Magnet experiment earns students trip to NASA center in Alabama

NASA is using magnets to attract kids to space science.

Bozeman High School students in teacher Marty Stuart’s earth and space science class have
been trying out an experiment created by NASA. It challenges kids to build an electromagnet
powerful enough to move a toy train loaded down with weights.

By GAIL SCHONTZLER Bozeman Daily Chronicle Staff Writer

Mac Tilt and Molly Bruggeman, two 15-year-old freshmen, did such a good job with the
project, they got to travel last week with Stuart to visit the federal space agency’s Marshall
Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

"We had a blast," Stuart punned.

"But we were very down to earth about it," Bruggeman joked.

NASA paid for the trips for about 60 students and teachers from across the nation. Bozeman
High is one of 20 schools that have been helping NASA work out the bugs in the magnet
experiment so that it can be made available to schools nationwide.

"Almost the entire class was way into it," Bruggeman said. "It was a hands-on experiment and
everyone likes hands-on. It’s much more interesting than having a teacher read out of a book
and falling asleep at your desk."

The magnet experiment challenges students to solve a problem in creative ways, coiling and
twisting wire to make the most effective electromagnet. It also helps them understand a real-life
experiment that NASA engineers are working on right now.

NASA is trying to find a way to use the Earth’s magnetic field, instead of expensive fuel, to
push satellites and the International Space Station back up into orbit, Stuart said. The goal is
to keep man-made satellites from sinking toward Earth as their orbits naturally decay over time.

This fall NASA plans to launch a satellite with a 12-mile-long wire tether and see if that can
create a magnetic force strong enough to repel the satellite away from the Earth’s magnetic
field.

"It acts like two magnets — positive to positive," Tilt explained.

At Marshall, Tilt said he was most impressed to see where powerful Saturn V rocket engines are
tested. He also liked seeing the mission control center for the International Space Station,
which has a big screen showing what’s going on inside the station.

Bruggeman said she was glad to see that half the engineers at the center are women. She also
enjoyed the "space shot" simulator, which shoots people up like an amusement park ride,
creating a moment of weightless suspension before plummeting riders back down to earth.

"When you start to drop, you think you’re going to die," she said.

Stuart said the Marshall visits are good public relations for NASA, which knows today’s students
will be tomorrow’s voters, who will decide whether to support NASA’s exploration of the cosmos.

"They’re trying to interest us in coming to work for NASA," Tilt added. He said he wants to
become an engineer and would love to work on robots that could explore space.

Gail Schontzler is at [email protected].

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