Students work to create table for NASA

LEAGUE CITY, TX -- Teachers, mentors and students with the HUNCH program (High Schools United with NASA to Create Hardware) are working overtime this summer. NASA engineers are teaching high school students how to create flight ready hardware out of sheet metal.

At Clear Creek High School they are working on making a dining table for the International Space Station. The design is already NASA approved and now students are learning how to fabricate the table using wax molds and sheet metal that is flight tolerant. According to teacher Bill Gibbs, the table should be flown to the ISS in 2010.

Steve Rogers a NASA contractor with Jacobs Engineering explained, "These high school students are doing what engineers with 25 to 30 year experience are doing at NASA. These students are doing very well."

From the design to the fabrication, students are also learning the tedious side of sending hardware into space.

"I'm learning how to do all the paperwork required to get the table up into space," said Josh Harnett who graduated from Clear Creek High School in May and is now working as a student intern at NASA.

Students from Clear Creek High School and Cy-Woods High School are building a prototype of the 74" x 32" aluminum table in wax with sheet metal sides. The HUNCH students will present it to NASA for approval on August 6, 2009.

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