Belvoir teen attends NASA academy

By Andrew SharbelSeptember 3, 2009

Belvoir teen attends NASA academy
(Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

FORT BELVOIR, Va. -- Fort Belvoir resident Elizabeth Casteel has always loved math and science and wants to become a mechanical engineer for NASA.

Recently, she had the opportunity to show off her skills to NASA scientists and engineers.

Casteel, 17, attended the Virginia Aerospace Science and Technology Scholars' Summer Academy at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

VASTS is a year-long, interactive on-line science, technology, engineering and mathematics learning experience, according to its Web site. The highlight of the program is the six-day residential summer academy at the Research Center.

Students participating in the program are immersed in NASA-related research through interaction with scientists, engineers and technologists.

Over the course of the year, scholars complete 10 web-based modules. The modules begin in December and are due every two weeks.

Based upon the content of each module, students provide solutions to real-world questions; design upgrades to be used on the International Space Station; design a new crew exploration vehicle; participate in discussion forums on current, space-related topics; and hone their technical writing skills.

Each student is graded on each assignment and, upon completion of the on-line course, scholars with a cumulative grade over 80 are selected to attend the Academy.

Casteel was introduced to the program when her Sunday school teacher passed along an e-mail he had received that outlined the program.

"It really helped me find what I want to do as a career," Casteel said. "I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do before this program and now I have a direction of where I want to go and what I want to do.

"The program really helped me to find out what the real world is like because we had to operate on a budget and work with other teams to complete the tasks," Casteel said.

While at the Academy, the students' main task was designing a human mission to Mars.

In addition, students were kept busy with tours of NASA Langley facilities; participation in hands-on scientific and engineering activities; briefings and seminars by astronauts, engineers, scientists and other NASA experts; and mentoring by NASA engineers, scientists, and technologists.

For Casteel, the highlight of her week was presenting her mission to a panel of seven experts from NASA and Lockheed Martin, followed by a question-and-answer session.

"We presented everything we had and then they questioned us about our project," Casteel said. "That was kind of hard, but it was amazing being able to answer all of their questions and being able to respond."

Her experience taught Casteel a very valuable lesson about the real world.

"I always thought that success meant complete success and, when I went there, we had a lot of trouble with researching and we did really badly one night in our debriefing," Casteel said. "That night, we really stepped it up and everybody researched really hard and we did very well and ended up doing an amazing job, I think.

"I learned that success is marked by failure and, once you fail, keep pushing on because you can still succeed," Casteel said.