Leo pulls on a shiny, silver suit and places the helmet gingerly over his head before marching with the other budding astronauts towards their spaceship.
“Going to Mars is really my dream,” the eight-year-old said, jumping excitedly from foot to foot.
While the world has been riveted by the escapades of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover, a group of Swiss primary school children has been eagerly preparing their own mission to the red planet.
Some of Switzerland’s top space experts, including the country’s only astronaut, Claude Nicollier, evaluated the detailed mission plan the children had developed over nine months.
And on March 8, they gave it the all-clear for lift-off.
The children “exploded with joy” when they heard, their teacher at the Vivalys private school near Lausanne, Sebastien Roussel, told AFP.
“It was like watching the NASA engineers’ ecstatic reaction when Perseverance touched down.”
This week, they finally blasted off.
Their rocket is actually a bus, with images of astronauts astride a spaceship heading towards a bright red sphere covering the windows, flanked by the message: “Mission Vivalys. Direction Mars”.
– Space station –
Their destination? A Mars space station conveniently situated a bus-ride away in a secluded wooded area on the outskirts of Lausanne in western Switzerland.
Here, the 16 eight- and nine-year-olds will spend three days carrying out experiments similar to some conducted by actual astronauts, including attempting to grow plants to sustain them on the long journey.
And while the idyllic, snow-sprinkled surroundings are far less hostile than the windswept, dusty surface of Mars, the children wear suits and helmets whenever they step outside.
Inside the base, with his helmet — actually a face-covering scuba-diving mask — under his arm, Leo says this “analogue mission to Mars” made him all the more eager to see the real thing.
“But I don’t want to land where Perseverance landed. It’s radioactive there and very cold,” he said.
In a bid to simulate a true space mission, all the children’s meals consist of freeze-dried space food.
Initial plans for them to sleep on site were meanwhile scrapped due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Our biggest concern is not bringing the virus to Mars,” Olivier Delamadeleine, head of the Educalis group that runs the school, told AFP.
The mission fits with the school’s general approach aimed at deepening the students’ learning through “real life” experiences, he said.
During the months of preparation, the children participated in workshops on astronomy and rocket engineering hosted by students at the neighbouring EPFL — among the most prestigious technical universities in Europe.
– A motivation ‘win’ –
The mission required them to use mathematics to calculate the distance to Mars, and they have also sharpened their language skills, learning how to spell the names of the planets.
Roussel said the mission was “a win” for a teacher seeking to motivate his students.
The first experiment the team embarks upon after arriving at the space station is launching home-made paper rockets into space.
The children get to work rolling sheets of paper into tubes, before adding pointed paper tips and fins.
Ewan, the project’s appointed leader, recommends using a lot of tape.
“We are going to pump air into them, so it is important to close them tightly,” the youngster explains.
He pulls on his mask and heads out to help secure the launch site with safety cones and tape.
When the other children arrive, he helps Roussel place one rocket on a large metal contraption attached to a pump.
When they flip a red lever on the valve, the paper rocket flies as high as the treetops amid wild applause.
– Exploding rockets –
After all the rockets have been launched, the children have a debrief Zoom session with Jonas Morfin, known as “Jupiter Jonas”, at EPFL’s Space Innovation unit.
Lined up in front of the camera, they detail the problems some rockets ran into, and he provides pointers on how to improve the structures for the next launch.
“Maybe reinforce the next one with more tape?” Morfin tells a girl whose rocket exploded in mid-air.
The preparation for the mission, and especially the Zoom conversation earlier this month with Nicollier, has left some children dreaming about becoming astronauts themselves.
“That’s what I have in mind,” Leo said. “Now I want to be a scientist or an astronaut.”
“It’s possible for robots,” said Nina, one of two children named mission leaders.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
