By Diane Gasper-O\u2019Brien and Randy Gonzales<\/p>\n
HAYS, Kan. — Joe Erdman looked at the group of teenagers in the audience and smiled. Then he proceeded to tell them they could be the next Joe Erdman.<\/p>\n
Erdman, a 1985 graduate of Fort Hays State University, was the featured speaker at Friday\u2019s Hispanic College Institute at his alma mater.<\/p>\n
From a small high school in western Kansas — Thomas More Prep-Marian High School in Hays — and down the street to FHSU, Erdman now is working on the Orion project. Orion is America’s next generation spacecraft for NASA’s mission to Mars.<\/p>\n
Erdman told the nearly 90 students from across Kansas, Colorado and Missouri how \u201cyou don\u2019t have to be the smartest student in your class to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n
But you do have to work hard and take advantage of opportunities that come your way. Erdman, whose bachelor\u2019s degree is in industrial education, did just that.<\/p>\n
After starting work as a draftsman at Martin Marietta Corp. in Littleton, Colo., he has worked his way up to a systems engineer for NASA\u2019s Orion spacecraft. After Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. in Littleton won the bid as prime contractor for the program, Erdman was put in charge of harnessing integration for the service module of the capsule.<\/p>\n
Orion, set to launch in 2018, will take astronauts to exciting destinations never explored by humans. It will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry the crew to distant planetary bodies, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe reentry from deep space.<\/p>\n
There are 40 miles of harnessing in the service module alone, Erdman explained.<\/p>\n
Currently under development by NASA for launch on the Space Launch System, Orion is intended to facilitate human exploration of asteroids and Mars.<\/p>\n
Erdman didn\u2019t have a degree in engineering because \u201cI didn\u2019t have the confidence in myself academically to go into engineering.” However, he worked on his Master\u2019s of Telecommunication degree at the University of Denver, completing it in 1992.<\/p>\n
The HCI, in its first year at Fort Hays State, is a four-day residential program for Hispanic and Latino high school students to learn about the college admissions process. Several speakers were brought in to talk with the students. During a question-and-answer session with the students, one girl asked Erdman what he liked least about his job.<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably the paperwork,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
His favorite part? \u201cThe integration,\u201d he said. \u201cI get to work with space launch systems, group support, the crew module.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Erdman\u2019s presentation, Steve Jacobs, chief scientist with Faraday Studios, led an interactive talk with the students from his studio in Wichita. Jacobs\u2019 presentation was about science communication.<\/p>\n
\u201cScientists have to explain in single language what\u2019s going on,\u201d Jacobs told the HCI students via a remote broadcast on a big screen in the Memorial Union’s Ballroom. \u201cA science communicator tries to get you to think like a scientist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacobs had the students conduct simple experiments using items such as golf balls, ping pong balls, and balloons.<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s activities for science, technology, and math started off early in the morning with a high-altitude balloon launch on campus near the Robbins Center. The students contributed personal items such as signed ping pong balls to the payload.<\/p>\n
The balloon set a new school record with the launch, reaching a height of 100,200 feet — almost 20 miles. Dr. Jack Maseberg, associate professor of physics at FHSU, led the recovery effort of the balloon. The ping pong balls which were on board were returned to the students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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