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The Official Publication of The Science Teachers Association of Texas
LiftOff 2016: EXPLORATION - Past, Present, and Future By Margaret Baguio NASA’s Texas Space Grant Consortium, The University of Texas at Austin
Beginning in the summer of 1990, the NASA’s Texas Space Grant Consortium initiated weeklong professional development training for teachers. This aerospace workshop, called LiftOff, emphasizes science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning experiences by incorporating a space science theme supported by NASA missions. Teacher participants are provided with information and experiences through speakers, hands-on activities and field investigations that promote space science and enrichment activities for themselves and others. Humanity’s interest in the heavens has been universal and enduring. Humans are driven to explore the unknown, discover new worlds, push the boundaries of our scientific and technical limits, and then push further.
The intangible desire to explore and challenge the boundaries of what we know and where we have been has provided benefits to our society for centuries. While robotic explorers have
studied Mars for more than 40 years, NASA’s path for the human exploration of Mars begins in low-Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station. Astronauts on the orbiting laboratory are helping us prove many of the technologies and communications systems needed for human missions to deep space, including Mars. The space station also advances our understanding of how the body changes in space and how to protect astronaut health. Our next step is deep space, where NASA will send a robotic mission to capture and redirect an asteroid to orbit the moon. Astronauts aboard the Orion
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