Catonsville student among 24 from Maryland taking part in space camp

Should Kieren "Kip" Van Sant have to write a what-I-did-last-summer essay at school in the fall, his tale will likely include planning a trip from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel to Uranus.

As part of the Maryland State Department of Education's Summer Center for Space Science, he teamed with two students to design a mission to the seventh planet from the sun that involved considering math, physics, economics and logistics.

"It's kind of hard because it's kind of far," Kip, 12, said of planning a trip to a planet about 1.8 billion miles from Earth. "It takes more money to get there, so we had to limit some of our equipment."

Offered for the past 10 years, the two-week space camp for gifted and talented students, which concluded July 29, attracted two dozen sixth- and seventh-graders from across Maryland, including five fromBaltimore County.

Kip, a seventh-grader at Sudbrook Magnet Middle School, where he studies environmental science, was the only one from Catonsville selected.

At the camp, the students constructed water rockets, built a scale model of a spacecraft and designed thermal shields, lunar robots and satellites.

The students also had the opportunity to rub elbows with NASA scientists, something probably a bit less exciting for Kip than for the others.

Kip's father, Tim, 52, has worked at NASA for 26 years and currently works to create new kinds of space stations at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.

Kip didn't step into the summer camp with a wealth of knowledge, his father said, because he hadn't shown much interest in space until now.

"It can either go one of two ways. (Children) kind of really like their parent's occupation, or maybe shy away from it," said Tim, who noted that until this summer Kip gravitated toward geology and environmental science. "He has not always been real excited about space."

Kip said it wasn't his father's job that kept him from having an interest in the final frontier.

"I hadn't learned really in depth about space," he said. "This camp made me more knowledgeable about it. I knew more and I enjoyed it."

Kip said he consulted his father about ideas for his mission, which needed to have every detail covered, right down to the design of the decorative mission patch.

His father couldn't provide too much information because he had never put together a mission to Uranus, Kip said.

Kip wouldn't want much help anyway.

Tim recalled Kip's fifth-grade science fair project, putting together an experiment designed to determine if an abundance of carbon dioxide retained heat.

Kip conducted the experiment by himself, despite the fact that he could've received help from his father or mother, Janet, who works in the information technology field.

He even could have asked his sister, Natalie, who will attend Saint Mary's College of Maryland in the fall to pursue a degree in biology.

"I think you should, if people are really willing, let them include some ideas," Kip said. "They are projects for a reason and since they really want to see how you're doing in school and stuff, you should try to do it mostly yourself."

Despite a newly-found appreciation of space, Kip hasn't decided what he hopes to do in the future.

Besides a love of science, he currently plays the clarinet and competes in soccer and baseball, where he plays shortstop, pitcher and catcher.

While he admits it's a long shot, Kip, who recently concluded his recreational and travel seasons, said making a career out of baseball is appealing.

He would also like to stay involved in science, he said.

For now, Kip is looking forward to getting some rest and to the family's upcoming vacation to Montreal.

"Sometimes, you just feel like you need a break," he said. "It's kind of hard to get those sometimes."