Acting as engineering teams, students take measurements and make calculations to determine the specific strength of various alloys and then report their data to the rest of the class. Using this class data, students write data-based recommendations to NASA regarding the best alloy to use in the construction of the engine and engine turbines for the Space Launch System that will eventually be used to transport astronauts to Mars.

We will explore the changing political choices and ethical dilemmas of American scientists from the atomic scientists of World War II to biologists in the present wrestling with the questions raised by cloning and other biotechnologies. As well as asking how we would behave if confronted with the same choices, we will try to understand the choices scientists have made by seeing them in their historical and political contexts. Some of the topics covered include: the original development of nuclear weapons and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the effects of the Cold War on American science; the space shuttle disasters; debates on the use of nuclear power, wind power, and biofuels; abuse of human subjects in psychological and other experiments; deliberations on genetically modified food, the human genome project, human cloning, embryonic stem cell research; and the ethics of archaeological science in light of controversies over museum collections.

NASA presents this gallery of images from the Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969.

Conceptual Physics is a year-long course based on CK-12 OER instructional material and supplemented with limited commercially-available materials. The course is project-based, argument-driven inquiry. Each unit begins with presentation of an intriguing phenomenon, followed by an essential question about the phenomenon, and a project centered on answering that essential question. Throughout the unit, students conduct research and investigations to answer portions of the question. Each unit has a student "Task" at the end that serves as an assessment of the unit's concepts. At the end of each unit, students assemble all of the unit tasks and synthesize a personal final project that answers the essential question in a personal context chosen by the student.

This course is a detailed technical and historical exploration of the Apollo project to "fly humans to the moon and return them safely to earth" as an example of a complex engineering system. Emphasis is on how the systems worked, the technical and social processes that produced them, mission operations, and historical significance. Guest lectures are featured by MIT-affiliated engineers who contributed to and participated in the Apollo missions. Students work in teams on a final project analyzing an aspect of the historical project to articulate and synthesize ideas in engineering systems.

In this video segment from NASA, robotics researcher Ayanna Howard uses engineering to improve the intelligence of robots in space exploration.

Google teamed up with scientists at the NASA Ames Research Center to create this collection of lunar maps and charts. This tool is an exciting new way to explore the story of the Apollo missions, still the only time mankind has set foot on another world.

Students use water balloons and a length of string to understand how the force of gravity between two objects and the velocity of a spacecraft can balance to form an orbit. They see that when the velocity becomes too great for gravity to hold the spacecraft in orbit, the object escapes the orbit and travels further away from the planet.

A Mini book that is an overview of the US Space Race and how it evolved. Listed in the Index is the State of Texas TEKS for the EOC Grade 11 Exit Test.  Some of these TEKS cross over into WW1 and WW2 as well. It is not meant as a definitive resource, but rather a jumping-off point for young teachers of Social Studies, Science, STEM, or STEAM-related courses to inject some cross-curricular reading and writing and to promote critical thinking and a source of context for those courses aforementioned. It is also a starting point for activities (graphic organizers) and videos for classroom use or online learning purposes. It can be adapted to as low as 5th grade but only for supplemental purposes as their TEKS do not address this period.

In this fast-paced NASA Brain BitesŒ_íěÖ video, an astronaut demonstrates the impact of microgravity on the use of tools in space.

Can you avoid the boulder field and land safely, just before your fuel runs out, as Neil Armstrong did in 1969? Our version of this classic video game accurately simulates the real motion of the lunar lander with the correct mass, thrust, fuel consumption rate, and lunar gravity. The real lunar lander is very hard to control.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Dark matter, cosmic rays, otherworldly lightning, and meteors. Not bad for a day’s work. That’s the ambitious workload researchers have charged to Mini-EUSO, a revolutionary new telescope peering back at earth from aboard the International Space Station. Hitching a ride on a Russian Soyuz rocket, Mini-EUSO docked with the ISS just this past August. Fitted with state-of-the-art optics, its goal is to carry out the first-ever nighttime observations of the earth’s atmosphere at near-ultraviolet wavelengths. This special “UV eye” will turn the atmosphere into a gigantic laboratory for exploring fascinating scientific phenomena—some bound to teach us more about the earth, some that could teach us more about the entire universe. One of Mini-EUSO’s tasks will be to search for traces of a substance known as “strange quark matter”. This matter is generally believed to make up the super-dense core of neutron stars. But it might also be scattered as droplets both big and small across the universe..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

This video introduces users to Google Earth's exploration of the moon. There are instructions for how to use it and what you can find in it.

In this video adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, find out about the discovery of a new building material, the carbon nanotube, whose physical properties could theoretically enable the creation of a 22,000-mile elevator to space.

Explore the difficulties faced with collecting samples and how we are searching for evidence of life on Mars with Scripps Institution's Jeff Bada. (52 minutes)

On July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 mission brought the first humans to the Moon. On that day President Nixon spoke with crewmembers Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin via telephone-radio transmission.

Source: This edited presentation features film footage from the White House Staff Super 8 Film Collection and audio from the White House Communications Agency Sound Recording Collection.

Through a study of the moon, students will be guided through an inquiry process using primary sources to learn how we shape our understanding of the past (history). They will also learn how new discoveries and observations change our perceptions over time, as each succeeding generation creates knowledge and adds new technology. Students will then pose their own questions to wonder how future discoveries or new technology might change our understanding of the world and our universe.

Students learn about humankind’s search for life in outer space and how it connects to robotics and engineering. NASA is interested in sending exploratory missions to one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa, which requires a lot of preparatory research and development on Earth before it can happen. One robot currently being engineered as a proof of concept for a possible trip to explore Europa is the Icefin, which is an innovative robot that can explore under ice and in water, which are the believed conditions on Europa. This lesson provides students with intriguing information about far off (distance and time!) space missions and field robotics, and also sets up two associated robotics and arts integration activities to follow. The lesson can be used individually to provide new information to students, or as a precursor to the associated activities. A PowerPoint® presentation and worksheet are provided.

In a simulation of potential future space missions to Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons, student teams are challenged to direct a robot placed in an enclosed maze to search for and find the most “alien life.” The robot is equipped with a camera to send a live feed of its surroundings in the maze. Students control the robot from outside the maze by looking at the live feed on a smartphone and using the robot’s remote control, making a map as they go. The student teams compete as if they are space agencies creating their own exploratory systems to meet the challenge’s criteria and constraints and prove “in the field” that they have the best plan to win the mission contract and get the job. This activity simulates the real-world research of scientists and engineers developing a robot with the capabilities to explore under the ice-covered surface of Europa.