Students studying about the next mission to the moon, history of flight

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — All eyes are on the upcoming Artemis II mission to the moon because America hasn’t been to the moon in more than 50 years, and some Brevard County students are following along and learning about the history of flight.

The students learned Friday that NASA delayed a key test, the wet dress rehearsal, because of expected cold temperatures. The wet dress rehearsal, a simulated launch day for the team and the fueling of the rocket to check for issues before the real liftoff, is now scheduled for Monday, Feb. 2, with a potential launch on Sunday, Feb. 8.

In one classroom at Viera Middle School, students are studying the dawn of aviation.

It all began when the Wright brothers took flight in Kitty Hawk, N.C. in December 1903. Their Wright Flyer was the first to achieve sustained, powered and controlled flight.

Those students are building their own model planes.

Seventh-grader Olivia Toler and her peers are cutting, sticking and gluing their models as part of the We Build it Better program, which was created through a partnership involving Airbus U.S. Space and Defense.

It has reached 600,000 students in classrooms across the United States, United Kingdom and France and was created to help students like Toler understand the importance of developing a talent pipeline for future engineers and aviators.

“Something like in the field of aerospace and launching rockets,” Toler said about a potential career.

Down the hall in Lynn Dotson’s class, her students are focused on the future of flight.

Every Friday in her classroom, it’s Artemis “Fri-yay,” where students learn something new about the moon mission.

This time, it’s all about the Orion capsule, which will take the four-person crew to the moon.

Liam Stevens and his friends built their own capsules out of plastic and Styrofoam cups.

They put chocolate on the inside and are applying gradual heat to test the strength of the mock heat shield.

“Testing it, seeing what’s wrong and trying to fix it,” Stevens explained.

Dotson took time away from teaching in schools to be an educator at NASA. Now she’s back in the classroom mentoring future engineers — maybe even preparing them for spaceflight.

“What if they become astronauts?” Dotson said, smiling.

She said she is excited her students are immersing themselves in studying Artemis.

“How cool would that be? I could be the one that inspired them — and the other teachers here. That’s our job,” Dotson said. “We are inspiring the next generation.”