Their home in the sky' gets NASA prize

deas of one, mathematics knowledge of another and interest in astronomy of the third has helped them win a prestigious honour. A 

three-member team of class VIII students of Somalwar School (Nikalas branch) from the city will get to visit NASA after having won the first prize in the space settlement design contest project from amongst 294 entries and 808 students from the world in the class VI to IX category. The contest was organised by NASA's Ames Research Centre and National Space Society, USA. 

These students Jay Patrikar, Shantanu Manke and Madhur Bhalkar have been invited by NASA to participate in the international space development conference at Orlando, Florida, USA. The team will make a presentation about its project from May 28 to 31. 

The model, named Earth-Next or E-NeXT, is the stuff Hollywood movies are made of. It's an imaginary human colony housing 1.5 lakh individuals at a particular location in the space. "In case conditions on the Earth become unlivable, we can take some human beings from earth to this space settlement to prevent the human race from extinction. It will act like a makeshift colony," said Jay, the brain behind the basic idea of the project. He worked for days and nights together for over six months to convert his imagination into the model. 

"We had to check whether or not this model would be viable in reality and so we used computer modelling to see if the figures of gravity and distance from Sun and Moon and other planets would work in reality. We did this with support from my teacher Damodar Thombre, Dr Subhash Paranjape, industrialist, Prof M Y Apte, Prof D R Pande, both former university teachers in physics," said Shantanu. 

"Last year, we participated in the national aerospace Olympiad which acted as a launching pad for us. I was always interested in astronomy from my childhood so I motivated Jay and Shantanu to participate in the contest as they are blessed with tremendous creativity and technical knowledge of physics and maths," said Madhur, adding that they did not get disheartened some ideas simply did not work. 

"I knew the capabilities and skills of my students and here they are bringing an unmatched honour for not just the school, city or state but the entire country," said a delighted Vijaya Desai, the school principal, who would be accompanying the students along with the their parents to USA for the presentation in the month end. 

Madhur's maternal grandfather Premnarayan Chaurasia and grandmother Geeta Devi with whom Madhur stays in the city and her mother Dr Mona Bhalkar who is posted at Mumbai, too shared their excitement with TOI. "Right from childhood days, when we slept on a charpai looking at the sky, Madhur would talk of black holes and falling stars. But we never imagined that one day she will visit NASA at such an young age," said Geeta Devi. 

Shantanu's parents Milind and Meenal Manke also could not hide their joy. "Sometimes, they would work the entire night. We literally fed the kids," said Manke. Sanjay Patrikar and Radhika Patrikar, Jay's parents, described their experience of some sleepless nights when their son spent the night working on the exact location of E-neXT.