Hangar Flight Museum looking for high school student to send to United Space School

In this Feb. 7, 1984 photo made available by NASA, astronaut Bruce McCandless II, performs a spacewalk a few meters away from the cabin of the Earth-orbiting space shuttle Challenger, using a nitrogen-propelled Manned Maneuvering Unit. (NASA via AP)

If you're a high school student interested in a career in the aerospace industry, the United Space School wants to hear from you.

The portal opened Wednesday for applications to be named the next Western Canadian delegate to attend the Foundation for International Space Exploration (FISE) United Space School.

The Houston school hosts students from approximately 50 different countries, who spend two weeks in Texas working together with other students to create a hypothetical manned mission to Mars.

Each participant must interview for the position they desire on the team they want to join and show genuine intellectual prowess, as well as an ability to work collaboratively, in order to accomplish their goal.

Participating students get a sense of what a career in the space industry might be like, along with being billeted by a family in Houston for two weeks in the summer.

To be eligible, students must be between 15 and 19 years old on July 16, and a student in Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the Yukon or Northwest Territories.

They must also be a Canadian citizen.

The all-expenses-paid (by the Hangar Flight Museum in Calgary) experience will allow delegates to meet astronauts, payload specialists and other professionals in the space field.

Former United Space School participant (2020) Skyler

"I felt as if I was an astronaut communicating between the ISS and Earth/Mission Control," said Skyler, who was a virtual delegate in 2020, in a release issued by the Hangar Flight Museum. "One of the most intriguing takeaways I learned at an intern lecture was this: it's not our technology that's holding us back from Mars – it's us. A lack of international collaboration was cited as one of the threats that could have killed the early stages of the ISS."

To apply, go to the Hangar Flight Museum website.