SENIOR PROFILES
“ Looking at the problem and fi guring out how we overcome the issue of how to get to Mars would be really interesting to me.”
ALEX CHABERT Rocket Man
Alex Chabert envisions a day people will be able to go to Mars. Defi nitely he is going to be an aerospace engineer, and his goal is to someday go to space. He thinks being one of the fi rst people to see the Red Planet close up would be really cool, but there’s a lot of work to be accomplished in the meantime. “Apparently UW Seattle and MSNW in Bellevue are working on nuclear fusion-powered rockets that could one day propel shuttles that allow humans to go to Mars and back in 30 days. Previous estimates with current technology have been at around 500 days of space travel,” he said. Short of blasting off for a 500-day journey, Alex is totally committed to space. His passion for rocketry took off in sixth grade when his class studied space. He started doing research into what companies design space vehicles and started building and launching rockets from kits. Coming to OES for high school allowed him to pursue further research into rocketry. As a freshman he tested the eff ect of diff erent rocket nozzle sizes, and sophomore year he built rocket motors to test the effi ciency of various fuel mixtures. In junior year he wanted to look at shell design and aerodynamics, but it was too expensive so he studied hydroponics, which is being explored for growing food in space. As a member of Oregon Rocketry, Alex has travelled to the desert to launch rockets, along with spending time in Casper, Wyoming, with an aerospace mentor building custom rocket engines. Last year Alex was a Washington Aerospace Scholar through the Museum of Flight program and had access to amazing mentors at Blue Origin, Aerotech, and Boeing, along with meeting Buzz Aldrin (the second man to walk on the moon) in person. He also earned a Boeing internship. Mostly he enjoys talking with experienced rocketeers and anyone with fi rsthand aerospace-related knowledge. “It’s nerd camp for sure,” he said. “It’s really interesting to talk with these guys because a lot of them have been in the game since the 1960s when rocketry took off . It’s amazing how much you can learn just by being around people, through hand-to-hand information, not a formal course.” Alex plans to study aerospace engineering at University of Washington, Seattle Campus.
This year Alex was president of the OES student body.
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