Bad Astronomy

Cameron Wade: future (and present) rocket scientist

After that lengthy tirade this morning, how about some news that’ll put a smile on your face?

Cameron Wade, one of two students whom BABloggers helped fly to a rocket launch, wrote a report about his trip on SpaceRef.com.

My favorite lines (besides him talking about his first plane ride and first time in the ocean) was about his experiment, which involved having bolts with nuts screwed on them to see if they would stay together during a launch:

The launch was great, but it was very fast. There were two testing rockets, then a Super Loki. It was worth getting up so early. We got our experiments back. I got to help bring the boxes back to the lab. Our bolts came apart. How do they hold the space station together?

I love hearing that! He saw the results, and immediately extrapolated to a new situation. When I read that I figured we have a new scientist in the making. And then he said this…

We want to try putting the bolts together another way to see if that will make them stay together better. Maybe we can send up that experiment next year.

… and I knew we already have a new scientist.