WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- Purdue women's soccer's Kate Fowee was among the six students from the school of aeronautics and astronautics selected to travel to the Kennedy Space Center this week to witness the first space test flight of NASA's new Orion Capsule.
Fowee, a junior, and her father Roger, a Purdue alum, depart for Cape Canaveral, Fla., Tuesday evening. Two seniors, two juniors and two sophomores from the AAE department were selected for this unique opportunity and each student is permitted to bring one guest.
The launch is set for 7 a.m. ET Thursday (Dec. 4). There is an approximate three-hour time window in which the Orion Capsule can be launched Thursday morning. If the launch is delayed due to inclement weather or maintenance, backup launch windows are scheduled for Friday and Saturday.
New Purdue professor Daniel Dumbacher, a mechanical engineering graduate from the university and a 35-year NASA veteran, helped setup the unique opportunity for the AAE students. He will be on hand at the Kennedy Space Center this week as well after working on the Orion Capsule during his time at NASA. The Purdue Chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) sponsored the competition.
The six AAE students were selected based on grade-point average, involvement within the aero community and an essay about why they believed space exploration is important for the future as well as why it is important to author of the essay. Fowee is a member of Sigma Gamma Tau, the national aerospace engineering honor society celebrating academic excellence. You can read Fowee's essay below.
A United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket, the most powerful rocket in the world, will propel the Orion Capsule into space for the first time this week. With the Orion project, NASA is revisiting human-piloted deep space exploration for the first time since the Apollo moon landing missions ended in 1972. However, this first flight test will not feature a crew on board. Exploration Flight Test-1 is scheduled to be a 4 ½-hour flight around the Earth in which Orion will orbit twice and reach an orbital altitude of 3,600 miles on its second pass around the planet. That's about 15 times higher than the location of the International Space Station.
The end of EFT-1 will feature a splash-down landing in the Pacific Ocean where it will be recovered in a dual effort by NASA and the U.S. Navy.
The goal of the Orion project is for astronauts to travel beyond the moon to asteroids and Mars.
Fowee recommended Dr. Ken Kremer's writings at the UniverseToday.com website for more information about the Orion launch.
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Fowee's Essay: (300 Words or Less) "Why is space exploration important to the future, and to me?"
The astronaut reunion last year on campus offered me the unique opportunity to listen as astronauts spoke in my classes and to attend the panel that concluded the weeklong event. I learned a great deal by listening to them lecture and answer questions, but one response sticks out more than the others. There was an overwhelming support for future space exploration from every astronaut on that panel and every single one of them said it was important to gain public support. I believe Space exploration is the most exciting scientific frontier. There is so much potential knowledge to be gained simply because there is so much that is not known about the universe beyond our atmosphere. Exploring beyond the Earth can answer the basic queries in several areas of science such as biology, astronomy, and geology and having a space program has brought countless technological advancements that are used daily to improve quality of life for people across the globe.
For me, space exploration is the final frontier and the human race's prerogative and obligation. The saying reach for the stars no longer needs to be a metaphor for achievement, but rather an assignment to use our abilities to comprehend this universe. Space exploration is not just a fancy, romantic ambition, but also one that can transcend humanity beyond the confines of the planet that sustains us. My curiosity has fueled my desire to touch the stars and answer not only my scientific questions such as, what is it like in the rings of Saturn or on the surface of Mars, but also my existential questions about the human condition. I believe, as Carl Sagan did, that, "Somewhere, Something incredible is waiting to be known", and that space exploration will be our method to find it.