He didn’t get to try it, but Nathan Storrs is reasonably sure he can cancel out the effects of gravity.

Defying earth’s pull was his assignment earlier this year at an internship with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Virginia.

“I ended up finishing my project, ordering all the parts, and putting it all together, but the satellites weren’t done, so we couldn’t test it,” he said.

The project goal was to simulate the environment of space for launching small, inexpensive satellites, leading the way for colleges and universities to create, and afford, their own space programs, in cooperation with NASA. NASA is continuing its work on the project without Storrs.

His disappointment won’t last long, because he’s already started his second three-month internship with NASA. This time, he’s working on jet engines at the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. From “G-negation” to earthbound aircraft, from design to research, it’s all interesting to Storrs, who’s known since about middle school that he wanted to be an engineer.

“I basically knew because my Mom’s dad is an engineer,” Storrs said. He used to tell me about his experiences as an engineer.”

Storrs, the son of George and Jane Storrs of Snoqualmie, graduated from Mount Si High School in 2007 and started at Washington State University. He was taking advanced placement math classes and Running Start classes at Bellevue Community College during his senior year.

“I was kind of waiting to get to college,” before seriously starting to pursue his engineering degree, he said.

Storr is expecting to graduate this December, after completing his second internship, and a few other classes. His work on the two internships has basically made it impossible for him to complete much of his degree work for WSU this year—“It’s about the same commitment as a semester at WSU,” he said—but it’s put him far ahead in terms of finding work in his chosen field.

“It’s pretty prestigious in the engineering field to work for NASA,” he said. “There are other programs out there, but this one is really good in terms of the hands-on experience.”

Both of Storr’s internships are part of the NASA Undergraduate Student Research Program, at http://usrp.usra.edu.