{"id":719140,"date":"2026-04-10T23:04:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T23:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/719140\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T23:04:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T23:04:16","slug":"philly-students-share-out-of-this-world-connection-with-artemis-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/719140\/","title":{"rendered":"Philly students share out-of-this-world connection with Artemis II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (WPVI) &#8212; These Philadelphia students are proud to say their names have flown around the moon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">It all started with the outer space-themed curriculum that recurs every year in the 3rd grade class at <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sch.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Springside Chestnut Hill Academy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">But this year, the excitement surrounding the Artemis II mission took it to another level.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Teachers decorated their classrooms with astronaut artwork, interstellar vocabulary words, and books about the moon. They even tasked students with building their own rocket ships.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">But it was a different assignment altogether that fueled the connection to Artemis II.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">In November, students wrote thank you cards to veterans for Veterans Day. One recipient was former Navy pilot Rick Yasky.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Yasky, who now is a part-time contract aerospace engineer with NASA, was moved by the children&#8217;s letters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">In addition to writing back, Yasky wanted to do something special for the students.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">In his free time, he found a <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www3.nasa.gov\/send-your-name-with-artemis\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">publicly-available NASA webpage<\/a>. There, anyone could sign up to have their names written on an SD card that would fly on the Orion spacecraft in the Artemis II mission.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Each was able to student sign up and receive commemorative boarding passes. Then, they sent Yasky a photo to thank him once more.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Teachers and students say they will remember it as a small act of kindness that turned into an out-of-this-world experience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Watch the video above to see what it meant to everyone involved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \"><a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/6abc.com\/videoClip\/18824100\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">RELATED: South Philly dragon boat team dreams of reaching world championship<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Whose boat? Our boat!&#8221; The Discovery Pathways Dragon Boat program gives students a chance to dream even beyond the lakes and rivers of Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<p><br class=\" \"\/><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (WPVI) &#8212; These Philadelphia students are proud to say their names have flown around the moon.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":719141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,71871,13633,6522,994,60616,916,30150,1448,2830,1311,147979,164,6214,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-719140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-america","tag-artemis-ii","tag-astronauts","tag-mission","tag-moon","tag-names","tag-nasa","tag-orion","tag-pa","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-sd-card","tag-spacecraft","tag-students","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116382916116850351","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/719141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}