Space Project for Students Blasts Off : Education: Mock-up of shuttle and mission control at La Mesa school gives youngsters a taste of science and adventure.

Lezette Bagaso carefully monitors images on the computer screen at Mission Control and charts data to help her analyze the hazardous materials aboard the space shuttle. Her job, as an isolation team monitor, is to make sure foreign chemicals don’t endanger the crew by poisoning their atmosphere.

But Bagaso doesn’t think that her high-pressure job is stressful at all. In fact, she thinks that every 14-year-old should be lucky enough to be in her shoes.

Bagaso is “working” at the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, a high-tech learning center in La Mesa, the first of its kind on the West Coast.

Set up by San Diego’s Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater and Science Center, the Challenger Center is housed in a bungalow on the grounds of the Parkway Middle School and consists of a mock-up of a space station and mission control center.

The goal of the center is to teach youngsters about science, modern technology and teamwork through simulating a flight of the space shuttle Challenger.

A second, more emotional goal of the center is to keep NASA’s “Teacher in Space” program alive by educating students about space travel and science. The project, aimed at sending teachers such as Christa McAuliffe into space, was put on hold after the space shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, killing seven astronauts, including McAuliffe.

“We are excited about being able to provide the students of San Diego County with an innovative, creative way to learn science,” said Lynne Kennedy, the director of education for the Fleet center. “The idea was to focus on the triumph of the Challenger rather than the tragedy.”

Plans for the center got off the ground about five years ago, after the families of the Challenger astronauts, concerned that the Teacher In Space program might die with McAuliffe, set up an organization called the Challenger Center in the hopes of continuing educating students about space, Kennedy said.

The organization then approached the nationally renowned Fleet center to help them organize the program.

“We went to about six or seven of the leading institutes that were the leaders in space and science education and asked them how realistic the project was and how we could institute it,” said Douglas R. King, president of the Challenger Center, headquartered in Virginia. “After that it was a just a matter of raising money and finding a host” to house the projects.

The first center opened in 1988 in Houston, home of many of the Challenger astronauts. From there a network of the centers opened across the country in museums or schools who agreed to house them. Currently there are seven Challenger educational centers, with two in Canada. Five others are slated to open by this summer, King said.

Construction of San Diego’s Challenger was started last month. Funded by the Fleet center, the mock-up cost $370,000 to build, with an additional grant of $100,000 coming from the Irvine Foundation, a philanthropic organization. The education center expects to be at its temporary Parkway Middle School location for three years while construction of a permanent Challenger Center continues at the Fleet theater and science center in San Diego’s Balboa Park.

The La Mesa school agreed to house the Challenger Center in exchange for having 5th and 6th grade pupils learn there through hands-on experience.

Before they bring their class to the ersatz shuttle, teachers must take a $15, four-hour workshop so that they can brief students on the complexities of operating a ship in space, Kennedy said.

Up to 40 students at a time pay $5 to “blast-off” on a simulated flight, half of them working in the mission control next door. Right now, only 5th and 6th graders are accommodated, but by the end of the term, students up to 8th grade should be included as well, Fleet center spokeswoman Sally Buckalew said.

Each “mission” is supervised by two specially trained flight directors, former educators in math and science who were hired by the Fleet center.

The space shuttle Challenger Center and mission control are housed in separate rooms of a plain-looking prefabricated building on the south end of the school’s campus. But once inside, visitors feel they have gone where no man has gone before.

Visitors enter the Challenger Center through a revolving air-lock door that serves to the trap noxious gases astronauts may encounter in space. Once inside the dimly lit interior of the shuttle, there are space research stations that each crew member is assigned to.

There is a biosphere remote station on board to help collect vegetation from other planets, monitoring of life support systems and robotic isolation units to handle hazardous materials. Video screens and earphones link the crew with mission control, and help students share research ideas and findings.

If all goes well, the center will be opened to the public on weekends by April and perhaps throughout the week in summer, Buckalew said. Some family members of the original Challenger astronauts are expected to appear at the center’s grand opening Jan. 28, the sixth anniversary of the Challenger explosion.

“It (the Challenger Center) will really help us because even people who aren’t interested in science will like this because it is a new approach to learning,” Bagaso said. “We have learned to use computers and know how everything works in space. Everyone is so excited about this.”