Julie Clift and Debora Nielson, both of NASA, were instrumental in encouraging us to attend. They certainly made our attendance attainable by providing possibilities and opportunities. They and all of the other NASA and university people there made us feel very welcome and greatly expanded our knowledge about physics, engineering, and other topics that end up being rocket science. Great photos on facebook, and here (there was a cool car show going on too).
We decided to apply (application due, 10/1) to become one of the the university and colleges that are selected for the USLI. Our rocket payload will be a science package that will gather atmospheric data such as pressure, temperature, relative humidity, solar irradiance and ultraviolet radiation. Measurements will be made at least every 5 seconds during the descent and every minute after landing for at least 10 minutes. Data will be transmitted from the rocket to a ground station.
Last year’s top five: The 2009-2010 USLI Top 5
University of Alabama in Huntsville
Mississippi State University
North Carolina State University
Mitchell Community College
Georgia Institute of Technology
We’ll be in good company!
We hope to intrigue Terri Plake and some others in the BSNES program to be part of this NWIC effort.
The most fun part was that Justin and Trisha each built a high powered rocket and successfully launched and recovered them at the Bonneville Salt Flats, thusly earning them their National Association of Rocketry Level 1 Certifications. We now have 8 NWIC Space Center members that have their Level 1 Certifications. However, some of us need a Level 2 certification in order to fly the bigger rockets that will carry our science payload.
Talk about salt! It’s white, blinding, hot, and very very sticky! I grew an extra inch within about 5 minutes of walking around on the flats. Distances are deceiving because there are no reference points. What looks close, isn’t! We returned to the motel by 7:30 after a very exciting and tiring day. Our team earned the “Team Spirit” award and were complimented numerous times about their dedication and focus. We had a blast, literally and figuratively! We left at 4:30 am Wednesday and returned at 2:45 pm on Sunday, 8/8. Utah is hot and dry, except for the daily thunderstorms that roar through and then dry up really really quickly. On Thursday we took a tour of the ATK (http://www.atk.com/) facilities where the Space Shuttle’s solid fuel rocket engines are built. Now that was interesting!
A very useful and exciting trip for all of us. We want to thank the Washington State Space Grant Consortium and our very own Joel Green for the monetary support so that we could attended this workshop. Once again our students were excellent ambassadors for NWIC.