Four-year-old boy asks NASA for help with his homework, gets awesome 10-minute video response

Lucas Whitely, a four-year-old student at Sunny Hill Primary in West Yorkshire, England, was assigned a simple project about space.

He decided to recruit some help: NASA.

With the assistance of his father, he sent NASA a video of himself asking three questions about space:

1. How many stars are there?
2. Who came in second and third in the race to the moon?
3. Did any animals go to the moon?

Instead of just receiving a formal letter, brochure, or emailed response, an engineer took the time to create a 10-minute video for Lucas, answering his questions in a language a four-year-old could understand.

Ted Garbeff of NASA's Ames Research Center gave Lucas and his class a virtual tour of the Mountain View, California, base before answering Lucas' questions and encouraging the young students watching to work hard in school and to get along with one another.

"It's really a lot of fun being an engineer – you get to play with great toys all day and most importantly you get to learn about the world. It wasn't easy, though, getting here, I had to work really hard. So remember to work hard in school and listen to your teacher."

"Hopefully one of these days I'll see you all – maybe up in space," Garbeff concluded.

"When I sat down to watch it with Lucas he had a big smile on his face," Lucas’ father James Whiteley, 37, told the Daily Mail. "Ted is a fantastic bloke to go out of his way for someone he doesn’t know on the other side of the world."

Teachers were so impressed with the video response that they organized a school assembly to show it to everyone.