Animation 1: Vulture's Statue - Story: When Vulture demands that a larger statue of his glorious image be erected on the school campus, the funds must come from somewhere - and the first casualty is the school's large telescope. After all, who needs a "stupid old telescope"? The Space Racers are soaring through space all the time, he reasons; they can see whatever they need to see with their own eyes. Problem is, once the telescope is gone, no one notices a massive comet on a dangerous trajectory for their space station on the moon! Now the cadets need to race against the clock to somehow avert the impending disaster, when some simple observation in advance would have made their job a lot easier. Curriculum Focus: The right tools and the right techniques help us get the job done more efficiently. Interstitial 1: "MD Science Center 7: Night Sky Telescope". Animation 2: Follow the Water - Story: The Racers objective is to detect and follow water as an indicator of life on Mars. Meanwhile, Hawk, preoccupied with an upcoming "Captain Cosmos" convention on Jupiter's moon Europa in which fans gather to act out their favorite episodes from the show, draws ridicule from the other Racers. But he finds support from a sympathetic Crane, and the two form a special bond that soon has Hawk sounding more and more like the inscrutable headmaster in his own daily conversations. Drawing even more ridicule from his friends over this, a dejected Hawk finds some other rockets flying to the Captain Cosmos play-acting event... and he decides to join them. Will Hawk find what he is looking for at the Convention, and what lessons will he learn? Curriculum Focus: Ongoing learning - developing hypotheses, modeling flexible thinking and being open to unexpected discoveries. Interstitial 2: "Music Video 2: Rocket Science (Encore)". Character Bio: Hawk.
