Orissa's awesome four to visit NASA

Rourkela (Orissa): A design project of a self-reliant space station to sustain 10,000 people on board won four school students from Rourkela in Orissa an invitation to visit National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the United States.

The initial euphoria had gone, when they were faced with the problem of finances for the trip.

But the students found all the help from the Chief Minister of Orissa, Naveen Patnaik.

"Initially, the problem was sponsorship. We would have to arrange about five to six lakh to travel to NASA," says one of the award-wining students Amitav Mohanty.

"But that problem has been solved as the Chief Minister of Orissa, Naveen Patnaik, has sanctioned the entire amount and he will give the full amount required to travel to NASA."

"Then, the passports were a problem but the passports too have been arranged in two days. We went to Bhubaneshwar and collected the passports and now we have them."

Bijay Bahadur Mathur, the teacher to the awesome four, Ullas Mishra, Amitav Mohanty, Ashima Kar and Soumya Ranjan Pati is a proud mentor to many other students at the Ispat English Medium School in Orissa's Rourkela district.

These four young scientists-in-the making are all children of Rourkela Steel Plant employees and share their success with two other teams from India, though for different projects submitted for the same contest.

The project that Mathur's students sent was a 131-page thesis that suggested an orbiting independent space colony with artificial gravity generating its own water and oxygen resources, which could be taken from the earth and easily recycled to sustain life.

The energy, proposed the students, could be taken care by tapping solar power and Helium-3 available on the moon.

Ashima, the only girl in the all-boys team, is looking forward to the trip that will enrich their learning experience and says she is very excited to use it to better the society's condition.

The students were all inspired to take up the project by Indian-born Kalpana Chawla, who went to space first in 1997 but was killed with the crew members of Space Shuttle Columbia on February 1, 2003.