NASA astronauts are more than ready to intrigue students at the ground by answering questions while orbiting Earth, as they have made educational contact for the 1,000th time while talking directly to the students and address enquiries from the North Dakota Space Grant Consortium in Grand Forks, N.D.
Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) works with space agencies and amateur radio stations in several countries, including the U.S., Canada, Europe, Russia and Japan. These radio operators, sometimes referred to as amateur or ham, setup hardware and then place a call to the space station's radio, called NA1SS, in order to establish contact.
A select few students have to prepare and ask questions for the astronauts as hundreds of others, including teachers and parents, listen from classrooms and auditoriums. The reason for initiating this long-going experiment was to intrigue young minds towards science and mathematics and inspire them to explore space in the future.
A total of 10-20 questions are taken up by the crew members and mostly have to do with their life onboard the space station and the current research. Children typically present questions regarding food storage, the impact on human body due to zero gravity, emergency situations and what it is like to come back to Earth.
The 1,000th call participant asked NASA astronaut Tim Kopra about the experiments that he was conducting on the space station.
"We have lots of different kinds of experiments," Kopra responded. "Many of our experiments have to do with the effect of zero gravity on the human body, because it can be hard on the body - our muscles, our bones and our eyes. We'd like to learn how to solve those problems so that we can stay healthy and go into deep space, perhaps go back to the Moon or Mars someday."
Another student enquired about the future of amateur radio on the space station.
"Amateur radio is a great way for us to reach people on Earth, and try to share our experience when we can," Kopra said.
The 1,000 radio contacts made with the space station involved students from not just the U.S., but also 52 other countries around the world.