Irish schools make history

History was made on Friday last, December 17th when 300
primary school children witnessed at first hand Ireland's first schools contact with the international space station.

The event, held at University College in Cork, was hosted by the European Space Agency, the Discover Science and Engineering programme and Enterprise Ireland.

Ten schools were selected to attend the event and one child from each school was able to ask astronaut Leroy Chiao a question. These children were dressed in specially created space suits.

The event was officially opened by Mr. Michael Ahern T.D., Minister for Trade & Commerce and Sean Nolan EI7CD Vice President of the IRTS also addressed the audience.

An audio-visual presentation was made by European Space
Agency astronaut Jean Francois Clervoy KC5WKG. He spoke
about his three completed missions and the realities of
day-to-day life in space.

Cork Radio Club members set up the local end of the
communications link, which was via land bridge through
Will VK5ZAI in South Australia.

Jeremy EI5GM operated the Cork end of QSO.

The link-up was very successful and the audio was connected to the public address in the auditorium with
excellent quality.

Cork Radio Club members involved included Jeremy
Sheehan EI5GM, Fr. Finbarr Buckley EI1CS, Aedan O'Meara
EI3EG, John O'Sullivan EI3EC, Tom Whelton EI8FXB and
Stephen O'Leary EI6JA. Jim Barry EI8GS filmed the
entire operation for the Cork ATV Group

Source: IRTS

Other recent stories..