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 ARISS
school contact at École de la Source, Mascouche, QC, Canada
On Friday morning, June 17th, 2005, almost three years to the day from
a first casual conversation on the ARISS Project, the ISS was answering
a call from the earth.
The fifth and sixth grade student of this elementary school that had
accepted to take on a project submitted by their teachers in 2002, none
were there anymore but the ones that replaced them had continued the project
and they were all in the school gym on this memorable morning.
The members of the Club radioamateur Laval-Laurentide, VE2CRL, had worked
very hard to make sure that the technical side had been taken care off.
At exactly 9:34 EDT (13:34 UTC), John Phillips, KE5DRY, answered the
call and everybody breathed again. From the questions asked by the students,
we learned that it can take him up to four hours only to put on and take
off a space suit, that a sick astronaut could have to come back to earth
to be treated if his condition was serious enough and we discovered that
we do not know yet if space travel could be dangerous for pregnant women.
At some point, John Phillips confided that he and Sergeï Krikalev,
U5MIR, enjoyed watching a good movie on DVD to relax after supper. A student
beside me whispered in my hear “Just like at my home”. The
signal was lost during the answer to the 15th question and a roaring “
Merci” went up that John could surely hear even after LOS.
The contact was conducted in a smaller room that had a direct video link
with the gymnasium where about 400 pupils, parents and guests were assembled.
A representative from the Canadian Space Agency explained the procedure
before the contact and translated to French the answers to the questions
afterwards. Two national TV networks had sent crews to cover the event,
as well as at least one newspaper. Dignitaries were present from the municipality
and the school board as well as many parents.
Once again the magic has worked and on their way out of the hall, every
one knew that they had just witnessed an unusual and unique event that
they will long remember. Thank you to all the ones that made this event
possible.
Thanks to Daniel Lamoureux, VE2KA, ARISS Canada Team
Source: Radio
Amateurs of Canada
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