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 Sonoma State University is looking for wannabe scientists to design, build and launch their own rockets miles into the sky.
These are rockets with engines that take special permits to buy, are launched in the Nevada desert, fly at twice the speed of sound and are equipped with advanced electronics and GPS units. "When you have an onboard camera and you start seeing the thin blue line of the atmosphere, the hairs stand up on the back of your neck," said Tom Atchison of El Dorado Hills, chairman of the Mavericks Civilian Space Foundation. The goal is to use rocketry to excite high school students about physics, math, chemistry and engineering, creating an educational pipeline to produce America's next generation of scientists. The program starts at Sonoma State University, which will use a $150,000 Mavericks grant to recruit California and Nevada high school teachers and students and design a curriculum heavy on physics and chemistry. "This is a hands-on approach," said Lynn Cominsky, chairwoman of the SSU physics and astronomy department and a NASA consultant. "Anything to get the kids excited about science, that is my major goal here." Teachers, who will receive an annual $1,000 stipend, and students must commit to two years, during which time they will design, build and fly the high-powered rockets. The program also will pair the schools with members of local Tripoli clubs, part of a national organization of certified rocketeers who will act as advisers to SSU and to the teachers and students. "We still have a thriving space industry, and we just don't have that many kids interested in it anymore," said Tony Alcocer of Santa Rosa, president of the Association of Experimental Rocketry of the Pacific. Alcocer, a Santa Rosa firefighter, has been a rocketeer for eight years, building two dozen rockets, one of which flew to 60,000 feet at three times the speed of sound. "I'll be a local resource if they need it," Alcocer said. "It makes sense, I'm only 10 miles from SSU." Mavericks Civilian Space Foundation is a nonprofit group whose members build and fly rockets that are so large they are subject to U.S. government oversight and to international arms treaties, Atchison said. Formed to promote civilian space exploration, Mavericks has members who are former defense and Silicon Valley high-tech executives. Others are scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena looking for a creative outlet. "You can take the model the government has, throw an ungodly amount of money at it, or find a more efficient way," Atchison said. "Let's take the model of how Silicon Valley evolved — empower early adopters. That is what drove the computer industry, that is what drove the Internet." Mavericks has committed $700,000 to $800,000 for a program for students, which is still in the formative stages, he said. The grant is not affected by the state's financial problems and funding cuts affecting SSU and other universities. The recruiting has already begun, but classroom sessions and training at the Mavericks' desert launch site near Lovelock, Nev., will not begin for a year. The curriculum will be developed by Cominsky and a group she has assembled at SSU, which already has a $1 million contract to provide outreach and educational material on NASA missions to high schools. "It is basic physics and chemistry," Cominsky said. "The physics in the design and the chemistry in the motors." Copyright © 2008, The Press Democrat.
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