Victory Primary School is taking on the ‘final frontier   14 Feb 2011

 Using amateur radio, twenty students will put pre-prepared questions to astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS).
 
Victory Primary School successfully applied through the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) programme to schedule contact with the in-orbit crew. The ARISS programme is an educational tool designed to stimulate the minds of young people in the fields of science and technology.
 
School Board of Trustees Chair, Helen Watson says it is a very exciting opportunity for the students.
“Victory Primary School is a very culturally diverse school with 29 nationalities and 26 languages,” she says. “The Space Station reflects this diversity with 16 nationalities represented by the astronauts who have lived there since 2000.”
 
The space station travels at 27,000kph and orbits the earth sixteen times in a 24-hour period, so the maximum time it will be in range of Nelson is 10 minutes. Because of this everything must be precision timed, and a strict countdown checklist is provided to the school to ensure everything goes smoothly.
 
“We have twenty children who have prepared questions, but we may not get through them all,” Helen says.
 
Some examples of the kids’ questions include: Can you look out the window right now and see our school - do you have telescopes? Is space cold? How do you clean yourself? Can plants grow in space?
 
Victory School Volunteer Scott Smithline who instigated the project, says the contact is scheduled for late morning on Friday 25 February, at the Victory Primary School hall, however Scott says a variety of events may alter or postpone it.
 
“It’s dependent on the launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery on 24 February being on time, orbital mechanics and any last minute changes to the on board crew schedule, so we can’t make any guarantees.”
  
The whole school will be in attendance, plus invited guests.
 
Scott says this is the final mission for Discovery, as NASA begins shifting resources toward the Moon and Mars.
 
“If one child is inspired by a few minutes of dialogue with an astronaut, this whole exercise will have been a brilliant success,” he says.
 
(Nelson Media Agency)
 

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