Photo by NASA
Sergio Cisneros
Lantern Staff
Students will be able to take a five-week online course to learn about the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and their work to achieve interplanetary travel along with the history and future of exploring our solar system in the fall semester of 2017.
Space is known as the final frontier. The idea of leaving our home planet and walking among the stars has captivated our species for millennia, and thanks to technological advancements today the reality of one day planting a firm foot on anywhere besides Earth could be a reality soon realized.
Many students look to the stars for inspiration, and some students wish to be a part of the work that NASA does to make the universe better understood. At Butler, students will soon be able to get closer to the projects and missions that NASA has worked on and will work on in the future by taking the National Community College Aerospace Scholars (NCAS) program.
“The NCAS program is an online course put on twice a year by NASA for community college students across the country who are focusing on a Science, Technology, Engineering or Math (STEM) degree,” Adjunct Professor of Mathematics Adam Anthony said. “NASA runs the course through their Johnson Space Center Strategic Education Alliance division. Oklahoma State University provides support in the form of servers for the course and learning management software.”
According to Anthony, the students will work over five weeks through three modules with articles and videos describing past, present and future NASA mission along with weekly webcasts with NASA engineers and scientists to talk about their work. When the students complete the course, the top students will be eligible to be selected to visit a NASA facility and participate in face-to-face workshops.
The only requirement for students that wish to take the course is that they need to have completed nine or more credit hours of STEM courses. The NCAS course itself is not for credit.
Thanks to courses like the NCAS program allow students to get insight of what it is like to work on projects that NASA has worked on and plan to bring into fruition.
The course has a great focus on the effort NASA has taken to be able to have a manned mission on the planet Mars. The project requires a lot of creativity to devise, so students will be tasked to create the blueprint of an exploratory rover or plan out a mission to Mars.
According to Professor of Physics Danny Mattern, around 500 students were enrolled in the NCAS program last winter with eight instructors in charge of teaching it. The course is also a great way to have an opportunity to get their foot in the door working on projects by gaining experience and could possibly lead to internships.
“The purpose is to excite students in the STEM field and give them hands on opportunities to work with NASA employees,” Mattern said.
The NCAS program is a great way for students who want to become engineers and scientists to experience what it is like to work for one of the most advanced space programs in the world.
The program encourages students to continue to pursue their STEM degree and continue to be inspired by the continual discoveries and innovations from science and explore the infinite reaches of the universe. Through programs like the NCAS, students are inspired to look to the stars and make the leap to reach them, and become the innovators that future generations will look up to.