‘Mars Or Bust’

Former TAG Student Returns To Teach Space Course

Rock, paper, scissors, Mars. April Kramer Andreas ’02, ’03 shows students a rock sample during a discussion about the geological similarities between Earth and Mars.

When April Kramer Andreas ’02, ’03 saw The Right Stuff, she didn’t just see a movie about the storied Mercury Seven astronauts. She saw her future.

“I’ve always been interested in space, and that did it for me,”Andreas says. “When I saw it, I knew I wanted to be an astrophysicist. I eventually discovered that I liked the math more than the physics.”

In junior high, she explored opportunities that would launch her studies in the right direction and landed at SMU as a participant in the Talented and Gifted (TAG) summer program.

The student became the master when Andreas returned to SMU in July to teach the TAG class, “Mars or Bust: Building a Permanent Martian Settlement.”

“April is the first person to attend a TAG camp and come back to teach in the program,” says Marilyn Swanson, director of programming for the Gifted Students Institute and pre-college programs, Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development.

TAG is a three-week residential program for academically gifted students who have completed grades 7, 8 or 9. They participate in credit and non-credit college courses.

Andreas’ class of four girls and eight boys tackled topics that ranged from planning an expedition to the Red Planet to governing its first colony.

The TAG class was a Kramer-Andreas family team effort. Her father, geologist Vernon Kramer, who teaches at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas, participated via the Internet in a session about the geological similarities and differences between Earth and Mars.

Andreas’ husband, Derek ’02, an engineer with SpaceX in Waco, Texas, gave students a guided tour of the propulsion and structural test facilities of the private company, which aims to establish routine commercial space transportation.

The experience “really kept me on my toes,” says Andreas. “The kids are so smart, so enthusiastic. They were constantly firing questions at me. My oral exams for my Ph.D. were nothing compared to this.”

Andreas vividly remembers her first day on the SMU campus as a TAG student. “It was July 4, 1993, and I went to watch the fireworks at the stadium and I felt a real sense of belonging here,” she recalls. “I did the TAG program for three years, then the College Experience.”

The academically intensive five-week College Experience program allows students in 10th or 11th grade to earn six hours of college credit by completing regular SMU courses.

After graduating from high school in South Texas, she entered the SMU University Honors Program as a first-year student in fall 1998 with 18 credit hours from SMU already on her transcript, Swanson says.

A President’s Scholar and honors graduate, Andreas majored in mathematics with minors in computer science, art history and physics. She also received her Master of Science degree in computational and applied mathematics from SMU. She earned a Ph.D. in systems and industrial engineering from the University of Arizona in 2006 and later joined the faculty of McLennan Community College in Waco, Texas, where she teaches mathematics and engineering.

While Andreas concedes that the topic of colonizing Mars “may seem like crazy talk to some people,” she believes students will find many practical applications for the larger lessons.

“One thing that made this class so exciting is that these kids will be the generation to have the first real shot at colonizing Mars,” she says. “My hope is that my class will encourage their pioneer spirit and give them a sense that they can do anything they want to do.”