Mars-Minded Teens Win NASA Award

It’s quite a distance from the Conejo Valley to Mars, but two imaginative eighth-graders at Media Creek Middle School have already completed the journey.

On paper.

Csaba Petre and Charlie Carriere received first-place awards in a national competition for their 1,000-word paper detailing an imaginary mission to Mars for the 1999 NASA Student Involvement Program. The 14-year-olds will receive the award Tuesday at an assembly at their Oak Park school.

They also will do a little traveling as part of their prize.

The boys had the option of either a one-week space camp adventure at the NASA Space Center in Huntsville, Ala., or attending Aviation Challenge at Atwater Air Force Base in Merced.

Csaba quickly decided on space camp, while Charlie chose the Aviation Challenge because that fit into his summer schedule.

“At first I couldn’t believe it,” Csaba said. “My dad started by saying we won regional, but then he said we won national. I just couldn’t believe it.”

Charlie agreed: “I kept saying that it wasn’t possible.”

Csaba’s mother heard about the NASA contest from Pepperdine University, where she works, brought home a brochure and showed it to her son, who was excited about entering.

“I’ve been interested in Mars for a long time, since I was 5 years old,” he said.

Realizing he couldn’t do the project alone, Csaba said he asked Charlie to help.

The boys decided to describe a hypothetical trip to Mars to learn whether there is or has been life on the planet.

“We would take along a man rover, a microscope and look for microfossils and we would look for microbacteria,” Csaba said.

Once Charlie and Csaba decided on their hypothetical mission, they divided the research and worked independently during the week, meeting on weekends to write.

The boys have already decided to devise a new journey for submission to next year’s contest.

“I have ideas,” Csaba said.