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Aberdeen pupil wins first place in national space competition

Aberdeen pupil Calum Ashcroft is delighted to have won first place in the Cassini ‘Scientist for a Day’ competition (17-18 year category).

Calum wrote a 500 word essay recommending one of three possible missions for the Cassini spacecraft.

Mr Tim Browett, Teacher of Physics said, “Calum wrote a compelling argument for using the probe to study unique weather phenomena currently happening on Saturn. This showed detailed and up to date information based on his enthusiasm for the subject as shown by his involvement with the Scottish Space School program and the place in the NASA trip which he won through this”.

17 Year old Calum won a Kindle, book voucher, selected image from the completed Cassini mission and a week working on a related project with Professor Carl Murray (the UK lead scientist on the Cassini mission).

Sixth year pupil Calum commented, “I entered the essay based competition in November after having had less than a week to prepare. I am very pleased with the result and look forward to receiving the details of the project I will work on”.

All of the winning essays are published on http://ph.qmul.ac.uk/outreach/space-activities and NASA’s website.

17 year old Calum recently swapped Schoolhill for Space when he won a place at the Scottish Space School residential programme to visit NASA where he met astronauts, and went to Lockheed Martin to see the Orion project (the future of space travel) and met Gene Kranz, the man who was lead flight director for Apollo 13.

Calum added, “2011 was a great year for me, travelling to Houston to visit NASA and achieving 5 As in my Higher results. I am now studying for my Advanced Highers and gearing up for University life after summer”.

Head of Sixth Year at the College, Mr Michael Elder, said, “Calum is having a terrific final year at school and deserves great credit for his achievements. The task set was a really interesting one as the data and spectacular images being taken by the Cassini spacecraft could have considerable scientific significance. In his essay, Calum did a brilliant job of explaining why his suggestion would take the greatest advantage of that opportunity”.

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