CHS student participates in state aerospace program

Mosbrucker was among the 160 students who qualified for the Washington Aerospace Scholars Summer Residency program from 247 students who applied in November.

To qualify for the residency program, Mosbrucker, a student at Columbia High School, spent six months studying a NASA-designed, distance-learning curriculum via the Internet.

Based on his academic performance on the distance-learning lessons, he was selected to attend one of the four residencies hosted at The Museum of Flight in Seattle this summer.

During the residency experience, he collaborated with the other student participants on the design of a human mission to Mars. WAS scholars are guided by professional engineers, scientists, university students and certified educators as they plan these missions.

The WAS program is designed to inspire students to pursue degrees and careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) but the students are divided into teams which also require them to learn about mission management, budgets, the legal aspects of space exploration, and medicine.

In addition to the design of the human mission to Mars, he and the other WAS scholars also participated in a number of hands-on engineering challenges. These challenges included design, construction and deployment of robotic rovers, model rockets, lander devices, and payload lofting systems.

Summer residency participants also received briefings from experts in the fields of engineering, science, physics, medicine, project management, risk management, and space exploration, such as Dr. Bonnie J. Dunbar, NAE, retired NASA astronaut.

They visited Everett, for a behind-the-scenes tour of the Boeing Commercial Airplane assembly plant, (including the new 787), toured Aerojet's Redmond facilities and the engineering laboratories at the University of Washington.