Science Project

* Like so many other people, I too was dismayed at the lack of publicity given to the 25th anniversary of Apollo II’s landing on the moon.

I was even more surprised at the lack of attention given to the students who were so involved with all the “space” festivities that week. The Times did not even realize that my school, Whitney High School of Cerritos, took first place in the National Space Design competition. Fifteen students worked for months to complete a design for a proposed 15,000-person orbiting space colony. After making it to the final four, we again, in two days, had to prepare a proposal for a 12,000-person moon colony, and present it in front of various international engineers and astronauts. And we won first place.

What we need, perhaps, is more publicity about these accomplishments by young students, instead of complaining about what’s “not working” in this country.

It is nice to know that students, along with modest celebrities like Neil Armstrong, Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin and Michael Collins still care about our nation’s future in man’s frontier (July 21). As I said to President Clinton during that Apollo reception, “You know, sir, we do plan to keep the dream alive.”

SACHIN R. MEHTA

Cerritos

The writer is a senior at Whitney High School and was president of the school’s space settlement design team.