The Tradition Continues – To the Students, Teachers, and Communities Starting SSEP Mission 11 to ISS, Welcome Aboard America’s and Canada’s Space Programs, NASA Johnson Style (with Some One Direction)

December 14, 2006— European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Christer Fuglesang, STS-116 mission specialist, participates in the mission’s second of three planned sessions of extravehicular activity (EVA) as construction resumes on the International Space Station. Photocredit: NASA [CLICK ON PHOTO TO ZOOM]

It’s been a space program tradition since Mission 5 to ISS. Whenever we start a new SSEP flight opportunity, it’s time for NASA Johnson Style.  We can’t imagine a better video to get students (and teachers) in the frame of mind to start Mission 11 to ISS. To all Mission 11 Community Program Directors and teachers, put the video up on the big auditorium (or cafagymateria) screen, turn down the lights, and TURN UP the volume. We want everyone to recognize that what they are about to embark upon is very real.

And by the way, we’d like to extend the tradition a bit. Released on August 21, 2015, here is also the music video from One Direction’s Don’t Drag Me Down, filmed on location at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.

It’s our way of saying welcome to America’s and Canada’s Space Programs.

Real spaceflight all the time – that’s what we promised. In terms of STEM education for the 21st century, it’s the right stuff.

The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) is a program of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) in the U.S., and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education internationally. It is enabled through a strategic partnership with NanoRacks LLC, working with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory. SSEP is the first pre-college STEM education program that is both a U.S. national initiative and implemented as an on-orbit commercial space venture.

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), and Subaru of America, Inc., are U.S. National Partners on the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program. Magellan Aerospace is a Canadian National Partner on the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program.