PROJECT X-33

Teaching science can be a challenge when students want to see practical lessons that apply today.

But Nancy Hey, who heads the science department at Cape Girardeau Central High School, found a way for lessons on Newton's laws of force and motion to really sink in.

Her students helped design a launch vehicle model for NASA to use that would reduce the costs for sending shuttles into space. The X-33 advanced technology demonstrator project could help lower launch costs from $10,000 to $1,000 a shuttle excursion.

NASA is working with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. to design the launch vehicle that will be used for reusable launches. NASA has budgeted $941 million for the program.

Students were asked to develop a model based on specifications from NASA that would vertically launch a rocket for up to 15 flights at a test site in California.

"It had to be sturdy and lightweight" so they could reuse it, Hey said.

So the students set out to design a model on paper and then build one for a test. The scale, based on NASA specifications, used a 1 liter bottle and a 20-pound weight as the rocket for the tests in class.

The students were given two attempts at building the model, but they had to record where the weaknesses were in their first model so that the flaws could be corrected, Hey said.

The test, which launched the rocket from the base using a see-saw as the thruster, worked on the first attempt and showed how Newton's Law works.

"It enforced it in a way that they got to see it in action," Hey said.

About three weeks ago, Hey received a letter from NASA asking that she and two students -- Meg Yates and Megan Richards -- come to a symposium in April at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. Yates and Richards were chosen because they had the best designs for the launch pad.

More information about the X-33 demonstrator is available at http://x33.msfc.nasa.gov