Education

During a ceremony July 31, senior NASA officials will present the National Federation of the Blind with two Louis Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollars that flew on space shuttle Atlantis's mission to the Hubble Space Telescope in May 2009. Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of the Blind, will accept the coins on behalf of the organization. The ceremony will take place at 6 p.m. EDT at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington.

NASA is offering undergraduate students an opportunity to test experiments in microgravity aboard NASA's "Weightless Wonder" aircraft. The opportunity is part of NASA's Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program, which gives aspiring explorers a chance to propose, design and fabricate a reduced gravity experiment.

According to L. Paul Verhage at the The Citizen Scientist: "The goal behind the BalloonSat is to give an individual (or a small group, if the students are very young) the opportunity to create an experiment for near space and then to have it sent there. The student shouldn't be concerned with launching, tracking, or recovery. He or she should just focus on developing a great experiment that is suitable for the flight into near space. What if the student wants to develop a fairly complex set of experiments or several students want to collaborate on the construction of a single= airframe for an array of experiments? " [More at The Citizen Scientist]

This October 4-10, the world will have a very special celebration of the contributions of space to humankind. It will be the 10th celebration of UN-declared World Space Week. You are invited to amplify your outreach by participating in the largest public space event on Earth. World Space Week is the best time every year to get your space-related messages to the public, students, teachers, employees, government, the media, and other audiences.

Last few days remaining to win a scholarship to attend IAC'09 in Korea through SGAC "Move An Asteroid 2009" Competition! "Move An Asteroid 2009" is an International Student and Young Professional Technical Paper Competition. The competition accepts individuals or team (maximum of 3 individuals) under the age of 33 to submit a 3-10 page technically detailed paper on a unique and innovative concept for deflecting an asteroid/comet with at least 50 metre of diameter. Please visit www.spacegeneration.org/asteroid for more information. The deadline for entries is 26th July 2009. The winner will be sponored to attend IAC and SGC '09 in Daejeon, South Korea. The entries should be send to asteroid@spacegeneration.org

Mars Gravity friends and advisors: It's been a good ride. Since the Mars Gravity Biosatellite program started in 2001, we have:

* Educated well over 600 graduate and undergraduate students in aerospace engineering, space life sciences, and program management.

* Forged collaborations between MIT, the University of Washington, University of Queensland, and Georgia Tech, as well as industry partners and a vibrant international summer internship program.