NASA ARISS School Contact Program : 8N3NR made contact with ISS Station NA1SS (The Operator was Italian Astronaut Paolo Nespoli) succesfully in Higashiomi City Shiga Japan at 0914UTC on Feb/22/2011. The Special Callsign 8N3NR is stands for Nishibori Eizaburo Memorial Explorer Museum Radio Club. Many Thanks for people who supported this historical event in Shiga Japan. 73 de JL3YRT
Kids Questions and The Astronaut Answers.
Q1: Where and when do you sleep?
A1: Takara, where and when do we sleep? I mean we actually sleep, we have a little crew quarters about the size of a little place, it's about 1meter by 2 by 1 and we sleep in there. We have a sleeping bag, we go into the sleeping bag and we stay there and we sleep very well by the way. We sleep at night and when its night for us is according to our watch, we are synchronized on G.M.T. time and we sleep usually between 11pm and 6 o'clock in the morning.
Q2: Can you see Rigil Kentaurus at the space station? What color is it?
A2: Missing (Q2 has transmitted while receiving the first answer, perhaps PTT timing was skewed)
Q3: How does zero G feel?
A3: Kensyo. Zero g feels really good; it's really fun going over here floating around. At the beginning, the first few days it's really disorientating, but then it becomes really fun.
Q4: How do you brush your teeth?
A4: Soma. We just use a little bit of water, put a little bit of toothpaste and brush our teeth like it would be on the ground, then we have to swallow everything so we drink a glass of water and swallow everything.
Q5: Why is space dark and black?
A5: Kanae. This is a very interesting question, well because there is not much to reflect (the light) here in space then it is just black, and it looks really black, but you know the earth is really blue and colored and it's very nice to watch.
Q6: How do you know when night is coming?
A6: Ryuji. We have a program here on the computer that tells us when the Sun goes on the back of the earth and night is coming. But of course it's coming on the outside but not on the inside and we just use our watch to know when its time to go to sleep, which is not necessarily at night.
Q7: What time is it in space now? How do you know what time it is?
A7: Yuto. Right now its 09:20, it's the same time that the people have London and its called G.M.T (Greenwich Mean Time) and we just look at our watch, all our watches are synchronized to this time and this is what we use.
Q8: Please tell me how garbage disposal is at the space station?
A8: Eo. It's a very interesting question, we try to be very conservative in the things that we use and throw away, and we recycle a lot of things including water. But anything we really need to throw away we put on a supply ship, take the stuff that we need then put all the garbage on, then the supply ship re-enters the atmosphere and gets burned when it gets in the over.
Q9: What happens if you discharge large quantities of water in space?
A10: Kanna. We try not to discharge large quantities because water is very precious here. So we recycle it and use it. Incase a big quantity of water will go into space it would just disappear, it would evaporate, it would go to a molecular level and disperse into space.
Q10: If you don't get exercise at the space station, what happen to your body?
A10: Taiki. ----missing--- We do about two hours exercise per day to maintain our bodies, skeleton and our mass. If we don't do it our bodies will degenerate much faster and we will have serious problems when we go home to earth.
Q11: How long does it take to be an astronaut?
A11: Yukimi. It takes a long time; I mean very few people are so fortunate that they become an astronaut very quickly. The majority take 10, 20 and even more years and its something you really want to achieve and you need to be constantly working on it otherwise it's very difficult to get there. In general I would say once you finish school, anywhere between 10 and 15 years.
Q12: Why can you breathe fresh air anytime in the space station? Even if you breathe, why does the air never run out?
A12: Kentaro. We Breath fresh air because there is equipment here which is called environmental control and life support systems. It constantly circulates the air and puts it through a filter and takes away the bad parts and replenishes it with oxygen. We keep breathing the same air but with new oxygen and that's why the air never runs out. Because we recycle the air.
Q13: What is the hardest thing in the curriculum of becoming an astronaut?
A13: Daiki. I think the things you need to learn and do are not extremely difficult, I think it's more important to have a dream and to want to follow it and to achieve it and believe it. I think this is the important and hardest part. Curriculum wise, I think it's ok if you are a good student and study hard; I think you'd have no problems.
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ARISS School Contact of Luitpold-Gymnasium Munich with ESA Astronaut Paolo Nespoliby lpgtube20101,196 views
Kids Questions and The Astronaut Answers. (The Last)
Q15: What kinds of machines do you use for wireless communication?
A15: Ryo, We do have lots of equipment in SSI… Missing (SSI went out of the available window)
Harry3River 1 year ago
Kids Questions and The Astronaut Answers. (Cont')
Q14: What is your favorite space food?
A14: Rin. There is a lot of food up here. Italian food is my favorite food, pizza. But we don’t have pizza here. There are some other things like Italian ……………(breaks up)
Transcription by Phil Sensei (ALT of Koto J.High school)
Harry3River 1 year ago
No matter in which country these contacts occur, it is exciting to see the expressions on the kids' faces when the ISS is first heard ... EXCELLENT WORK! -Clint Bradford, K6LCS
k6lcs 1 year ago
@k6lcs Clint, Thanks for your comment. Yes, I think so too, it is wonderful to see the faces with which children expressed which shone. 73 de JL3YRT es 7N3NR
Harry3River 1 year ago