Congressman visits SKC, learns about college’s NASA projects
Megan Strickland
SKC Science Deparment Chair Tim Olson shows Congressman Steve Daines part of a cube satellite NASA will launch in Dec. 2014.
Megan Strickland
Congressman Steve Daines and SKC Student Life Director Juan Perez walk across the campus as a sunset illumninates the Mission Mountains.
Megan Strickland
Megan Strickland
Coach Zachary Camel and Congressman Steve Daines talk with the SKC men’s basketball team.
Megan Strickland
SKC Science Department Chair Tim Olson talks with Congressman Steve Daines.
Megan Strickland
Congressman Steve Daines visit Salish Kootenai College in Pablo.
Megan Strickland
Congressman Steve Daines and President Robert DePoe III watch as as geese fly overhead.
Megan Strickland
SKC Science Department Chair Tim Olson talks with Congressman Steve Daines.
Megan Strickland
Congressman Steve Daines and SKC Student Life Director Juan Perez walk across the campus as a sunset illumninates the Mission Mountains.
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PABLO – It may be a tad difficult for most people to understand the immensely complex programming, technological, and engineering feats a team of Salish Kootenai College science and technology students are completing in preparation for a December 2014 launch of a space cube satellite they built. Congressman Steve Daines, a Montana State University engineering graduate, fared well in grasping the concepts when he met with SKC students last Friday.
“I know how it feels,” Daines said with a laugh as he discussed one engineering concept with the students.
SKC Science Department Chairman Tim Olson explained that the college has been very involved with NASA in recent years. The department is actively monitoring and analyzing data being sent back from the NASA Mars rover that landed in 2012. Those working on the project are sometimes the first people on the earth to see images sent back from the Rover. Olson and a team of students spent three months working on the project in Pasadena, Calif., after the 2012 landing.
The data analysis has resulted in significant information.
“We have very strong evidence that early in Mars’s history it was much more Earth-like,” Olson said. “There was a lake at the floor of this crater and a river that came flowing down off of the crater walls, carrying water down. The chemistry of the water has been such that if there were humans there they probably could have drank it.”
Daines was impressed. “It’s an excellent example of where technology removes geography as a constraint,” he said said.
SKC hopes to defy gravity once again when it sends a cube satellite into orbit in 2014.
“We’re supposed to piggyback on the National Recognizance launch on the Vandenberg,” Olson said.
During his visit, Daines met with many campus leaders including SKC President Robert DePoe III, who gave Daines an overview of the college’s pivotal role in education for tribal and non-tribal members. He also detailed the challenge of recruiting more students, when there is limited housing on campus. SKC has 144 beds for a student population of 850. The college would like to double that number.
“We feel we could fill that very fast,” DePoe said. “We have a waiting list and a lot of people say that’s what’s holding them from coming.”
It’s not a question of funding or spare land that is a major barrier to expansion. It’s infrastructure.
“The city of Pablo is struggling right now with water capacity,” DePoe said. “Right now, I guess if we were to have a fire, it would drain their holding tanks. So it’s the city of Pablo that’s really prohibiting us from expanding.”
Daines asked his staff to take note of the problem to see if there was any way he could help.
DePoe presented Daines with a crystalline buffalo.
“To remind you of the spirit of the college,” DePoe said.
During his visit, the Congressman was also greeted by the SKC basketball team and Tribal Councilwoman Carole DePoe Lankford.ק
