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NASA Art Contest Lets Kids Explore The Final Frontier

By David Wharton | Published 10 years ago

This article is more than 2 years old

I’m not sure how long the tradition of putting your kid’s art up on the refrigerator has been around, but I’m guessing it started sometime after somebody came up with the refrigerator magnet. (Before that, art laid tragically in piles across the kitchen floor.) But as happy as a kid might be to see his parents proudly displaying his work for all to see, how much cooler would it be to have your artwork pinned up on NASA’s fridge? (I presume they only have the one.)

Well, several kids accomplished just that, at least metaphorically. NASA’s Langley Research Center recently hosted an art competition for students ranging from kindergarten all the way up through 12th grade. Kids from the area of Hampton Roads, Virginia were given the theme “The Future Is Now” and invited to let their imaginations soar. Kristina Ruhlman, public outreach specialist for the center, said, “The idea was for young artists to take technologies that once seemed far away and explore how they were becoming reality today,” So presumably it was just pictures of NASA employees with empty wallets or panhandling for spare funding.

Sorry, I meant to switch my cynicism circuits off before I started writing about kids’ space art. Won’t happen again.

Nina May, 1st Place – Kindergarten

Tabb High School junior Rachel Pike took home the grand prize with the picture up top, entitled “The Rainbow Nebula.” It and all the first-place winners will be displayed inside the Virginia Air & Space Center, which is pretty damn cool if you ask me.

We’re including the first place winners below, and you can see the rest in this Flickr gallery.

Samantha Wilhelm, 1st Place – 1st Grade