LAUREL- Laurel Public schools connected with mission control at the International Space Station in Houston Tuesday during their first annual Space Day.
Through a downlink, the HUNCH (High School Students United with NASA to Create Hardware) students of Laurel were able to link up with astronaut A.J. Feustel on the International Space station.
“It was cool because I was selecting the questions and I really wanted to ask mine, because I wanted to know what the astronauts thought about the HUNCH projects. We haven’t really heard from them, and it’s really cool to hear them talk about it,” said HUNCH student Ethan Gradwohl. “I hope that they let us work on more high-profile projects and try to go to Mars and stuff and work on stuff for that trip which would be really cool.”
In 2005, NASA chose Laurel High School as a test school for the high school students united with NASA to create hardware program.
The test? To see if a long-distance school from an international space station could participate and make training hardware for NASA.
Since then, the program has spread to all four U.S. time zones and have over 151 schools in 31 states. Fast forward 13 years, and Laurel students now are more connected to space than ever.
Florence Gold, the NASA HUNCH Implementation Project Manager, said, “If we had failed, this wouldn’t have spread so rapidly. I am hoping that one of our HUNCH students will some day become an astronaut.”
Reporting by Zoe Zandora for MTN News
