American rocket expert Tom Savage has discussed the future of the US space program and what its like to launch real rockets from Cape Canaveral with local school students.
The school visits were organised by local space expert, astronomer Dave Reneke, as part of his school education program called ‘Astronomy Outreach’ which is now enjoying its seventh year travelling to schools throughout NSW.
Dave stayed with Tom and his wife Trish last year on his last trip to the United States and arranged the visit while touring the US space complex.
Tom Savage lives and works in Florida, not far from Kennedy Space Centre, and has many years experience in the space industry working from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. He was the lead electrical engineer for Titan Launch Operations for many years and has personally pressed the launch button on some of the biggest rockets ever built there.
In his present job capacity Tom regularly commutes across the United States to his office in California.
He’s looking at working on future deep space and planetary projects for the agency in coming years. Tom personally witnessed the explosion of the Columbia Space Shuttle in 1986 and has watched the launch of almost every Shuttle since then.
In the Hastings, Dave and Tom talked to students at Wauchope High School on Wednesday morning, then visiting the kids at Port Macquarie Public School.
Tom brought with him a specially prepared memento which was presented to each school containing parts of the STS-109 Space Shuttle Columbia taken off it before it crashed on re-entry in 2003, killing all seven astronauts on board.
He also brought real shuttle tile the children could examine, similar to ones that have actually flown in space on the Space Shuttle. Dave also supplied each school with a science package of astronomy and space material.
