Click to play videoRourkela (Orissa): Four school students from Rourkela have bagged the second prize in the prestigious 'Space Settlement Design Contest' conducted by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) AMES Research Centre in USA in March 2006.
The NASA space centre has invited Ullahs, Amitav, Asim and Soumya of the Ispat English Medium School, Rourkela, but the budding scientists are finding it hard to realise their dreams because of lack of sponsorship.
The team, with help from their teacher B B Mathur had presented a 131-page thesis called Extra terrestrial Domain for Eternity by Nations (EDEN), which won them a prize among 200 contestants from 96 countries.
"According to our project initially ten thousand people can live in space with the help of Torus technology by which there can be orbiting space colony," says Ullhas Mishra, one of the team members.
The students need at least Rs 5 lakh to fulfill their desire to study life in outer space at NASA.
"We have approached the Rourkela steel plant but we are yet to get an answer," Mathur says.
India-born NASA Astronaut Kalpana Chawla, who died in the Columbia crash, is a common role model for the four awardees.
(With inputs from Satyananda Mohanty and Anumeha Chaturvedi)
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