SUCCESSFUL ARISS
CONTACT WITH DELTA RESEARCHERS SCHOOLS
Twelve schools from the
The event took place at Space Expo, Noordwijk, and
was a joint collaboration between the
The schools won their place at the event after submitting questions to the DRS project leaders. Each school submitted five questions and the best ones were chosen. The questions were translated into English from Dutch, providing the students aged 10-12 years old with a chance to not only practice their English, but to also speak directly to Reisman.
The radio contact with the ISS was established
by ARISS ground station in
At Space Expo, the contact was lead by Gaston Bertels, ON4WF Chairman of ARISS-Europe, who explained to
the students and teachers how the radio contact is established via ground
stations when the ISS is not directly overhead.
Specially dressed in flight suits for the occasion,
the children were given some initial training before radio contact was
established with the International Space Station at
The questions put to Reisman
varied from: "I have braces because my teeth are crooked. I have to wear
them for nearly one year. If you had braces in space, would
they straighten your teeth faster?" asked by Inge
Peters of the KBS Nicolaasschool in Heythuysen. (Answer: Unfortunately no, but the good
news is that either way, your teeth will get straighter!).
Through to the question: "If you are in space for a
long time and you can't take a shower or open a window, does the Space Station
start to smell bad?," asked by Tim Daniels from ODS de Tjalk
in Lelystad. (Answer: There is equipment on board to
take care of this. I wish I had the same system at home! We don’t have showers but use wet towels to clean ourselves.)
During the 8-minute contact, the children were able to
ask 15 questions and receive answers on an array of topics that fascinate and
make young people curious about space and the Space Station.
After contact with the ISS ended, Hans van der Lande from Space Expo
provided the children with a Dutch translation of the answers, as, for the
majority; in their excitement when the responses came from Garrett they didn’t
quite hear the answer fully!
The audio for this event was fed into
the EchoLink *AMSAT* (101 377) and *JK1ZRW* (277 208)
servers by Graham Lawton, G7EVY.
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Gaston bertels, ON4WF
ARISS-Europe chairman
