Feb 19 2013

From The Space Library

RELEASE: 13-051 - KING ALMA MATER RECOGNIZES NASA ADMINISTRATOR'S ACHIEVEMENTS --WASHINGTON -- NASA Administrator Charles Bolden has received the Candle in Military Service and Aeronautical Science Award from Morehouse College in Atlanta. The award recognizes exceptional achievement in a field by an African-American man. It's an honor to be recognized by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s alma mater and a privilege to share this recognition with the other distinguished recipients, Bolden said. "This award is a tribute to the NASA workforce that is creating the future today as it always has, and I'm blessed to be at the helm guiding our country to new destinations like an asteroid and Mars." The award is part of the college's Founder's Day celebrations. Others recognized by Morehouse with Candle awards include actor Laurence J. Fishburne and businessman and former NBA All-star Ulysses L. "Junior" Bridgeman. Bolden is NASA's first African-American administrator. He was appointed by President Obama in 2009 after a 34-year military career and 14 years as an astronaut, during which he flew four times on the space shuttle.

RELEASE: 13-055 - NASA SEEKS UNIVERSITY PARTICIPANTS FOR SUMMER ROCKET WORKSHOP --WASHINGTON -- University faculty and students interested in learning how to build scientific experiments for spaceflight are invited to join RockOn 2013 from June 15-20 at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. RockOn 2013 is an annual workshop held in partnership with the Colorado and Virginia Space Grant Consortia. Registration is open through May. Now in its sixth year, this program provides the basics on building, testing and flying a science payload on a suborbital rocket, said Phil Eberspeaker, chief of the sounding rocket program office at Wallops. "This is an exciting first step for participants to gain hands-on experience in building more complex space experiments. The program provides students with a solid foundation on which to build a future aerospace career." During the program, participants will work together to build experiment payloads to fly on a NASA sounding rocket predicted to reach an altitude of 73 miles. The flight will take place June 20, the last day of the workshop, weather permitting. The purpose of the program is to bring together university students and instructors, and introduce them to building scientific experiments for space flight, said Chris Koehler, director of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium. "We really get into the basics of building experiments, including developing circuit boards, programming flight code and working together as a cohesive team on space projects."