MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. – A group of ninth-grade students from San Mateo High School will meet with air traffic controllers and practice directing simulated traffic at the Federal Aviation Administrator’s (FAA) Oakland Air Route Traffic Control Center. Media will be able to interview students, NASA and FAA officials in the facility’s simulator lab.
The two-hour field trip, sponsored by a NASA Ames Research Center education project called Smart Skies, aims to introduce students to the math and problem-solving skills used to control air traffic and show them what it’s like to work as an air traffic controller. Smart Skies is sponsored by NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.
WHO: Tom Davis, chief of the Aviation Systems Division at NASA Ames; Scott Conde, National Air Traffic Controllers Association; and Melissa Holmes, staff manager, Oakland Air Route Traffic Control Center
WHERE: FAA Air Route Traffic Control Center, 5125 Central Avenue, Fremont, Calif.
WHEN: 9:45 a.m. PDT Wednesday, March 21, 2012
RSVP: News media planning to attend should RSVP to Ian Gregor at Ian.Gregor@faa.gov before 5 p.m. PDT on Tuesday, March 20. For security reasons, news media must bring their media credentials and all visitors must be U.S. citizens.
For more information about NASA Ames, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/home/index.html
