March 30, 2009

ARISS CONTACT PLANNED WITH SPACE PARTICIPANT CHARLES SIMONYI

An International Space Station ARISS school contact hase been planned with participants at Milwee Middle School, Longwood, Florida on Wednesday 1 April 2009. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 17:55 UTC which is 19:55 CET.

This contact will be a telebridge operated by groundstation ON4ISS, operator Philippe ON5PV. Downlink signals will be audible all over Europe. Interested parties are invited to listen in on 145.800MHz FM.

The contact will also be distributed over EchoLink.

R. T. Milwee Middle School is located in Longwood, Florida and is part of the Seminole County Public School District in Seminole County. The school serves approximately 1,000 students in grades 6-8.  Milwee is an A-rated school and beginning with the 2009-2010 school year will be a pre-engineering magnet school.
When R. T. Milwee Middle School was originally built in 1923-1924, it was named Lyman School after Howard C. Lyman. Mr. Lyman was on the local board of trustees for the bonding and building of schools in Seminole County and a well-known civic leader who helped found Rollins College.  He had been tragically killed in a driving accident at Daytona Beach in July 1923.

Participants from the Milwee will ask as many of the following questions as time allows:
1. When you perform biological experiments, what kind of special care do you have to give to the organisms?
2. How does it feel to sleep in space?
3. Does the ISS protect against radiation and UV rays?
4. What do you do in your free time (for fun)...after you are done experimenting?
5. Has there ever been problems inside the space station with the equipment?  If there has, what was it, and what happened to fix the problem?
6. How does it feel to break the sound barrier?
7. If a baby is born in space, how can he/she stay alive?
8. Is it harder to do work in space than on earth?
9. What do you think is the most important experiment that you are working on?
10. What is it like to live in space and be away from your family for so long?
11. Have you ever worked with any animals on the ISS?  If so, was it fun?
12. When you eat, does the lack of gravity effect how your digestive system functions?
13. How much oxygen are in your tanks?  How do you feel in space?
14. Does the Earth rotate so fast that we cant feel it?  Or so slow we cant see it?
15. Is there artificial gravity on the ISS?
16. What is one of the more specialized pieces of equipment you use and what does it do?
17. What nationality would a baby be if it was born on the ISS?
18. How do you communicate with others that dont speak the same language?
19. What kind of experiments do you conduct on the ISS?
20. How do you communicate with Earth?  Are you able to speak with your families?
21. How did you feel when you first saw Earth from space for the first time?
22. How do you operate the ISS?
23. Have you ever brought something from earth to see how it was affected in space?
24. What type of food do you eat, special-made astronaut food or real food that you normally eat on Earth.  Which is better?
25. Do you wake up at different times every morning because you are passing over Earths many time zones?
26. Do you play the Wii and/or watch House on telelvision?
27. When you go into space, why dont you burn if there are millions of stars located everywhere?
28. Do you have iPODS in space?
29. How do you avoid meteors and flying objects other than yourselves?
30. Is it possible to get a cold or fever while in space?

ARISS is an international educational outreach program partnering the participating space agencies, NASA, Russian Space Agency, ESA, CNES, JAXA, and CSA, with the AMSAT and IARU organizations from participating countries.

ARISS offers an opportunity for students to experience the excitement of Amateur Radio by talking directly with crewmembers onboard the International Space Station. Teachers, parents and communities see, first hand, how Amateur Radio and crewmembers on ISS can energize youngsters' interest in science, technology, and learning.

73

Gaston Bertels, ON4WF

ARISS-Europe Chairman