Blue Origin Sponsors Marfa ISD Rocket Class

The first-ever student rocket launch happened last Saturday.

By Bayla MetzgerJanuary 26, 2018 9:30 am, , ,

From Marfa Public Radio:

Blue Origin – the private space travel company owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos – hosted a rocket class at Marfa ISD. It’s the first time the class has been offered. Over the past several months, middle school and high school students in Marfa have been working with engineers to build their own rockets. Last Saturday, dozens of parents, teachers, and students gathered at a private ranch a few miles outside of Marfa to see the students’ first ever rocket launch.

The rocket class at Marfa ISD was the brainchild of engineers who work at Blue Origin’s Launch and Test Facility near Van Horn. Since September, a handful of engineers have been making the hour-plus trip to teach monthly Saturday classes. They broke the kids up into four teams. Each team built a 54-millimeter diameter fiberglass Wildman Junior rocket from a kit.

“We’re building actually quite powerful rockets,” said Blue Origin engineer, Brent Justice. “These are not just off-the-Walmart-shelf rockets.” According to Justice, the class is an experiment. “This is just something that we came up with down here in West Texas to try to be a part of the community,” he said.

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