SADDLEWORTH VOICES: Local people’s lives, memories or stories are captured in this special feature – KYLE RICHMOND – A Journey to the Edge of space
By Martin Plant from a recorded interview
KYLE Richmond lives in Delph with his partner, Sarah, and their two young children. He was brought up in Saddleworth and attended Saddleworth School.
After obtaining a science degree in Manchester, he trained to be a teacher and currently teaches at Heaton School in Stockport, a special school for young people with severe learning difficulties, autism, and complex medical needs.
It was while watching the televised landing of NASA’s rover Perseverance on Mars that Kyle had the idea of a science project for his school.
He said: “I thought of all the passionate people behind NASA’s mission and the team effort involved, and how much a successful outcome must mean to them.
“I decided that it must be possible to replicate some of this excitement and energy for my own pupils.
“After all, “perseverance” is very relevant to our school’s students and the coded pattern on Perseverance’s parachute which spelled out “Dare Mighty Things” (Theodore Roosevelt) is meaningful too.
“My idea was for our school to send a weather balloon to the edge of space!
“The project meant that our students had to learn about space, what and where it is, which is a difficult concept for them.
“They needed to think about what would be required for a space mission, including the testing of equipment and materials. Manchester University’s outreach team became involved.
“They brought a space suit and materials like thermochromic paper, and we assessed what happened to them under different conditions. Also, they provided robotic sessions and lessons on coding.
“Cross curricular initiatives included drama – thinking about what g-forces might feel like, food technology – students put Angel Delight into plastic bags and drank it through straws, mimicking how astronauts eat their food, music – they listened to the sonifications of the Hubble telescope’s images and attempted to recreate the sounds.
“For art – they made images of nebulae and galaxies and put them together as a mural, our hydropool was used to experience weightlessness, with twinkling lights as space projections to enhance the effect.
“We bought the doll Chelsea, Barbie’s younger sister, in a wheelchair, to be our astronaut. A non-verbal autistic student sewed together a spacesuit for her. In English lessons, students wrote letters or made video recordings of what she might say when she was up there!
“Heaton “Men in Sheds” became our tech team. When we purchased a weather balloon, they read the manual to learn how to launch it.
“They also liaised with the Civil Aviation Authority who said that we could not send Chelsea up into the sky from Heaton as we were too close to Manchester Airport, but we could from Rochdale.
“Redwood School was pleased to allow us to use its playing field, provided we had insurance! We needed helium gas which cost several hundred pounds and we were kindly sponsored by the Armourers and Brasiers Company.
“We waited six weeks for good weather and, finally, at the end of June, the CAA shut down the airspace over Rochdale for two hours and we launched Chelsea, suspended below the balloon, complete with camera and GPS tracker.
“We took some of our students in a minibus to watch. Redwood School students were able to observe from their school buildings and the whole process was live streamed back to our staff and students assembled in our school hall.
“There were three questions uppermost in our minds. ‘Will it go high enough? Will we get it back? Will the camera work?’
“Chelsea reached the height of 36 kilometres before the balloon burst (which it was designed to do – as the outside air pressure lessens, the helium gas in the balloon expands).
“The camera worked, and the tracker? Well, it stopped for a while.
“I spent a long day trying to find Chelsea, before the tracker came back to life and late evening I spotted Chelsea, who had landed safely in the middle of Marsden Moor. I hiked across the moor with mounting excitement to retrieve her.
“Since then, Chelsea has been an ambassador for our school following her appearance on CBBC Newsround and she has visited and inspired young people in other schools. We have three hours of video, and images of Chelsea on the edge of space with the curvature of the Earth shown clearly behind her.”
You can find video footage made by Pete Adamson at https://youtu.be/LtyAskGLIjU
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