The Washington Aerospace Scholars program has announced that John Corley from Enumclaw High School participated in one of the four WAS Summer Residency sessions at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. The WAS program is for high school juniors from across Washington state.

These scholars were among the 160 students who qualified for the summer residency program from 297 students who applied in November. To qualify, they spent five months studying a NASA-designed, distance-learning curriculum via the Internet. During the residency experience, they collaborated with the other student participants 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 WAS program is designed to inspire students to pursue degrees and careers in science, technology, engineering and math, but 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 participated in a number of hands-on engineering challenges. They also took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Boeing Commercial Airplane assembly plant in Everett, (including the new 787), toured Aerojet’s Redmond facilities, and the engineering laboratories at the University of Washington.

All room and board was provided to students free of charge by the Washington Aerospace Scholars Foundation.