[Boringiss] ISS News

[Tree N6TR]

It is interesting that this appears to have been done with radios in 
Australia and a phone link to the school in Texas.

Tree

==>SPACE STATION COMES TO TEXAS CLASSROOM VIA HAM RADIO

The teenaged daughter of International Space Station crew member Dan
Bursch, KD5PNU, was among several juniors and seniors at Pflugerville High
School in Texas who got to speak to the astronaut April 5 via Amateur
Radio. The contact was arranged via the Amateur Radio on the International
Space Station--or ARISS--program. Emily Bursch declined, however, to
submit a question to her dad, in deference to her fellow students.

After he'd answered a few of the students' questions, Bursch took a moment
to acknowledge his daughter's presence. "Hello, Emily! I miss you," he
said. "Hi, Daddy," Emily Bursch replied--at that point, in the background.
While her father replied to several more questions, a teacher escorted
Emily to the speakerphone the class was using.

"Hi, this is Emily. Over!" she said to her father, at the time some 200
miles above Earth over Australia. Bursh replied excitedly, "I love you,
too, and I miss you."

"I love you too," Emily responded. The students' questions then resumed.
At the tail end of the contact, she attempted to speak with her dad again,
but the spacecraft already had gone out of range by then. During an
earlier ARISS contact with St Thomas the Apostle Episcopal School in
Nassau Bay, Texas, last month, Bursch got to chat briefly with his two
younger children--daughter Robyn, and son Jackson, both of whom also asked
questions.

"Emily admitted that she is able to talk to her father often through NASA
provided 'phone calls' and e-mail, but it was fun to watch her friends as
they experienced space communications for the first time," said Roy
Walker, WA5YZD, who was on hand for the contact.

More than 100 other Pflugerville High School students listened in as their
classmates asked about life aboard the station and safety concerns
relating to space travel--14 questions in all. Most of the students were
enrolled in physics and science classes at the Texas high school. Bursch
told student An Tong that his most favorite thing to do during his free
time is look out the window and view Earth as it passes by.

Several students asked about physical fitness and staying in shape while
enduring long periods in microgravity. Others wanted to know what kind of
education, training and experience it takes to become an astronaut. As for
space tourists, Bursch said, he didn't have anything against the idea. He
noted that South African Mark Shuttleworth is scheduled to visit the ISS
soon.

Providing Earth station facilities for the event was Tony Hutchison,
VK5ZAI, in Australia--an ARISS veteran. Science Department Supervising
Principal Larry Bradley expressed appreciation to all who made the
experience possible for his students.

Listening in on the conference connection during the contact were members
of the ARISS international team, which was meeting in Montreal, Canada.
"We broke out in grins and with sighs of relief at the start of the QSO
and in simultaneous applause at the end," said ARRL's Rosalie White,
K1STO, a member of the ARISS committee.

ARISS is an international project with U.S. participation by the ARRL,
AMSAT and NASA. More information is available on the ARISS Web site
<http://ariss.gsfc.nasa.gov>.--Roy Walker, WA5YZD, and Gene Chapline,
K5YFL, provided information for this report

Tree