Austin Wright and Quentin Hale, juniors at Harlingen High School, have always been interested in rocketry, and now that interest has them working with the nations leaders in space exploration.
Wright and Hale were selected as Texas High School Aerospace Scholars (THAS). The THAS is a program funded by NASA, and allows students from across Texas to participate in the five-month online workshop experience. Throughout the experience, students will get to participate in interactive modules. The modules are in the form of problems students must complete, and are designed to replicate issues NASA engineers are presented with every day.
“I’ve already completed the first assignment,” said Wright. “The next assignment given to use was a math problem. We had to find the decreasing orbit of a spaceship around earth.”
The online seminar also doubles as a competition. Students will receive a grade for each assignment they turn in. At the end of the course, one student will be selected to spend a week with NASA engineers.
Both students hopes to do well during the competition. Wright and Hale will be one of 463 high school students to participate, and students were selected based on their grades and recommendation letters.
