EMN
Dimapur, July 28
Two students from a local school in Dimapur can now boast they have seen the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and what the iconic space center does.
In a press handout from the school on Tuesday, Mezong Jamir, a class-XI student and Khriesetuonuo Solo, a class-XII student, “have successfully completed” a camp organized by the NASA called the International Space Camp at the US Space and Rocket Center (USSRC) in Huntsville, in the United States.
Jamir and Solo from Livingstone Higher Secondary School, Dimapur, “spent a thrilling week (July 17-24) at Alabama, one of NASA’s five Marshall Space Flight Centers, where they trained in all kinds of routines just like an astronaut does,” the press handout explained today.
The students were accompanied by their teacher-educator Andrew Ahoto Sema.
“The course is self-funded, part of which is subsidized by the US Space Center to encourage foreign students. Each year, hundreds of students and trainees from all over the world join the international space camp for a week of fun-filled hands-on drills and activities,” the handout said.
During the week-long program trainees were “exposed to challenging tasks that include underwater Scuba-based microgravity, multi-axis simulation that test both of their mental and physical ability”.
Space Camp Ambassador Lalhnuna Hauhnar initiated the program for the northeast states to encourage high school students and teachers to experience ‘a space-life environment’. The students also learnt space science, technology, engineering and mathematics during the course of the event.
The camp is held annually for school students and teachers. It is open to all countries in the world. So far as many as 35 countries have participated in the camp since the programme was launched in 1990, the handout said.
Beside this international camp, which is a scheduled annual event where only two students and a teacher can participate, the USSRC also encourages a larger group of students from any country to visit the center.
