NASA’s Antares shuttle to the International Space Station exploded moments after lift-off on Tuesday as four boys from Kamloops, British Columbia, watched in shock.
The four students had a science experiment on board. Gathered at one of their homes to watch the launch, with family and their teacher, the boys were stunned to observe their work end so quickly.
Science teacher, Sharmane Baerg, of Albert McGowan Elementary School, said her students devised the experiment last year when they were in her grade 7 class. The idea was to compare crystal growth on Earth to crystal growth in microgravity.
“Basically, what the boys are thinking is that the crystals will grow bigger in microgravity,” Baerg told CBC News on Tuesday, prior to the rocket launch.
It all began with an in-class competition last March, to define and design a space experiment.
“As we went along, the class voted on which project would get to go forward and this was the one that was selected,” Baerg said.
Short-listed out of more than 1,400 proposals entered into a NASA competition, the crystal-growth experiment ended up as one of the final 18 projects chosen by a NASA committee to go into space.
The students in Baerg’s class would grow the same type of crystal at the same time in Kamloops, providing the control.
The four student-scientists quickly recovered from the disappointment, and as there was no loss of life in the explosion, carried on with the celebration of their work, with a cake, in the family-room decorated with a NASA theme.
There has been no official word on what happens next, but Sharmane Baerg said her class will proceed with another experimental proposal for approval to go ahead on a future mission.
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