Naval Postgraduate School Hosts Space Shuttle Downlink for 700 Area Students

By Dale Kuska, Naval Postgraduate School Public Affairs

April 14, 2010 - MONTEREY, Calif. (NNS) -- Students, parents and members of the Naval Postgraduate School community packed the university's King Auditorium April 10, where they received a call from the Space Shuttle Discovery orbiting more than 200 miles into space — part of the NPS Centennial's Education Downlink STS-131 Teaching from Space event.

Thanks to the diligent efforts of NPS' Centennial Headquarters and faculty-astronauts, NPS was approved as one of two locations to host an educational downlink from the Space Shuttle while on its 13-day mission to the International Space Station. Shuttle commander and NPS graduate, Navy Capt. Alan "Dex" Poindexter, along with mission specialist and teacher Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger and Air Force Col. Jim Dutton, pilot, engaged approximately 700 students from across the Monterey Peninsula in California in a lively discussion about their mission and the realities of weightlessness in space, while select students were allowed to ask questions.

NPS' own resident astronauts, Space Systems faculty Jim Newman, Dan Bursch and John Phillips — all veteran space travelers — shared their own experiences in outer space with the students, and gave them a preview of what to expect from the downlink.

Students were immediately introduced to the visually stunning impact of weightlessness as Metcalf-Lindenburger's hair floated wildly in all directions and Poindexter was suspended upside down.

"NASA's very charter includes educational outreach as one of its important activities," said Newman, a member of four space shuttle flights from 1993 to 2002. "With its goals of exploration and discovery, it has been recognized since NASA's inception that the space program provides a unique opportunity to motivate young people. Science, math, and engineering can be difficult subjects, and we as a country need to offer many reasons why kids should study hard in school. I think that NASA's human spaceflight program and its science and robotics programs are some good reasons... And, in the end, it is rocket science."

NPS boasts more astronaut graduates than any other graduate-level institution in the world. In its role as a university that is educating tomorrow's cadre of space travelers today, according to Director of Alumni Relations and Centennial Planning Kari Miglaw, where better to expose the next generation's pool of potential astronauts than the Naval Postgraduate School.

"This event was a wonderful opportunity to showcase our university and the impact we can have on individual lives," said Miglaw. "I saw a lot of amazed faces in the crowd today, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if in 20 years, one of these students here today returned to NPS to study Space Systems along his or her own journey to becoming a next-generation NASA astronaut. Inspiration is powerful, and I think we inspired a few students today."