Today’s forecast

Edina High School students’ project will be launched on SpaceX spacecraft

This week Edina High School seniors Josh Cran and Colin Shaw, along with sophomore Grayson Irons, are feeling over the moon after learning their work in the Twin Cities will soon appear on the world stage.

For months they’ve been hard at work on a project to help grow food on board an outgoing SpaceX spacecraft.

“I never would’ve guessed that I’d create an experiment that would go to space, much less in my senior year of high school,” Josh told FOX 9 on Monday.

“We’re growing a plant in space. I mean, how many high schoolers can say that they’ve done that?” Grayson added.

This summer their brainchild will spend two weeks on board a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, after blasting off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center atop a Falcon 9 rocket. The news was announced last Friday after 180 teams in Edina competed for the lone spot representing Minnesota.

“Obviously I’ve never sent anything up into the space, so I’m trying to make it the best I can,” Colin said.

The device is a seed holder intended to minimize vibrations from rockets and guide the roots of growing bean plants miles above the earth.

“It is needed because once we eventually fly into space we need food,” Josh explained.

However, without gravity in space, growing plants need help figuring out which way is up and which way is down. That is where this device will come into play, for a new way to grow plants and the life-sustaining food that they provide.

Catch Up Quick 

⚖️ The Jan. 6 House investigatory committee urged the Justice Department on Monday to bring criminal charges against former President Donald Trump and his associates who helped him launch a multifaceted pressure campaign to try to overturn his 2020 election loss.

👮 Kim Potter, the former Brooklyn Center police officer convicted of manslaughter in the deadly shooting of Daunte Wright in April 2021, won’t have her application heard by the state pardon board as she sought to have her sentence reduced.

👨‍⚖️ The woman charged alongside Minnesota GOP strategist Anton “Tony” Lazzaro on federal sex trafficking charges pled guilty on Monday and is expected to testify at Lazzaro’s trial.

🦧 Amanda, a beloved orangutan at the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory in St. Paul, has died at age 46.

Minnesota man remembers playing in previous largest comeback in NFL history

In his 8 years in the National Football League, Rick Graf experienced his fair share of memorable moments.

But thanks to the Minnesota Vikings, one of them no longer holds an NFL record.

“I guess I can’t tell people I’m the fuse that lit the biggest comeback in NFL history anymore,” said Graf.

Graf was a linebacker for the Houston Oilers when they were up 35-to-3 against the Buffalo Bills in the Wildcard round of the playoffs in 1993.

After the Bills scored their first touchdown, Graf, who was wearing casts on both hands, fell on a Bills onside kick, but he couldn’t come up with the ball and the Bills would go on to win 41 to 38, which was the biggest comeback in NFL history for the nearly 30 years.

“I just remember the flight home. It was super shock. We fired our defensive coordinator, defensive backs coach the next day. It was bad,” said Graf.

Just like the Colts versus the Vikings, Graff says the Oilers only scored 3 points after jumping out to a huge lead and lost on a field goal in overtime.

Graf says he didn’t start watching the Vikings/Colts game until the second half, but when he did, he knew what the Indianapolis players were going through.

“The first half everything went right, The second half nothing went right,” said Graf.

“I think during the broadcast, they referenced back to our Houston game when we were in Buffalo and I was like this is unbelievable.”

Graf, who is from Madison, Wisconsin and has lived in Minnesota for the last 25 years, says Vikings fans should enjoy the win because it’s not every day your team makes history, and it could be decades before their record is broken.

“This is a great momentum builder for the Vikings because it shows them what they can do. They seem to be on a little destiny right now. Everything is rolling for them. Everything is great,” said Graf.

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