NASA's deputy director and members of the Challenger Learning Center were at Kirby Smith Middle School on Wednesday to teach students about space.

It was a chance of a lifetime for the children who visited the center on a field trip.

"It will be a memory they'll take for the rest of their lives and hopefully that they'll be able to affect society as they move forward," NASA Deputy Director W. James Adams said.

The students got to meet Adams, who deals with anything that leaves Earth's atmosphere. Those hoping to work with NASA or in the science field were thrilled for the opportunity.

"I'm thinking about being a scientist. I might even work as this job," fourth-grader Charu Chaturvedi said.

Adams has been with NASA for 22 years.

"I hope to inspire them," he said. "I hope they'll continue their quest for learning and knowledge."

Adams showed the children how to communicate with the space shuttle when they're in outerspace. He let them touch a rock from the moon he got from the Apollo 17 trip and pinned them to promote them to honorary planetarium scientists.

"It's pretty cool, amazing, how we -- the moon is so far away, and we can send people easily from Earth to moon, easily. It's surprising," Chaturvedi said.

She's not alone in thinking that.

"I just think it's cool how we can communicate through the, even though the space shuttle is like far away and we're just on Earth," fourth-grader Grant Scymanski said.

The lessons Wednesday came just before the anniversary of the loss of seven crew members during a shuttle launch on a cold morning in 1986.

Later this month marks the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster.