PAGE A4, KEIZERTIMES, AUGUST 11, 2017
KeizerCommunity
Scholars simulate Mars mission
KEIZERTIMES.COM
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By DEREK WILEY
Of the Keizertimes
SALEM—Brent Preston, of
Keizer, was just one of 12 local
students to participate in the
inaugural Oregon Washington
Aerospace Scholars Sopho-
more Experience.
The three-day camp, which
took place July 30-Aug. 1 at
Garmin Industries in Salem,
gave scholars the opportunity
to design a plan for a future ro-
botic mission to Mars.
The students were split into
four groups—engineers, sci-
ence, fi nance and public rela-
tions.
Preston was placed on the
fi nance team, which had to
determine why the mission
should be funded, who is pay-
ing for it and what the money
would be spent on.
The group determined
most of the mission would be
paid for by the U.S. govern-
ment in conjunction with oth-
er countries as well as private
industry. The cost was $2.5 bil-
lion to be split up between the
launch, science, power, com-
puter, communications and the
landing.
While Preston didn’t choose
to be on the fi nance team, he
was glad it was assigned to him.
“I like thinking about that,”
he said. “It wouldn’t be very
challenging if you had all the
money to do whatever you
want. It’s more realistic and
more fun to see how you can
squeeze everything perfectly
into that budget.”
Submitted
ABOVE: Brent Preston, of Keizer, gives the submarine at OMSI two thumbs up. BELOW: Scholars received a certifi cate after com-
pleting the Oregon Washington Aerospace Scholars Sophomore Experience on July 30-Aug. 1.
sion show Shark Tank. Preston’s
group, which won the people’s
choice award, was assigned An-
thrax smoke detector.
The entire Summer Expe-
rience, which included stay-
ing overnight and meals, was
provided at no cost thanks to a
grant from NASA.
Preston plans to attend the
WAS junior camp next sum-
mer, where students from all
over Oregon will spend a week
at the Evergreen Aviation and
Space Museum in McMin-
nville. The students who com-
plete the program will be re-
ward fi ve credit hours from the
University of Washington.
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STORY
Preston said his love of sci-
ence began with playing with
Legos and then expanded with
Kara McGuirk’s class at Early
College High School, where
he’ll be a junior.
To get into the camp, Pres-
ton had to complete two
college-level lessons using
University of Washington cur-
riculum. Of the 28 students
that applied, only 12 were ac-
cepted.
“It was pretty challeng-
ing,” Preston said. “It was really
technical and it took a long
time. Read articles about the
history of NASA and aero-
space, the planets, how things
move in space. It covered a lot.”
Along with the mission
to Mars, the scholars toured
the Garmin Factory and met
STEM professionals in career
pathways they might wish to
follow.
Preston wants to be an en-
gineer, which he learned isn’t
exactly what he thought it was.
“There was a lot more
speaking than I thought there’d
be in engineering,” Preston
said. “We talked to the people
at Garmin and they said they
have to coordinate with other
teams that do different things,
all these different levels of
making one product. They said
they do more talking than they
do programming, which now
that I think about it makes
sense, but I didn’t know.”
Preston’s favorite part of the
camp was experiencing the
Martian Mission Simulations
aboard the Oregon Museum
of Science and Industry’s sub-
marine.
“It was really cramped and it
just made you appreciate how
diffi cult it would be,” Preston
said. “It’s not only the fact that
it was cramped, there was so
much to look at, all those wires
and buttons. It made your eyes
go crazy so it made me appre-
ciate how much those astro-
nauts have to go through.”
Campers, using NASA’s spi-
noff technology, also had to sell
a product like on the televi-
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