Clara Wilson, 16, left, Ryan Sparks, 16, Trevor Lucero, 17, and Joe Tiberi, 16, right, work with elements of their self-developed Hydrofuge 9.0 after class at Lakewood High School on April 1, 2015, in Lakewood. (Anya Semenoff, Your Hub) <\/p>\n
LAKEWOOD Inside a lab at Lakewood High School, an after-school project has morphed into a system that could one day feed and provide stress relief to astronauts in space. <\/p>\n
On April 13, six years of design work and testing including four flights aboard the \"vomit comet\" parabolic plane in Houston will be put to the test when a zero-gravity hydroponic plant chamber built by instructor Matt Brown's class will be blasted into space and tested aboard the International Space Station for 120 days. <\/p>\n
Clara Wilson, 16, gestures to the Hydrofuge 9.0 after class at Lakewood High School on April 1, 2015, in Lakewood. (Anya Semenoff, Your Hub) <\/p>\n
The project is part of \"high school students united with NASA to create hardware\" program or HUNCH a partnership where the space agency theoretically gets cost-effective and useful equipment while students get a chance to try their skills on real-world exercises. <\/p>\n
Lakewood High is one of a select few schools in the country with a fully-developed project capable of landing a coveted spot on the International Space Station. <\/p>\n
\"It's really unusual for a high school class to get 120 days aboard the ISS,\" Brown said. \"Most of the experiments that have gone up before us have been small, short-term things. This a really complex, complicated device that was 100 percent developed, designed and tested right here in the classroom.\" <\/p>\n
Six years ago, the group was told by a NASA liaison that the agency was always looking for plant experiments. The students came up with an experiment looking at the psychology of how plants could affect humans beings in space. <\/p>\n
\"Here we walk outside and there's green everywhere, and up there, they're living in a computer for six months to a year and that messes with you a bit,\" Brown said. <\/p>\n
The only problem with that experiment? <\/p>\n
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See the original post here: <\/p>\n
Lakewood High chosen by NASA to test plant project on space station<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Clara Wilson, 16, left, Ryan Sparks, 16, Trevor Lucero, 17, and Joe Tiberi, 16, right, work with elements of their self-developed Hydrofuge 9.0 after class at Lakewood High School on April 1, 2015, in Lakewood. (Anya Semenoff, Your Hub) LAKEWOOD Inside a lab at Lakewood High School, an after-school project has morphed into a system that could one day feed and provide stress relief to astronauts in space Continue reading