Last summer when Joshua Herrmann got to meet his hero — aerospace engineer Burt Rutan — at an aviation convention in Wisconsin, it was one of the highlights of his young life.
A short time later, Joshua started his freshman year at River Springs Charter School’s Flabob Airport Preparatory Academy and learned about the Riverside County History Day Competition. Then it dawned on him. “I should really do my History Day project on this guy,” said Joshua, 15, whose career ambition is to become an astronaut.
On Saturday morning, March 12, Herrmann stood in front of a nearly empty classroom at Arlington High School at the Riverside County History Day Competition and delivered a short performance before a panel of three judges in which he portrayed Rutan, talking about his accomplishments, which include winning the Ansari X-Prize — a privately financed mission to twice send a manned spaceship above the Earth’s surface within two weeks — and the $10 million that went with it in 2004, and his hopes that America would regain its “exceptionalism” — a phrase Herrmann borrowed from Rutan.
“I am a man who’s explored the field of aviation to its fullest,” said Joshua toward the end the performance.
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