NASA names competition winners

WASHINGTON, May 14 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency has announced the winners of its high school competition to describe the passenger and cargo aircraft of the future.

Tom Neuman, a senior from George Walton Comprehensive High School in Marietta, Ga., and Aditya Singh, a senior from the Anglo-Chinese Junior College in Singapore, won top individual prizes for essays about their concepts of multi-functional personal air vehicles.

More than 140 teenagers from 50 schools across the United States and 15 other nations submitted 65 entries in four categories: U.S. individual, U.S. team, non-U.S. individual and non-U.S. team.

The top teams were three 11th-graders from West High School in Torrance, Calif., and three ninth-graders from the National High School of Computer Science in Bucharest, Romania.

NASA will award the top scoring papers from the U.S. with a trophy and a cash prize of $1,000 for the individual award winner and $1,500 for the team. Non-U.S. students will receive a trophy, but are not eligible for cash prizes. All participants will receive a NASA certificate and a personal letter of commendation.

A list of all winners is available at http://aero.larc.nasa.gov/comp_awardees_high_2008.htm