BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — When SpaceX and NASA successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket early Sunday morning, science experiments and other projects by Girl Scouts soared into space aboard the Dragon capsule.
What You Need To Know
- Experiments, projects by Girl Scouts took off on Cargo Dragon mission
- Girl Scouts of Citrus Council helped coordinate the items sent into space
- Twenty-one girls had projects selected in the Making Space for Girls Challenge
- Related:
The opportunity for the Girl Scouts came about through a partnership between the Citrus Council and SpaceKids Global called “Making Space For Girls.”
“It was a tremendous feeling of a dream-come-true success for Sharon [Hagle] and I last night on the beach,” said Maryann Barry, the chief executive officer of Girl Scouts of Citrus Council. “But what was more important to me was the dreams that are yet to be for those girls.”
Only 21 girls had items — including science experiments, essays and art — selected to go to the International Space Station. About 680 girls had registered for the Making Space for Girls challenge announced in 2020. In total, 2,000 pounds of science experiments were in the capsule.
“The dreams that they will have in the future and the things that they will do in the future, I can’t wait to see that because they’re already doing things that I dreamed of when I was a child, and they haven’t even graduated high school yet,” Barry said.
Barry and Hagle, the CEO of SpaceKids Global, are on track to fly with Virgin Galactic to the edge of space in an upcoming launch and said they want to inspire the young women into careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields.
“We know that we are the workforce solution for the next generation in terms of particularly STEM needs, and we focus quite a bit on that in our Citizen Scientist journey and this fell perfectly into that,” Barry said. “We take our responsibility, particularly at Citrus Council being in Central Florida and being on the Space Coast in developing the passion for the space industry that will drive these girls to be that next generation of leaders in that industry.”
Hagle added, “We’re bringing space to kids. Rather than read about it in a textbook, we’re going to make them participators, not spectators.”
The Cargo Dragon capsule is expected to arrive at the ISS at 11 a.m. Eastern Time on Monday.