Taking space exploration
to new heights

By William Kenny
Times Staff Writer

Philadelphia public schools are not generally thought of as a launching pad to cutting-edge scientific discovery.
But a group of Northeast High School students and educators are using high technology to set a standard for the way kids can learn about space exploration. Their educational model is so unique that even a NASA astronaut has taken personal notice.
Northeast’s Space Research Center (SPARC) program launched its 46th annual simulated space mission on April 25. While the theoretical objective of the 31-hour scripted mission was to fly a space shuttle into orbit and complete construction of the International Space Station, the practical purpose of the exercise can only be thought of as the highest form of authentic instruction.
Four student astronauts — Johnny Tang, Scott Davis, Gonka Koyan and Ashwin Mathew — boarded the mock-up Space Shuttle Columbia at 8 a.m. The unit looks like a 21-foot decorated plywood box on the outside. But inside, the crew accommodations and controls are designed to look and act like the real thing.
Outside the shuttle, two other astronauts manned the space station throughout the exercise, while rotating teams of youths manned the mission-control consoles, monitoring every aspect of the mission including the flight plan, ship maintenance, medical condition of astronauts, programmed computer events and robotic tasks.
In all, 85 students had a hand in the mission. The SPARC program is an extracurricular activity drawing the vast majority of its members from Northeast’s Medical, Engineering and Aerospace Magnet School.
"Some schools have a space program, but nothing compares to this," said Margaret Karpinski, a calculus teacher who has directed the magnet school and SPARC program for the last two years.
The SPARC project has been at Northeast High School since the infancy of America’s space program, when the school was fortunate enough to obtain a retired NASA training capsule, according to junior Sudhi Kandi, the mission spokesperson.
The capsule was used by NASA’s Apollo program, which culminated with six manned moon landings between 1969 and 1972.
For last week’s exercise, the capsule served as the International Space Station occupied initially by juniors Shan Lin and Johnny Tang.
After the link-up between the shuttle and the station, Tang switched places with one of the shuttle crew for the return trip to Earth.
Lin and Tang felt they were walking in the footsteps of the Apollo astronauts in the capsule.
"Even though it’s kind of cramped, it feels good," Tang said.
"It feels special, although it’s kind of boring," Lin said. "I don’t know how the astronauts survived in here."
Lin and Tang survived the mission, as did the shuttle crew, thanks largely to a stash of sandwiches, Tastykakes and potato chips, along with pre-launch encouragement from astronaut Christopher J. Ferguson, the U.S. Navy captain and Archbishop Ryan High School graduate who piloted the shuttle Atlantis on a 12-day space mission last September.
Ferguson, hearing of the great progress made by the SPARC program in recent years, paid an unpublicized visit to the school in November.
As a show of gratitude, the students decided to replicate his mission, STS-115, for this year’s flight simulation. Thanks to a satellite hook-up, Ferguson delivered a live video send-off to the SPARC students prior to last week’s mission.
Kandi noted that SPARC is a lot more efficient than NASA when it comes to building space stations.
"There are thirteen flights planned by NASA" to finish the station, Kandi said. "But we are ahead of NASA. NASA is planning to return to the moon in 2020, but we’re planning it next year."
Planning the simulated mission is a year-round endeavor for the SPARC program, explained Anna Prokapova, a junior who co-manages the mission’s flight management group.
"In September, we get together. We all sit down with Mr. (David) Seltzer and start talking about what we’re going to do," said Prokapova.
Seltzer volunteered to advise the program after retiring from the U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center last year. Karpinski and the students credit him with inspiring a series of technical improvements to the shuttle-simulation room in recent months.
The advisors are the first to point out that students are the true foundation of the program. Motivated students like Prokapova can rise into management roles.
"We like to have as many underclassmen involved as we can so they can learn what happens from the older ones," Karpinski said. ••
Reporter William Kenny can be reached at 215-354-3031 or bkenny@phillynews.com