Eight Bellevue students have graduated from the Washington Aerospace Scholars program.

They are: Farrah Khan, Laura Beckerman, Jenny Spadoni, Mike Mantell, Neil Baunsgard, Dylan Parker, Sean Sullivan and Tyler Grisdale.

They were among 154 students from across the state who qualified for the Washington Aerospace Scholars Summer Residency program.

To qualify for the residency program, Khan and Baunsgard of Newport High School, Beckerman of Forest Ridge High School, Spadoni and Mantell of Sammamish High School, Parker and Sullivan of International High School and Grisdale of Bellevue High School spent six months studying a NASA-designed, distance-learning curriculum

via the Internet. They were selected to attend one of the four residencies hosted by The Museum of Flight this summer. During the residency experience, they collaborated with the other student participants on the design of a human mission to Mars. The scholars are guided by professional engineers, scientists, university students and certified educators as they plan these missions.

In addition to the design of the human mission to Mars, these students and the other WAS scholars also participated in a number of hands-on engineering challenges, including design, construction and deployment of robotic rovers, model rockets, lander devices, and payload lofting systems.

Summer residency participants also received briefings from experts in the fields of engineering and space exploration, visited Everett for behind-the-scenes tours of both the Boeing assembly plant and Aviation Technical Services, and toured various laboratories at the University of Washington’s College of Engineering.

Washington Aerospace Scholars began accepting applications in early September for the 2009 program cycle; visit www.musemofflight.org/washingtonaerospacescholars to download an application.