Alasdair Hackworth, a resident of Shawsville who attends school in Roanoke because his mother teaches there, not only earned a spirit scholarship to the space camp in Huntsville, Ala, but he also won the camp’s highest honor, the Right Stuff Award.
Hackworth competed against students across the country and abroad for the scholarship and won it by designing a mission patch, writing an essay, and completing a science project. His project involved working with Nano Earth at Virginia Tech and researching the effect of nano silver on daphnia.
During the virtual awards at space camp, his team received the challenge cup for the highest points and best teamwork. His team also won the Right Stuff Award, which is one of the highest awards at space camp and is presented to one camper. That camper was Hackworth.
The Right Stuff Award, named in the spirit of the Tom Wolfe novel of the same name, is given to an outstanding trainee each week in both the Space Camp and Aviation Challenge programs and is given in honor of the early space explorers and test pilots who were pioneers in the fields of rocketry and jet propulsion.
Hackworth wants to be an aerospace engineer and one day work on the International Space Station.
