San Antonio College EDGE Students get unique opportunity to talk with NASA Aquanauts

SAN ANTONIO, TX (June 21, 2012) – San Antonio College EDGE (Early Development of General Engineering) students participated in a Q&A with four aquanauts from the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO). The video uplink was presented as part of NEEMO’s educational activities schedule, and was moderated by Carlos Nunez of the Challenger Learning Center.

Representatives at NASA approached Dr. Dan Dimitriu, Coordinator of Engineering at SAC, several weeks ago about the opportunity to have SAC participate in this special educational opportunity. “It is important that our students have these kinds of experiences. When I was approached, I said ‘yes’ immediately. Hopefully, after today they will seriously consider pursuing a career in engineering because you can do almost anything with an engineering background.”

SAC was among five schools to participate on this call including San Jacinto College in Houston and El Paso Community College. Students from the different colleges took turns asking prepared questions. “I asked the aquanauts which mission has been the most challenging in their careers,” said Joshua Kutsch, junior at Clark High School, “I’m not a great speaker so I was really nervous, but it was really neat to be able to talk to an astronaut.”

Because the NEEMO 16 mission is coming to a close tomorrow, and preparations are being made for an 18-hour decompression process, students were able to speak with all four aquanauts during the 40-minute call. In addition to the live Q&A session, students got a virtual tour of the Aquarius habitat where they got a look at what it is like to live in the Aquarius habitat.

NEEMO is a NASA analog mission where small groups of aquanauts (including astronauts, engineers and scientists) live aboard the submerged habitat. Aquarius, the world’s only undersea research station, is deployed in the Florida Keys and is submerged about 62 feet under the earth’s surface. Aquanaut Steve Squyres told students that being underwater is the perfect place to simulate living on a spacecraft and to research what it would be like to land on an asteroid, which has never been done before.

At the end of the six-week course, students earn college credit for two courses: Introduction to Engineering and Student Development. Julia Juarez, a 15-year old junior at Antonian High School, said she decided to attend the EDGE program this summer because her three older brothers attended in years passed. The San Antonio College Engineering department began offering EDGE to the greater community about eight years ago to promote early education of engineering. The program is funded through grants.  

For more information about NEEMO: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/NEEMO/