By Cheresa D. Clark

With the beat of Alexander Eaglerock, Stearman, ‎Criston Eagle II and Cirrus SR22 propellers providing the melody, and the future of Colorado aerospace as primary witnesses, Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum dedicated the launch of a new endeavor Oct. 14.

A new flight ramp on the southeastern edge of Centennial Airport in Englewood is the future site of the museum's Exploration of Flight education and technology center.

"This ramp is the launch pad for kids like you and others to take the place of veterans like our B-17 friends here today," said Wings' President and CEO Greg Anderson, with a nod to World War II veterans and a members of the first class of Wings Aerospace Academy students in attendance.

Launched in September, Wings Aerospace Academy is the latest educational outreach program being offered by the museum. The tuition-free middle school charter program is currently providing hands-on aerospace experiences to middle-school students.

So if the museum at Hagar 1 in the Lowry neighborhood of Denver represents the past, the present and future will be represented by the new Exploration of Flight center, said John Barry, chair of the museum's board of directors.

The new center will not be a museum, but a forward-looking, future-oriented center for developing the next generation of aerospace leaders – and leaders in all walks of life, said Anderson.

"The importance of this flight ramp is that this is where we will launch those lives," he said.

A national model for aviation education, the flight-based STEM school initiative will grow one grade every year through 12th grade.

"The person who's going to walk on Mars is alive today, and who knows, it may be someone who was born here in Colorado," Barry told the crowd.

Other Wings outreach initiatives in place include Aerospace Explorers, a career orientation program providing character and leadership experiences to high-school students; the Wingman Initiative, which, with partial funding from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, supports student pilots earn their private pilot licenses; and the Teacher Flight Program, which, to date, has provided resources, training and orientation flights to more than 350 teachers, with a goal of reaching an educator in each one of the 1,600 front-range schools.

"I think some part of every human being wants to be free of the earth and spread their wings," Anderson said. "We give people that opportunity – and they set that course for their lives – to be something they never dreamed they could be."