Orange Coast College’s ‘NASA on Campus’ invites students to imagine out-of-this-world jobs

Everyone knows NASA is a sought-out destination for the best and brightest scientists, engineers and space explorers, but less may be known about the agency’s need for fashion designers, finance majors and food science students.

Now, a new five-week online program open to students at Orange Coast College aims to shed light on how their individual fields of study could translate into an out-of-this-world career with the federal space agency.

Students are invited to apply for the “NASA on Campus” experience — running April 27 through June 6 — during which they will learn more about the latest research and missions from the experts themselves, according to Erik Bender, who coordinates programs at OCC’s STEM Center.

“When everybody thinks of NASA, they think of science, engineering and astronauts, but NASA is so much more than that,” Bender said.

OCC students speak with a NASA employee on an August 2019 trip to the Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center.

(Courtesy of Erik Bender)

“They’re looking for new ways to grow plants in space. They’re looking for people to design space suits that can be worn in other environments or people who can prepare foods that could be eaten in a space station,” he continued. “If you think of any major in college or profession here on Earth, you can do that for NASA.”

Those who complete the online course (Mission 1) will be invited to participate in Mission 2 — a four-day, on-campus engineering design and robotics competition at OCC set to take place Aug. 15 through 18.

Students will form teams and create prototype Mars rovers and fictitious companies with budgets and communications capacities. The event includes briefings by NASA experts, information on how to apply for an internship at the agency and field trips to nearby university laboratories.

Upon completion of both missions, one lucky student will be selected to receive a NASA internship.

NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, seen in 2019.

(Courtesy of Erik Bender)

This isn’t the first time the Costa Mesa campus has partnered with NASA. Since 2018, the two institutions have collaborated, through the California Space Grant Consortium, in an extracurricular program that allows OCC students to design and build rovers and present their projects to NASA engineers for feedback.

Bender said students in recent years have built vehicles designed to search for water on Mars or to explore lunar lava tubes for signs of moon life, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’d lecture them via Zoom or answer questions on Zoom, and they just went to town,” he said Thursday. “I was blown away with what they were able to accomplish.”

Funded by the agency’s Minority University Research and Education Program, “NASA on Campus” is open to participating community colleges, has no minimum GPA requirement and is open to students of all majors.

Applications are due April 6. For more, visit go.nasa.gov/ncas-campus.

Support our coverage by becoming a digital subscriber.