In talking with the chief scientist Andrew and some other scientists aboard Atlantis( over a breakfast of some tasty french toast) it occurs to me that what is going on here does follow some of the format we follow with our student Science Fair participants back in Lancaster county PA.

The scientists have to make proposals of experiments they want to do.. submit them for review… receive feedback and sometimes have their ideas rejected! True enough, the scientists often have to resubmit their ideas to the people who could fund them ( often the National Science Foundation). The folks on this mission planned these proposals years in advance!

Now that the experiments can begin ( out here in the Pacific) the challenges continue… will everything go as we hope? Well, having a hypothesis doesn’t mean you know what is actually going to happen!

The excitement of the testing the unknown with your best ideas and best collaborators never gets old for these scientists. We hope all students with research projects get a taste of that in the coming school year.