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STUDENTS EARN AWARDS FOR ROLE IN SPACEHAB's S*T*A*R*S PROGRAM ON U.N. INTERNATIONAL DAY OF DISABLED PERSONS Washington, DC, November 29, 1999 – Three high-school students who worked on a space experiment flown by SPACEHAB, Inc.'s (Nasdaq: SPAB) S*T*A*R*STM Program are receiving awards for their contributions this week. The S*T*A*R*S (Space Technology And Research Students) Program is a commercial education initiative that enables students to fly experiments on Space Shuttle missions. On December 1 in Washington, high school students Julie Blackburn, Leon Douglas, and Norman Batten of Albany, Georgia, are receiving Outstanding Young Person Awards for their S*T*A*R*S work. December 1 is United Nations International Day of Disabled Persons. Blackburn will accept awards for all three students during a ceremony at the World Bank, hosted by the People to People Committee on Disabilities, the U.S. Council on International Rehabilitation, and American Athletes with Disabilities. Blackburn, Douglas, and Batten worked on their S*T*A*R*S experiment – a study of how microgravity affects the development, growth, and behavior of Painted Lady butterflies – as students in the High School/High Tech Program of the Dougherty County School System in Albany. Blackburn has spina bifida and is wheelchair-bound. She graduated from Albany's Westover High School this June and plans to attend Darton College and pursue a career in telemetry. Douglas and Batten, who have learning disabilities, are seniors at Westover. The S*T*A*R*S Program is funded by government agencies, corporations, individuals and nonprofit groups that sponsor individual or multiple schools. Sponsors can provide for three levels of student participation: Super Nova, Quasar, and Pulsar. Super Nova schools design and fly experiments, working directly with space scientists and astronauts. Representatives of Super Nova schools may attend the launch of their experiments. SPACEHAB plans to fly S*T*A*R*S experiments on Space Shuttle mission STS-107, now tentatively set for January 2001. The company also plans to offer a S*T*A*R*S Program on the International Space Station (ISS) from September through December 2001 and on future Space Shuttle missions. SPACEHAB, with its Johnson Engineering and Astrotech subsidiaries, is the world's leading provider of commercial payload processing services for manned and unmanned payloads. SPACEHAB is the first company to commercially develop, own and operate habitable modules that provide laboratory facilities and logistics resupply aboard NASA's Space Shuttles. The company also supports NASA astronaut training at Johnson Space Center, Houston.
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