Baking Soda Rocket Day launches STEAM curiosity
Kids from all around the country are launching rockets from their schools on October 9th — rockets fueled by the chemical reaction of baking soda and vinegar.
The second annual Arm & Hammer Baking Soda Rocket Day will be celebrated by 14,000 classrooms. The hands-on experience with STEAM is aimed at inspiring a future generation of scientists and engineers.
Emily Calandrelli, a commercial astronaut and science communicator, participated last year. She viewed baking soda rockets as one of the best and most accessible hands-on science experiments.
“This is an easy enough science experiment that kids can build it with their own hands. They can put their own spin on it. These kids form teams and they create this rocket. It feels like they're becoming little scientists and little engineers in the process,” Calandrelli said.
Calandrelli thought back to her own experience in space when she launched on Blue Origin’s New Shepard spacecraft in November 2024. As the 100th woman in space, she was filled with wonder on a ship that used much different fuel.
“When it launched, I think the awe took over the fear. I just looked out the window and watched the earth fall away and the sky go from light blue to dark blue to black, and it was just the most magnificent feeling, like the overwhelming feeling that I had the entire time was gratitude. Like I cannot believe I'm here,” Calandrelli said.
She’s known as The Space Gal online. Through her YouTube channel, books and work with outreach programs like Baking Soda Rocket Day, she hopes to inspire girls to follow their dreams in a male-dominated field.
Postcards filled out by participating children will be sent to space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard mission — a small part of each child carried beyond our planet.
“When I went to space, it felt like I was bringing all of those girls with me to be like, ‘you guys belong here too,’” Calandrelli said. “When I go into those classrooms for baking soda rocket day, I'm going to talk about my story. I'm going to talk about my space flight, and I'm excited to have that spark something inside them, so that maybe they see a little bit of themselves in me and start thinking like, ‘well, she accomplished her big dream. What's my big dream? What do I want to do?’”
Growing greens in the red soil of Mars
Scientists look to grow food in space as human exploration leaps farther beyond Earth.
Plants have evolved to flourish in our planet’s gravity, shielded from radiation. The availability of water and nutrients are incredibly different on the moon and Mars.
Despite the challenges, Associate Professor at Florida Tech Andrew Palmer said it’s “mission-critical” to sustain agriculture outside Earth.
“[Astronauts] need access to fresh food that is going to have the nutrients that are not necessarily shelf stable,” Palmer said. “There's also the psychological benefit of being able to have something green, something that's part of our heritage from Earth to bring with us as we go abroad."
A process called bioleaching is being studied in Palmer’s lab. Many of the minerals needed for plant growth are already present on Mars but cannot be easily dissolved in water. By leaching these out using microorganisms, fungi and bacteria, they can then be used by plants.
Martian agriculture is also set back by the soil. To create a favorable environment, inert spacers like perlite or vermiculite are added by scientists to break it up.
“You can think of these [soils] as being very clay like, so as soon as you add water, they can fuse up and make almost like a cement. That’s a real challenge, because it essentially suffocates the roots of the plants,” Palmer said.
Plants will not be exposed to the open air of the moon or Mars but using all these destinations have to offer will create a more sustainable stay for humans.
“We're going to be working in these controlled environmental chambers and conditions. So, a habitat,” Palmer said. “The seeds that we germinate in [our lab] and grow there all the way to their next generation have never seen daylight. They've only seen artificial lighting.”
