NEW DELHI: They may still be in school. But this group of Delhi teenagers aims to beat international competition in designing a space settlement at a contest being organised by NASA in Houston next month.
Inspired by Indian-American astronaut Sunita Williams and Scientist-President A P J Abdul Kalam, the students from Amity School in Delhi are putting several hours of hard work to compete with seven other teams from world at the competition to be held at the Johnson Space Centre from July 21 to 23.
The 'Amity Space Set Team' comprising 12 students is honing its skills in technical, management, communication and presentation areas under the guidance of technical adviser Prof Pritish Kumar.
"Our team has a mixed technical background and we are working to hone the technical, management and presentation skills of the students," said Kumar, who will accompany the team in Houston.
The students are being trained to communicate effectively as they will be paired with two other teams from the US and Australia in the competition.
"We are in contact with the students from the US and also the Australian team as only proper work management and coordination among the 36 members of the group will help us win," said team leader Gaurav Mishra, a Class X student of Amity International School, Saket.
The objective and proposal about settlements in space will be given to the contestants in Houston.
"I am really excited about what can be done in space. I wish that these students bring laurels to the nation," said Prof Yash Pal, a well known scientist, as he blessed the SpaceSet Team.
"It is like a dream come true and we all are very excited. It has taken 23 years for an Indian team to reach the finals of the prestigious competition considered the world's toughest competition of its kind," said Ankur Bakshi, another team member.
To qualify for the finals, the team was asked to design a space settlement for asteroid mining which would orbit in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
"In the qualifying round, we created a 40-pageproposal that included precise details about various factors that need to be tackled for constructing a space settlement," Gaurav said.
