The Daily Colonial: "According to a panel discussion conducted in October by the National Academies, the nation's leading science advisory group, American 12th graders performed below the international average for 21 countries on the general knowledge of math and science and China's engineer graduates outnumbered America's engineer graduates by almost 9 to 1 in 2005.

NASA is concerned that the United States is falling behind.

The agency has created various programs for minority students including NASA Scholars, a program that consists of fellowship programs at 14 minority-serving institutions; NOMISS, a program designed to encourage minority students to engage in learning about culture and its relevance to space sciences; and the Society for Hispanic Professional Engineers science program that gives internships to Hispanic students pursuing science careers."