Confession Time!!!!!

It’s Confession Time.

For anyone in the audience that is Roman Catholic and raised in my generation, you know about going to confession and especially during Lent, and will understand My Confession.

Today I did not go to church; I had committed to be at Johnson Space Center all day today to help out a friend.

Norm has asked me to be a judge in the annual Space Settlement Design contest each year for the past 5 years. The competition divides 160 or so high school students into 4 companies; each company answers an RFP [request for proposal]. From Friday at around 6pm to Sunday at 7:30am they attend mini training sessions and research the best possible way to answer the RFP [Request for Proposal]. The majority of the group drives down in 3 or 4 buses from Iowa; that is 22 hours more or less from Iowa to Texas. They bring a number of chaperones, teachers, mentors and parents along with 140 high school age kids. The remainder, 20 to 25, are from the Houston area. This is one of many activities associated with National Engineers Week to increase awareness among high school students on the numerous ways they can become involved in a variety of engineering disciplines. As the daughter and sister and niece of Civil Engineers, I understand the need for good engineers in the pipeline, so to speak. We just don’t seem to have enough of them in some areas and this is one way to promote the profession.

Each year the RFP is a bit different. This year the challenge was to create a ‘moving’ settlement on Mercury while processing a fictitious ore called Reardonium. The student teams have a CEO and managers and ‘worker bees’ and each person has a job and input into the final proposal. Certain requirements have to be met such as sustaining human life in a very hostile environment at a fraction of earth’s gravity; dealing with dust; creating a pleasing home and work environment for the permanent population and for potential paying visitors to the settlement.

The kids get to work onsite at Johnson Space Center in Building 9 where all of the shuttle mockups are located; I suspect this is for the ‘wow factor’ and for inspiration. They sleep dormitory style at the onsite recreation facility, well, as much sleep as they can squeeze into the busy time. Then after the judges have seen the presentations by all 4 companies, the buses load them up and take them to the NBL [Natural Buoyancy Lab] and to see the Saturn Rocket at Rocket Park.

Around 4pm, the kids come back to the banquet hall and they are debriefed with a general list of things to improve on and each team is given a list of things that were positive about their specific proposal. Then, the team that wins the competition is given their medals and certificates. The winning team has to choose the 12 ‘top’ members and some standby members that will represent the U.S. in the international competition at JSC in July. This is truly an honor for these kids!

When all is said and done, I know I probably should have been a good girl and gone to Mass today; but I didn’t. I will say that after my day spent as a volunteer judge, listening the high school students present their concept of a space settlement on Mercury, my heart is full and my conscience is clear. You are probably asking how that is possible. For me, I feel like some of the volunteer work I am drawn to is put in my path for a reason or the people there were put in my path, for a reason. I hope that each and every one of the students there this weekend, came away with something positive out of their experience.

Either way, I feel good about my world. If you've read this far, I hope I didn't bore you too much. I am beginning to use my blog as a way to relieve stress or just share things I would like to share with my grandchildren one day.

Until next time!!!