Shaun’s aiming for stars after US space camp

Andrew Mathieson
EVERY time 16-year-old Shaun Howard looks down at the custom mission patch on his flight suit he can only think of space.
The patch is a gentle push toward his dream of becoming an astronaut, possibly the second for Australia.
The year 11 Covenant College student’s dream is now closer to reality after he attended an International Space and Rocket Centre in the USA last month.
“The space camp adventure was incredible – it was such a dream come true,” Shaun said.
“I’m so excited and can’t believe it has come and gone. One of my favourite things was that we got to experience some of the training astronauts undertake.”
Shaun, of Bell Post Hill, won an Australian Defence Force Long Tan Leadership Award last year, so he said becoming an airforce pilot would be his next step toward space.
However, mementoes from space camp kept his goal among the stars.
“I thought it would sort of be like NASA,” he said, “but it was probably a bit more practical and hands-on.”
Part of the space camp experience was designing a working missile for an insight into the physics of rocket fuel.
“We had to carry eggs on our rockets and the requirement was to shoot it three metres in the air but our rocket easily blitzed that – it went to about 1000 feet (300 metres),” Shaun said.
“At our school in Geelong we don’t really get to do much of that sort of stuff.”