Three Alpine School District students will be on a friendship mission when they travel to the Soviet Union on July 25 to attend the International Space Camp, their teacher says.
"The unofficial motto of the Young Astronauts program is `Peace through Space,' " said Victor Williamson. "Even though in our program we emphasize math and science education, the focus in these exchanges is to build friendships."Rangi Smart, Rocky Smart and Kyle Sanderson, members of the Young Astronaut chapter at Central Elementary School in Pleasant Grove, will attend the camp July 25 through Aug. 17 in Novosibirsk, Siberia.
Rangi will be a ninth-grader next year. Rocky and Kyle will be seventh-graders. They joined the Young Astronaut program when they were pupils at Central.
Last year, Glavkosmos, the Soviet Space Agency and the All-Union Youth Aerospace Society, which directs the Young Cosmonauts program, invited the United States to send an American delegation of two adults and five children to the camp.
The national office of the Young Astronauts program, in Washington, awarded the invitation to three members of the Central Elementary chapter and to two members of a chapter in Salt Lake City operated by Milagros Baladazo after ranking 30,000 chapters in the country according to their activities and programs.
"This is a great honor for Utah to have the entire United States delegation come from one state," Williamson said.
Students participating in the Young Astronaut program accumulate points based on their grades and club participation; Rangi, Rocky and Kyle are the top students in the Central Elementary chapter.
The Pleasant Grove chapter program has received national recognition. Williamson recently received the Christa McAuliffe $30,000 fellowship, a $1,000 award from US WEST's Outstanding Teacher Program and was named Chapter Leader of the Year by the Young Astronaut National Council.
Williamson, with the support of the Alpine School District and corporate donations, is using his McAuliffe fellowship to build a space education center at Central Elementary. Williamson also is having a simulated starship constructed outside the school; the starship will be large enough to accommodate 15 students for five-day "space voyages to all parts of the galaxy," simulating everything but weightlessness, Williamson said. The center will open in January and be used by teachers and students from throughout the state.
Other countries participating in the space camp are Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Netherlands, France and Kuwait. All of these countries are involved in the Soviet "Intercosmos" program, which allows astronauts from other nations to fly on Soviet space missions.
"We don't know much about this Russian trip," Williamson said. "It is hard to get much information from them, but we know we will spend three days sightseeing in Moscow, and the rest of the time at the camp attending lectures, designing space equipment and meeting cosmonauts." The students also will visit the Novosibirsk Academy of Sciences.
The Young Astronaut program was started by syndicated columnist Jack Anderson and former President Reagan in 1985, with the goal of improving the nation's math and science scores, Williamson said.
"We want to give students an interest in space, get their math and science scores high, get them into college and encourage them to do something in those areas," Williamson said. "But also, we want to raise a generation of space enthusiasts." Williamson said most Young Astronaut chapters report the program is achieving its goals.
The Soviet government will pay all expenses except air fare to and from the USSR.