I know that much of the success I’ve enjoyed in my life and my career is because of the support and encouragement I’ve received along the way.  That’s why I think it’s important to share my passion for space with kids and show them what they can accomplish if they are willing to work for it.

Over the past week, I’ve had the opportunity and privilege to volunteer with both the United Space School and the International Space Settlement Design Competition.  Both programs bring students from around the world here to Houston to participate in exercises geared towards the design of future ventures in space.

This year, the United Space School has high school students grouped into four teams – mission control, science, habitat, and vehicle design – working together to plan a notional Mars exploration mission.  Everyone came to UH Clear Lake last Monday with a clean slate and interviewed for placement on the teams.   I helped interview for the vehicle design team, given my background in aerospace engineering.

We could all tell which kids were really enthusiastic about spacecraft and engineering.  One student from Australia even said his aspiration is to be a test pilot for commercial spaceflight companies!  Burt Rutan got his start in flight test engineering for the Air Force, so, why not?

On Wednesday, I came back to UH Clear Lake to talk with the United Space School students about all of the things they would need to think about for their Mars vehicle.  My main point was that the design of the spacecraft would be driven by its intended purpose, thus encouraging them to come up with a vehicle that enabled the deployment of the habitat, execution of the science objectives, and safe return of the crew.  The kids asked great questions about propulsion, artificial gravity, radiation issues, etc. and we easily went over my allotted time.

Honestly, I probably could have spent the entire afternoon with them and not even noticed the passage of time. =)  I’m definitely going to try to make it to their graduation ceremony this weekend so I can see what they came up with.

I spent my Sunday helping with both programs.  First, I briefly attended the USS Cultural Faire and brought two trays of homemade, Southern-style banana pudding.  I’m told it was a big hit.  For me, I think my favorites were the servings of kangaroo and emu meat that one of the mentors from Australia brought in!  He said he had to find them at a specialty butcher, but find them he did.  We also had various casseroles, homemade machaca, haggis on oatbread, and a plethora of desserts.  I stuffed my face with rice pudding, Manchester tart, Russian pancakes, ANZAC biscuits, and various other goodies.

Unfortunately, I missed the students’ show because I had to dash over to the Gilruth Center to help with ISSDC.  I spent the next seven hours on the “Red Team,” critiquing the designs and presentations of the four student teams brought to Houston for one weekend to design a 24,000-person Mars settlement.  Also consisting of high school kids from all over, these kids are working fast and furious over three days to make their presentations today.  Like a real competitive RFP, winner takes all.

Because of the short time-scale, we on the Red Team were merciless during our reviews.  Their final presentation is almost as demanding as a real business pitch, so we did our best to prepare them for the high standards expected at the end of the competition.  They were working very hard on little sleep (reminding me more than a bit of college!) and we pushed them to go the extra mile.

More interesting to me than a lot of the engineering and architecture of the main structures were the groups’ approaches to how the people inside might live.  Most of the students expected to have a high level of automation, with robots doing everything from housecleaning to fire-fighting to law enforcement.  We hammered them on privacy concerns when they’d suggest things like ingested or implanted RFID chips and widespread infrared cameras for security control.

We also drove home the idea that a system should only be as complex as it needs to be, otherwise you’re just introducing extra points of failure.  All of the teams had to consider how to traverse Valles Marineris and most looked at elevators.  We asked one team why would you need pressurized elevators for cargo trucks that are just passing through to other destinations.  Another team considered using a gondola system, instead .  We asked them to consider what would happen if someone built a cargo vehicle too big for the skyway.

By the time we finished, after 10:00 pm last night, we were all pretty tired and ready to go home.  I think everyone had fun, though, and learned a lot from the process.  I know I certainly did.  If I ever go help Elon Musk build his retirement community on Mars, I know some people I’ll call. =)