Solar Powered Projects For School

Jason, the million-dollar submersible robot, was still missing at sea Friday but its disappearance failed to sink a $$7 million solar power science projects. "Jason's still down there, but we're optimistic," said Nancy Green of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, home base to the propeller-driven remote-control robot sunk to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

More than 250,000 students in 13 cities in the United States and Canada were boning up on plate tectonics and underwater volcanoes in preparation for the start Monday of massive solar power science projects gone slightly awry.

Museums across North America were hooked up live via satellite with the Star Hercules, a marine exploration ship anchored over the ancient ruins of a sunken Roman trading ship off the coast.

As about 2,000 museum officials, teachers and technicians watched, marine biologists began lowering the 7-foot-long robot and its 8,000-pound mobile garage, Argo, into the ocean for a test run. The footage was to be viewed by thousands of students during a two-week period.

All of a sudden, the live cameras focused in on a group of crew members holding the severed cable that once had been Jason's lifeline.

In a flash, the horrible truth emerged: the million dollar robot whose older brother nosed among the Titanic's ruins had sunk 2,100 feet to the soft, silty ocean floor.

Green said a second consecutive day of churning seas and high winds prevented Dr. Robert Ballard and his team of marine explorers from sending down a second submersible to rescue its errant predecessor.

Paul Fontaine, coordinator for the project at Boston's Museum of Science, said if necessary a slightly less sophisticated backup would be used and the show would go on despite Jason's predicament.

"The kids won't be disappointed," he said. "Even if they can't pick him up before the project gets going, they'll just go back and get Jason later."

Fontaine said the project, whose sponsors include Turner, Woods Hole, Electronic Data Systems and the National Geographic Society, would go on as scheduled.

The participating museums are The Boston Museum of Science; the Museum of Natural History in Denver; the Detroit Science Center; the Discovery Place in Charlotte, N.C.; the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago; The Science Place in Dallas; Memphis (Tenn.) Pink Palace Museum; The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.