High School Aerospace Scholars will select mentors and co-ops to mentor students in the program each year. Mentors must be JSC-badged (civil servant or contractor).  The goal of the mentoring program is to encourage the scholars to study math, science, engineering and technology by giving them an in-depth view of what careers in those fields are really like. Mentors' personal experiences can help scholars get excited about different careers in math, science, engineering and technology.

Mentors and co-ops will submit a biography for the scholars' web page and receive a one hour training by the program coordinator. In the late spring, mentors and co-ops will be assigned to teams of 10-12 scholars. They will correspond with their student teams via e-mail and an on-line discussion session.

The summer workshops begin on Sunday afternoon and end with a closing luncheon on Friday. During the workshop, mentors will facilitate a team project (approximately 4 hours each afternoon) and are encouraged to attend other evening activities with their teams during the week as their schedules permit. Mentors and co-opswill work closely with teachers to help students research and develop a human mission to Mars.

Team projects will be an in-depth review of one of the following topics in Mars exploration:

Getting There and Back - Why do we go? How do we go? What are the risks? Where are we going? How do we go safely?

Living There - How do we survive? What are the dangers? What are our physical needs? What are our psychological needs?

Working There - What is our mission? What do we need? How will we do it? Where will we go? How will we communicate it? How will we work together?

Mission Integration - How do we integrate all three teams to design one mission? How do we work together to create harmony and accomplish the mission parameters and overall goals?