Alexandria, VA – Join Challenger Center for Space Science Education’s live interactive webcast on Wednesday, December 17th at 10:30am ET with Richard Garriott, the 1st second-generation astronaut and sixth private explorer to travel to the International Space Station (ISS), and Challenger Center’s Founding Chairman Dr. June Scobee Rodgers. Mr. Garriott and Dr. Rodgers will speak live from the Challenger Learning Center in Leicester, England talking to students and the winners of the Garriott UK space science challenge. The live interactive webcast is free and open to the public. It will be broadcast live at www.challenger.org.
Richard Garriott, preeminent game developer and son of NASA Skylab Astronaut Owen Garriott, worked with Challenger Center by conducting live video and amateur Ham radio conversations with students during his spaceflight, and recording experiments while on orbit that can be replicated by students using everyday objects to demonstrate important concepts in physics. Mr. Garriott’s science challenges and conversations with students can be found at www.challenger.org.
In partnership with Space Adventures and the British National Space Center (BNSC), Mr. Garriott developed an educational outreach program inviting students to get involved with science challenges for both primary and secondary school students across the UK. Primary school students (7-11 years old) were invited to design experiments for Mr. Garriott to carry out on the ISS. Secondary school students (11-19 years old) were invited to submit ideas on how space enterprise could develop in the future for private spaceflight companies including Space Adventures, using facilities such as the International Space Station. More information can be found at www.richardinspace.com.
Challenger Center for Space Science Education was founded in 1986 by the families of the astronauts of the space shuttle Challenger 51-L mission. It is dedicated to the educational spirit of that mission and impacts over 300,000 students and 25,000 teachers each year. Challenger Learning Center programs at 50 centers around the world continue the crew’s mission of engaging teachers and students in science, mathematics, engineering and technology.To locate a Challenger Learning Center near you, visit www.challenger.org.
The Challenger Learning Centre at the National Space Centre in Leicester, England opened in 1999. Its mission is to present the excitement and significance of space in a way that captures and inspires the public imagination, and to promote a wider understanding of space science and technology, and demonstrate its relevance to life on Earth in the 21st century. For more information, visit www.spacecentre.co.uk.
Space Adventures, the company that organized the flights for the world’s first private space explorers, is headquartered in Vienna, Va. with an office in Moscow. It offers a variety of programs such as the availability today for spaceflight missions to the International Space Station and around the moon, Zero-Gravity flights, cosmonaut training, spaceflight qualification programs and reservations on future suborbital spacecrafts. Space Adventures orbital clients include: Dennis Tito, Mark Shuttleworth, Greg Olsen, Anousheh Ansari, Charles Simonyi and Richard Garriott. The company’s advisory board includes Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin, Shuttle astronauts Sam Durrance, Tom Jones, Byron Lichtenberg, Norm Thagard, Kathy Thornton, Pierre Thuot, Charles Walker, Skylab/Shuttle astronaut Owen Garriott and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev. For more information, visit http://www.spaceadventures.com/
