At just 16 years of age, Ram Ganesh V. got a chance to do something that many others can only dream of. The young science whiz is just back from a ‘NASA Education trip’ to the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Ram got a chance to go to the NASA after he topped the national level VIT IGNITE Interschool Science and Maths Challenge in February this year. “I didn’t think I’d win the competition because it was for students of Class X and XI and I was only in Class X. But I was lucky to make it to the top,” he says in all modesty. Ram, now a Class XI student at Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Tripunithura, has repeatedly proved his mettle in science and mathematics examinations and competitions.
He reached the John F. Kennedy Space Centre on May 27 with seven other students from other parts of the country who had also topped different competitions. The group got to spend three days at the centre and other facilities, meeting scientists and astronauts and learning more about space science. He got to meet former NASA astronaut Mark C. Lee, a veteran of four space flights who even went on an untethered space walk. Ram, a voracious reader, says that he developed an interest in robotics from what he had read in newspapers and books.
