U student presented scholarship by Apollo 15 astronaut

See larger image
Andrew Jones is one of just 19 national recipients of a $10,000 scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.

Photo and home page image by Rick Moore

September 10, 2008

It was a good day for Andrew Jones.

Not only was he awarded a $10,000 scholarship from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF), he received a ceremonial check from Col. Al Worden, an astronaut who served on the 1971 Apollo 15 mission.

The Astronaut Scholarship is the largest monetary award given in the United States to science and engineering undergraduate students based solely on merit. Only 19 of the awards are disbursed each year to college students majoring in a science or engineering field.

Jones says he was very excited, even a bit speechless, when he discovered he won the scholarship. And he was humbled by the circumstances of Wednesday's ceremony.

"The money's one thing, but having the prestige of the award, as well as an astronaut coming to campus, is huge," he says. "I feel really honored."

Jones is a senior in the University of Minnesota's Institute of Technology Honors program. He is pursuing a dual major in chemical engineering and chemistry and focuses his research on biofuels and renewable sources of energy. He also leads the U's Active Energy Club, which educates the campus and community about renewable energy.

He plans to go to graduate school to study catalytic reaction engineering.

Worden followed up his presentation of the scholarship to Jones with a talk to an honors physics class of freshman students, who have been on campus less than two weeks. He shared yarns of his out-of-this-world travels and how hard work made it possible for him to be one of only 24 men to have traveled to the moon.

Worden served as command module pilot on the Apollo 15 mission, during which he orbited the moon with crewmates Dave Scott and Jim Irwin. During his "lonesome" period in the command module, while his crewmates walked on the moon, Worden photographed 25 percent of the lunar surface with two special cameras mounted outside the ship.

On the homeward journey, Worden took the farthest-out space walk, moving along hand rails on the outside of his spaceship to retrieve film cassettes from the two moon-mapping cameras. He was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1997 and has chaired the ASF since 2005.

The Astronaut Scholarship Foundation is a nonprofit organization established in 1984 by the six surviving members of America's original Mercury astronauts. Its goal is to aid the United States in retaining its world leadership in science and technology by providing scholarships to college students who exhibit motivation, imagination, and exceptional performance in the science or engineering field of their major.