Mars 2112, a unique event-dining and theme-entertainment restaurant, located at 51 Street and Broadway, New York, has announced a scholarship opportunity for the public-school students, ages 7-12, to visit the US Space Camp this summer.

This exciting experience is offered to two lucky middle-school Space-Contest winners from the selected public schools in Manhattan, who will write the most interesting essays regarding life on Mars..

These two winners and their escorts will blast off for the US Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, to participate in a "Parent/Child Aviation Challenge" program, scheduled for mid-August.

The weekend Space Challenge combines fun and simulated jet fighter pilot training, in addition to land-and-water survival coaching techniques, and space exploration missions. Parents and children will have the time of their lives sharing, exploring, learning, and working together.

Mars 2112 will pay the full tuition, including air travel, accommodations at the training center, meals, and educational materials for the winners and one parent/guardian traveling with them.

To qualify for this grand prize, the middle-schools students will have to submit an essay about "Life on Mars" (two-page maximum) by June 15, 05 for a review by an independent panel at Mars 2112, which will include educators, teachers, and executives.

The winners will be announced by June 30, 2005. What: A fun-filled weekend for parent and child at the US Space Camp

Who can participate: Public-school students, ages 7 to 12 When: August, 05 Where: US Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama

For more information abut participation and contest requirements, please contact Rose Pogue, Director of Marketing and Sales at Mars 2112.

. Apollo missions - Begun in 1961, Apollo became the backbone of the American space program. Two significant highlights were sending the first humans outside the Earth's orbit and landing the first men on the Moon. The 11 crewed missions included two Earth orbiting missions, two lunar orbiting missions, a lunar swingby and six Moon landing missions.

. Asteroid - One of thousands of small planets between Mars and Jupiter with diameters from a fraction of a mile to nearly 500 miles.

. Black hole - An object whose gravity is so strong that not even light can escape from it.

. Cosmos - The orderly, systematic Universe.

. Dark matter - Name given to the amount of mass whose existence until now has escaped all detections but which is deduced from the analysis of galaxy rotation curves.

. Einstein, Albert (1879-1955) - German-American physicist; developed the special and general theories of relativity which, along with quantum mechanics, is the foundation of modern physics.

. Galaxy - One of billions of systems, each including stars, nebulae, clusters of stars, gas and dust that make up the universe.

. Galileo, Galilei (1564-1642) - An Italian scientist, Galileo was renowned for his contributions to physics, astronomy and scientific philosophy. He is regarded as the chief founder of modern science. He developed the telescope, with which he found craters on the Moon and discovered the largest moons of Jupiter.

. Gemini missions - Announced in 1962 and named for its two-man crew, Project Gemini was the second U.S. manned space program. Gemini involved 12 flights, including two unmanned flight tests of equipment. The project met all its objectives by subjecting man and equipment to space flight for two weeks; docking with orbiting vehicles; and perfecting methods of entering the atmosphere and landing at a preselected point on land.

. Goddard, Robert (1882-1945) - One of the three most prominent pioneers of rocketry and spaceflight theory. He began to work seriously on rocket development in 1909 and is credited with launching the world's first liquid-propellant rocket in 1926.

. Herschel, Caroline (1750-1848) - The first woman to discover a comet and several hundred stars.

. Hubble, Edwin (1889-1953) - American astronomer whose observations proved that galaxies are "island universes," not nebulae inside our own galaxy. His greatest discovery, called "Hubble's Law," was the linear relationship between a galaxy's distance and the speed with which it is moving. The Hubble Space Telescope is named in his honor.

. International Space Station (ISS) - The largest and most complex international scientific project in history. Led by the U.S., the ISS drew upon the resources of 16 nations: Canada, Japan, Russia, 11 nations of the European Space Agency and Brazil. In addition to state-of-the-art U.S. laboratories at the hub of science research, key elements include Canada's Remote Manipulator System, a 55-foot-long robotic arm used for assembly and maintenance tasks, and Russia's Service Module with its own life support and habitation systems.

. Mercury missions - Initiated in 1958, Project Mercury was the United State's first man-in-space program. Project Mercury made six manned flights from 1961 to 1963.

. Milky Way - Broad, faintly luminous, irregular band of light that stretches across the sky and is caused by the light of innumerable stars too distant to be seen clearly with the naked eye.

. Mitchell, Maria (1818-1889) - America's first woman astronomer; became the first woman elected to fellowship in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the first woman Professor of Astronomy.

. Nebula - Any of many immense bodies of diffuse gas or dust in interstellar space.

. Orbital mechanics - The study of the motion of human-made objects as they travel around a principal body-in the majority of flights, the Earth.

. Robonaut - NASA's newest robot, designed as a remotecontrolled space helper with hands unlike any machine of its kind. Robonaut has four fingers and a thumb, enabling it to work with the same tools a space-walking astronaut would use.

. Saturn V - The largest rocket ever used by NASA and the only one able to lift the large masses of fuel needed to land astronauts on the Moon and return them safely. Saturn V rockets launched all of the Apollo missions and several to Earth orbit as well.

. Space Shuttle - Developed by the U.S. to improve its access to space. Since the first flight in April 1981, the Shuttle has carried more than 2.8 million pounds of cargo and hundreds of people into space. The Shuttle is the first and only reusable industrial space vehicle. The Shuttle can be configured to carry many different types of equipment, spacecraft and scientific experiments. The Shuttle also allows astronauts to service and repair satellites and observatories in space, as was demonstrated with the successful repair of the Hubble Space Telescope in December 1999.

. Sputnik - First artificial satellite put in orbit around the Earth by the Soviets in 1957. The launch of the Earth's first "artificial moon" shocked the free world, setting in motion events that resulted in the creation of NASA and the race to the Moon.

. Universe - Everything that exists, including the Earth, planets, stars, galaxies and all that they contain; the entire cosmos.

. Von Braun, Wernher (1912-1977) - One of the most important rocket developers and champions of space exploration between the 1930s and the '70s. His crowning achievement, as head of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, was to lead development of the Saturn V booster rocket that helped land the first men on the Moon in July 1969.

. Wormhole - A theoretical object permitted by Einstein's theory of general relativity, where distant regions of space are connected by a shortcut.