institute, a predecessor of NSS) and will officially enable the Museum to begin accepting materials from the Society.

Dale Amon, Chairman of NSS’s Archives Committee and a member of the NSS Board of Directors, announced the new partnership at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS). Amon stated, “If we do not save our history, it will be rewritten by others. It is up to us, the founders of the Space Movement and dedicated advocates of the space industry, to make sure there is an unambiguous record of how the future came to be and the huge role we played in it.”

“It is a rare privilege to have our Museum chosen to conserve and protect the National Space Society Collection. Current and future historians will find that this Collection provides an uncommon insight into the hearts and minds of the activists who founded what is known today as the commercial space industry,” said Chris Orwoll, Executive Director of NMMSH. “The Museum’s partnership with the National Space Society will ensure that this Collection, reflecting decades of dedication to opening space for all, will be preserved to provide understanding and education for future generations.”

Image: Dale Amon, NSS Archivist, and Kathy Harper, NMMSH Marketing & Public Relations in front of the Lynx I Spaceplane mock-up at the 2012 International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight conference in Las Cruces. Click image for larger version (2500 pixels).

Amon and Orwoll also expressed their appreciation to ISPCS organizer Pat Hynes for her foresight in creating an event that fosters communication between different organizations and promotes partnerships throughout the space community.

New Mexico’s Spaceport America, the first commercial spaceport in history, is a major outcome of decades of work by space advocates at NSS and other like-minded citizens. The Museum project will not only detail that past effort, but document and preserve the evolution of space travel in the exciting years to come.

About the New Mexico Museum of Space History: The NMMSH is charged with collecting, researching, and preserving objects (artifacts and specimens) and documents related to its mission which is, in part, to educate its visitors from around the world, in the history, science, and technology of space. The museum’s Collections Management Program ensures proper accountability of the objects entrusted to its care, for the sake of posterity, and for the benefit of its constituents and clientele. This is accomplished through sound documentation; meticulous record keeping; collections-oriented research; artifact preservation/conservation; and strict compliance with the NMMSH Collections Management Plan policies/procedures and American Association of Museums (AAM) standards and guidelines. Located in Alamogordo, New Mexico, at the base of the Sacramento Mountains, the Museum is a tribute to the brave men and women who for centuries strove to conquer space. The Museum is a division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs.

Posted in Education, National Space Society, The Space Movement | No Comments »

Uwingu - New Startup to Fund Space Exploration, Research, and Education

Tuesday, September 11th, 2012

Uwingu LLC, a space-themed start up is seeking crowd-sourced funding to launch an ongoing series of public engagement projects. Uwingu’s mission is to use those proceeds to generate funding for space exploration, research, and education efforts around the world.

Uwingu LLC (pronounced “oo-wing-oo” and which means “sky” in Swahili) consists of astronomers, planetary scientists, former space program executives, and educators. Included in the company’s portfolio of space heavyweights are space historian and author Andy Chaikin, space educator Dr. Emily CoBabe-Ammann, citizen science leader Dr. Pamela Gay, author and museum science director Dr. David Grinspoon, planet hunter Dr. Geoff Marcy, planetary scientist and aerospace executive Dr. Teresa Segura, planetary scientist and former NASA science boss Dr. Alan Stern, and planetary scientist and CEO of the Planetary Science Institute, Dr. Mark Sykes.

“Uwingu will employ novel software applications to game-ify space, with the profits going toward research and education,” says Gay. “Our projects will be fun to use, and the proceeds from their use will make a real difference in how space exploration, research, and education is funded.”

Adds CoBabe-Aummann, “Uwingu’s influence on space education is going to be both broad and deep, with applications we think will be very popular in classrooms around the world, and proceeds going to promote space education both at home and abroad.”

“Our ambitions at Uwingu are high,” states founder Sykes. “Simply put, we want to use commercial sales to generate a new funding stream for space research, space education, and even space exploration. Nothing like this has ever been done.”

Uwingu’s launch project is already built, but its being kept under wraps to generate excitement and suspense. The company is seeking the public’s support to raise funds for Internet and other business costs it will incur in early operations. “We’ve already put the equivalent of over $1M in software development into our first project through donated hours by our team,” says co-founder Stern, “and we’ve each contributed funds as well, but to build up the nest egg of capital we need to launch our web site, we are asking people who believe in our mission to help.”

Uwingu’s crowd funding campaign to raise these funds can be found at: www.indiegogo.com/projects/180221.

Posted in Education, Space Exploration, The Space Movement | No Comments »

International SunSat Design Competition

Thursday, February 9th, 2012

The SunSat Design Competition is an international contest intended to accelerate the design, manufacture, launch and operation of the next-generation satellites that will collect energy in space and deliver it to earth as electricity.

Registration:  May 2012 – January 6, 2013

Design Submission Deadline:  March 30, 2013

Registration will begin at the National Space Society’s International Space Development Conference in Washington DC in May 2012. Winners will be announced and their “Creative Visualizations” will be shown at ISDC-2013.

The purpose of this Design Project is to more closely link digital media labs around the world to the satellite and space community as a way to accelerate the way forward in development and implementation of universal access to space-based solar power.

Winning designs will be high-impact digital art, supported by credible science, engineering and business plans, that best promote media understanding and public acceptance of a path forward in using space satellites to deliver energy on-demand to any and all places on Earth.

The SunSat Competition is an initiative of the Online Journal of Space Communication in partnership with the Society of Satellite Professionals International, the National Space Society, and Ohio University Game Research and Immersive Design Laboratory (GRID Lab).

For more information and online registration, go to sunsat.gridlab.ohio.edu. Winning entries from the 2013 competition will be published in the Online Journal of Space Communication. To view sample designs prepared by the Ohio University GRID Lab see Issue No.17 of the Space Journal. A second contest will be held 2013-2014.

Posted in Education, National Space Society, Space Solar Power | No Comments »

Pete Conrad Spirit of Innovation Award

Saturday, November 12th, 2011

The Spirit of Innovation Challenge invites high school teams to use science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills to develop commercially viable, technology-based products in one of three categories: Aerospace Exploration, Clean Energy, and Health and Nutrition. The Challenge is hosted by the Pete Conrad Foundation. The National Space Society is a co-sponsor.

This year’s competition offers a once-in-a-decade opportunity for select teams to travel to Rio de Janeiro in June 2012 with the U.S. Department of State to participate with an international audience for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. They will also attend a U.S. workshop in May to meet their global peers in advance of the trip to Rio.

The top fifteen teams, five from each category, will travel to the annual Innovation Summit at NASA-Ames Research Center in California from March 29-31, 2012.

“The hallmark of America’s culture is innovation and entrepreneurship; it’s how we got to the Moon and how companies like Apple, Facebook and Google were formed,” said Nancy Conrad, founder and chairman of the Conrad Foundation. “Our Challenge transcends ‘fact memorization’ and gives students a real means of changing the world. Making that sort of monumental impact is what inspires these students to tackle the big challenges … exploring the universe, discovering cures for disease and preserving our planet.”

It’s free and easy to register. Student teams simply answer four questions about their innovative concept by Nov. 29, 2011. See www.conradawards.org for more information.

Posted in Education, Event | No Comments »

Students for the Exploration and Development of Space Competitions

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) has announced two competitions.

The first, the 2011 High-Powered Rocketry Competition is under way. The goal is to design, construct, and launch a high-powered rocket carrying a 4 kilogram payload to a height of 10,000 feet, as measured by a standard altimeter. The competition end date is October 9th, 2011. The winning chapter will be announced at SpaceVision 2011. More information.

The second is the Business Plan Competition. For students who have a Business Plan for a space product or system that will further the opening of the space frontier, they can enter the NewSpace Student Business Plan Competition. A team can be made of up to to five undergraduate or graduate students (of any major). The 5 team finalists will compete at SpaceVision 2011 and pitch their plan to investors like such as Tom Olson and NewSpace Startup Companies such as Altius Space Machines CEO Jon Goff and many other names in the space industry. Deadline to file an intent to compete is September 30. More information

Posted in Education, Event | No Comments »

NSS Kicks-off Space Ambassador Program; Top Ambassador Will Get Ride on SpaceShipTwo

Monday, June 13th, 2011

On May 7th, 2011, the National Space Society’s Space Ambassador program began its year-long mission. The top ambassador will be assigned a research trip to space on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo.

The program, which was over two years in development, is the first of its kind. The mission of the Space Ambassador program is to communicate the benefits of space exploration to our daily lives and to inspire and educate young people and the public to pursue careers in science, engineering, and mathematics. We wish to inspire a new generation of leaders to take an active role in helping to create the future they wish to see come to pass.

Space ambassadors will achieve the program goals by scheduling and conducting speeches and presentations where they see fit, particularly in schools and universities. These presentations are conducted by volunteers who share the dreams and goals necessary to expand commercial space and space exploration endeavors of the future.

To date there are approximately 5,000 registered Space Ambassadors worldwide. Almost every country on Planet Earth is represented in this program. At the end of the program run, the top Space Ambassadors will be announced at the 2012 International Space Development conference in Washington D.C. and their award missions will be assigned.

The top ambassador will be assigned a research trip to space on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo and report back to the Society and its members. Other ambassadors will be assigned space training and research with ZeroG Corporation, NASTAR center and Aurora Aerospace, among others.

It is envisioned the program will reach out to over one million students around the globe during the course of the program and inspire future space industry leaders, giving its audiences valuable information regarding commercial space development and exploration progress. This will enable students to make educated decisions regarding their future education goals.

More informaton about the NSS Space Ambassador Program can be found at:
www.spaceambassadors.com

Posted in Education, National Space Society | No Comments »

Students from India win Space Settlement Design Contest

Sunday, April 17th, 2011

The Grand Prize for the 2011 NASA/NSS Space Settlement Contest went to a  team of seven high school students from Punjab, India, for their double-torus space settlement design called Hyperion. The winning design was selected from 355 submissions from 14 countries.

The Hyperion Space Settlement has a diameter of 1.8 kilometers and would provide a safe and pleasant living and working environment for 18,000 full time residents and an additional population (not to exceed 2,000) of business and official visitors, guests of residents, and vacationers. The settlement would be constructed primarily from lunar materials and be located at the Earth-Moon L4 libration point.

Hyperion Space Settlement

Hyperion Space Settlement

The complete Hyperion design is available for download as a 96-page, 11 MB PDF file.

The winning student team consists of Gaurav Kumar, Deepak Talwar, Harman Jot Singh Walia, Mahiyal B. Singh, Kaenat Seth, Ishaan Mehta, and Navdeep Singh Makkar. They write: “We would like to express thanks to NSS/NASA for this amazing platform that they have created which brings out the best in every individual. It has really helped us chase our dream and bring something we had only imagined to a global stage where it will be judged by the best. We feel elated to be a part of this lifetime experience and that is why we are really grateful to NSS/NASA from the very bottom of our hearts.”

Posted in Education, NASA, National Space Society, Space Settlement, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Free Copies Of “The High Frontier” To School Libraries

Thursday, March 24th, 2011

Attention all teachers:  Free copies of The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space by the late Princeton physicist Gerard K. O’Neill are being offered to high school and college libraries by Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) and the Space Frontier Foundation.

School librarians, teachers, or other school staff or officials that desire to receive a copy for placement in their school library may request the free copy here:

tinyurl.com/highfrontierbook

Click on image for request form
Click on image for request form

O’Neill’s book is viewed as one of the seminal works in the modern aerospace industry. First published in 1977, it provided an optimistic ideal of the incredible things that could be accomplished in space even using Apollo era technology, while at the same time providing a roadmap of how we could get there. O’Neill’s work had a great effect on the industry that grew after it, often through the effect it had on those who would grow up to eventually join it. The High Frontier has had an incredible effect on inspiring students into participating in fields in the sciences and aerospace, many of whom have become remarkable contributors to industry and the sciences.

It is hoped that placing these books will inspire students to have more interest in the sciences and aerospace, key to developing the future of our industry. There is no charge for either the book or for shipping.

SEDS and the Space Frontier Foundation received a generous targeted donation for this  joint educational outreach project to distribute copies of the Second Edition of The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space to high school and university libraries across the country currently lacking a copy. The Second Edition (pictured above) was published by the Space Studies Institute in 1989 as a 5×8-inch high-quality trade paperback, with a new introduction and appendix by the author and a Preface by Astronaut Kathy Sullivan.

See also the NSS Review of the Third Edition of The High Frontier.

Posted in Books, Education | No Comments »

NASA ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FROM ‘INSPIRED’ HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

WASHINGTON — U.S. high school students are invited to participate in NASA’s Interdisciplinary National Science Program Incorporating Research Experience, or INSPIRE, through an online learning community. INSPIRE is designed to encourage students in ninth through 12th grades to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

Applications are being accepted through June 30. NASA will make selections for the program in September. The selected students and their parents will participate in an online learning community with opportunities to interact with peers, NASA engineers and scientists. The online community also provides appropriate grade-level educational activities, discussion boards and chat rooms for participants to gain exposure to careers and opportunities available at NASA.

Students selected for the program also will have the option to compete for unique grade-appropriate experiences during the summer of 2012 at NASA facilities and participating universities. The summer experience provides students with a hands-on opportunity to investigate education and careers in the STEM disciplines.

INSPIRE is part of NASA’s education strategy to attract and retain students in the STEM disciplines critical to NASA’s missions.

For more information about INSPIRE, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/education/INSPIRE

To apply for the program, visit:
https://inspire.okstate.edu/index.cfm?liftoff=login.LoginForm

For information about NASA’s education programs, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/education

Posted in Education, NASA | No Comments »

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