WHEN NASA astronaut Sunita Williams first went up into space, the first thing she remembers noticing, on looking out through the window, was that the earth was round. “Of course, I knew it was round. You learn that it’s round, and when you’re in aeroplanes sometimes you can see the curvature of earth. But I looked out of the window of the shuttle and I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh it’s round! It really is round.’”

Williams is part of a crack NASA team, which also includes space surgeon, Rick Scheuring, that is inspiring young Scots to reach for the skies. They teach at Scottish Space School, a summer programme run each year by the University of Strathclyde, which encourages S5 school students to consider a career in the space industry or engineering

For young Scots, space might not seem an obvious career avenue, but Scotland’s burgeoning space industry is now worth £2.5 billion a year and growing. There is also a political drive to get more young people into Science, technology, engineering and medicine (STEM). Scottish Space School is also not just about making young people think about space – it’s about showing them the possibilities of a career in STEM.

As Marianne Ballantyne, who runs the school out of the Faculty of Engineering at University of Strathclyde, notes, “We use space as the hook to encourage applications into engineering and STEM, because there is nothing like that at all. The NASA people that come over here all have a stem background, so they’re all scientists or engineers or in the STEM areas.”

The space school, however, doesn’t just bring NASA to Scotland – it takes ten of its star students out to Houston for an all access tour of NASA, a night hanging out at astronauts’ homes for a pool party and other space-related activities. This year 547 pupils across Scotland applied for the 100 places at space school. Ten of those were selected for the highly prized trip to Houston.

Among them was Evie Clark. The 16-year-old has long had an interest in space and had already considered doing engineering before she attended space school. However, she notes that when she was younger she didn’t see it as something for her. “I had the mindset that, as a girl, I couldn’t do that because that’s about boys who become mechanics. I thought it was about cars and getting your hands dirty. But my uncle’s an engineer and I went for a day at my uncle’s work. One of the women said who here thinks engineering is just for boys? Loads of the girls put their hands up. She said, ‘No it’s not.’”

The ambition of working in the space industry may seem a far-fetched one for young people living in Scotland, but Scottish Space School makes it seem realisable. As Clark puts it, “I always thought working with space would be a dream, but not one that would ever realistically happen. I thought that’s not going to happen. People from Scotland don’t work in the space industry. But just going and seeing so many people doing jobs that you would dream about and talking to them was such a motivator that it’s spurred me on to think this is what I’m going to do. I will make it happen.”

Space school also isn’t just about the Houston trip – which takes place in October this year. The week in itself is a challenging and rewarding experience for the young people. They get to build a rocket and launch it in Bellahouston park, design a product to enhance life in space, and be inspired by the NASA team. Also, on this year’s programme was Lewis Jones, a 17-year-old from Trinity High School in Rutherglen, who recalls that one of the most thrilling moments for him was when he got to press the button and launch the rocket.

Jones had always been interested in planes, right from when he was a small child, and on family holidays he would sit at the airport watching them take off and land, marvelling at how they stayed up in the air. “My family are proud that I’m going to Houston,” he says. “When I told them, they were jumping up and down. They couldn’t believe it because, assuming I go, I would be the first person in my family to go to university. My dad works in construction, my mum in a chip shop. The main people that inspired me were the teachers.”

NASA space surgeon Rick Scheuring views his role, in space school, as partly about helping young people who might never think they have a chance in the space industry to consider it. “I remember,” he recalls. “I was at a NASA event ten years ago and a young inner city kid in Houston, came up to the podium and told the panel that for a kid who doesn’t come from a great socioeconomic background and didn’t do well at school, NASA is unapproachable. Spaceflight is not something that a kid like him could even dream of being part of. But the thing I tell kids is, ‘I’m that kid. I didn’t have great grades when I was growing up. My parents didn’t have a lot of money. I went to average state schools. But tenacity and perseverance really paid off.’”

Both Scheuring and Williams also provide stories of how it’s possible to get to that dream job via a indirect route. Scheuring worked as a “smalltown private practice doctor in Illinois” for many years, but always with it in his mind that he might like to combine medicine with his love of space. Williams originally wanted to be a veterinarian, but didn’t get into the university she hoped to, ended up I the navy, worked as a test pilot, and found a possible path from there to space. She would go on to hold the record, which has since been broken, for most space walks done by a woman.

Scheuring observes that he is often struck by the enthusiasm for space when he works with children in countries which, like Scotland, don’t have a space programme. “I talk to-12-year old kids in Taiwan who are crazy about space, and I wonder what it is that is inspiring them. Then. I think back to my own story and think, ‘Yeah, we had a space programme in the 1960s and 1970s but it was just the wonder of space and being a part of something much bigger than yourself.’ Kids hook onto that stuff, and they want that.”

Many of the Scottish Space School alumni have gone on to study engineering. One is already working in the Scottish space industry at Clyde Space. Marnie McKay, a student currently doing an MA in electrical mechanical engineering at the University of Strathclyde, recalls how Scottish Space School made her rethink her career plans. She had been “bent on becoming a lawyer”, but then, she says, the programme “completely turned my head”.

A reason, she believes, she hadn’t thought about engineering in the first place is the stereotypes that exist around it. “I had completely the wrong idea of what engineering is. My parents discouraged me too, because they think of boys that play with Lego and computers in their free time are more suited, and I did theatre and singing and dancing.”

Her special interest is power engineering, and she is currently looking at working in the renewables industry. Space, though, is still on her mind. “I went into power engineering because it’s still space related. Although I ended up working in the power sector I wouldn’t rule out working in the space industry in the future.

On her visit to Houston, she recalls, that one of the things that struck her most was how down to earth and accessible the people she met at NASA were. “I realised that they were people like me and that if I applied my passion as well I could probably make the same sort of difference. That’s what inspired me - that they were normal people not superhuman.”

A path to space – Sunita Williams

Sunita Williams

“This was not my plan, to be an astronaut. I tell the students at Scottish Space School, that when you’re young you don’t have to have a plan. You can just have an idea of things that you’re interested in, and don’t be totally disappointed if things change along the way. I was very fortunate to have, when I was a kid, what I would call potential failures. I didn’t get the first thing that I wanted to get. I didn’t get into the university that I thought I needed to go to in order to become a veterinarian. But it opened another door and I got into the navy and this gave me the opportunity to learn how to fly and that gave me an opportunity to become a test pilot, which was what got me on my way to thinking about applying to be an astronaut.

One of the things that left the biggest impression on me was my first spacewalk. You’re just going outside the space station for the first time and you’re trying not to be nervous but you’re a little nervous. Then, when I finally got out of the door and put a tether on, all of a sudden, the sun came up. It was mind blowing. A little later, we flew over Canada and the northern lights were below us. It was amazing to be above them. I’d seen them from below but never from above. Being up there really puts things in perspective. Our planet is awesome. We think everything that is going on here is so important and then you realise there is so much energy in the universe and things going on we have no control of.

In NASA, of course there are more men than women. I was in the military and that was a little bit more, in my mind, male oriented than NASA was. The stem fields were not very populated on the American side then women. But it’s improving more and more. But the class of 2013 was four men and four women. They were the most qualified. That’s happening.

What I do with Scottish Space School is really about encouraging the next generation to explore. There is so much we have to learn about. What we do in space is also about helping people solve problems on earth. It makes people think outside of the box. You design something to use in space and you have to think about things differently. And not only are you using those creative juices to design something that works in space you’re also using them to find ways to do things here.”