ARISS SCHOOL CONTACTS FOR BRAZILIAN ASTRONAUT MARCOS PONTES (PY0AEB)

A crew changeover is taking place on the International Space Station. Expedition 12 crew, William McArthur (KC5ACR) and Valery Tokarev, have welcomed aboard Expedition 13 crew, comprising Commander Pavel Vinogradov (RV3BS) and Flight engineer Jeff Williams (KD5TVQ). They also welcomed Brazilian astronaut Marcos Cesar Pontes (PY0AEB), who will stay aboard seven days and return home with crew 12 next week.

Two ARISS School Contacts have been planned for Marcos Pontes:

- Wednesday 05 April 2006 at 16:48 UTC with Escola American do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

- Thursday 06 April 2006 at 10:45 UTC with Escola Camilo Castelo Branco, Carnaxide, Portugal.

The downlink signals from the ISS during the radio contact with the Portuguese school will be readable in Portugal, Spain, Ireland, southern UK and France on 145.800 MHz.

Students at Escola Camilo Castelo Branco have prepared following questions:

1. Before leaving for any mission in space, you have many months of preparation. Is the reality very different from the test you go through on Earth?

2. Isn’t it difficult to live in a small closed space during so many time?

3. What kind of food do you eat?

4. Is there any process of recycling water in space? If so, what is it?

5. How do you manage to keep the level of oxygen steady inside the spaceship?

6. How do you get rid of your waste?

7. Do you have any trouble in falling asleep? How do you distinguish if it’s day or night?

8. What’s the official language on the ISS?

9. What do you feel when you see the Earth from the space? What’s the feeling?

10. Isn’t it boring only to see stars, planets and space?

11. What do you miss the most when you are in space?

12. The relationship between you is strictly professional or have you become friends? Have you ever had any arguments? How did you solve them?

13. How can you repair the spaceship if it is somehow damaged?

14. For how long can you stay in space? Which is the maximum length of time? Is there a limit for the number of an astronaut’s voyages to space?

15. When you come back to Earth after a space voyage how do you adapt to gravity? Do you need any external help? What kind of help?

16. What kind of scientific research are you doing now?

17. What’s the importance of space research to scientific knowledge and technical progress?

18. What do you think about other planets colonization? Will it be possible or is it only fiction?

Possibly the spacetalk will be conducted in Portuguese.

Good luck to the school and to the ham stations tuning in on the signals from space.

73

Gaston Bertels, ON4WF

ARISS-Europe chairman