Youth at aerospace camp on Texada talk to space flight engineers

Youth at the annual Texada AeroSpace Camp earlier this summer attended two presentations by Andrzej Stewart, an engineering staff member of NASA Mission Control in Houston, and Dan Abramov, a space flight systems control engineer with NASA subcontractor Blue Origin.

These interactive sessions took place by Zoom and brought the students deep into mission control for a variety of space journeys, into key features of our Milky Way galaxy, and into research in the development of systems for living on Mars.

Generations remember historic space events, from grainy pictures of moon landings to video of space shuttle launches, with the iconic stepped desks of Houston Mission Control. Today there is a huge array of social media content highlighting developments in space flight, so it was with great excitement that students and instructors had this opportunity.

The presentations were only two of the many highlights of the four-day camp, which also included learning how to work aluminum into items such as model planes and phone holders, taking to the sky in a small squadron of planes, and learning about the many aspects of flight, aviation mechanics, parachuting, aviation careers and more from local and visiting experts.

This summer camp offered on Texada Island is run by volunteers, many of whom have careers in the aviation industry and/or are pilots. It is unique in that it is the only aerospace camp in North America for youth ages 10 to 15 that is entirely founded, developed and run by a group of volunteers. The camp attracts youth from all over Canada, and there is a high demand to get into the short program each year.

For more information, go to texada.org/texada-aerospace-camp.

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