Aspiring astronaut helps kids send postcards into space

Space flight, microgravity and lunar geology were the topics for third and fourth graders last week at the Public Schools Summer

Program.

Fitchburg High graduate Tara Sweeney, the Public Schools’ STEM Ambassador, visited students to talk about her experiences working in space flight programs and to urge students to create a postcard that will go into space.

Sweeney is a supporter of Blue Origin’s Club for the Future, a foundation whose mission is to inspire future generations to pursue careers in STEM and to help invent the future of life in space. The

Club and its collaborators are doing this through Postcards to Space, space-focused curriculum, and access to space on Blue Origin’s rockets.

Sweeney spoke about attending Fitchburg Public

Schools and deciding at the age of 10 that she wanted to be an astronaut.

“I’m not an astronaut … yet,” she told the students. “But the ‘yet’ is the important word in that sentence.”

Sweeney was “the first girl from Fitchburg” to attend the Air Force Academy, and then served as an officer in the Air Force. Sweeney is currently working on a doctorate in geology, with an emphasis on the moon, at the University of Texas at El Paso.

During her presentation, she talked to students about the experience of microgravity.

“If you watch the NASA TV channel — which I love — notice how the astronauts on the International Space Station hold their hands together in front of them,” Sweeney said.

“That’s because in microgravity, our arms naturally attain a neutral body posture.”

More than 100 students decorated postcards, which will be flown into space.

“The capsule will separate and come back to earth with three parachutes,” Sweeney explained to the students. “Then, the postcard will be stamped, ‘Flown to space,’ and you’ll have bragging rights for the rest of your life that you have an object that has flown into space. And you can help other kids create a postcard that can also go to space. How cool is that?”

To learn more about Club For The Future and Blue Orbits visit: https:// clubforfuture.org/

Courtesy sally cragin tara sweeney, rear middle, is joined by fourth grade stem Junior ambassadors at the Fitchburg public schools summer program, including, front row from left: makenzie Witkowski, olivia reynolds, malaila Harrison. Back row from left: Bryce schumoker, yasir aljumali, Jacobe Kutler, osvaldo Quiles and Fabrizio davilla.

PHotos courtesy sally cragin ‘What is it like in space?’ is a postcard made by Jayden gonzalez.

Jonathan decoteau Jr.'s postcard was named ‘solar system.’