Editing Summer Science Program (section)

{{Short description|Academic summer program in the United States}}
{{Infobox organization
| name                     = Summer Science Program, Inc.
| logo                     = [[File:SSP Logo 2015 MR.png|200px]]
| logo_size                = 200px
| logo_caption             = Logo since 2015
| image                    = [[Image:SSP Telescope.jpg|200px|The Summer Science Program]]
| type                     = [[501(c)#501(c)(3)|501(c)(3)]] Educational [[Charitable organization|Charity]]
| founded_date             = 1959
| tax_id                   = 94-3341965
| founder                  = [[Thacher School]] and [[Caltech]]
| location                 = [[University of Colorado, Boulder]], [[New Mexico State University]], [[Purdue University]], [[Indiana University Bloomington]], and [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]]
| mission                  = To operate a non-credit, research-based enrichment program for academically gifted high school students, designed to accelerate the intellectual and social development of tomorrow’s leaders, inspiring them to realize their individual potentials in the sciences and other professions.<ref>[http://www.summerscience.org/downloads/Scholarship_Endowment_Fund_FAQ.pdf The SSP Scholarship Endowment Fund (PDF)]{{Dead link|date=June 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=no }}</ref>
| focus                    = [[Astronomy]] education
| num_volunteers           = c. 50
| num_employees            = 1 year-round, about 15 for six weeks
| num_members              = c. 2,000
| homepage                 = http://www.summerscience.org/
}}

'''The Summer Science Program''' ('''SSP''') is an academic summer program where high school students experience college-level education and do research in [[celestial mechanics]] by studying the orbits of [[asteroids]], [[biochemistry]] by studying the kinetic properties of [[enzymes]], [[genomics]] by studying [[antibiotic resistance]], or [[synthetic chemistry]] by studying [[macrocyclic]] catalysts. The program was established in 1959 at [[The Thacher School]] in [[Ojai, California]]. It now takes place on three astrophysics campuses, [[New Mexico State University]] in [[Las Cruces, New Mexico]], the [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]] in [[Chapel Hill, North Carolina]], and [[University of Colorado, Boulder]] in [[Boulder, Colorado]], and two biochemistry campuses, [[Purdue University]] in [[West Lafayette, Indiana]] and [[Indiana University Bloomington]] in [[Bloomington, Indiana]].

In the [[Astrophysics]] program, each team takes a series of images of a near-earth asteroid, then writes software to calculate its orbit and predict its future path. In the [[Biochemistry]] program, each team isolates and models an enzyme from a fungal crop pathogen, then designs a molecule to inhibit that enzyme. In the [[Genomics]] program, each team grows a culture of ''Vibrio natriegens'' under moderate antibiotic selection pressure.