Rep. LaMalfa Congratulates Redding Teacher for Role in Historic Pluto Mission
Washington, DC – Rep. LaMalfa today released the following statement congratulating Brian Grigsby, Chair of the Science Department at Shasta High School, for his personal involvement with the New Horizons spacecraft mission:
"The incredible images of Pluto from NASA's New Horizon's mission are remarkable, and I want to share my congratulations to the entire team on the assignment and, in particular, Brian Grigsby of Shasta County." said LaMalfa. "Mr. Grigsby's indispensable role in this historic mission will have an extraordinary impact on the lives of students across the nation and in the North State for years to come."
With the success of the New Horizons Flyby, the United States became the first nation to reach every planet from Mercury to Pluto, located approximately 3 billion miles away. Grigsby, who was one of fifteen teachers invited to participate in the New Horizons Flyby event worked on the Education Public Outreach team at Johns Hopkins with the team of scientists behind the mission, including Principal Investigator, Dr. Alan Stern, to take the information and experiences back to his students and his classroom.
"The excitements of the events were some of the most amazing ones of my career. Being with the team as the spacecraft conducted its flyby, communicated back to Earth that it was healthy, and beamed back the first surface images was beyond comparison" Mr. Grigsby shared. "We were the first people in human history to see the surface of this distant world! That is something that I won't ever forget!"
As a NASA program coordinator, Grigsby has coordinated a number of NASA programs to train high school and college students to analyze data transmitted from NASA spacecraft, including the Mars Exploration Student Data Teams. Many of his students have gone on to Planetary Geology careers at NASA and in universities.
A clip of Rep. LaMalfa honoring the New Horizons mission on the House Floor can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/embed/Pj_ymRTFeCk
Congressman Doug LaMalfa is a lifelong farmer representing California's First Congressional District, including Butte, Glenn, Lassen, Modoc, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou and Tehama Counties.
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