Popcorn sent to space by GAS team, elementary students
Sending popcorn into space is how the Get Away Special (GAS) team at Utah State University helps teach elementary school students about the scientific process.
Andrew Auman, a sophomore studying physics and mathematics, is the team coordinator for GAS. He and his team of undergraduate students are sponsored by the Rocky Mountain NASA Space Grant Consortium and the USU physics department to send payloads of experiments into space.
“USU has put more experiments into space than any other university in the world,” Auman said. “No other university has an undergraduate program like GAS.”
The team pays NASA, who attaches the experiments onto their space shuttles. These payloads must meet specific weight requirements to pass inspection, Auman said. That’s how the idea of experimenting with popcorn first started.
GAS attaches bags of microwave popcorn to the payloads until they reach the weight limits, Auman said. When the shuttle’s mission is complete, the popcorn becomes part of the Outreach program, which is a branch of the consortium, he said.
John Vanderford, director of Outreach, said the program is designed to “get young people more excited about science.”
Auman said the popcorn is given to elementary schools in Utah as well as states like Idaho, Pennsylvania and Washington, along with bags of popcorn that have stayed on Earth. The students use the scientific process to find out which bags went to space and which stayed, he said.
The students weigh and measure the bags, listen to the corn pop, then taste it, smell it and count the leftover kernels, Auman said. They find the space popcorn weighs less and has fewer leftover kernels.
GAS took the popcorn experiment to Nibley Elementary, where it was joined by Thiakol, the only company that makes side boosters for rockets, Auman said. It was rewarding for the youth to have support from such an influential company, he said. GAS hopes to take its experiment to Wilson Elementary sometime during the next few weeks.
Vanderford said the popcorn experiments “make science interesting, challenging, exciting and not intimidating, particularly to those people who are between fourth and eighth grade.”
He said the program might help keep the United States at an advantage in the world technological market.
“We need to keep developing and producing scientists in this country that will keep us on the cutting edge,” he said.
Auman said GAS has been sending popcorn into space since the early 1990s. Of the 12 payloads the team has sent, five have included popcorn. The last payload flew Dec. 5 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with almost a dozen bags of popcorn on board, he said.
GAS is considering sending other objects, such as flower seeds, into space for the youth to test, Auman said. They are starting a new payload right now, so USU students who want to put their own experiments into space are welcome to join GAS. The program is extracurricular and members are students from many different majors, he said.
“We learn as we go,” Auman said. “The students figure it out together.”
Students who want to know more can check out the GAS Web site at www.gas.physics.usu.edu or attend team meetings Tuesdays at 5 p.m. in the Science Engineering Research Building, Room 244.