Santa Ana College scholar Patricia Sullivan will travel to Huntsville, Ala., to take part in NASA's National Community College Aerospace Scholar program.
Santa Ana College (SAC) student Patricia Sullivan has been selected as a National Community College Aerospace Scholar (NCAS). Sullivan is one of 48 students from 25 states who will travel to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., for a three-day program Nov. 8 through 10. There, alongside her peers, NASA scientists, engineers, astronauts, and administrators, Sullivan will establish a team and create a company infrastructure to design and develop a rover.
She is the only Orange County student tapped for this honor; there are a total of seven from California. Fewer than 300 students have been selected to take part in NASA’s prestigious National Community College Aerospace Scholars program since its inception in 2009.
For the 50-year-old Orange resident, who plans to graduate in June 2012 and transfer to California State University, Fullerton (CSUF), being named by NASA is a dream come true. For years, the mother of six and grandmother of four concentrated her attention on raising her children. Prior to returning to college in 2010, her role was as a mother and a wife. But even back then, she dreamt of running shows in a planetarium.
“The spark for my love of astronomy came from watching the Apollo 11 launch on TV,” says Sullivan.
A second-year student at SAC, Sullivan, who carries a 4.0 GPA, was in Dr. Steve Eastmond’s Astronomy 110 “Introduction to Stars and Galaxies” class when she learned of the NASA program.
“Patricia is the most motivated and engaged student I have had in my 38 years of teaching astronomy at Santa Ana College,” says Steve Eastmond, Ph.D., SAC professor, physical science.
Students were selected by a NASA panel based on an application, letter of recommendation and project evaluation. Applicants must be U.S. citizens and currently pursuing their degrees at community colleges and have an interest in mathematics, science, engineering or computer science.
To get accepted by the NASA program, Sullivan had to design her concept for a manned space mission to Mars. Working independently
over the summer, she had eight weeks to turn in an abstract, create a timeline, and write a full-blown proposal for a robotic rover complete with a line drawing of her rover.
“At the beginning of the summer, there were 240 individuals under consideration, but after the summer projects were reviewed
and graded, there were 48 named to go to Huntsville,” says Sullivan.
The cost of Sullivan’s proposed four-year mission would be $805 million. The mission’s goal is to assess the possibility of life on Mars.
Today, Sullivan is working on an associate of arts degree in business management with an emphasis in astronomy. After finishing her bachelor’s degree at CSUF, she hopes to work in management for the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
She talks enthusiastically about how she will put her NASA experience to work for the community. As the president of MANA de Orange County, a national Latina organization, Sullivan will share her NCAS experiences with the girls who attend MANA’s annual Adelante Conference. “I hope I can encourage more of them to enter STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields,” she said. She also plans on making presentations in the Santa Ana schools.
And as Sullivan sees it, everything comes around in a beautiful circle. In May, she will be trained and ready to run three shows on her own at Tessmann Planetarium.
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