THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 17, 1994 TAG: 9406170565
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940617 LENGTH: KENNEDY SPACE CENTER
Mostly, though, these five Hampton Roads teens were thinking space - as in outer space.
{REST} Not unusual, considering they and classmates in Norfolk will be the first high schoolers in the state to send an experiment into orbit. On Sept. 9, the shuttle Discovery is scheduled to blast off with a Norfolk schools payload tucked in its cargo bay.
Led by teacher Joy Young, the contingent worked at Kennedy for the last four days putting the finishing touches on an experiment to better understand how sound waves behave.
Students Jeremy Estes, Summer Graves, Lisa Krueger, Maridel Mirador and Ricky Wallace are participants in the Norfolk Public Schools Science and Technology Advanced Research Project, NORSTAR for short.
``Joy has an exciting team,'' said Russ Griffin, NASA's field operations manager in charge of preparing small payloads for the shuttle. ``It's rare to find high school students so involved in this type of work.''
The six were working on what the National Aeronautics and Space Administration officially calls a Get-Away Special. Field techs use a simpler nickname: GAS cans.
Each project hitching a shuttle ride is packed into an aluminum canister roughly the size of a 55-gallon drum. The GAS cans are sealed but hooked to the shuttle's power grid. Astronauts turn the experiments on and off with hand-held remotes.
On the same flight will be projects designed by adult scientists and researchers from China, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States.
Because most of the intense preparation had been done in the NORSTAR classroom at the Norfolk Technical Vocational Center before the experiment was shipped to Florida, the past week has been relatively low-key and relaxed.
``It's almost anticlimactic now that we're down here,'' said Lisa Krueger, 17, who is responsible for the experiment's audio and video analysis. ``You're still like, yes! It's an achievement just to get it on.''
NORSTAR participants convened in the GAS assembly building in a corner of the massive 140,000-acre Kennedy complex. T-shirt-clad technicians bustled about the 25-foot-tall cinder-block facility, double checking the GAS cans to make sure they met strict NASA specs before being loaded onto the shuttle.
The students were in full, if fashionable, summer attire as well.
NORSTAR chief engineer Jeremy Estes, 17, took care that every bolt was torqued to the proper tightness.
``We built it pretty quick. Seems like yesterday we hardly had anything done,'' Estes said. ``I'm proud that we've worked on something that will go on the shuttle. I don't know too many high school students that have put an experiment in space.''
Nationally, only a handful of high schoolers have managed to get approval for GAS can experiments. And most of those had university students working on their science teams. Aside from adult advisers from NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, teacher Young, and several others, the NORSTAR students did the work on their own.
The five Norfolk students, with the help of about a dozen of their stay-at-home peers, have designed and built a device that will visually record acoustic patterns made by cork dust swirling inside plastic tubes.
Small tweeter speakers at the bottom of the tubes will produce the sound that will send the dust flying. Two hand-size camcorders will record the results. The whole array is powered by 12 6-volt batteries.
NASA Langley Research Center scientist Joseph Heyman was a key adviser. Heyman, recently appointed Langley's deputy director for technology applications, says results from NORSTAR could lead to more efficient internal combustion engines, quieter air conditioners, better sound deadening in auditoriums and car mufflers that make barely a sound.
``Think. These are a group of high school students: shy, inexperienced, young,'' Heyman said. ``They grew up, matured, took on responsibility. Their package is flight-ready. They should be very, very proud of what they've done.''
The NORSTAR experiment took nearly a decade to come to fruition. Although NORSTAR received a $10,000 NASA grant in 1984, several generations of students would come and go before the final design was set in the classroom and approved by NASA.
Young estimates that, were it not for equipment and other donations, total project cost would have amounted to $19,000, including the NASA grant - as opposed to the $700 so far and officially spent on the GAS can experiment.
Finding the right equipment took time and more than a little energy. Some 20 local and national companies eventually made in-kind donations. Naval Aviation Depot employees - Jeremy Estes' father works there - built the framework for the experiment's components.
In short, the project was a lesson in the process and politics of modern science, from endless paperwork to selling would-be suppliers on the desirability of volunteering donations.
Young wishes this kind of learning was available to every student in Norfolk public schools.
``These kids learned everyday work skills, not just electronics,'' she said. ``They've learned how to relate to people, where to get information, learned how to be persistent. They've tried new ideas, fallen on their faces and gotten up again. And it's all OK.''
Jeff Booth says his participation in NORSTAR ``opened just about every door I've stepped through. Now 20 and a physics major at Johns Hopkins University, Booth was the project's design engineer before he graduated from Granby High.
``It's the best thing that ever happened to me,'' he said. (The NORSTAR experiment) won't revolutionize the world. It won't revolutionize Hampton Roads. What it will do is provide valuable information and maybe bring space to the generation that will move out there, to the final frontier.''
The NORSTAR students came home Thursday night. They hope to return for the September launch if, that is, they can find the money for tickets and time off from school.
One way or another, when Discovery rides her rockets to space, every one of the NORSTAR kids will be watching.
``By being dedicated (the NORSTAR students) have realized the intelligence within,'' Joseph Heyman said. ``What seems unreachable is unreachable because your arms do not know how far out they can go.''
{KEYWORDS} SPACE SHUTTLE NORFOLK SCHOOLS EXPERIMENT NASA
by CNB