THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 8, 1996 TAG: 9608080367
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 92 lines
Most people know that oil and water don't mix. But then, that's earthbound thinking. Would the same hold true in space?
That's a starry-eyed question a group of city high school students posed, and it's much more than idle fancy: They plan to get answers when an experiment they designed using vegetable oil and blue-dyed water will be shot into orbit this fall aboard a NASA space shuttle.
The countdown for the space flight begins today, when students in NORSTAR - the Norfolk public schools Science and Technology for Advanced Research class - run final tests on the experiment to catch last-minute glitches and then ship it to NASA's Goddard Space Center in Maryland. The experiment will be packed aboard the space shuttle Columbia on a flight from Kennedy Space Center scheduled Oct. 31.
The students feel stellar.
``It's exciting doing something like this,'' said Ryan Feber, 16, a Maury High School junior. ``Not many people get the experience of flying something in space, and since we're going to have to start colonizing space one day, a lot more people need to start doing this sort of thing.''
The students hope their experiment - ``separation of immiscible fluids in micro-gravity'' - will create practical spinoffs. Perhaps it will lead to better lubricants for the space industry, new ways of producing pharmaceuticals or tastier salad dressings and other foods containing oil and water. Astronauts could soon be eating much better.
But that's a ways down the road.
``There might be dozens of applications depending on what we find out, but at the moment it's pure science - just to see what happens,'' said Joy W. Young, NORSTAR's supervising teacher.
The students are among select company. After a nationwide search last year, NASA picked 10 projects designed by students, ranging from kindergartners to university undergraduates, to fly on the shuttle.
Besides that distinction, the Norfolk students are helping NASA engineers blaze a new trail: The Columbia flight will be the maiden voyage of an experimental module designed to house space-bound experiments. NASA designed the module with multiple compartments to enable shuttles to pack more experiments aboard and lower the cost of research.
Also, the flight marks efforts by the space agency to expand and enrich science education for the nation's schoolchildren, a growing concern in today's global economy.
Ruthan Lewis, mission manager for the shuttle small payloads project at Goddard, said the Norfolk students are pioneers. ``They're helping others in the future to know what it takes to create a shuttle experiment.''
Results of the students' work will be placed on the Internet, Lewis said.
The NORSTAR project offers the kind of hands-on, student-driven learning that educators tout as the wave of the future.
``It's like an actual job,'' said Mike Mayer, 16, a Norview High School junior who hopes to become an astronaut. ``You have your responsibilities and you have to do them.''
Christina Walker, 17, a Granby High School senior, oversaw the electrical system that will run the experiment. The experience has edged her toward a career in engineering.
``I know how to work in a lab and to get things done and to overcome problems,'' Walker said. ``It's taught me a lot about communicating and how to work with other people.''
The compact experiment, mounted on a 15-inch by 7-inch metal base, consists of a 12-volt mini-motor, a teflon-coated magnetic stirring bar, a magnet, a sealed acrylic block containing the oil and water, a 5-inch-long fluorescent light tube and a mini-camcorder to film the results.
Astronauts aboard the shuttle will activate the experiment. The stirring device will mix the oil and water for three minutes; the camcorder will record what happens as the mixture settles over two hours.
Even though the experiment is relatively simple, one glitch could throw it off. For example, students earlier this week corrected a problem that could have prevented a critical light source from turning on, making it impossible to record the action of the oil and water.
This is the second time a NASA space shuttle has flown a NORSTAR project; in September 1994, the shuttle Discovery carried aloft an experiment to record the behavior of sound waves in zero gravity.
Young, the supervising teacher, said the $2,500 project probably would have never flown without the support of various businesses that either donated materials or sold them at cost.
Also working closely with students was mentor Ellen Byrd, a former civilian employee of the U.S. Navy trained in electronics.
``The kids have done most of it,'' Byrd said this week. ``It's something that's almost guaranteed to produce results.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by HUY NGUYEN/The Virginian-Pilot
Norfolk students, from left, Ryan Feber, J.R. Gibson, Christina
Walker and Mike Mayer designed a project for the space shuttle.
B/W photo by Huy Nguyen
J.R. Gibson works on his group's experiment in the NORSTAR classroom
at Norfolk Technical Vocational Center Tuesday. The experiment will
fly in a space shuttle this fall.
KEYWORDS: NORSTAR NORFOLK SCHOOLS by CNB