How many things have you sent into space this week, dude?
Zero? That’s what I thought. But fine, fuck it, I’ll broaden that admittedly narrow inquiry. How many things have you sent into space in your life?
Still zero? God, your life is sad. You just got whupped by a bunch of grade schoolers in the sending shit into space competition.
Grade schoolers.
Students at St. Thomas More Cathedral School in Arlington, Virginia are about to become the first ever little kids to send something into orbit, as a satellite they built just was launched into space.
The satellite is about the size of a shoebox, and was built with the by students at the school, who ranged from eighth grade down to kindergarten. It is currently aboard the ISS, sent up there in December. If all goes well, it will be set into orbit on February 15th and beam images back to the school.
An 11-year-old who doesn’t understand space had this to say.
“If something does go wrong and the satellite drifts out of low Earth orbit, maybe alien life will pick it up. I’m just saying, anything is possible in space exploration.”
No. It couldn’t. There’s no fucking chance that thing without an engine could drift OUT of low-Earth orbit. That’s not how gravity works.
At least I can take solace in being smarter than these kids.
[Via The Washington Post]