International Space University Goes Down Under

Q: What do you get when you take 114 students from 27 countries, put them together for 9 weeks on the opposite side of the world, and bombard them with lectures, projects, a mid term exam, and two sounding rocket launches?

A: The ISU Summer Session Program 2004!

And what a program it was! I had the pleasure of attending the ISU Summer Session Program (SSP) this year in Adelaide, Australia as a student and can tell you that the program was outstanding. Based in Strasbourg, France from which it conducts an 11 month Masters of Space Science program, the ISU offers an SSP each year in a different location to encourage international cooperation in space. The program is intense - challenging both from a cultural and a technical point of view, but the benefits to the students and the space industry are great.

The focus of the SSP is to expose students to ISU's three I's Intercultural, International, and Inter-disciplinary, while providing a robust academic experience. ISU's success in creating this program relies on site selection, great faculty and students, a variety of cultural events, and an excellent staff.

Zuni 1 launches on Aug 2, '04 reaching a maximum
speed in excess of M2.0 and a height of over 7 km.

Of these, site selection and the staff are essential. Adelaide was chosen to host this year's SSP because of its history in developing spaceflight hardware and its proximity to the Woomera Prohibited Area - the rocket test range where Blue Streak, Europa, and Redstone rockets were once fired. For this SSP, Flinders University, the University of South Australia, and Adelaide University cooperated to provide guest faculty and classroom facilities that enabled the entire session. In addition, with help from two ISU graduate students and the Australian Space Reseach Institute (ASRI), Adelaide was an excellent location to prepare the two sounding rockets for launch at Woomera. The ISU staff suceeded by planning and executing this and other aspects of a great program.

Rocio Redondo (Spain) and Yoshihiro Seki (Japan)
collaborate on a payload for a sounding rocket.

In addition to the academics, SSP04 also provided intercultural events through culture nights, workshops, and simply the opporuntity to work with aerospace professionals from other countries. The future of our industry is going to be international and by participating in this session students are better prepared to operate in that climate.

ISU was created 18 years ago through the vision of three students and to this day seeks to build the future of the space industry. To learn more about the SSP04 and ISU, please contact an alumnus like myself or go to: www.isunet.edu. SSP05 is in Vancouver next June. Scholarships are available and some outstanding companies like Boeing provide excellent support to employees. Be sure to consider ISU if you wish to have a great learning experience - both professionally and culturally.