THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 19, 1995 TAG: 9511190151
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
A group of city high school students is aiming for the stars since receiving word that NASA, after a nationwide search, has chosen a class science project to ride aboard a space shuttle.
The word last week came as stellar news for the 22 students in NORSTAR - the Norfolk Public Schools Science and Technology Advanced Research program.
``It makes you feel kind of important,'' said freshman J.R. Gibson. ``You're going to be working on something that's going into space. Not too many people get to do that.''
Indeed.
But Norfolk students are on a roll. It marks the second time that NASA has turned to NORSTAR, coming slightly more than a year since city schoolkids made Hampton Roads history when an experiment they designed blasted into orbit on the shuttle Discovery.
``I think it's awesome - it's just a wonderful opportunity,'' said Gladys Mangaliag, a senior who worked on the first project, which attempted to visually measure the behavior of sound waves in near-weightless conditions.
Joy Young, NORSTAR's supervising teacher, said the second project will again delve into acoustics, attempting to refine and build on the experience gained on the first go-around.
Young said NORSTAR's proposal was one of 10 selected by NASA in a nationwide competition. As an added bonus, Young said, the project will be packaged inside an experimental modular canister that NASA has designed to try to reduce the cost of carrying shuttle payloads.
NASA engineers have redesigned a typical 5-cubic-foot canister - known as a ``GAS'' can, for get-away special - into 10 separate compartments, Young said. If successful, it could cut the typical cost of sending an experiment into space from $10,000 to as little as $1,000 because more projects could be packaged into the shuttle's cargo bay.
``We're one of the trial runs for this,'' Young said. ``They want to make it more affordable.''
Young said the NORSTAR project will take its ride on a scheduled shuttle launch in May or next December.
Her students will have one of the few ``active'' experiments, outfitted with electronics, video cameras and speakers that will actually record data in space.
A ``passive'' project, on the other hand, might involve sending up plant seeds to test how they respond in near-weightless conditions.
In the first shuttle experiment, Young's students attempted to visually record the movement of sound waves in two long plastic tubes using cork dust, hand-size camcorders and small tweeter speakers. The battery-powered project involved the use of electronic devices to activate the speakers, which sent the cork dust swirling.
As a feat of engineering, the experiment was flawless, Young said - the camera was in focus, every function was in sync. But there was a problem: the cork dust could not be clearly seen on the 8 mm videotape, making it difficult to identify clearly defined patterns of motion, Young said.
Students may modify the second experiment, Young said, by using a liquid instead of cork dust to trace sound waves.
If successful, the students might unravel secrets that eventually could lead to better stereo speakers, quieter air conditioners and car mufflers, and better sound-dampening equipment in auditoriums.
Joseph S. Heymen - NASA Langley Research Center deputy director for technology applications and a NORSTAR science mentor - said that using a liquid to dissect the interaction of ultrasonic waves might have applications in pharmaceuticals and medicine.
``What is so exciting about such scientific research is that the potential directions you can go in are so broad that the exploration is the first step to opening the door,'' Heymen said.
Heymen said he has taken great pleasure in watching NORSTAR students grow in maturity, gain confidence and learn leadership skills. ``Based on their first experiment,'' Heymen said, ``I can only ring praise for what those students did.''
Young added that the work with NASA provides the kids with real-life, hands-on experience that is invaluable.
``It's the difference between reading about riding a bike and actually having a bike and riding it to the grocery store,'' Young said. by CNB