The International Space University offers all sorts of courses for those with their head in the stars.
One thing I’ve heard time and time again from fellow nerds is a lament about the lack of a space camp for adults. Many of us had big dreams of space growing up, glued to our Star Wars, Star Treks, StarCrafts, and other star-related things. Well, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is, there is a space camp for adults, and it’s wonderful. The bad news is it’s probably a lot more work than most people were bargaining for.
The International Space University (opens in new tab) is a worldwide learning program dedicated to space education. It holds varying levels of courses all over the world via a network of institutions, allowing people from all walks of life to get into learning about space. I was lucky enough to go check out the Southern Hemisphere Space Studies Program for a few days, during which time I spoke to students and staff to get a better idea of what these courses entail.
The Southern Hemisphere Space Studies Program is a five-week course held in conjunction with the University of South Australia, which I also learned has a flight sim setup to bring tears to your eyes. As with most ISU courses it’s open to people of all genders, nationalities, backgrounds, and abilities.
Typically speaking a bachelor’s degree or similar is preferred, but equivalent experience is also considered. While there, I spoke with students from all over the world, some of whom had no university qualifications at all.
These students would be working in groups to achieve incredible things, like designing and launch their own rocket and weather balloon, then analysing and learning from the data they received. It’s a bit like Kerbal Space program 2 (opens in new tab) but in real life, and hopefully with a better launch than that game has had so far (opens in new tab).
Later, I sat in with a group as they worked to solve some of the problems that would be tackled for people living on the moon.
