We Are The Artemis Generation!

Our 7th and 8th graders just spent four days at the Kennedy Space Center, culminating in their watching the Artemis 1 SLS Rocket take off at 1:47AM on November 16^th.

This amazing opportunity was born out of a partnership with the Mystic Seaport Museum, who was awarded a Community Anchor’s Grant from NASA, one of only 21 in the country, enabling them to offer year-long STEM programming for our students: a mix of four virtual school sessions, four in-person workshops at the school, and four visits to the Treworgy Planetarium at Mystic Seaport Museum.

As a result of being on their radar from that grant, SMPA was selected to be one of only 3 schools in the entire country to participate in the Students-To-Launch Program (S2L), a new NASA initiative designed to encourage low-income students to develop a deeper understanding of the challenges and goals of spaceflight missions and to inspire kids to explore a career in aerospace and astronautics.

We were scheduled to go to Florida at the beginning of October to witness the SPACEX Crew 5 Space Shuttle launch. That launch was postponed due to Hurricane Ian. When they rescheduled and went to rebook our hotel rooms, the rooms were all booked up with displaced hurricane victims, so we could not go.

As you can imagine, our kids were devastated, BUT…we helped them shift their disappointment to compassion (which coincidentally was our virtue for the month!) as they wrote postcards to members of the Students-To-Launch team who lived in Florida and were affected by the hurricane.

On Sunday, November 13th, at 2:45 AM, we loaded up a bus and headed to the airport, finally on our way to see the Artemis I Rocket Launch. 

Our students were in the viewing stands at the Apollo Saturn V Center when the Launch Director did the final poll of her team asking each department if they were “Go for Launch.” Once the Launch Director received confirmation, the crowd exploded with joy as she started the 10-minute countdown clock. 

“We all cheered and had our eyes locked on Artemis I all lit up on the launch pad!” said our principal, Dr. Kelly O’Leary. “The crowd counted down together: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 …Artemis’ engines fired and lit up the night sky! The rocket was so bright that for 2+ minutes it was as if it was not 1:47 AM, but rather looked like the sun was out and shining. Even though Artemis was many miles away, the sound of the rocket was unlike anything we have ever experienced. It was so powerful you could feel the vibrations pushing on your chest. The sonic boom we heard was Artemis traveling faster than the speed of sound! We all watched the rocket until it was out of sight, gaining speed to get up to 17,500 mph in order to leave Earth’s atmosphere and begin her journey to orbit the moon!”

Artemis Launch Director, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, said this to her team upon the successful launch, but it sounded like she was talking to us too…

“This is your moment. It is not by chance that you are here today. You have earned your place in this room. You have earned this moment. You have earned your place in history. You are part of a first. We are all part of sharing something very special…The first launch of Artemis!”

Blessings, Class of 2032, summed it up saying, “We really are the Artemis generation!”

"This trip has been a one in a million experience! If you told me a couple of years ago that I would be able to be here, a part of the Artemis generation - watching Artemis 1 go off to orbit the moon, I wouldn’t have believed you for one second! This has truly been a trip that has opened so many doors for me. From a young age I knew that I wanted to be in the medical field, but I also wanted to work at NASA, so now knowing that I can be in the medical field AND work at NASA is just so crazy!”
-Allison, Class of 2033

"Watching the launch of Artemis allowed us all to dwell in possibility and dream of all that could be. The torch has been passed to the next generation of dreamers! We are all forever changed by this incredible experience."
-Dr. Kelly O'Leary, Principal

"In the words of one of our students, “You had me at NASA!”

"As I watched the rocket climb, tears rolled down my cheeks. I was enveloped by the both the sensation of the rocket's physical power and the power of the moment in history that our students were witnessing - literally participating in their collective future. My parents were the Apollo Generation, and my students are the now the Artemis Generation. Soon there will be a woman on the moon and the first person of color. Maybe in this lifetime they’ll get to Mars. OUR students are the hope ... all the possibility for humankind lies within them."
-Allison Rivera, President