School Space Program Culminates With Blast

NASA has nothing on Osceola Street Elementary School.

Considering that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration launches maybe half a dozen shuttles in a year, while Osceola students launched 32 rockets in one day, NASA almost seems sluggish in comparison.

But Monday’s rocket launch at the school wouldn’t have been possible without the NASA Space Academy training that teacher Sue O’Brien received in July.

On a scholarship from Rockwell International, O’Brien spent more that a week in Huntsville, Ala., learning the history of the U.S. space program and studying specifics of propulsion and rocket engines.

For the last three weeks during the year-round school’s intersession, she has imparted that information to 32 Osceola third- through sixth-graders, culminating in the playground rocket launch.

As each intersession student prepared to launch his or her own personally built foot-high projectile, a hush fell over the 100 or so gathered students, teachers and parents.

“Five, four, three, two, one . . . blast-off,” they chanted, squealing with delight as red, white, blue and black rockets were shot 300 feet into the air in succession and then drifted down on parachutes.

After his successful launch, Shawn Sweeney, 11, confessed to being a little edgy preignition.

“I was kind of nervous that the rocket might crash into the [school] building,” Shawn said.

And when it didn’t?

“I was relieved,” the sixth-grader said.

The intersession and the rocket launch were fun and exciting, he and Erika Jacome, 9, agreed once the launch had ended.

As the students shuffled back to the classroom, O’Brien explained, “They love learning about space; they’re just nuts about it.”

Looking toward her classroom, she added, “I’ve got about 32 new astronauts in there.”