[July 06, 2011] Make your own dream, astronaut tells students Tweet Jun 27, 2011 (The Olympian - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- He was a young child when Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin landed Apollo 11 on the moon. But Dr. Nicholas Patrick said that watching video footage of man's first walk on the moon shaped his life. "It's great to have a dream," the 47-year-old NASA astronaut told students at an assembly last week at Griffin School near Olympia. "Even if you don't reach that one, you may do something very interesting." Fifth-grader James Harvey, 11, of Olympia, won the astronaut's visit for the 670-student school in the National Geographic -- Wildest Weather in the Solar System Contest. He and his classmates entered original designs for space probes they would send to Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus or Neptune to study weather as part of a unit on astronomy, said Griffin teacher Johanna Dowler. Harvey's design, the "Henson Lander" (named for Arctic explorer Matthew Henson), is equipped with titanium pads on its all-terrain legs to combat the freezing conditions on Mars. It features a thermometer, a barometer, a camera eye, a satellite feed, solar panels for energy, and probes that can cut through rock and ice and scoop up samples. "It is unbelievably impressive," said Griffin principal-superintendent Greg Woods. "I think if they built it, it would work." The assembly opened with a sneak peak of National Geographic's upcoming planetarium film "Wildest Weather in the Solar System." The movie is "an imaginary journey based on current technology," said National Geographic writer Lawrence Gay. It portrays some of the extreme weather systems that take place in space, such as methane rain on Titan, a moon of Saturn, and 1,000 mph winds on Neptune. "On Venus, it's over 800 degrees," Gay said during the school's assembly. Patrick talked about his education, background and space career. He also shared short video clips and slides of training and traveling in space. Patrick logged 638 hours in space and traveled aboard space shuttles Discovery and Endeavor to missions at the International Space Station. To help prepare for the missions, the crew did quite a bit of underwater training in scuba gear. "The equipment is just like a space suit," he said. At the end of the assembly, Patrick led a question-answer session with students. One asked him to talk about his favorite planet. "My favorite planet is Earth because I was born here, all of my friends are here and I can breathe in the atmosphere," he said. Another asked what he likes most about space. His answer: "The view from space. It's one of the most amazing things to see." At the end of the program, Patrick presented the school with a commemorative collage made of a NASA photo and patch and small U.S. flag that flew during one of his missions. Harvey, who aspires to be an aeronautical engineer, quietly took in the day but described it as "really good." "I thought it was really interesting," added classmate Emily Ketter, 11. "I didn't know a lot of this stuff, and it was cool to see a real astronaut come to our school." Lisa Pemberton: 360-754-5433 [email protected] To see more of The Olympian, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.theolympian.com. Copyright (c) 2011, The Olympian, Olympia, Wash. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]