Program takes off like a ...

Lake Roosevelt and Nespelem students at Lake Roosevelt Schools look up at a rocket just launched by University of Washington Professor Robert M. Winglee Friday at a rocketry event. Teacher and organizer Ralph Rise said the school was awarded a grant for the "Rocketry Blast Off" event, to which Nespelem and Keller school district's fifth-graders were also invited. Rise, Lee Largent, and Steve Hood have been working with the UW's NASA Space Grant Consortium to bring rocketry to the schools, Rise said as students enthusiastically counted down in the background for one of dozens of rocket launches that day. Four professors and three graduate students attended. Kids experienced several means of propulsion, from a bow and arrow to air pressure in water bottles, which take off faster than the solid-fuel rocket launched here but don't go as high. Winglee, chairman of UW's Earth and Space Sciences Department, said the event was part of an outreach program to interest more eastern Washington students in science and technology. - Scott Hunter photo