SALISBURY, Maryland USA — Lindsey Buck grasped the 2-foot rocket made of cardboard and balsa wood. "We're going 'au naturale,' " said the Wicomico High School junior. "We're not going to paint it because we want to keep the weight off."

From left, Abby Harding, Lindsey Buck and Michelle Robison work on their rocket after school Monday at Wicomico High School in Salisbury. Photo: Matthew S. Gunby.

Next month, 17-year-old Buck will lead a team of eight Wi-Hi students in a competition against the nation's top 100 high school rocketry teams in the sixth annual Team American National Rocketry Final Fly-Off.

More than 7,000 students on 643 teams from 43 states and the District of Columbia competed for a place in the Virginia-based finals May 17.

"It's very exciting what these kids have accomplished," said Bill Currence, Wi-Hi earth science teacher and faculty sponsor.

The Aerospace Industries Association created the Team America Rocketry Challenge in 2003 to celebrate the centennial of flight and to generate interest in aerospace careers among young people.

The aerospace and defense sector is expecting a work force crisis over the next decade as scientists and engineers lured to the industry by the space race and the Cold War hit retirement. Almost 60 percent of the U.S. aerospace workforce is 45 or older, according AIA statistics compiled last year.

At this point, there are not enough qualified young Americans to take their place, Currence said.

Buck and her Wi-Hi's TARC team members -- Teddy Gutierrez, Abby Harding, Sam Lecates, Joey Tilghman, Noah Whittington, Scott Kephart, Michelle Robison and Caitlyn Cavanaugh -- spent countless hours designing, hand-building and testing model rockets using a computer-based program, "Rocksim."

"This is the first year we put together a team, which pretty much makes it our first attempt," Buck said. "It's pretty surprising how far we got."

To enter the contest, teams had to launch their rocket as close as possible to an altitude of 750 feet, with a flight time of 45 seconds. The payload of two raw eggs must return to the ground unbroken.

"It's all about the height and weight," Robison added.

Teams had until April 7 to submit qualifying scores, which were achieved by launching the rocket in their home region under the supervision of a judge from the National Association of Rocketry, co-sponsor of the contest with AIA.

A supporter of the Team America Rocketry Challenge, Raytheon Company, is sponsoring the winning team's trip to a major international air show.

Last year, Raytheon took the winning team to the Paris Air Show, and this year's winners will go to the Farnborough International Air Show near London in July. There they will compete in an international fly-off with the winner of the British version of the Team America Rocketry Challenge.

Lockheed-Martin Corp. will also provide $5,000 scholarships to each of the top three teams and NASA invites some teams to participate in their Student Launch Initiative, an advanced rocketry program.

Buck expressed interest in joining aerospace industry in the future, which offers career opportunities including building space vehicles to designing state-of-the-art fighter aircraft.

For now, she hopes to encourage other students to join Wi-Hi's rocketry team next year.

Most of us will be seniors next year, so we'll want to recruit more people to keep it going," she said.

Copyright © 2008, The Daily Times.