St. Olaf student shoots for the moon and wins

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BOUNTIFUL — Karissa Amante, 10, a St. Olaf Catholic School fifth grader, is flying high after winning a prize in a national Girl Scout essay contest. But Karissa will have to wait a while for her prize — it’s currently on its way to the moon on the NASA uncrewed Orion spacecraft Artemis I, which is part of NASA’s goal of sending the first woman and the first person of color to the moon.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, the mission’s first female launch director, is a former Girl Scout.

Last spring Karissa entered the GSUSA “Girl Scouts to the Moon and Back” essay contest along with thousands of Girl Scouts across the country. She recently learned that she is one of the 90 winners — one of just 15 junior Girl Scout winners nationwide. Each girl will receive a Space Science badge that currently is part of the Artemis cargo. The Artemis I lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Nov. 16. It will travel approximately 40,000 miles beyond the moon and return to Earth in mid-December.

“It is very exciting; I’m very happy about it,” Karissa said of her win. “I think it’s very cool.”

The Amante family are parishioners at St. Olaf Catholic Church. Karissa, a member of Troop 498, has been a Girl Scout for more than two years. She entered the contest with the encouragement of her mother, who had been following the Artemis project.

“I was really excited to hear they were going to put the first woman on the moon, so when the opportunity came up to do an essay, I knew it would be something that Karissa would be passionate about and want to enter,” said Kristen Amante, who herself participated in a Girl Scout troop sponsored by St. Olaf school when she was younger.

“I had a great experience. I thought it was great to be able to empower girls, and I wanted my daughter to follow in those footsteps,” she said.

In her winning essay, Karissa told the story of the first girl who goes to the moon and is able to start the first colony there. Years later, when the earth is no longer habitable because of climate change, she is able to save mankind by providing a home for them on the moon.

“I think it is incredible,” she said of the prospect of women going to the moon. “I think women should get equal opportunities to men.”

She is excited to receive the Space Science badge, which she plans to display in her room.

“I am proud and happy that Karissa had this opportunity to write an essay,” her father Paul Amante said. “She has always been extremely talented from a verbal perspective. She has always been really bright in all her subjects and writing, spelling, language arts is one of her strengths. So, I’m very happy to see her lean into that and use the talents that she has and continue to write. She wants to now join more essay contests and challenge herself more. This has inspired her to want to go further with this type of activity.”

Cindy Marten, deputy secretary, U.S. Department of Education and a lifelong Girl Scout; and Pam Melroy, NASA deputy administrator, recorded videos congratulating the winners.

The essays are “a testament to your intellect, creativity, courage, entrepreneurship and even your sense of humor,” Marten said. “My hope is that this essay contest has given you the confidence to know that you all have what it takes to be future barrier breakers and leaders in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).”

Melroy also was a Girl Scout when she was a youth. “It’s your generation, the Artemis generation, that will ultimately do the work that takes us to Mars and beyond. We hope this is just one step in a journey to a STEM career and maybe even to NASA and beyond,” she said in her message.

Another Utah junior Girl Scout, Margaret Moore of Troop 194, also was a winner in the contest.