Retired NASA Astronaut and U.S. Navy Captain Christopher J. Ferguson is slated to attend our Fifth Annual Spring Gala to benefit our educational and community outreach efforts. The event will also raise funds for the restoration of the original training capsule, or gondola, of the Johnsville Centrifuge. The event will be held at the VE Club at 130 Davisville Road, Warminster, PA on May 10th at 6 PM.

To celebrate the event, the Bucks County Herald has partnered with us to give local students a chance to attend the event by submitting an essay answering the question, “Why is Science Education Important?” Students may enter in one of three divisions; grades 1 through 4, grades 5 through 8, and grades 9 through 12. All entries must include the student’s full name, school, grade as well as the student’s or parent’s phone and e-mail contact information.

There is no minimum word requirement for grades 1 through 4, while entries in the other two divisions must be between 200 and 300 words in length. All entries must be submitted via e-mail to events@nadcmuseum.org no later than Saturday, April 26, 2014. One winner in each division will be awarded three tickets to the event to enable them to  attend with two guests.

We are an all-volunteer organization dedicated to preserving the legacy of innovation born of the Johnsville Naval Air Development Center (NADC), and using that legacy as a springboard to encourage students to explore careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). Located near the intersection of Street and Jacksonville Roads in Warminster until it closed in 1996, NADC was home to numerous U.S. Navy research labs where technologies as diverse as photo-grey lenses, flight data recorders (“black boxes”) and GPS were developed. One of those labs was the centrifuge at NADC, best known for its work in training the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and early Space Shuttle astronauts.

The Spring Gala is our marquee event of the year. You can image how excited we are to have Captain Ferguson as a speaker. Not only was he Commander of the final US Space Shuttle mission ever to be flown, but he also came to NADC as part of his training when he was a Navy pilot. The Gala promises to be a memorable event. We are also excited that the Bucks County Herald has partnered with us to help promote the event and this essay contest.

In addition to our educational and community outreach efforts, we are working to preserve the original centrifuge gondola. Dubbed the Mercury 7 Gondola, it was used to train all of America’s early astronauts, including Alan Shepard, John Glenn and Neil Armstrong. It was housed in a Smithsonian Institution storage yard from 1963 through 2011 where it was, unfortunately, exposed to the weather. It was returned to Bucks County in May 2011 and is currently on public display outdoors at the Penn State Anechoic Chamber, 300 W. Bristol Road, Warminster. Museum volunteers are working with Warminster Township to secure a parcel of land in Warminster Community Park on which to build a pavilion that will house the preserved gondola.

Additional information about our efforts and the event may be found at our website at www.nadcmuseum.org , by contacting events@nadcmuseum.org or calling 267-250-8841