Wsu And Microgravity Combustion Research At Nasa Lewis Research Center

The words of Vannevar Bush, father of the hypertext system, have an ominous ring in these days of uncertain funding for the sciences, d iminishing financial-aid for students, waxing interest in science and even anti-science sentiment (Lederman, 1995). In an effort to promote interest in sp acecience among the potential scientists and engineers of the future, a multimedia presentation has been prepared as part of a NASA Educational Grant with Wichita State University (WSU). The presentation features video footage of a WSU engineering student floating weightlessly on a reduced gravity experimental flight as shown in Figure 1. The presentation uses col orful and attractive overheads describing an u dergraduate research experience at NASA Lewis Research Center in the Space Experiments Division (this group develops experiments for the sp ace shuttle and trains astronauts in their use). The presen tatio is supplemented with slide photographs and video tape of the work which was performed at NASA.