ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – It’s an out-of-this-world experiment for a group of Albuquerque middle schoolers working with NASA to send ingredients up to space to make pizza. “I feel like all kids like pizza,” said Autumn Nguyen, an Eisenhower Middle School student.
This group agrees pepperoni and cheese pizza is a great dish but unlike most pizza-loving kids their mutual love for science has sparked an idea that’s even got NASA on board – making a space pizza.
“On the top of that, we are going to have one packet of yeast, maybe four or five basil seeds four or five tomato seeds, and then some radiation measuring microchips,” said Thomas Quirk, Eisenhower Middle School student.
The four middle schoolers will be sending those ingredients up 70,00 feet above Earth to space and back this summer. They came up with the idea in their free time last fall, hearing about the NASA tech-rise student challenge. Their science teacher James Goodman is helping them participate.
“Really proud of them too for being willing to take the outside work outside of school. I’ve been so impressed with their imitative so far,” said James Goodman, Eisenhower Middle School science teacher.
Now the space pizza experiment is going to be one of 60 that are going to get sent up to the atmosphere for this NASA project. They were chosen out of roughly 700 experimental ideas across the country now the group of four is excited to see their experiment go up.
“I think it will help improve our general understanding of technology and biology because we are sending up plant life and seeing how it’s affected by radiation,” said Steiner Kelly, Eisenhower Middle School student.
They’re the only New Mexico group working on the project which aims to see if space radiation will affect the ingredients and their taste. “I feel like the possibilities after this are endless,” said Nguyen.
The group is preparing for a May launch in Arizona. If everything comes back in one piece, they’ll plant the seeds for the summer.