by Rachel
It was a dark and stormy night on June 1st, 2014...
It was a dark and stormy night on June 1st, 2014...
It was during the last week of school, and despite the fact that all of our classes had ended, we were working like dogs. Huddled in Mrs. Voigt’s room, we researched and wrote a thousand emails, fingers flying on the keyboard, not for any school stuff, but for SSEP. After each tentative selection, the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) must approve of each team’s list of experimental samples and send the final list on to NASA Toxicology. The teams send each draft up to the NCESSE, who sends suggestions back to the teams, who respond with another draft, and so on and so forth. When this is completed, the finished versions are sent to NASA Toxicology for their approval.
We began this process eagerly, not anticipating any serious issues. We were searching for a type of circuit board to send up, and Mrs. Voigt found a Saturn V circuit board that we thought could fit the bill. We planned to cut it to specification, resolder, stuff it into the Fluid Mixing Enclosure (FME), and be on our way. How naive we were.
Dr. Goldstein did not like our revisions at all. Before sending the final versions to NASA Toxicology, a Materials Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) must be acquired for every single sample. Goldstein doubted that we could find one for the Saturn V circuit board. He called and said that if we couldn’t get our experiment together, he’d take the second place team. The euphoria from being chosen the day before changed to horror as we began to fight for our spot on the International Space Station (ISS).
Right as he called, a thunderstorm rolled in out of nowhere. Flash flooding. Hail. Lightning. Mrs. Voigt had to run out to the parking lot to move the other teachers’ cars so they wouldn’t be flooded out. The ceiling was leaking in about every room. Kids were running around putting buckets beneath all the leaks and stuffing towels under the doors to keep the water out.
The flooding got so bad that all of the students had to be moved from the classroom trailers to the main building. There were 300 of us shoved into the cafeteria and a few classrooms. It was chaos. In the midst of that pandemonium we had to fight for our spot on the ISS, in the same room as the second place team who was fighting for that same spot. The second place team-- Cosmic Radiation’s Effect on Hytrel Polymers-- was a strong proposal and a formidable opponent.
We started working at around 2 pm and kept working until around 8 pm as the rain and hail continued, sending up round after round of revision. After each round, we would all huddle around the phone, waiting for Goldstein’s response. Finally, after several hours and countless revisions, Goldstein accepted our experiment and the Hurricane subsided.
We began this process eagerly, not anticipating any serious issues. We were searching for a type of circuit board to send up, and Mrs. Voigt found a Saturn V circuit board that we thought could fit the bill. We planned to cut it to specification, resolder, stuff it into the Fluid Mixing Enclosure (FME), and be on our way. How naive we were.
Dr. Goldstein did not like our revisions at all. Before sending the final versions to NASA Toxicology, a Materials Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) must be acquired for every single sample. Goldstein doubted that we could find one for the Saturn V circuit board. He called and said that if we couldn’t get our experiment together, he’d take the second place team. The euphoria from being chosen the day before changed to horror as we began to fight for our spot on the International Space Station (ISS).
Right as he called, a thunderstorm rolled in out of nowhere. Flash flooding. Hail. Lightning. Mrs. Voigt had to run out to the parking lot to move the other teachers’ cars so they wouldn’t be flooded out. The ceiling was leaking in about every room. Kids were running around putting buckets beneath all the leaks and stuffing towels under the doors to keep the water out.
The flooding got so bad that all of the students had to be moved from the classroom trailers to the main building. There were 300 of us shoved into the cafeteria and a few classrooms. It was chaos. In the midst of that pandemonium we had to fight for our spot on the ISS, in the same room as the second place team who was fighting for that same spot. The second place team-- Cosmic Radiation’s Effect on Hytrel Polymers-- was a strong proposal and a formidable opponent.
We started working at around 2 pm and kept working until around 8 pm as the rain and hail continued, sending up round after round of revision. After each round, we would all huddle around the phone, waiting for Goldstein’s response. Finally, after several hours and countless revisions, Goldstein accepted our experiment and the Hurricane subsided.