New Haven Independent

Whoever said working with “media” included launching rockets?

The remarkable librarian in question is Jean Lowery, who has been at Bishop Woods (K-5) for ten years. The astronaut-to-be is fourth grader Christopher Walker, pictured above here with his mom, Fair Haven community activist Paula Walker. Christopher is pointing to New Mexico, where the three will be flying tomorrow to watch the Walker “payload,” an assembly of small batteries of the kind that power flashing lapel pins or hearing aids, be launched into space.

The rocket — don’t think of the huge shuttle-launcher variety, but a space vehicle far smaller yet still with the capacity to carry, as they advertise, payloads of up to 110 pounds — will travel in a parabola reaching approximately 70 miles into space. After 62 miles, which is the “official” definition of space, micro-gravity begins to set in and lasts for approximately five minutes. Christopher wants to see how exposure to the gravity-less condition of space will affect the performance and longevity of the batteries.

“There are implications,” said Lowery, for the manufacture of some of the hearing aids the kids’ grandparents wear. “So this is a lot more than child’s play.”

The Walker payload won the right to be on the rocket through winning a contest called LaunchQuest, “for experimental design in the elementary division.” So it says on the trophy Christopher is proudly displaying. The payload will be on a private rocket operated by UP Aerospace Company, the world’s only private company with a fleet of such vehicles. The experiment is one of many aboard, coordinated with schools and commercial enterprises through the state through the East-Hartford-based Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology and, funded in part by the National Aerospace Leadership Initiative.

This is the second time a near-identical Christopher Walker-designed payload has gone up. The first time it crashed. No kidding. And by that hangs a tale, for that occurred in 2005, shortly after the peripatetic Lowery got back from a conference in Saudi Arabia. Her recent trip to South Africa, along with several New Haven Public Schools colleagues, was to organize a library of 35,000 books assembled by NHPS staff, New Haven Reads, and the families at Bishop Woods, for an impoverished community, Kanana, about an hour and half outside of Johannesburg. (They’ll be going back, Lowery said, in the near future to organize the elementary school library. That is going to be named in honor of Regina Lilly Warner, NHPS’s supervisor for media, music, A.P. and more, who is the coordinator.)

A self-described “Navy wife” for 18 years, Lowery is clearly used to lots of travel. But space?”

“What happened in 2005, when Christopher was a third-grader,” she explained, “was that a number of us who were coordinators for the science fair for NHPS were invited to participate in a kind of pre-fair event sponsored by Bayer Labs. Part of that was a competition organized by LaunchQuest to do an experiment with our kids involving space flight. I immediately came back to school and talked to Christopher, who I knew wanted to be an astronaut even back then!

“‘What should we send into space?’ I asked. At first, the kids came up with the idea of seeds, to see how the absence of gravity would affect growth. But I knew this had been done. Then Christopher suggested batteries that they were curious about in the hearing aids of some of their grandparents. The batteries had the virtue too of being small, since there is not a lot of room in the rocket’s cargo area. Anyway, we won. The batteries, which were to be our science fair entry, went up, but the rocket crashed before it reached space.

“So now we are able to do it again, and this time, when I was at a Google-sponsored library event, I noticed some battery-powered flashing pins, which use the same technology as the hearing aids. Christopher agreed, so this time the payload is these pins, actually 27 of them, one for each kid in Christopher’s class.”

There are also flashing pins from Ingram, a book publishing and distribution company, in the payload. In this photo Christopher is pointing, on his left, to the crushed plastic containers that were sent back from the crash site last year. On the right he indicates samples of the payload going up on Saturday.

If everything goes according to schedule, the payload will be sent back for analysis to the experimenters from Bishop Woods in about a month. At that point Christopher and his advisor will turn on the pins that have been earthbound, time them exactly, and compare how long they last to those that have been in a space environment to determine if there is any difference in durability.

What’s also interesting, if not a little weird, is that the rocket, very much of a commercial enterprise, will also be carrying the remains of some 200 people who had requested that their ashes be scattered in space. The outfit doing what they describe as space funeral services, which also has cargo on Christopher’s rocket, is called the Celestis Legacy Memorial Spaceflight Mission. Among these “passengers” for what the press releases call the “final frontier” are the remains of NASA astronaut and pioneer Gordon Cooper and “Scotty” James Doohan, of Star Trek fame. So Christopher Walker is likely to see quite a show, both in the air and on the ground, if those Trekkies show up, as they usually do.

However, that appears not to be the most exciting aspect Christopher is looking forward to. “I’ve seen lots of launches on TV and in videos, but we’re going to be really close to this one. Maybe a half a football field away.”

What has the experience done for Christopher? “Well,” he said, “I want to be an astronaut more than ever, and I’ve been reading every book about it as well as the Time magazine for kids’ science section. Do you know that Mars has evidence that water was there a long time ago. I’d like to go to Mars.”

He well might, but his first step is going to be to go next year, for fifth grade, to Elm City Academy, the Amistad Academy-model middle school on lower Church Street. Let’s hope they have a rocketry program in place.

And what’s next on tap for the world-spanning Lowery?

“Well, I met a wonderful boy in South Africa, who also wants to be an astronaut, but obviously has many fewer advantages over there.

“I’m going to see if he and Christopher can’t begin to email. But first I’ve got to go back and help set up the elementary school library. When I’m there, we’ll find a way to get a computer and email capacity in there as well, so the boys can begin to communicate. Oh, and yes, I hope this summer to go to Japan and see how they organize their media collections in their public schools.”

Whew! Christopher Walker and his mom have said that any kids who would like to communicate with him about his experience, or talk about space and rocketry, can email him here.

Christopher Walker is also going to be keeping a log of his trip, and of the progress of the experiment and follow-up. What will be the title of this ongoing story? “Rocket Man: The Adventures of Christopher Walker,” he said.