UCI Rocket Program Boosted By Local Non-Profit

LAKE FOREST, CA — The Moonshot Initiative at University of California Irvine is a student-built rocket project. Now, a non-profit has stepped in to aid UC Irvine students reach for the stars, according to the Base 11 nonprofit group. A student-developed, successful rocket build-out and subsequent launch is the goal of an area non-profit looking to encourage more young people to science.

The $1 million gift from Base 11 will ultimately support a UC Irvine student-built rocket project, the university announced Monday.

The grant from the Base 11 nonprofit will get the university's "Moonshot Initiative" off the launching pad by the fall quarter in the Henry Samueli School of Engineering.

Students this fall will begin work on a liquid-fuel rocket to be launched to a height of 25,000 feet, and then be reworked to go 50,000 feet. Ultimately, educators hope the students can make a rocket within two years that will soar past the Karman line at about 328,000 feet.

"We've found that by exposing our students early to hands-on experiential learning, we have better success in keeping them engaged and inspired in their education," said Gregory Washington, the Stacey Nicholas Dean of Engineering at the Samueli School. "This partnership with Base 11 will help us create an exciting and innovative opportunity for our students."

The nonprofit's partnership with the university is "focused on executing a workforce development strategy that provides the engineering and computer science talent so desperately needed by aerospace, high-tech and transportation industry companies," said Landon Taylor, CEO of Base 11.

"UCI and Dean Washington are ideal partners who share our vision of solving the STEM talent pipeline crisis by transforming unrepresented women and minorities into STEM leaders of the 21st century," Taylor said.

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