You could make the case that right now is the most exciting time in a generation to be young and interested in space. The Space Shuttle is preparing for its final flights, soon to be replaced by a new era of launch technology. "NewSpace" companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic are lowering launch costs, paving the way for large-scale space exploration. Incentive competitions such as the Google Lunar X PRIZE are both spurring research and development and creating dozens of new groups for young graduates to bring their skills to.

These are indeed heady times for the young and starry-eyed (of which, incidentally, your author counts himself as one), and these future space leaders aren't just sitting in class, waiting to join in. At college campuses and high schools around the world, students are actively preparing for a future in space, using weather balloons to photograph the curvature of the earth, engaging in rocketry competitions, and even designing orbital space settlements.

Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) is exactly what it sounds like: an organization for college students who are interested in promoting and facilitating a permanent human presence in outer space. (SEDS has dozens of chapters worldwide, including at MIT and CalTech.) SEDS was cofounded by Peter Diamandis, the creator of the X PRIZE and the in-development Rocket Racing League, and a good deal of his energetic, entrepreneurial spirit is still apparent in the organization today.

At the University of Arizona chapter of SEDS, students like Sara Meschberger are engaging in everyone's favorite tradition of launching things as high into the air as they'll go. One team of seven from UASEDS has been working on ASCEND, a statewide project that asks teams to design, build and launch a payload on a weather balloon, reflecting a full mission cycle similar to those at large rocketry companies and space programs. Last fall's ASCEND team from UA included a photography element in their balloon, allowing them to take images from 96,000 feet showing the curvature of the Earth. Next semester's ASCEND mission is due to launch on March 26, 2011.

Sara is also leading the chapter's team for "rockoons," rockets which are carried into the high atmosphere by balloons before being launched. "We tested our rocket in October for a ground launch," says Sara, "and it worked perfectly. We will be testing final electronics in February, and we should be ready to do a full launch by this summer."

At the University of Central Florida, the second-largest university in the US and a quick jaunt away from the Florida Space Coast, the local SEDS chapter has some interesting rocket plans of their own. The chapter has been working on a score of mini-hybrid rocket projects, such as the Florida Space Grant's Hybrid Rocket Competition, where two teams of eight join others from across the state of Florida to compete in accuracy and distance challenges with 4-foot rockets.

This sort of hands-on experience proved useful both in terms of learning engineering and management, said team leader Tyler Maddox: "Being thrust into leading a team really requires that you learn fast." Other UCF students are working on gaining their L1 certification (allowing them to launch larger, more powerful rockets), designing suborbital payloads, and engaging in any student organization's favorite pastime: petitioning the university for funding.

We can't close this section without at least making mention of Project Daedalus, UCF-SEDS' attempt to be the first student organization to design, build and launch a sub-orbital sounding rocket. About 3 meters in length, the Daedalus rocket is powered by a hybrid (solid-liquid) engine and designed for full reusability. A Daedalus prototype was launched in 2006 to an altitude of 30,000 feet; although plans had been made to launch the final version of Daedalus at the Wallops Island center in Virginia, graduation and other various factors have currently left Project Daedalus in hiatus.

In addition to SEDS, many colleges and universities host chapters of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Although the AIAA is a professional society for aerospace engineers in general, over 160 student branches are in existence, many of which participate in their own space-based projects and competitions. At the San Diego State University chapter of the AIAA, half a dozen students are designing, modeling and building a 17-foot liquid oxygen rocket. The rocket, which has been featured at the Miramar Air Show, is in the final stages of completion, after which it will be launched in the Mojave Desert (home to space companies like Scaled Composites and Masten Space Systems) to an altitude of 25,000 feet.

On the national level, student members of AIAA (including the SDSU chapter) are getting ready to start work on the annual Undergraduate Team Space Transportation Design Competition. Every spring, the AIAA sends out a "request for proposal" (RFP) to its chapters, asking them to create a design that solves some problem related to space transportation, such as in-orbit propellant supply depots. Teams have until early June to submit their designs, which must address theoretical, technical, and economic issues. SDSU's 2010 entry "HERMES," which uses off-the-shelf parts assembled in low-Earth orbit to create a manned craft capable of rendezvousing with an asteroid in 2018, won third place and a cash prize of $1,000.

High school and junior high school, too

Undergraduate engineers aren't the only ones working to change the future of space, though; students as young as middle schoolers are getting into the act. The National Space Society, the largest space advocacy group in the United States, helps to oversee two contests which attempt to envision the mechanics of human space settlement. The Space Settlement Design Competition, co-run by the NSS and the NASA Ames Research Center, encourages students from around the world to submit designs for permanent, largely self-sufficient orbital human settlements. Team sizes from individuals to entire classes are eligible for entry, and awards are given to grades 6-8, 9-10, and 11-12, with an overall grand prize.

In 2010, a team of students from Durango, Colorado beat out over 400 submissions from 14 countries with their 51-page design proposal for Aresam (PDF), a station designed to be placed into Mars orbit in support of Martian exploration and asteroid belt mining. Aresam consists of two main sections: a spherical "core" used for power, docking, and manufacture in microgravity, and a rotating cylindrical "torus" connected to the core by six spokes and large enough to house over 20,000 permanent residents.

The research proposal, drafted by seventeen 10th-12th graders, discusses waste management systems, what materials will need to be mined from Phobos and Deimos for the station's construction, and even "Polar Ball," an Aresam pastime that appears to resemble a cross between basketball and the Battle Room from Ender's Game. The design is complex, fascinating, and not terribly unrealistic--unfortunately, the students of Durango High project construction dates for the years 2056-2080.

In addition, the NSS also runs the International Space Settlement Competition, now in its seventeenth year. The ISSC is complementary to the SSDC; although both focus on engaging students in the process of designing orbital settlements, the ISSC calls on teams to submit designs fitting a particular RFP (akin to the AIAA's competition), such as the location and size of the settlement.

The ISSC also engages in a two-part competition process to simulate the hectic pace of space development: the top 12 teams to submit a design are invited to Johnson Space Center in August, where they receive a completely new RFP which the team must create a design for over the course of three low-sleep days. Teams are free to submit designs for both the ISSC and the SSDC—the winning Aresam design from Durango, for example, was inspired by that year's RFP for the (first stage of the) ISSC.

It's rather clear that these projects are interesting and entertaining, but are the leaders of these programs turning into the new leaders of the space industry? We won't really know the answers to these questions for a couple more decades, of course, but by all accounts the potential is certainly there. Recent graduates of SEDS are launching lunar landers and working for the JPL and Space Frontier Foundation; the former leader of Project Daedalus was hired by SpaceX soon after graduation; and Tyler Maddox's work helped him gain an invitation to President Obama's speech at Kennedy Space Center last April, where he received an internship offer from the CEO of a large space company. The space settlement designers, for their own part, are invited to major space conferences such as the NSS' International Space Development Conference each year to present their reports, helping them build valuable connections that will serve them well down the road.

Either way, one thing is clear from the thousands of students participating in these projects: with the original generation of Apollo-era engineers and scientists slowly approaching retirement, there's no need to fear that nobody will be around to take their place. By all accounts, a new generation in space exploration will certainly be driven, at least in part, by a new generation of space explorers.

Cardboard rocket photo by Matt Biddulph