When Andrew Symes was a boy he gazed up at the stars from his backyard and wondered about mankind's travels into space. The Ottawa man will take that curiosity to the next level thanks to winning a Twitter contest.
The longtime space enthusiast is one of 150 lucky people who have won NASA's latest Tweetup contest. As their reward, these ardent NASA Twitter followers will be treated to VIP access prior to launch of the Mars Rover Curiosity at the Kennedy Space Centre and Cape Canaveral.
The Tweetup contest was instituted by NASA to reach out to its 1.5 million followers and attract new fans. The Tweetups also offer ordinary science fans a behind-the-scenes look at the space agency's facilities.
"I applied online and crossed my fingers," Symes said on Monday on CTV's Canada AM.
Symes had previously applied to other such contests but with no success.
"I wanted to see the last Space Shuttle launch a few months ago. I was used to seeing messages in my inbox from NASA, usually rejection messages," said Symes.
On Wednesday, Symes and two other Canadian winners will arrive at in Florida to begin their VIP tour, which will include a meeting with the designers of the Rover.
They will also have the opportunity to hear, first hand, what this mission's goals are once Curiosity lands on Mars.
This mission, in particular, was designed to see if Mars has ever been habitable. To that end, Curiosity will be looking for any signs of conditions that could have supported the formation of microbial life.
"Today Mars is pretty much a frozen desert. But there has been evidence that water flowed there in the past," said Symes.
"The Rover will roll across the surface and drill into rocks, analyze them and see if they formed in the presence of water. If they did, that increases the chance that there might have been little microbes there," he said.
Symes and his fellow Tweetup winners will also meet the head of NASA, TV personality Bill Nye the Science Guy, and see the actual launch pad up close before Curiosity launches.
"That's an experience the public doesn't normally get," said Symes.
But more than hobnobbing with NASA VIPs, Symes hopes to communicate the excitement of Curiosity's launch to fellow space fans.
His own fascination with space began as teenager, after Symes learned that a comet was reportedly in a collision course with Jupiter. Armed with a telescope, Symes tracked the sky from his backyard and his passion for astronomy was born.
That passion grew thanks to NASA's regular online updates.
"When I heard that there were missions travelling to planets that I could follow online that peaked my interest," said Symes.
"People are passionate about this. I want to report on that excitement that you see being at an actual rocket launch."
