Audio St. Paul elementary school mourns shuttle loss (story audio) Photos Students at Farnsworth Aeropsace Magnet School in St. Paul Farnsworth teacher Cecilia Rankin Your Voice Join the conversation with other MPR listeners in the News Forum.

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St. Paul elementary school mourns shuttle loss
by Tim Pugmire, Minnesota Public Radio
February 3, 2003

Students at Farnsworth Aeropsace Magnet School in St. Paul, Ahn Le (left), Dylan Feske (middle) and Kaitlyn Olson (right), say they still want to be astronauts. (MPR Photo by Tim Pugmire)

Teachers throughout Minnesota faced a similar challenge Monday as they helped their students deal with the tragic loss of the space shuttle Columbia and its seven astronauts. The Columbia disaster hit particularly hard at Farnsworth Elementary School in St. Paul, where students routinely follow shuttle missions as part of their new aerospace magnet program.

St. Paul, Minn. — Nineteen Farnsworth students traveled to Huntsville, Alabama, last spring for an astronaut training program for kids, called U.S. Space Camp. Four of those students are preparing a slide show about the camp that they'll present this week to a local community organization. Jill Wall, the school's aerospace coordinator, says Saturday's disaster came up often during the discussion.

"As we've been going through here, through the slides, we've been talking about different things," Wall said. "About how we taught and how we found out, and a little bit about Challenger."

	Farnsworth teacher Cecilia Rankin

The aerospace educational theme is reflected throughout Farnsworth. Pictures of astronauts and spacecraft decorate many rooms. Astronaut and St. Paul native Duane Carey has visited the school. Students have watched shuttle launches and talked via satellite last year with an orbiting shuttle crew. Sixth grader and space camp participant Dylan Feske says he couldn't believe the news about the Columbia.

"I was shocked that that happened," Feske said. "Because that shuttle has gone up 113 times, and it just blew up, and it was 16 minutes from landing."

Anh Le, another sixth-grade student and space camp veteran, says she was stunned when the television news bulletin interrupted her Saturday morning cartoons.

"I was just amazed that something like that could happen because the chances are very slim," Le said. "Astronauts have gone up in space like hundreds of times and there's only been like two unsafe trips. So, I was just amazed and kind of scared that this happened."

Teachers at the school were also amazed. Farnsworth third-grade teacher Cecilia Rankin recently applied for a spot in the educator-astronaut program, which NASA had planned to revive this fall. The first teacher selected for space flight, Christa McAuliffe, was killed in the 1986 explosion of the shuttle Challenger. Rankin says despite the loss of Columbia, she won't give up her attempt to become an educator-astronaut.

From this accident NASA will probably learn about the mistakes that they've made or whatever the problems were on the shuttle and improve that. - Cecilia Rankin, teacher

"Whatever we do in life, accidents are going to happen," Rankin said. "And also we learn from our accidents. From this accident NASA will probably learn about the mistakes that they've made or whatever the problems were on the shuttle and improve that."

Students at Farnsworth are similarly undeterred in pursuing their dreams of space flight. Fifth grader Kaitlyn Olson says she's sad for the families of the seven astronauts who were killed. She's disappointed that the results from many of the experiments conducted on Columbia were lost. But Olson says the disaster has not made her change her mind about wanting to be an astronaut one day.

"It just happens like once out of a million chances, that it could happen," Olson said. "So, I didn't think it would really truly happen if I were to do it."

Anh Le has also calculated the odds of another disaster. She too is sticking to her goal of one day traveling to the International Space Station.

"It's pretty cool there's no gravity in there," Le said "So, you're flying all around in there. So, that's why I want to go to space. I still do. Because I just like to be able to have that feeling to be able to float in the International Space Station. So, that's why I still kept that dream."

Farnsworth Elementary is planning a special school assembly Tuesday to talk about the history of the space shuttle program and to remember the seven astronauts killed aboard the Columbia.

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