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http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/africa/09/20/nigerianteen.space/index.html

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) -- Nigerian schoolgirl Stella Felix rises at 5 a.m. to do chores and then walks nearly an hour to get to school. Once there, she has to share textbooks with her schoolmates because her parents can't afford to buy her her own. And when she gets back home, homework is done by candlelight.

Saturday, Felix will soar above all that, becoming the first Nigerian to experience what it is like to fly in space, thanks to a U.S. group that aims to give more people access to the wonders of space. In fact, she is the first of many students Houston-based Spaceweek International Association hopes to launch.

Felix was selected from more than 400 students who applied from the West African country for the zero-gravity flight, which will take off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. She will spend two hours on a modified Boeing aircraft, which will soar 6 miles (10 kilometers) above the earth before dropping, giving several minutes of weightlessness with each cycle.

"I feel like I'm an ambassador," the slim, self-contained 17-year-old said in an interview Tuesday, on the eve of her flight to the U.S. Pressing her hands down on her black skirt, she added, people "thought (space) was only for whites. They don't know that a Nigerian can do it too."

Felix is top of her school in her favorite subjects of physics and chemistry. Most of her class of 60 are lucky to have one book between two.

"At least we all have chairs," she said with a laugh.

Nigeria's ruined infrastructure almost never supplies electricity to her home in the southern town of Ife. Water is drawn from a well in a back yard.

Her parents, who make a living selling second hand clothes, have not been able to afford textbooks for Stella's favorite subjects. But they've saved enough money to put all their seven children through school.

"I'll be looking up in the sky for her," her mother Eunice said, hugging her daughter. "I'm very, very happy. God will protect her."

Spaceweek International organizes educational events for the U.N.'s World Space Week in early October of each year.

"We don't want to just inspire students, we want to inspire countries," Dennis Stone, director of Spaceweek International, said in a telephone interview.

Nigeria was selected to inaugurate the space experience program because of its active space program -- the country launched a satellite in 2003 -- and to highlight the way that space can assist developing countries, Stone said.

To those who question the wisdom of a space program in a country where 70 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day, Stone pointed out that space technology has helped in disaster relief and in development.

"In the Asian tsunami, [space technology] helped direct assistance to exactly where it was needed," Stone said.

Felix, who divides her spare time between extra physics classes and helping her mother in the market, said she wants to bring attention to the ways that space exploration could help her country. She ticked off communications and disaster and weather monitoring on her fingers.

"I feel so happy to be the first person," Felix said. "I wish to learn more so I can teach my peer group."