Saturday, January 31, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Educators have high hopes for science center
Painting, other memorials to shuttle crew unveiled at facility's future home
By KEITH ROGERS
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Lamping Elementary School Principal Michael O'Dowd unveils a painting Friday by Henderson artist Shawn Ealy to honor the crew of the space shuttle Columbia. The crew died a year ago Sunday, when the Columbia broke apart while returning from a 16-day science mission.
Photo by Clint Karlsen.
Click image for enlargement.
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At age 9, Sandy Rushton wants to get a few more science classes under her belt before she heads to outer space.
But the fourth-grader from Henderson's Lamping Elementary School is not short on enthusiasm, and her sights are set higher than the moon.
"I think I want to be the first person on Mars," she said Friday after the school dedicated a painting and granite bench and planted seven rose bushes to honor space shuttle pilot Willie McCool and the rest of the Columbia crew.
They perished a year ago Sunday, when the Columbia broke apart while returning from a 16-day science mission.
"We're going to need lots of oxygen and radios and cameras. We'll probably send a probe to Mars and have a space shuttle there to bring us back," Rushton said, envisioning her future in space.
Her comments were a reflection of the ambitious effort the Lamping faculty, parents and administrators have launched with the backing of McCool's parents, Barry and Audrey of Las Vegas, to heighten awareness about science, and space exploration in particular.
The McCools were in Arlington, Va., on Friday to attend a memorial service for the fallen astronauts.
A foundation for the planned $2 million William McCool Science Center already has raised and invested $100,000 that will bring the first educational, hands-on space simulation center to the West. It is expected to arrive in July or August.
If all goes right, and grants and donations continue to flow, the simulator that enables students to experience flight problem-solving in the cockpit of a mock NASA space vehicle will be a prime attraction of the science center.
Principal Michael O'Dowd is as excited as the students.
"They'll be able to launch and land the shuttle and be home for dinner," he said after the second wave students observed the dedication ceremony.
"My hope is one day to have one or more Lamping students traveling to the moon," O'Dowd said.
He reminded the students that McCool and the Columbia crew "are our heroes." When the tragedy happened, they were returning from a mission devoted to science and to understanding how living things such as ants, spiders and fish live in a micro-gravity environment.
It was the nation's 113th shuttle mission under a program that began in 1981, long before Lamping's students were born. To them, the nation's space program is a beacon to guide their education.
"I really want to be an astronaut," said Sara Viau, 9, a Lamping fourth-grader.
"We have to learn about space and all the missions," she said, describing how her class learned this week about the shuttle program's forerunners, the Gemini and Apollo programs that enabled U.S. astronauts to set foot on the moon in 1969.
For first-grader Andrew Donaldson, 6, science week meant learning about hot air balloons and rocks. He said the McCool science center will be "a good thing to have at Lamping."
O'Dowd predicts the science center will become a field-trip destination for schools throughout the Las Vegas Valley. Among other features, such as a greenhouse and botany laboratory, it will incorporate the flight simulator and the school's Christa McAuliffe Observatory, with telescopes and an amphitheater in honor of the New Hampshire teacher who died in 1986 when the shuttle Challenger exploded after lift-off.
"If we had a million dollars, we'd start building today," O'Dowd said.
During the ceremony, he unveiled the acrylic, air-brush painting by Henderson artist Shawn Ealy, 33. It features McCool, Columbia commander Rick Husband and the rest of the crew with the mission patch that McCool and Husband designed, backed by the U.S. flag.
Ealy spent three weeks working on the painting. He said his inspiration came from reading about each of the astronauts and one of the last messages that McCool had transmitted from space.
"He actually described the sunset from space," Ealy said. "I share the same passion for sunsets. That's how I connected."
