Tucson students link with space station
by Candace Begody on Sep. 22, 2007, under Education, Local, SpecialThey get 14-minute Q&A with astronaut via ‘ham’ radio
Cynthia Alvarado (from left), 15; Elaine Vizcarra, 15; Antonio Martinez, 15; and Melina Goodman (seated), 16, all from Pueblo High School, were in a group of students who talked with an astronaut on the International Space Station on Friday morning.
Miguel Enriquez, an algebra teacher at Pueblo High Magnet School, wanted it to be a way to make math and science relevant to students and couldn’t have made it more dramatic.
“Math and science now have a meaning,” said Enriquez after 29 young people spoke Friday morning to a NASA astronaut on the International Space Station. “Both are hard subjects, and this has helped them to overlook that.”
The students from Drachman Primary Magnet, Jefferson Elementary, Pistor Middle School and Pueblo eagerly lined up to ask one question each at a microphone that connected them via “ham” radio with flight engineer Clayton C. Anderson aboard the space station. The station began passing over Tucson around 8:05 a.m. giving the students about 14 minutes of radio signal to communicate with Anderson.
Contact was made and the room became silent.
The students asked Anderson about his favorite food in space, how living with no gravity feels and how Earth looks from space.
Lamb and vegetables, meat with potatoes and chocolate pudding were among his favorite dishes in space, though Anderson said he missed “ice cold drinks.”
The youngest students, who sat in the front of the room, giggled as Anderson said the lack of gravity makes him feel like Superman.
“Earth is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” Anderson said. “It’s beautiful on the ground, but even more beautiful in space.”
With simple words, Anderson conveyed a meaningful message: just work hard, get good grades, become a well-rounded person and you can be anything.
Members of Pueblo’s Ham Radio Club, which worked closely with the group Amateur Radio on the International Space Station to make the event possible, were inspired and awestruck.
“I know there is more to the world than just Tucson,” said Antonio Martinez, 15, a Pueblo sophomore, after the event. “I know there is outer space.”
“Just this has opened a lot of doors for me,” said Daniel Carrillo, 15, another Pueblo sophomore. “I’m looking forward to more frequent talks with NASA, and it’s cool because I feel like I just want to be out there right now.”
For Mark Linnaus, 15, also a Pueblo sophomore, the experience has fueled his plans to go to college for an engineering degree.
Members said the club has come a long way since it started last year.
Carrillo recalled the beginning, when a teacher stood on the roof of the classroom holding an antenna in the air so students could use the radios to communicate with other clubs.
After the space station moved out of contact, the room burst with chatter and excitement.
Abraham Ortiz, 12, a seventh-grader at Pistor Middle School, was relieved that he didn’t “mess up” asking his question.
One of three from his school to participate, Ortiz said his original question had to do with lunar eclipse and how Earth moves in its elliptical orbit. But he quickly changed it to one about time travel.
Cynthia Alvarado, 15, a sophomore at Pueblo, said asking about the “psychological pressures experienced after a space walk (was) pretty fun.”
“I really didn’t think it was possible to talk to an astronaut in space,” she said.
Enriquez, who oversees the radio club, called the event “perfect.”
“Now they want to know how their cell phones actually work – the technology behind it,” he said. “Twenty-nine lives have been changed today.”
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International Space Station
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html
Amateur Radio on the International Space Station
www.rac.ca/ariss/oindex.htm
