TWELVE cosmic-enthusiasts from St Laurence’s College, South Brisbane, are buckling up for the 15th annual International Space Settlement Design Competition (ISSDC).
In July, for the fifth time in six years, the St Laurence’s team will take off to Houston’s NASA Johnson Space Centre where the competition is held.
They will compete with 11 other groups from five different continents, all comprised of high school students acting as aerospace industry engineers, and compete to propose the best 40-page space colony design.
But after many fortnightly meetings, holiday workshops, and hours of online collaboration – coupled with attaining second place for two consecutive years – the St Laurence’s crew is feeling intense pressure to succeed.
“We know we’ve got a good team this year because we’ve had a lot of experience built up over the past six years, so we’re really hoping to come first,” head of automation and Year 12 student Alexander Bowen-Rotseart said.
The boys’ efforts to reach the 2008 ISSDC finals started in February last year, when they began preparing for the Australian Space Design Competition (ASDC), which they recently won.
The ASDC was held at St Lucia’s University of Queensland on January 24 and 25, where they had just 24 hours to design and present a space settlement capable of relocating an asteroid and sustaining a population of 3500.
St Laurence’s head of science Kirsten Wardrop said the entire competition was a unique learning opportunity.
“It’s a real-world scenario; it takes a lot of research and ideas, a lot of work and a huge commitment,” she said.
“But the boys are amazingly driven because it’s what they’re interested in doing, they don’t need anything from me except reminding to go to bed.”
Also launching into Houston from St Laurence’s is Scott Fisher, Luke Sturgess, Lachlan Young, James Harvey, James Cafaro, Adrian O’Keeffe, Phuong Nguyen, Blake Tucker, Daniel Edey, Marty Papamanolis and Dominic Bailey.
