Shop class makes space station parts for NASA

BEDFORD TOWNSHIP (AP) — Members of a southeastern Michigan shop class are making parts for the International Space Station under a NASA program.

About 10 students from a machining program at Bedford High School are building lockers where astronauts will keep their experiments aboard the space station.

Paul Cook, a manufacturing instructor at the school, said he thought it was a prank when NASA first called him about the program.

“This is a great opportunity for the kids,” Cook told the Monroe News. “Imagine being a student and having on your resume that you built a part for the International Space Station.”

The students are scheduled to finish one locker by the end of the school year and make multiple parts over the next five years.

Bedford High is one of 77 schools nationwide that are participating in the program.

The earliest the experiment lockers will be installed in the space station is a little more than a year away, Hale said.