Curiosity Scientist Visits Students at 826LA Echo Park

Photo from America Noticias

The day before the much-hyped August 5th launch, Melissa Soriano, a scientist on the Curiosity team at Jet Propulsion Laboratories, visited students ages 6-12 at 826LA in Echo Park. 

Soriano told students, “The most exciting thing would be if Curiosity found some evidence of life,” but warns that life on Mars might not look like it does today. 

The students were attending It’s (Partially) Rocket Science, a science writing workshop held over four Saturdays sponsored by Time Warner Cable to provide STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) enrichment for low-income and minority students.

Soriano talked students step-by-step through the landing using this footage, highlighting, among other features, the heat shields and parachute that helped Curiosity slow from over 13,000 mph when it entered the Martian atmosphere to a mere 1 mph on the surface, all in only 7 minutes. 

Just the week before, workshop students had built their own spacecraft from paper trays and popsicle sticks, attempting a safe landing on the surface of an imaginary planet. The challenge? The planet’s surface was made of ooblek, a non-Newtonian fluid made from cornstarch and water. 

 

Photo from Casey Fleser

While not many astronauts would have survived some of these landings, Soriano says “It’s possible we’ll send a person to Mars.” She emphasizes the challenges of getting along in a small space over a long, laborious journey, and says, “I wouldn’t necessarily want to be the person going.” While Curiosity made the trek to Mars in 8 months, a manned journey would have to travel at a slower speed to take less of a toll on the human body. 

Soriano, who graduated from the California Institute of Technology, has worked for JPL since 2003. Her final words to the students encouraged them to work hard, so that perhaps they could be rocket scientists working on the next shuttle.

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826 runs creative writing workshops and after school programs for low-income students nationally. 826LA is located in Echo Park and Venice. Storefronts of 826 sell novelty items to fund their programs—the original 826 is The Pirate Store, and 826LA Echo Park is The Time Travel Mart. This author attended the workshop as a volunteer with 826LA.