Challenger Center Student Art Contest

The Challenger Center is hosting a Student Art Contest in support of space tourist Richard Garriott's upcoming space flight. Richard is best known as the creator of the massive multi-player online game Ultima. I've never met Richard but I have met his father Owen Garriott who first flew in space on a Skylab mission. Owen's second and last trip into space was in 1983 on the Spacelab-1 mission.

We've come a long way since then because Richard Garriott will be going into space as a tourist. While Richard is not the first space tourist, he will be the first person to travel to space whose father also traveled to space. Set to depart October 12, 2008, Richard will have tourist class accommodations on the less than roomy Russian Soyuz. His final destination is the uxorious International Space Station Resort located in low Earth orbit. His one week vacation is said to cost around $30 million. It's grand to be witness to the birth of a new industry – space tourism. I only wish that it had happened sooner. For a lower cost alternative trip to space, I recommend one of the suborbital flights to be offered by Virgin Galactic. For more information about the space flight of Richard Garriott, check out Richard Garriott's Space Mission web site.

The Challenger Center's involvement is that Garriott will be working with classes at the fifty Challenger Learning Centers around the world as a part of a “Garriott Science Challenge” program. Science related classes will be conducted as a part of the program before, during, and after Richard's trip to ISS.

In conjunction with the “Garriott Science Challenge”, the Challenger Center is conducting a Student Art Contest. The objective of the contest is for students to submit designs for a space patch. The contest, which was announced March 8, has a deadline of April 18. For contest rules and to enter the contest, see Challenger Center Student Art Contest Rules and Submission Form. Designs already submitted can be viewed at Garriott Challenge Student Design Gallery. Note that at the time of this post, no entries have been submitted.

Ad Astra, Jim

| Return to the Blog Index | This entry was posted on Thursday, March 27th, 2008 at 1:25 pm and is filed under Space Art, Space Exploration.