NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA gave several high school students the opportunity of a lifetime when it asked them to help make boxes that would be used by the International Space Station crew for training. The HUNCH Program is the first of its kind for NASA and schools. "HUNCH," or High School Students United with NASA to Create Hardware, was conceived by a Johnson Space Center engineer in Houston, who identified a chance to tie in a unique educational experience together with a true need in the space program.

Image to right: International Space Station Program Manager Bill Gerstenmaier accepts a training locker at Clear Creek High School.

The traditional training lockers for Space Station racks can cost more than $10,000 to manufacture. With budgets tightening, Payload Training Capability Project Manager Stacy Hale suggested that hardware produced by students might be a suitable alternative for flight controller and crew training needs.

Hale approached a local Houston school to investigate a partnership in the fall of 2003, and the pilot program was born. Soon, three schools were lined up to participate in the pilot program. The schools include Clear Creek High School in Houston and the Huntsville Center for Technology and Brewer High School, both in Alabama.

Roles for each school group were developed based on their strengths and specialties. The first phase involved all three teams working together to build a prototype. Once the prototype was completed successfully, the schools could proceed to the production phase and finish the lockers. The supplies and materials came from local metal supply stores and were paid for by the Space Station Payload Program.

Just a few months after the program's inception, the school teams delivered their finished multi-use stowage lockers to the Agency. Thirty new containers were presented to International Space Station Program Manager Bill Gerstenmaier at a special event May 11, 2004 at Clear Creek High School.

Image to left: A training locker built by the schools in the HUNCH program.