Carlsbad boy wins NASA contest

Luca Pollack, 9, wins age group in national challenge

By Steve Puterski CARLSBAD

— A local student’s journey to the Final Frontier ended with an unexpected victory in NASA’s Power to Explore Student Challenge.

Luca Pollack, 9, a third grader at Pacific Rim Elementary School and longtime space enthusiast, submitted his written entry imagining the power of radioisotopes in space exploration for the nationwide K-12 contest in October.

In April, Pollack and his parents received a phone call from NASA notifying him he had won his age division (Kindergarten to 4th grade).

For the second annual writing contest, students were asked to learn about radioisotope power systems, a type of “nuclear battery” or power source used by NASA for the past 60 years to explore the darkest reaches of the solar system (and beyond). Entrants then described a space mission utilizing these power systems in 200 words or less.

Approximately 1,600 students participated in the contest.

Pollack’s mission centered on a spacecraft using a radioisotope thermal generator to explore his favorite moon, Europa, which orbits Jupiter.

But Pollack added an interesting twist: Once his spacecraft landed on the moon's surface, the vessel then deployed a miniature submarine to explore the ocean underneath Europa’s icy surface.

The spacecraft, named “Fortitude,” utilizes a laser to drill a hole through the ice to drop the submarine “Resilience.”

Both crafts were named after traits Pollack sees in himself, according to his submission.

“The goal of NASA is to find life on other worlds,” Pollack said. “I just want to help make that possible to see what life is because there is a pretty good possibility that life could have developed in the water of Jupiter’s Europa moon.”

As a winner among hundreds of students in the division, Pollack will receive a VIP tour of the NASA Glenn Research Center this summer in Cleveland.

Pollack’s winning idea for the NASA contest originated from another project he started in Pacific Rim third-grade teacher Barbara Nelson’s class.

According to Nelson, students worked on a “place project,” where they give a presentation about an earthly or off-world location.

Pollack’s project was about the moons of Jupiter when he and his parents, Danielle and Scott Pollack, discovered the NASA program.

So, Luca Pollack expanded the project in Nelson’s class, drawing up spacecraft and submarine schematics for the vessels' journey exploration of Europa. When Pollack submitted his project to NASA, his parents cautioned him about expectations.

However, Pollack’s sister, Olivia, 11, used her cosmic senses and predicted Luca would win.

And he did.

“(Luca) knocked the socks off his ‘place project,’” Nelson said. “The kids in here just watched with wide-open mouths, just amazed. He’s teaching them things I had no idea about.”

State Route 78 fully reopens after weeks of repairs

By City News Service OCEANSIDE — After weeks of emergency work on state Route 78, Caltrans officials on May 8 announced all lanes on the North County highway would be open for the evening commute.

Caltrans crews discovered a depression in the surfacing of the highway, and all westbound lanes were closed on March 15.

At least nine crews from local small business contractors worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with some “putting their personal lives on hold to get the work done quickly,” according to a statement from the California Department of Transportation.

All but one of the lanes in the westbound direc - tion was opened on April 5 when work switched to the eastbound lanes.

Digging continued, sometimes at depths of 60 feet, to uncover and replace nine damaged culverts. The last westbound lane opened Monday at 11 a.m. and all eastbound lanes are scheduled to open by 2:00 p.m. every local government in San Diego County failed in its efforts to create enough housing for the growing population during an eight-year cycle, prompting a grand jury report released May 9 to offer recommendations as the region faces an even loftier goal during its current cycle.

Some of the recommended strategies include using specific plans to build up areas near transit hubs, working with school and community college districts to identify developable land, working with local religious institutions to the same end and possibly drafting revenue-generating legislation to help assist in the funding of all housing, but particularly “affordable” housing.

“Housing is a human right, and we must make this declaration to ensure we as elected leaders and our whole community own our responsibility to take the actions necessary to ensure every San Diegan has a real opportunity to have the decent and stable housing necessary for a dignified and healthy life,” said San Diego City Council President Sean Elo Rivera.

Since 1969, every eight years, California has required all local governments to plan to meet the housing needs of everyone in the community. This planning process ends with the creation of the the Regional Housing Needs Allocation, or RHNA.

“We would like to thank the community, the cities of Oceanside and Vista, the traveling public and local businesses for their patience and understanding while we completed this emergency work project at a cost of more than $21 million,” said Caltrans District 11 Chief Deputy Director Everett Townsend.

Some night closures and shoulder closures may be in place for the next two weeks while the final details of the project are completed, the statement read.

The work schedule is subject to change due to weather, traffic incidents or other maintenance considerations.

For real-time traffic information, visit quickmap. dot.ca.gov/.

During the fifth Housing Element cycle from Jan. 1, 2013, to Dec. 31, 2020, the San Diego region was required by the state to plan for 161,980 housing units. These units were divided among the four state-designated income levels as measured against the Area Median Income, with very low income allocated 36,450 units, low income 27,700 units, moderate income 30,610 units and above moderate income 67,220 units.

Of the 19 governments under the purview of the San Diego Association of Governments, only one — Lemon Grove — met all four standards during the last cycle.

According to the report, Lemon Grove benefited from having the affordable housing Citronica development in the planning process prior to the beginning of the fifth cycle. The city also implemented zoning changes such as raising height limits and increasing density, and amended its Downtown Specific Plan to include more housing.

“Each of these measures helped the city to meet its allocations in the