ARISS-Europe News Bulletin – 31.07.2006
THOMAS REITER TALKS TO ESA SPACE CAMP, PATRAS, GREECE
Saturday 29 July 2006 at 12.27 UTC, ARISS set up a live space
talk for ESA Space Camp in Patras, Greece with German
astronaut Thomas Reiter, DF4TR presently onboard the
International Space Station.
The radio contact was performed by ARISS ground station in Sacred Heart’s College, Honolulu, Hawaii,
operated by Nancy Rocheleau, WH6PN.
Signals will be relayed to Greece by telebridge,
courtesy of Verizon Teleconferencing.
Participating to this ESA organized event
was Mrs Marietta Giannakou, Minister of National
Education and Religious Affairs, who put the first questions, inviting Thomas
Reiter to address a message to the youth and to comment experiments presently
conducted onboard the International Space Station.
Thomas said there is so much we can gain
for the benefit of mankind by going to space and explore other planets. He
encouraged young people to engage in careers related to space flight. One of
his experiments is to study the behaviour of fluids of different densities in
microgravity.
Answering questions of students, Thomas
insisted on the importance for candidate astronauts to firstly study hard and
acquire a solid background in sciences such as biology, physics or medical
science. About space exploration he said we will go back to the Moon within a
few years and possibly to Mars 25 years from now.
The Patras
event was highlighted by Greek national TV evening news and largely commented
in several newspapers.
The ARISS
School Contact was also distributed on EchoLink and IRLP.
Several hams around the world offered
their time and efforts to this educational event:
Thomas Reiter, DF4TR,
ISS [12] Astronaut
Nancy Rocheleau,
WH6PN, Honolulu, Hawaii [2]
Operator
Tim Bosma, W6MU, Santa Rosa, California [5]
Backup
John Nickel, WD5EEV,
Winfield, Kansas [7]
Coordinator
Will Marchant, KC6ROL, Berkeley, Californa [5]
Moderator
Kenneth Ransom, N5VHO,
Houston [7]
NASA
Sergey Samburov,
RV3DR, Korolev [16] Energia
Dieter Schliemann, KX4Y,
Scottsboro, Alabama [7] EchoLink
Graham Lawton, G7EVY,
UK [13] EchoLink
Satoshi Yasuda, JK1ZRW,
Japan [19] Echolink
Wayne Harasimovitch,
VE1WPH , Halifax, Canada [9] IRLP
Manos Darkadakis,
SV1IW, Patras [15] Telebridge
Gaston Bertels,
ON4WF, Brussels – Patras [15]
Telebridge
The numbers in brackets are the local
times for each of the participants during the event.
A great “Thank you” to everyone!
An audio recording and pictures will be
available on <www.ariss-eu.org/archive.htm>
ARISS, Amateur Radio on the International Space Station, an
international working group of several amateur radio societies from countries
participating to the ISS, provides a free educational
outreach programme in collaboration with the Space Agencies, involving a team
of volunteering amateur radio operators.
73
Gaston Bertels,
ON4WF
ARISS-Europe chairman
Patras picture 1 : Elena Grifoni-Winters, Marietta Giannakou, Michel Tognini, Reinhold Ewald
Patras picture 2 : Gaston Bertels (ON4WF), Marietta Giannakou, Minister National Education and Religious Affairs
Patras picture 3 : ON4WF
Patras picture 4 : ON4WF, M. Giannakou, Manos Darkadakis, SV1IW
Patras picture 5 : ON4WF, Student, SV1IW
