The Washington Aerospace Scholars program announces that Isaac Hall from South Whidbey High School will be participating in one of the four WAS Summer Residency sessions held in June and July at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.  Washington Aerospace Scholars (WAS) is a competitive educational program for high school juniors from across Washington State.

Hall is among the 160 students who qualified for the program from 297 students who applied in November. To qualify for the residency program, they spent five months studying a NASA-designed, distance-learning curriculum via the Internet and have been selected to attend one of the four residencies hosted at The Museum of Flight in Seattle this summer based on their academic performance on the distance-learning lessons.

During the residency experience, they will collaborate with the other students on the design of a human mission to Mars. WAS scholars are guided by professional engineers, scientists, university students and certified educators as they plan these missions. The program is designed to inspire students to pursue degrees and careers in science, technology, engineering and math but the students are divided into teams which also require them to learn about mission management, budgets, the legal aspects of space exploration and medicine.

In addition to the design of the human mission to Mars, they and the other WAS scholars will also participate in a number of hands-on engineering challenges. These challenges include design, construction and deployment of robotic rovers, model rockets, lander devices and payload lofting systems. Summer residency participants will also receive briefings from experts in the fields of engineering, science, physics, medicine, project management, risk management and space exploration, such as Dr. Bonnie J. Dunbar, NAE, retired NASA astronaut. They will also visit Everett for a behind-the-scenes tour of the Boeing Commercial Airplane assembly plant, (including the new 787), tour Aerojet’s Redmond facilities, and the engineering laboratories at the University of Washington.

All room and board are provided to students free of charge by the Washington Aerospace Scholars Foundation. Washington Aerospace Scholars will accept applications in early September for the 2012-2013 program; visit www.museumofflight.org/was for an application.

For details, contact 206-764-5866 or waaerospacescholars@museumofflight.org or follow the program on Twitter: @WASMission2Mars.