Space Invaders

An invaluable learning opportunity presented itself to the Clark Aerospace team last spring in the form of the University Student Launch Initiative (USLI). Through willpower, hard work and imagination, it is now making its own journey to the stars.

Clark's team is one of three community colleges being accepted into the nationwide program. According to the USLI website, the team will be competing alongside schools such as Vanderbilt University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 2011-12 program host University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Perhaps even more unbelievable than the team getting accepted into the program is the story of how the team came to be.

Professor Keith Stansbury, serving as team facilitator for the Clark team, said that it was by sheer coincidence that during an Introduction to Aerospace Engineering class last spring a student presented him with the competition information.

"We were going, ‘Wow! Check that out!'" recalled Stansbury. "‘Wouldn't it be cool if they did that next year?'"

The would-be rocketeers didn't waste any time learning all they could about the competition. They soon deduced that if they were to have any shot of meeting the Sep. 26 application deadline, they were going to have to do all of the work prior to the first day of school.

According to Stansbury, one of the most exciting aspects of this competition is that it involves real-world skills. "It's not your typical homework assignment," he said.

Stansbury professed that students are typically told, "‘Do this by yourself. Don't work with your friends - that's cheating.' When we work with others, we call it collaboration."

Either way, Stansbury is impressed with the hard work the team has shown thus far and said he encourages interested students to talk with him about joining.

Team Leader Keane Diffenbaugh is in his first year of Clark's engineering program and is working around-the-clock to get the preliminary design ready for the competition's first checkpoint: a face-to-face video teleconference with a NASA review team.

"It'll be a suit-and-tie event in front of these NASA engineers who work on these huge, monstrosities of rockets," said Diffenbaugh. "It'll be pretty spectacular."

As the team leader, Diffenbaugh oversees all the various aspects of the process. Systems Integration, Launch Vehicle, Press Release and Web Design are a few of the categories of work that are leading up to the final countdown.

Diffenbaugh offered reassuring advice to students who may feel intimidated by joining an engineering club.

"It's not hard. It takes time, it takes mentorship, but it's not rocket science."

Interested clubs or students should contact Keith Stansbury at kstansbury@clark.edu or visit www.clarkaerospace.com for more information.