Courtesy photo | The Challenger Learning Center is located on the campus of HCTC in Hazard.

HAZARD The Challenger Learning Center is a busy place this year. As the center works to organize an aerospace industry exhibit in Hazard, it also continues to engage students, both in the facility and at their schools, through STEM and robotics education. In the past week alone, the Challenger Center helped welcome the Executive Director of the Kentucky Aerospace Industry Consortium to town, while also treating students to a new, state of the art, virtual reality program that is almost as intriguing as space travel itself.

With the exhibit, the Challenger Center hopes to draw Southeastern Kentucky students attention to the increasing career possibilities that exist within the aerospace industry.

A lot of people dont realize that Kentucky is one of the top aerospace product producers in the country, said Tom Cravens, Director of the Challenger Learning Center. We want to organize an exhibit of products the companies in Kentucky produce, along with information about the jobs available there, and display it here at the Challenger Center.

One person, who can help rally the necessary forces together for this exhibit, is the representative of Kentuckys aerospace industry through Gov. Bevins office, D. Stewart Ditto II, who is Executive Director of the Kentucky Aerospace Industry Consortium. Ditto visited Hazard last Tuesday for a full day that began with Tom Cravens of the Challenger Center introducing him at the Chamber of Commerce meeting.

When people think of aerospace, perhaps states like Florida, Ohio or North Carolina come to mind. Yet Kentucky sits at number two, behind only Washington, in states leading the countrys aerospace product manufacturing. Executive Director Ditto gave an excellent presentation about Kentuckys aerospace industry and potential ways the financial gains generated by this industry can encompass all communities in the state.

When all was said and done at the Chamber meeting, Director Ditto was on his way to tour the Wendell Ford Airport in Perry County; an airport with plenty of room for growth, according to experts in attendance during Dittos presentation.

The aerospace exhibit, however, is something the Challenger Center hopes to host later down the road. For the time being, there is plenty more at the center for students and local citizens to experience.

Three East Kentucky schools will be working with the Challenger Center, Morehead State University and a company from South Africa, on a legitimate satellite launch into outer space. Willard Elementary from Perry County is one of those three schools.

Students will use a high altitude balloon to gather information the satellite will need to do analysis while it is in orbit. The program begins this month at the Challenger Center. The satellite launch is expected to take place in Oct. or Nov. at an out of state launch facility.

The entire program will consist of three phases, with phase one starting soon. The Challenger Center scheduled a teacher workshop for March 6, with Bob Twiggs from Morehead State University and Twiggs Space Lab on site in addition to the group from South Africa, who is supplying some of the classroom pieces for the program. Teachers from Perry County, Breathitt County and Pike County will take part.

However, visitors do not have to be part of the satellite launch project to receive an out of this world experience at the Challenger Center. Currently, a virtual reality program is available that provides several interactive learning modules, which include games, trips to settings in lands as far-away as the surface of Mars and even a view of the Earth and the Moon from outer space. The Mars simulation was compiled with help from images sent from the Curosity Rover.

This is one of many new technologies the Challenger Center would like to bring to students in East Kentucky, Tom Cravens said.

As always, the Challenger Center offers these programs as learning tools for students and inquiring minds throughout the mountains. For more information on the new virtual reality simulation and other learning opportunities at the Challenger Center, contact them through Facebook or on their website clcky.com.

Sam Neace can be reached at 606-629-3243 or on Twitter @HazardHerald.

Courtesy photo | The Challenger Learning Center is located on the campus of HCTC in Hazard.

http://hazard-herald.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/web1_Challenger_Center_cmyk-1.jpgCourtesy photo | The Challenger Learning Center is located on the campus of HCTC in Hazard.

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