A wave of sympathy from Germany met the aerospace students from Moscow, and might provide and stepping-stone for their future. The test-run of an integrated, free summer programme for future crafts and engineering finished today after 4 eventful weeks. Our expectations were exceeded across industry, crafts, business, education and aerospace.

Marina Tereshkova (20, IT student), Yan Kadirov (21, robotics student) und Yevgeny Sakutin (22, CAD specialist) of the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) left Russia amid the wildfires of August 2010 and headed to Leipzig. They followed a vision of cross-national cooperation of young high-performance teams to gain new vocational skills. The study and work plan during their semester break was oriented entirely on 4 simple core values of teamwork, integrity, excellence and safety. It comprised of a daily schedule from 6:30 am to midnight.

After over 30 workshops and excursions through the different areas of German trade and engineering, it was clear to the Chamber of Crafts and the Freies Gymnasium Borsdorf (free highschool) that there was no better role-model for our youth than other ambitious and hardworking young people. A hint of internationality became the carrier for this vision, opened hearts and enticed the more mature generations to join in and pass on their know-how.

Thus, the up-and-coming engineers showed their skills during the Day of Vocational Orientation in Crafts, and there the Working Group Space Education was founded as an extracurricular project for schools. The group from Moscow was handpicked during 71 international projects in 4 years. Next year, for the 50th anniversary Yuri Gagarin’s flights, it’s their goal to represent Russia at the NASA Moonbuggy Race, a US young engineering competition, in cooperation with the Leipzig-based International Space Education Institute.

Numerous companies in and around Leipzig opened their doors to the team under the current motto of the Chamber of Crafts “No Spaceflight Without Crafts”. Indeed, Leipzig can look back on 5 famous space engineers from ISS, Apollo and Sputnik times and earlier. This motivates the youth.

The workshop and additional expenses, including flights, were financed by the students – not through money, but ideas and participation. The newly opening Space Hotel Leipzig provided a junior suite to each of them and arranged a job for 1-2hrs a day. That covered all expenses. The potential of the exclusive group – who became a strong team in the past 4 weeks – will pave the way for setting up a number of student enterprises in crafts, engineering and business. ARD (the large German public broadcaster) documented the project for a day in the framework of the 20th anniversary “20 Years Fall of the Wall”.

On Friday, 10th September 2010 it was space day, and Dr Schmidt of the Vocational and Technology Centre of the Chamber of Crafts awarded the students from Moscow their certificate for successfully completing welding exercises in three categories. Mr Heim of Commerzbank Leipzig handed on to space ambassador Yvonne Heckel the cashed NASA cheque for the German Moonbuggy world champion team 2010 worth 4,190.60 EUR. In addition to this, he presented the Moscow students with prize money of 200 EUR from this fund, as jump-start for their big goal at NASA.

The students from Moscow plan to further develop their skills at the German workshops in Leipzig during the winter in order to provide a secure base for self-financing their future study wishes through integration in the Russian economy. This is an exchange that works, since for the winter holidays, German students and apprentices are already eagerly waiting for their new role-models from Moscow.

Our counterpart of the journey will depart to Russia in October in time for the 20th anniversary of German Unification. The German embassy in Moscow supports this exchange with a simplified issuing process of student visa. Amongst other destinations, the German Moonbuggy will visit many schools, universities and sites of the Mars500 project between Moscow and Kiev.

The Winning Moonbuggy Team 2011 from Germany and the upcoming Russian Team
are the racehorces for the european pre-competition to the NASA Moonbuggy
Race at the Leipzig Bysicle Fair in November 2010. We are looking forward to
see this trailblazers on first places.

At April 12th in 2011:
- Germany celebrates 5 years international NASA Moonbuggy competition.
- Russia celebrates 50 years Gagarin´s flight
- USA celebrates 30 years Space Shuttle
- USA/Russia celebrates 40 years LRV1 / Lunockhod2

 

Who will make the future? This year will be the toughest competition since
ever!

On TV:
3. Oktober 2010, 21:00 GMT+1, ARD
and: Documentary Film Festival Leipzig, 13.-17. October 2010

Workshop Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/user/SpaceEducation?feature=mhum#g/c/80BF195C8527148D

Workshop:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spaceeducation/collections/72157624568221004/

Workshop Reports (for now in Russian):
http://spaceeducation-ru.blogspot.com/

Special thanks are extended to the following organizations and people:
-         Chamber of Crafts Leipzig
-         Vocational and Technology Centre Borsdorf
-         Bruno Banani, Chemnitz
-         Fahrzeugbau Frank, Leipzig
-         DEKRA Leipzig
-         Turnery Günther Jakob, Holzhausen
-         Wittenbecher Maschinenbau, Leipzig
-         Space Hotel Leipzig
-         Solarwatt Dresden
-         Solarpark Grimma
-         Commerzbank Leipzig
-         Ball-Bearing Works Leipzig
-         LOOKS Film&TV Ltd., Leipzig
-         Ediniy Rossia, TV-Team of UFA
-         Mr Schmidt, PhD (BTZ-Borsdorf)
-         Ms Wolter, PhD (Handwerkskammer zu Leipzig)
-         Mr Mühlendorfer Voigt (HTI Peenemünde)
-         Mr Mett, PhD (DLR-Campus Neustrelitz)
-         Mr Reinhold (V2 rocketeer, 99 Jahre alt)
-         Ms Krylova (Cousin von Sputnik-Konstrukteur Korolev)
-         Ms Frank (Great cousin of Herrmann Oberth)
-         Ms Hackl (Direktorin Freies Gymnasium Borsdorf)
-         Mr Henri Schulz (Private Oberservatory Kletzen)

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