Space
tourist-to-be Richard Garriott is calling on the ingenuity of British students
to come up with a science experiment for his upcoming flight to the International
Space Station (ISS).
Garriott, an
American computer game developer, is currently in Russia training to fly
aboard the Russian Soyuz rocket that will ferry him and two professional astronauts
to the space station in October. But Garriott is also working to make the $30
million flight more than a mere orbital joyride and is searching for experiment
candidates from United Kingdom (UK) students to add to his own science mission
as part of his "Space Challenge!"
"I am
dedicating my spaceflight to science and enterprise," Garriott said in a
statement, who plans to perform Earth observation and protein growth
experiments during his flight. "We need more than great ideas — we need to make
them happen."
Garriott is
challenging primary school students in the UK between ages 7 and 10 to design
an experiment that he could perform during his
stay aboard the ISS. His father, former NASA astronaut Owen Garriott, is
serving as the spaceflight's chief scientist and will review the submitted experiments
alongside British scientists Samantha Wynne, of Cambridge University, and the Queen
Mary, University of London's Peter McCowan.
A second challenge,
for secondary school students ages 11-19, invites them to envision how private
enterprise may evolve for space tourism companies like the Virginia-based firm
Space Adventures that brokered the younger Garriott's upcoming trek to the ISS
with Russia's Federal Space Agency.
The
deadline to enter both challenges, which are part of the "UK Civil Space
Strategy 2008-2012 and Beyond" effort, is June 20. Winners will be announced on
Sept. 28 by NASA astronaut Piers Sellers, a British scientist-turned-astronaut,
at the International Astronautical Congress in Glasgow.
The British
National Space Centre (BNSC) and the Virginia-based tourism firm Space
Adventures are also working on the contest.
"We're
delighted by this opportunity for UK students to experience the excitement of
real science from the curriculum, and to see their experiments carried out by
Richard Garriott on his flight to the International Space Station later this
year," said Jeremy Curtis, of the BNSC UK Space Strategy Group, in a statement.
The Austin,
Texas-based Garriott, 46, will become the sixth space tourist — and first
American second-generation astronaut — to visit the ISS when he launches in
October with two members of the station's Expedition 18 crew. He is the creator
of the Ultima computer game series and has said he was contemplating paying an
extra $15 million to add a spacewalk to his orbital flight.
Garriott
has spent the last several weeks at Russia's Star City-based cosmonaut training
center to learn Russian and familiarize himself with the Soyuz spacecraft. He
will return to Earth with the outgoing Expedition 17 crew, which is
coincidentally commanded by Sergei Volkov — Russia's first
second-generation cosmonaut to fly — at the end of his spaceflight.
Click
here to learn more about the "Space Challenge! Extreme Science and Enterprise"
contest on Garriott's mission blog.
Richard Garriott is chronicling his spaceflight training and
mission at his personal Web site: www.richardinspace.com.
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