Students at DuBose Middle School take their turns posing questions to Mike Foale, KB5UAC, aboard the ISS.
Students at DuBose Middle School take their turns posing questions to Mike Foale, KB5UAC, aboard the ISS. |
NEWINGTON, CT, Mar 11, 2004--Students at a South Carolina middle school who spoke via ham radio with the International Space Station March 8 enjoyed the experience so much they're already eager to do it again. Youngsters at DuBose Middle School in Summerville questioned ISS Crew Commander Mike Foale, KB5UAC, about life aboard the space outpost. The contact was arranged via the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program. Operating from NA1SS, Foale told the sixth through eighth graders that he was able to see prominent features of South Carolina from his vantage point in space. In response to another question, he said the ISS crew can see eclipses and other planets in space as well.
"The moon just went by Jupiter, and it was really an amazing sight to see as I was going into the dark side of Earth," Foale said. The ISS was passing above the US West Coast at the time. In a follow-up question, he described the inky darkness of the cosmic void and how stars and planets appear. "It is totally black in space," he said. "There are some parts of space where there are no stars visible at all, because there are gas clouds out there in the galaxy. And that is so dark, it's hard to imagine." Foale said stars appear brighter and more colorful from space than they do from Earth.
One youngster wanted to know if astronauts could wear such appliances as hearing aids, braces or contact lenses in the zero-gravity environment of the ISS. "Actually, I wear ear plugs just because it's noisy up here," Foale replied. "If I had braces, they wouldn't be a problem, and lots of astronauts do wear contact lenses."
 Expedition 8 Crew Commander Mike Foale, KB5UAC, at the controls of the Phase II NA1SS ham station aboard the ISS. [NASA Photo] |
Foale said the main mission of the crew is to keep the ISS working and doing science. "I'm sort of like the tender," he said. "I am a scientist by training, but I look after many, many different types of scientific experiments." Foale heads the Expedition 9 crew, which consists of Flight Engineer and Cosmonaut Sasha Kaleri, U8MIR, and himself.
As he's indicated in past ARISS school group contacts, Foale said he "absolutely" would like to participate in a future mission to Mars, but he said he expected that job would fall to younger generations. "I do believe you and your classmates and your friends have a better chance of doing that than I do," he said.
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Handling the earthbound side of the ARISS contact were Bill Hillendahl, KH6GJV, and Herb Sullivan, K6QXB, at Santa Rosa Junior College club station W6SRJ in California. An MCI teleconference circuit handled two-way audio between the two coasts to make the contact possible. Glenn Little, WB4UIV, served as the ham radio coordinator at the school, while Will Marchant, KC6ROL, moderated the event.
During their approximately 10-minute contact, the 19 participating DuBose students managed to ask 20 questions before the ISS went below the horizon. "This was the best experience I have had since I started teaching," eighth-grade science teacher Alene Wilkins, KG4NKD, said afterwards. Several media representatives were on hand to cover the event.
ARISS is an international educational outreach program
with US participation from ARRL, NASA and AMSAT.--some information provided by Charlie
Sufana, AJ9N
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