The students at the Nasa complex at Houston, Texas, in the US. Telegraph picture

Sept. 10: Each time Class VIII student Ankush Banik had seen a rocket zooming into the space on television, he wondered how it would feel to be inside one.

Today, he is grateful to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) for giving him the opportunity to experience the feeling, in a trip to the US organised by his school.

In a programme, Astronaut Encounter in Nasa, Ankush and his friends from city’s Cambridge School sat inside a simulator for 15 minutes and experienced the feeling of an astronaut inside a rocket.

“You will feel the pressure building up around you inside the rocket. You will feel the downward pressure as soon as the rocket is launched,” Ankush told reporters today about his experience in Nasa.

During their 15-day trip to the US, from August 14 to 28, they were in Nasa for three days and had seen various procedures associated to the launching of rockets to space.

They also interacted with Nasa’s astronaut Charlie Walker during their trip.

The eight-member team included five students — Ankush Banik, Naman Baruah, Victor Deka, Dorothy Tanti and Niharjeet Mahanta — and three teachers — Sonia Majumdar, Momi Mahanta and Rijumoni Baruah.

During a training programme, Victor was judged one of the best trainees and awarded an original copy of the Detroit Free Press (an English daily newspaper) of July 21, 1969, which had first published the news of Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon.

“We were asked to make a model rocket and fly it using air pressure and I succeeded,” Victor said.

“We have seen original rockets and shuttles used in earlier space missions. They were gigantic and displayed for the audience. It was a great experience,” Dorothy said.

She also said they realised how hard astronauts work and how inspiring their lives are, from the trip.

It was not just the students, but their teacher Baruah was equally amazed.

“The size of the garden where rockets were displayed was unimaginable. Nasa covers an area of 3.4 lakh acres of land. To facilitate tourists there are buses to take the visitors around,” Baruah said.

The students recalled among other things what made a deep impact on their minds, were the launch pads for rockets and suits of the astronauts sprinkled with moon dust.

The team also visited Disneyland, Diamond Community School and Florida University of Technology.

On its way to the US, the team made a halt at Cairo, during which they visited the Pyramids at Giza and the Sphinx.

Pulak Bhattacharyya, principal of the school, said the expenditure in the trip was Rs 2 lakh per student, which was shared equally by the parents and the school.

“We organise cultural exchange programmes. Last year, we organised one with Zambia and next year we will organise a cultural exchange trip either with Australia, Kenya, Zambia or New Zealand,” he said.