Featherston school makes contact with space

Rebekah Burgess | 21st November 2008

Nervous anticipation hung in the air at St Teresa's School yesterday as pupils made contact the first school contact ever made by amateur radio in New Zealand - with the orbiting space station.

South Wairarapa Amateur Radio Club member Peter Norden initiated the project, which has been 20 months in the making, allowing 21 children to ask questions of American astronaut Mike Finke, also an amateur radio buff, on board the International Space Station.

At 5pm yesterday, (4am for the astronauts) children, parents, television crew and amateur radio enthusiasts clustered in a classroom while the exchange, scheduled for 5.30pm, was set up.

The window of opportunity for contact was small the International Space Station had to be directly overhead to allow radio communication to work and the minutes ticked by slowly for the children lined up against the wall clutching their questions.

Adam Phillips, 12, was one of them and said he felt "pretty nervous because I'm in front of heaps of people and TV".

But by the time the questions came to be asked by the children who filed up one by one, the answers seemed almost irrelevant, with the event being an almost anti-climax to the build up.

"I think they were so nervous and so excited about speaking that once they'd done their part that was it and they didn't really listen to the answer," principal Carol Pilcher said, emotion high in her voice because "we've made history".

"I think it will snowball tomorrow and the kids will want to know what the answers were."

Pupil Paul Myench, 12, said talking to the astronaut was "very exciting", and he hopes everyone in the room would one day get the chance to board a shuttle destined for space.

"Speaking to people all the way up there and then having them actually be able to talk back to you it's quite a thrill," he said.

Amateur Radio on the International Space Station - a volunteer organisation and NASA jointly organise the school communications, seeking to introduce science and space to children worldwide.

And those that don't like doing laundry should probably train to be an astronaut, as Adam discovered when he asked:

"How do you wash your clothes, bodies and teeth in space?"

"Brushing our teeth is just like we do on planet Earth & we don't have a shower or a bath so we have to use a wet towel to wipe our bodies & and we don't wash our clothes we just throw them away when they get too dirty," Mr Finke said.