SAN ANTONIO – All eyes are on the skies on Wednesday evening as NASA’s Artemis II is scheduled to lift off.
Students at Krueger Middle School in San Antonio are using the historic launch as inspiration to put their own engineering skills to the test through the Space and Engineering Technologies Academy (SETA).
Bernadett Johnson, a student, said the mission fuels her own goals.
“I want to be an astronaut and go to Mars when I grow up,” Johnson told KSAT.
The academy uses NASA-created lessons to introduce students to aerospace and related careers. Daniela Perales, another student, said she’s most excited about what happens on the ground.
“I’m excited to see mission control because in the future I really want to be a computer scientist for NASA and I also want to work in mission control,” she said.
Students said the science behind Artemis II fascinates them, specifically the power required to launch a spacecraft weighing about 5.75 million pounds to travel roughly 250,000 miles around the moon.
“I also want to see what experiments they do up there because my favorite subject is science and I love doing experiments,” Johnson said.
Perales said she’s also looking forward to what the crew will capture.
“I’m just excited to see what photos they take,” Perales said.
Students have explored multiple aspects of a rocket launch — from design, weight, pressure and coding to what astronauts experience in the atmosphere and even what they eat in space.
“I definitely want to see how much more they can find out about the moon from what they’re going to be doing,” student Victoria Rosales said.
SETA is part of the North East Independent School District enrollment, open to students anywhere in the city.