Students participating in a rigorous week-long science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, academy wrapped up the experience July 6 with a special guest —Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia.
The high school juniors and seniors had spent the week planning a crewed mission to Mars as part of the Virginia Aerospace Science and Technology Scholars, or VASTS, program at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. Kaine stopped in to hear from the students and to attend the academy’s closing ceremony.
In a short session between the students and Kaine just before the closing ceremony, Idriss Shively, a rising senior at Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School in Richmond, talked about his experience on the academy’s mission integration team, which had to establish clear lines of communication between the other VASTS teams.
One of the challenges the team faced was the prospect of working with international partners.
“It took a lot of discussions to smooth out,” said Shively, “but we ended up with all the teams agreeing and knowing the decision we made was the best for the mission.”
Themes of teamwork and communication emerged in reports from other students as well, and Kaine picked up those threads during his remarks.
“Very few important things in life are done by one person,” he said. “One person can have an amazing idea that they can publish that will inspire others, but most of the really important things in life are team projects.”
He then emphasized the importance of communication to good teamwork, particularly with a space mission that may involve international partners.
“Then the communication challenges really get intense,” he said. “You’re dealing with language barriers. You’re dealing with different communications systems, different cultural biases.”
Kaine also talked about his desire to motivate young people to pursue careers in STEM-related fields. He encouraged the students not to be intimidated by mistakes or failure.
“If you’re good, that’s when humans will kind of grapple with, ok, what do I learn from this and how can we move forward?” he said. “That process of making a mistake and learning from it — it’s just at the very root of what science is all about.”
This was the second of three 2019 VASTS academies. VASTS is run by the Virginia Space Grant Consortium.
Joe Atkinson
NASA Langley Research Center