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Persephone Hart

The idea of sustaining life on the moon or Mars may sound like a far-off idea, but not for Bonner Springs High School sophomore Persephone Hart.

This summer Hart got one step closer to her goal of becoming an astronaut.

"I have dreams now to live on the moon, explore different galaxies and meet different species out in the universe," Hart said.

During the last weekend of July, Hart participated in a future-astronaut training program at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center in Hutchinson, Kan. The 14-year-old has wanted to be an astronaut since the age of 3.

"What's interesting is the fact that no one's been out there yet and that there may be creatures out there like us that we could interact with," she said. "I'm excited about the fact that we actually have space travel."

During the program, Hart participated in several activities, many of which are used in training for astronauts. Hart studied old models of spacecrafts, experimented with rocketry and got a preview on future NASA projects.

She also was spun in every direction on a multi-axis generator to test how coherently she could speak and how well she could push buttons while hanging and twisting from different angles.

In a flight simulator Hart was the only person on her team who could land the shuttle without crashing, which earned her the position as commander.

The teams were asked to launch, navigate in the atmosphere and then return safely to Earth, a test which the team has to pass to complete the program.

"It was really cool," she said. "The first time we got in there (the flight simulator) we died and kept dying, but for the test we managed to make it."

Hart said one of the biggest lessons of the program was learning to work with others.

Now that she's completed level one of the program, Hart is set on completeing all five levels. Because there's an age limit, she plans to pack in levels two and three next summer and then levels four and five during the 2010 summer.

The real fun starts in level three, when the students take a trip to Houston to see the NASA space center. In level four the students head to Florida for another visit of a NASA site, and in level five, she's off to Arkansas, where she'll take flight lessons and go scuba diving.

After that, Hart said she plans to get a Ph.D. in physics or astrophysics with the eventual goal of working for NASA.