Lack of gravity and future human space flight endeavors were among topics Texas and Colorado youngsters recently explored via ham radio with astronaut Ed Lu, KC5WKJ. Lu was at the controls of NA1SS aboard the International Space Station for an August 28 chat with students at Incarnate Word Academy in Houston, Texas, and a September 3 QSO with elementary, middle and high schoolers in Boulder, Colorado. Most were students at Boulder High School, where Lu once was coached wrestling. Both contacts were arranged via the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program.
“It feels great!” enthused Lu when a student at Incarnate Word Academy–a Roman Catholic college preparatory academy for girls–asked how he was managing in zero gravity. “At this very moment, my feet are not touching the floor. I’m just floating in the middle of the cabin.” Returning to Earth will be another story altogether.
“All good things do come to an end, and when we come back down to the ground, gravity is gonna suck us down to the floor,” Lu said. He explained that the effect was less because of muscle atrophy than the fact that the space traveler’s brain and body need a few days to readjust to Earth’s gravity.
On a lighter note, Lu said the crew does laundry “the way I wish we could do laundry on the ground–which is, we don’t.” He said the crew wears clothing items for a few days and then “we toss ’em away.”
Students at the Houston School posed 14 questions to Lu. The control operator Nick Lance, KC5KBO, thanked Lu and ARISS on behalf of the students. Members of the Clear Lake Amateur Radio Club (CLARC)
Nine youngsters–several of them Amateur Radio licensees–participated in the September 3 QSO from Boulder. One student asked Lu to respond to criticism that scientific experiments aboard the ISS were redundant and could be done on Earth. Lu said the research the crew does is not the primary scientific focus of the ISS.
“The real thing we’re doing is learning how to fly in space–meaning long-duration flights in space,” Lu said, “and in that sense, the entire space station is an experimental vehicle.” The ISS will “help us learn the things that we need to learn to go outward” to the moon again, to asteroids or to Mars. “That’s where we’re really going to get scientific payoff,” he said.
Lu told the Boulder students that ISS crews “live by the clock” and not by whether it’s dark or light outside–since the ISS experiences 16 day-night cycles a day. “When it’s time to go to bed, you go to bed, and when it’s time to wake up, you wake up,” he explained.
The Boulder QSO took place from the station of Bill McCaa, K0RZ, who handled Earth-station duties for a similar contact in 2001. The students were able to ask 13 questions before the NA1SS signal faded out.
The Expedition 7 crew of Lu and commander Yuri Malenchenko, RK3DUP, will return to Earth in October. The crew’s round of ARISS contacts is expected to wrap up by September 20.
ARISS http://www.rac.ca/ariss/ is an international program with participation by ARRL, NASA and AMSAT.