William Joiner, a program specialist from NASA's International Space Station (ISS) Program, recently paid a visit to Ulster BOCES to speak with Culinary, Aviation, and New Visions: Advanced Robotics & Engineering students about how they can get involved in cooking, designing, and manufacturing items for the astronauts residing on the space station. It's all part of a hands-on initiative through the High School Students United with NASA to Create Hardware (HUNCH) program.

This is the third year Ulster BOCES students have participated in this initiative. In previous years, New Visions: Advanced Robotics & Engineering students machined metal storage lockers that were used for training purposes on Earth and will eventually be sent to the ISS. For the last two years, culinary students were awarded second place for preparing entrées that could hold up in microgravity, rehydrate well, and tantalize the taste buds of an astronaut. Their recipes are now part of a cookbook that could eventually be turned into meals for the astronauts.

Over the next several weeks, students will be researching, testing, re-testing, and creating products they will submit to NASA for evaluation. At the end of the school year, the prototypes and/or recipes will be analyzed to determine their potential use for future space missions.