Space-age students prepare for Chicago mission

EIGHT talented students of the after-school Science Club at St Flannan’s College, Ennis, will travel to Chicago next week to present their winning design for a 20,000 populated space settlement in the elite NASA/NSS Student Design Contest.

This is the first time in 10 years that an Irish school has been represented in the finals of the contest, where entrants compete to design a space colony, with the winners being chosen from among the global entries by NASA engineers and scientists.
Their trip to the conference is being enabled by Microsemi Corporation, Ennis who have come on board with St Flannan’s as the main sponsors for the trip.
Science teacher in St Flannan’s College, Michael Horgan, explained that without Microsemi’s sponsorship, the students would not have been able to attend the conference in Chicago.
“We would have sent all of our design and presentation to the conference but there’s no way we could have gone over, so we are very grateful to Microsemi for the opportunity they are giving us,” he said.
Clare County Council and St Francis’ Credit Union, Ennis have also sponsored the project.
Mr Horgan explained that through the school’s After-school Science Club, he looked for new project for the students. He came across an advertisement looking for interested schools to put forward a variety of science projects. “We had previously worked on a F1 for Schools project and one of our group’s designs had reached the final. I sent forward information on the F1 project and the team involved in the competition were really impressed.
They were looking for an international school team to design a space settlement and our submission was accepted. We were grouped with Japan , Ireland the US and originally Chile as a team, which was called JICU,” the teacher added.
The Chilean element of the team did not materialise but the students from St Flannan’s built up an online and Skype working relationship with their fellow team members in Jacksonville, Florida and in the Saibi High School in Japan.
The eight St Flannan’s students on the team, all ranging in age from 13 to 16, are first year-student, Caitlyn Horgan; three second-year students, Chloe Hayes, Hannah O’Connell, and Conor Arkins; and four fourth-year students Bram Siebert, Benjamin Suarez-Luque, Shane Duggan and Kevin Cahir,
He explained that his students designed the space settlement while the Americans devised a programme of bio-regeneration in the space settlement, including details of farming, food and diet, while the Japanese members of the team devised the space settlement’s power system.
Only the three top-placed teams in the International Space Development Agency competition get to present their projects at the conference in Chicago, from May 28 to 31.
St Flannan’s is only the second group of students from Ireland to reach this stage of the competition. A group of senior students from Blackrock College and St Josephs of Cluny in Killiney presented at the conference in 2010.
“This is a huge opportunity for these students and their involvement in this competition at this level will look fabulous on their resumes,” Mr Horgan commented.
Richard Finn, vice-president and general manager of Microsemi Ireland, said he was pleased to help the students fulfil their dreams.
“One of our major market sectors is the space industry and it was really impressive to see these young people putting together such a complex project, as part of an international team, particularly when so many Irish students seem to be ignoring mathematics and the sciences. With only 16% of Irish students taking higher-level maths for the Leaving Cert last year, it’s vital that we get the message across that maths and the sciences are not only important to study but can actually lead to exciting and dynamic careers. At Microsemi, we obviously need people with mathematics and science skills, because our customers include all the main space agencies, including NASA projects such as the Mars Surveyor mission, the European Space Agency and most recently the Indian Space Research Organisation and their Chandrayaan Moon Mission,” he said.