Published: October 23, 2009 01:56 pm      

Student receives gift from private space explorer

Sarah Nakata dreams of becoming a NASA astronaut. And while that reality is a few years away, she has accumulated a number of honors relating to space. Her latest is a framed set of patches that were flown on the International Space Station (ISS) in October 2008 by “private space explorer” Richard Garriott.

One of those patches was designed by Nakata herself.

A year and a half ago, Nakata, an eighth grader from Traders Point Christian School, entered a mission patch design contest sponsored by Challenger Center for Space Science Education, the parent organization of the Brownsburg Challenger Learning Center (BCLC). Nakata’s design won the contest, and Garriott took the patch to space when he traveled to the ISS aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft last October. During his nine-day stay on the ISS, Garriott answered students’ questions via ham radio; Nakata was one of those students.

During a conference for Challenger Learning Center personnel in Paramus, New Jersey, Richard Garriott addressed a group of nearly 100 people representing most of the 46 CLCs across the nation in August. At the end of his speech, Garriott presented a framed set of patches from his ISS mission to BCLC Director Mary Patterson to deliver to Nakata. Those patches include Garriott’s ISS patch, her design and the Russian mission patch for Soyuz flight TMA 13.

Patterson presented the patches to Nakata in a surprise visit to her TPCS science class on Friday.

“Sarah is a talented young woman, and we at the Brownsburg Challenger Learning Center are privileged to know her through her participation in many of our programs. She has earned this recognition,” she said.