As part of Los Sueños’ ongoing efforts to support the community and the education of our youth, we recently coordinated an exciting and educational event, held on Friday, November 23rd at the Marriott in Los Sueños Resort and Marina, whereby local students were introduced to NASA.
Authors Bruce Callow and Ana Luisa Monge-Naranjo co-wrote the book “To the stars: Costa Rica in NASA”, which is published in both English and Spanish. Bruce and Ana Luisa interviewed thirteen Costa Ricans who have gone on to NASA and made important contributions to space exploration; they presented their book and each of these professionals to an audience of 50+ students and faculty.
The students were able to participate in a nearly hour-long Skype video call with Andres Mora, the Robotics and Systems Engineer Lead at MEIS, NASA. Andres shared his experience growing up in Costa Rica, meeting and working with famed Costa Rican astronaut Franklin Chang Diaz, and working with Sandra Cauffman the current Earth Science Division Deputy Director at NASA. He spoke about his work as part of the Astrobee team, which is developing a compact robotic cube that will soon by flying around the International Space Station, to help the astronauts do their routine shores and give controllers in Houston additional eyes and ears on the spacecraft.
In addition, the students were asked who their hero is and why, with the vast majority selecting superheroes or their parents, and to share what they learned, what they want to be when they grow up, and what steps they have to follow to achieve their goals. While their future career goals widely varied, the general response to what they learned was that it takes hard work and dedication to achieve their goals, which is always a good take away!
Copies of the book were presented to the institutions by the Los Sueños Foundation for Schools to share with the rest of their students. We look forward to see them learn important lessons and go on to beautiful, brilliant futures.
