From Stamford, to the space station
Experiment created by students heading to International Space Station
STAMFORD — Former Stamford High School students Lizet Garcia and Rithin Armstrong sure know how to get an idea off the ground.
The two recent graduates created an experiment in 2019 through a NASAsponsored program that was chosen to be flown to the International Space Station in 2020. That flight didn’t happen due to COVID-19, but the experiment is now set to launch on Thursday.
If that sounds like an amazing accomplishment for a pair of high school students, that’s because it
is.
“This is definitely not something everybody gets to say they did,” Garcia said.
Armstrong and Garcia were in a pool of roughly 16,000 students who submitted just over 3,000 proposals to the Student Spaceflight Experiment Program, which Stamford has participated in in recent years thanks to the work of Stamford High science teacher Sue Dougherty.
Ultimately, the proposal from the pair of Stamford seniors was one of just 33 experiments to be selected.
So what is the experiment exactly? The title probably doesn’t clarify things for most people.
“The Effect of Microgravity on the Ability of Galloflavin, in the Absence of Membrane Based Cellular Signaling Pathways, to Inhibit the Enzymatic Activity of Lactate Dehydrogenase A” is a mouthful, but in essence, it’s a test to see if a cancer-friendly enzyme is affected by the trip to space.
“It could be data that scientists use for either a cancer vaccine or a cure for cancer,” said Dougherty, the Stamford High School teacher facilitator for the experiment program.
Dougherty said two review boards judged the experiment, including one scientist doing research on cancer who was impressed with the idea.
“You never get feedback above the scoring sheet and the feedback from that scientist to the Student Spaceflight Experiments people was just amazing,” Dougherty said.
She said a little over 600 students at Stamford High signed up for the experiments program. Those students generally split into teams of two-to-five students. Garcia and Armstrong decided to work together since they were in the same biology class.
“There are a lot of programs like this out there and competitions for students, but what I find about this one is that it definitely impacted student achievement and excitement about STEM,” Dougherty said.
The program is a national science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) initiative of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education and Dougherty is the community program director for Stamford.
In addition to Armstrong and Garcia, two additional SHS student teams’ submissions were among the small number of proposals considered and recognized.
The science teacher said students who participated also found themselves better positioned to be accepted into prestigious universities. Two students got into Columbia University, she said, and one was accepted to Johns Hopkins University, among other top educational institutions.
Armstrong is currently attending college at the University of Connecticut at Storrs, where he is studying to be a chemical engineer. Garcia is at the University of Richmond, pursuing a double major chemistry and health care studies and a minor in business administration.
Stamford High took part in the spaceflight program for the first time in 2018, and an experiment from the school was chosen for a trip to space that year as well.
The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program was launched in June 2010 with the intention of giving students from grades 5 to 12, and undergraduates at college, a chance to design and propose microgravity experiments to fly in low Earth orbit.
Back in January of 2020, NCESSE selected the experiment proposal developed by Armstrong and
Garcia, seniors at the high school at the time, as one of the very few to travel to the International Space Station.
Their experiment was set to fly to space on Mission 14 in June of last year. But due to COVID-19, that mission never left the ground.
Armstrong thought that was the end of the road for the experiment, but was thrilled to find out it would happen this year, aboard Mission 15.
Once the experiment is back on Earth, Garcia said she and Armstrong hope to do something with it, perhaps publish a report of the findings.
“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Armstrong said.