You can't accuse Abby Harrison of not planning ahead. She's 15 and still in braces, but she's planning to be on a mission to Mars, something not likely to happen until at least 2030.
For now, she's a sophomore at South High School in Minneapolis, where she's tackling pre-calc and principles of engineering. She's already attended one NASA launch, four space camps in Alabama, and is crowdsourcing for money to attend a Soyuz launch in May.
She's a product of the district's program to interest girls in science and engineering, and she credits science teachers at Hale and Field for fostering her interest in the skies.
But lest you think she's a Johanna-come-lately to space travel, consider this: When Harrison was 5, her father, Randy, a computer programmer and "major science-fiction nerd," gave her a hefty coffee-table book called "The Universe."
"She would carry it around with her," mom Nicole said, showing people the photos even before she could read.
That interest blossomed in a more structured way when she hit fifth grade at Field Community School. There she found the Girls in Engineering Math and Science, or GEMS program, developed by teacher Brad Blue in the late 1990s to offset the shortage of women entering those fields.
Fifth-grade astrophysicist
Field teacher Mary Hill recalls Harrison coming into her fifth-grade science classroom and announcing her intention to become an astrophysicist. When Harrison moved on to South after four years of GEMS, she returned to Field as a GEMS mentor.
Other mentors who guided Harrison include Dave Blackburn, who teaches chemistry at Century College and met Harrison through his daughter, a classmate. He worked with her on her History Day project on the International Space Station, which made it to the state competition. He said girls like her are far ahead of students from his day in their technical interests. "I had never thought of engineering at age 15 as anything other than driving trains," he said.
