Balga Senior High School principal Geoff Harris, X21e principal Arun D’Souza, students Mohammad Mohammad, Melissa Burns-Hornsby, Trey Yarran, Vanshini Ghumundee, James Dirrssa, Aimee McClure and Dr Ravi Margasahayam from NASA.
Camera IconBalga Senior High School principal Geoff Harris, X21e principal Arun D’Souza, students Mohammad Mohammad, Melissa Burns-Hornsby, Trey Yarran, Vanshini Ghumundee, James Dirrssa, Aimee McClure and Dr Ravi Margasahayam from NASA. Credit: Supplied/Supplied

NASA Inspires Space Cadets

Julian WrightEastern Reporter

A NASA engineer inspired students to reach for the stars in a string of motivational lectures throughout the eastern suburbs.

International Space Station’s Payload ground safety review panel co-chairman Ravi Margasahayam visited Balga and Mirrabooka senior high schools as part of his Perth tour.

Dr Margasahayam, who has been with NASA for 26 years, spoke to about 5000 people during his visits to schools and universities last week as part of the NASA 2 Perth program.

Inspired by a Bollywood film about a pilot that “gets the girl”, Dr Margasahayam wanted to become a pilot but his family did not have enough money to set him on that path.

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The Payload safety engineer for Payloads and Science experiments integrated at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center said instead he went to America and got into engineering and listed launching 100 rockets and launching astronaut Andy Thomas into space four times as his career highlights.

The purpose of the lectures was to share the importance of science, technology, engineering and maths, and telling kids if they get into those areas early, they gave skills that lead to a good life, successful career.