Aug 9 2013
From The Space Library
RELEASE Report #JE13-011 NASA Hosts Students, Community for Voyage Back to School
NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Space Center Houston will host “Voyage Back to School,” a free, public event from 4-7 p.m. CST Thursday, Aug. 15. Exhibits and hands-on activities are designed to generate excitement for the upcoming school year.
Lockheed Martin is sponsoring the event at Space Center Houston, a non-profit education foundation and JSC’s official visitor center. Activities built around an exploration design challenge will conclude this year’s JSC Summer of Innovation project, which uses NASA content to provide hands-on learning opportunities at summer camps.
“Summer of Innovation provides the opportunity for rising 4th-9th grade students to have fun while learning,” said Linda Smith, project lead for JSC Summer of Innovation. “They gain knowledge and confidence in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, which helps to prepare them for the new school year. ‘Voyage Back to School’ provides a forum for the students to showcase their summer projects and celebrate the return to school.”
This summer, about 2,300 students and 200 educators participated. JSC partnered with 11 educational institutions, including, Barbers Hill Middle School, Bay Area Charter School Inc., Clear Creek Independent School District, Dr. Ronald E. McNair Educational Science Literacy Foundation, Galena Park Independent School District, Galveston Independent School District, Girlstart, McKinney Independent School District, Texas Southern University and New Mexico State University.
RELEASE 13-037 NASA Invites Children and Families to Learn about the Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Visitor Center in Greenbelt, Md., will host this month's Sunday Experiment on Aug. 18 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. EDT. It's a free afternoon for elementary school-aged children and their families with a look at how NASA sends and receives its data.
Participants will learn about the electromagnetic spectrum, the communication cycle, and the engineering work NASA does to overcome the challenges to communicating in space.
This month’s Sunday Experiment will explore NASA’s Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration. LLCD, launching aboard the Lunar Atmosphere Dust Environment Explorer on Sept. 6 from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va., will take the next step in creating a high-performance space-based laser communications system. NASA currently uses radio waves to transmit its data. To continue to enable increased observation capabilities aboard satellites, transmitting data over greater distances, with a corresponding increase in data downlink rate and data volume, NASA is demonstrating two-way high-rate laser communications via LLCD.
Planned hands-on activities to be featured this month include building a string-can telephone to help demonstrate the communication cycle, a laser-pointing activity to demonstrate the complications NASA must overcome to shoot lasers back from the moon (238,900 miles away), and learning how to tune-in to the correct frequency with the electromagnetic spectrum.
The Sunday Experiment, usually held the third Sunday of each month from Sept. through May, with some exceptions, spotlights Goddard's world-renowned science and engineering research and technological developments. Families leave inspired by the activities, wowed by the scientists and engineers, and excited about Goddard's revolutionary research and technology. In addition to celebrating all things science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the Sunday Experiment celebrates major science missions that are managed by Goddard and set to launch in the near future.
