| EXPLORING THE WORLD AND BEYOND
Do you like robots? Would you like to build and blast some rockets off? Do you like to watch the space shuttle take off? Do you wonder how things work? If you do, we have a club for you! Get ready for the Universal Explorers.
Members will build and fly rockets, design mobile transport systems, participate in a live teleconference with NASA, see robots in action, use GPS instruments, complete engineering challenges, explore astrobiology, visit the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Green Bank Science Center, visit a gas drilling site, and above all, have fun.
Dan Cosgrove will be the leader and Patty Laughlin will be the assistant leader.
During the summer, Cosgrove was selected to attend an intensive training session at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The goal of the training was to give teachers the knowledge and skills necessary to motivate the next generation of scientists, engineers and mathematicians.
Cosgrove has been selected to return to Huntsville later this month to receive additional training. He will attend two workshops: "Return to the Moon," will focus on NASA's returning to the moon by 2018. The workshop will include trips to Marshall Space Flight Center and visits with engineers developing the technology to make the next trip safer and faster.
Other topics will include craters, meteorites, volcanoes, soil, lunar landers, and astrobiology. Ham radio communication will also be incorporated. "On to Mars," will focus on the exploration and research being conducted on Mars and what will be required to send humans to that planet.
The rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, sent up by NASA in 2004 have outperformed everyone's expectations. Training will include robotics, soil analysis, and the science that the rovers are discovering and sending back to earth.
NASA's journeys into air and space have developed humankind's understanding of the universe and expanded the frontiers of scientific research. This club hopes to pass that legacy to the next generation.
Cosgrove hopes to bring back a multitude of information and material to share with the youth of Calhoun County. This is a great opportunity for Calhoun youth to be on the cutting edge of the future of the space program.
The club will meet monthly on Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the Upper West Fork Park in Chloe.
The first meeting is scheduled later in September. To sign-up, call 655-9950 or email wvspaceranger@yahoo.com (parents please leave your name and telephone number, and the name and age of you child joining the club).
Members of other 4-H clubs are invited to attend and keep their original club as their main club of record. | 
