MIDLAND, Texas — One Midland Legacy senior recently returned from a trip to the International Science School in Australia. Brianna Ortiz was the only Texan to make the trip, and she was also only one of five Americans. For Ortiz, it was an experience that was out of this world.
“It was incredible -- especially seeing people that want to do what I want to do – just from all over the world," Ortiz said.
Ortiz has had her eyes on space exploration.
“I’ve had a telescope since like the sixth grade," Ortiz said. "I’ve always loved stars. I wanted to be an astronaut when I was little and then more of an engineer now.”
A change of thought due to a simple reality.
“I can’t be an astronaut," Ortiz said. "I’m physically too short – that’s a real problem. But if I was like ‘well if I can’t be an astronaut, I can build rockets,’ and so, aerospace engineers – they deal with a lot of building planes, rockets, anything that goes into the sky really.”
Ortiz's trip to Australia gave her access to all types of science.
“My favorite one was the physics and the dark matter lecture that we had just because I love the space travel, of course, but we did a ton of biology, chemistry, we did something over the arctic, just a few little different things so it was really cool to see," Ortiz said.
Ortiz flipped through some notes she took while on her trip.
“Here’s more physics, wave notations and things like the rotational dynamics," Ortiz said. "Here’s the Antarctic stuff – I drew a picture because I ran out of room.”
It also gave her access to all types of friendships.
“I loved meeting everyone," Ortiz said. "Just meeting everyone was so cool. I have so many friends, and we have this giant group chat where we text back and forth and we send different pictures from everywhere we’re from.”
Being the only Texan made Ortiz a star.
“It’s just incredible to be like ‘yeah, I represent the Lone Star State,'" Ortiz said. “One of the students from Australia ran up to me and said ‘oh my gosh, I’ve always want to meet a real-life Texan.’”
After no ordinary field trip, the real-life Texan wants to bring her knowledge back home.
“Something I want to do is I want to bring more aerospace things back to Midland because we have a spaceport here," Ortiz said. "It’s just hard to bring any types of engineering, especially since it’s such a new type, but I'd love to be able to bring it here – so that we can have it and use our spaceport.”
Ortiz is part of a program called "Higher Orbits" that Midland ISD offers, and she used that as a launching pad to get this opportunity. She encourages others to look into the program if they want to try and go on the next trip to Australia in 2025.