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Students will launch a rocket they designed and built Dec. 1. (NASA)

Release: 01-346

Hands-on learning effort by NASA Marshall Center encourages teens to choose engineering career

"Scientists study the world as it is, engineers create the world that never has been."  — Theodore Von Karman

A group of college engineering students in Huntsville, Ala., is about to take a unique “final exam,” but they won’t get a letter grade.

Instead, they’ll experience the challenge and excitement of launching their own rocket and a scientific payload.  They’re working to meet NASA specifications that are modeled after the same Flight Readiness Reviews mandated for each Space Shuttle flight.

Participating in a NASA education program called the Student Launch Initiative, the students have been designing, building and testing their rocket and the scientific payload to be carried by the craft.  Now, they’re focused on the last big hurdle: a successful launch they hope will see the rocket – and their aspirations – soar more than 2 miles high.

The Student Launch Initiative, sponsored by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, was created last year to head off a potentially critical situation on the horizon: a shortage of engineers and rocket scientists.

“It’s very clear that we need scientists, engineers and mathematicians in the future to carry on the business that we do at NASA,” says Art Stephenson, director of the Marshall Center.  “When we looked at the number of students entering college to go into these fields, we realized there were not enough students to meet the demands that we see down the road in the next 10 years.”

Inspired by a high school rocketry program in Fredericksburg, Texas, Stephenson saw first-hand how building and launching rockets is a way to encourage students to choose engineering or science careers. The result was the Student Launch Initiative: hands-on rocket science done by teams of high school and college students.

The first phase of the program culminated Oct. 6 when three high school teams brought their rockets and payloads to a U.S. Army test range on Redstone Arsenal, a historic site of U.S. rocketry work.  More than 200 spectators held their breath as the students’ apprehension turned into relief and excitement when they watched their rockets fire and soar skyward.

Now, two college teams are about to confront the same moment of truth. 

On Dec. 1, students from the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) and neighboring Alabama A&M University will take their rocket and science payload to the launch pad to determine if they’ve got the right stuff.  Propelled by a hybrid motor, the rocket will carry a protein crystal payload — or cargo — approximately 2 miles aloft, a higher bar than the 1-mile goal set for the high school teams.

“This project has taught me to work on a team,” says Shane Smith, a junior majoring in mechanical engineering at UAH and a member of that school’s Student Launch Initiative Team. “You have to learn to trust the other members to do their job. But the best part is knowing that our rocket will fly.”

A major goal of the program is not simply to launch rockets, but to expose students to university-level research. A panel of NASA scientists and engineers set more rigorous guidelines for the rocket and payload designed by the college teams than those set for the high school competition.

The Student Launch Initiative allows students to transcend classroom learning by enabling them to apply creativity — along with the scientific background gained in

classes — toward a meaningful project, according to Jim Pruitt, manager of education programs at the Marshall Center and organizer of the Student Launch Initiative.

NASA uses its unique resources, whenever possible, to support educational excellence, since education is a key element in NASA’s overall mission.  The space agency participates in education outreach programs through its field centers around the country.

EDITOR’S NOTE:  You can view a selection of photos taken during the first rocket launch sponsored by NASA’s Student Launch Initiative at

http://www1.msfc.nasa.gov/NEWSROOM/news/photos/2001/ photos01-346.htm