October

October 5

The 2018/19 Young Astronaut Mission year class is off to a strong start!  Starting this month, they will be meeting every Friday for an hour and half session to learn about science, the history and mechanics of flight, space travel and much more.  Their first session involved using non-verbal communication to arrange dozens of pictures in chronological order.  All 27 Astronauts had to work as one team – all without saying a word…

October 12

During the Astronauts’ next session, they were asked to build the tallest structures they could – out of spaghetti and marshmallows…  They worked in small teams, and once again, they were not allowed to communicate verbally as they tried to figure out which structures would be the most stable and how to strengthen the joints.

October 13

The Astronauts had their first field trip as well this month, with a group outing to see the movie First Man.  The film is about Neil Armstrong and how he became the first man on the moon; a great fit for our Astronauts, considering this year’s Mission theme is the 50th anniversary of the first manned moon landings, Apollo 11 and 12.  Families were encouraged to attend, so we even had a contingent of YA alumni from the last two Mission years (all of whom also immediately saluted their Commander in Chief [C in C] – old habits die hard!).

October 19 

For the next session, C in C taught the Astronauts about gravity and Newton’s law.  They were divided into groups of 3 and each group had to build a self-propelled ‘rocket’ with a predictable flight path – from a balloon, string, 4 straws, and tape.  It was harder than it looked…

October 26

To wrap up the first month, the Astronauts learned about the Wright Brothers and the various elements of stable flight.  They then were asked to make several different models of paper airplanes, and at the end of the session they all lined up in the gym for a group contest to see which one would travel the farthest