Congratulations to Olivia Rothenberg and Sophie Muncy, authors of the microgravity experiment proposal, “Drinking Coffee in Space: The Impact of Microgravity on Streptococcus mutans, Saliva, and Coffee.”

Sophie and Olivia, 7th graders from iLEAD Encino, collaborated on this proposal with Dr. Renate Lux P.h.D, Professor at the UCLA School of Dentistry, and their science facilitator, Ingrid Moon.

Their proposal was selected from over 90 proposals submitted from five iLEAD sites. Along with five other finalist teams, Olivia and Sophie were required to address feedback they had received from the scientists who evaluated their proposal, as well as create a video to pitch their idea (link video here).

“We worked SO hard on our proposal — there must have been at least ten revisions until we finally felt it was ready to submit,” Olivia said with a laugh. She looked at Sophie, who added, “But at the time, it wasn’t funny. We took it so seriously and had to deal with the ups and downs of our emotions because of how complicated it was. We worked our butts off!”

The next step for the team is to collaborate with Dr. Renate Lux, UCLA and Dr. Jacob Cohen,  Chief Scientist, NASA Ames to make sure their materials are correct.The materials list is submitted to DreamUp, who submit to NanoRacks for approval to be included in the November 2018 launch to the International Space Station on SpaceX CRS-16. The team is planning to attend the launch to see their experiment blast into space!