Eleven-year-old Alexander Torres of Gilroy recently graduated from Space Camp at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala.
The weeklong educational program at NASA’s official Visitor Information Center for Marshall Space Flight Center promotes science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Space Camp trains students and adults who have a particular interest in science and aerospace with hands-on activities and missions based on teamwork, leadership and decision-making.
Torres, who will start sixth grade at South Valley Middle School this week, spent the week training with a team that flew a simulated Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Once aboard the ISS, the crew participated in experiments and successfully completed an extra-vehicular activity (EVA), or space walk.
Torres and his crew returned to Earth in time to hear retired Space Shuttle astronaut Col. Bob Springer speak at their graduation.
Space Camp crew trainers who lead each 16-member team are either college students or college graduates. The camp operates year-round in Huntsville and uses astronaut-training techniques to engage trainees in real-world applications of STEM subjects.
Students sleep in quarters designed to resemble the ISS and train in simulators like those used by NASA. More than 600,000 trainees – including STS-131 astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger – have graduated from Space Camp since its 1982 opening.
