The results of NASA's 18th Annual Great Moonbuggy Race and American schools were once again beaten by racers from the University of Puerto Rico in Humacao and Teodoro Aguilar Mora Vocational High School Team II of Yabucoa, Puerto Rico for the second straight year. The closest American team was the team from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, who finished second in the college division competition, while a number of American teams placed third in the competitions.

You can bet this has the American teams thinking about what they can do different next year to win and beat the Puerto Rican schools. American has had a reputation for not promoting mathematics and science enough during the last few decades and this could be coming back to bite them. The current administration better get to work on improving the level of education in the sciences during the decades ahead, or this trend could continue to be the norm.

The 18th Annual NASA Great MoonBuggy Race challenges students from all over world to compete and design and engineer lightweight, human-powered buggies demonstrating the same spirit that allowed mankind to go to the Moon forty years ago. This year over 70 different teams from schools around the world competed to see who could build the best moonbuggy and build new relationships that will help the young scientists of the world pull down barriers and work together in the battle to take mankind to the next pinnacle.

Science is the answer to many of our problems on Earth and we need to educate and energize the younger generation to find solutions to the problems they'll be facing in the future. We won't always be here to help them and one day they'll be running the show and country, and we need to make sure they have the skills, education and energy to get the job done. Talk to your children about science and mathematics and let them know that they need to make sure they get a good education in these areas, if they want to succeed in the future and solve the problems they see before them.