KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — Students from around the world are gathering at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex to pitch STEM-related projects that one day could be used in the real world.

• Conrad Innovation Summit named for former astronaut Pete Conrad
• His wife, Nancy, a former educator, founded Conrad Foundation
• Students from around the country inspired to innovate with STEM

The Conrad Innovation Summit is named for the third man to walk on the moon: NASA astronaut Pete Conrad set foot on the lunar surface in November 1969 during the Apollo 12 mission.

"I feel like Willy Wonka, and this is the factory," his wife, Conrad Foundation founder Nancy Conrad, said Friday. "These kids are so excited."

Many of those kids, or students, are future space explorers.

Pete Conrad "was an innovator, an entrepreneur, and got his moonshot because an educator took him under his wing," Nancy Conrad said.

She's is a former teacher who started the foundation after his death in 1999. Since then, it's inspired students to combine science and technology through innovation and entrepreneurship.

Isabella Brakhage, 15, of Colorado, and her team designed organic bandages from tobacco products.

"That's what's amazing, to hear from all of these incredible people," she said. "It's just so inspirational."

Also along for the ride is Apollo 12 flight director Gerry Griffin, who says the students can learn from the space program's past to take us farther into the future.

In July, we will mark 50 years since the first moon landing. 

"They could be in the prime to get us to Mars, or even deeper," Griffin said.

Conrad said her husband may have been to the moon, but any of these kids could help, or even go, to the stars.

"Knowledge is a commodity, so giving them that opportunity to create (is important)," she says.

Summit winners get prizes and can even earn grants for their projects.