Beach Elementary Students Get Lesson From Outer Space

By Lauren Roth, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

Apr. 24–VIRGINIA BEACH — At 2:43 p.m., the speakers began to crackle.

“I wanted to say hi to everyone at Kingston Elementary,” said the voice, projected across amateur radio from 200 miles above Florida. “It’s great to be here with you today.”

Floating aboard the International Space Station, astronaut Sunita “Suni” Williams was ready to take questions from 13 students lined up in the school’s multi purpose room. The p rincipal and teachers selected the students, in grades three through five.

The school’s 582 students tuned in on closed-circuit television.

The first question, about spacewalks, came from Julia Inglesby, 10. Julia’s dad, Navy Cmdr. Ken Inglesby, graduated with Williams from the Naval Academy in 1987. The two also attended flight school together before being assigned to sister helicopter squadrons in Norfolk.

“Tell your parents and your brother and sister I said hi,” Williams told Julia.

Williams, who ran the Boston Marathon in space last week, told the students that astronauts use treadmills with harnesses and bikes with pedal clips to exercise in zero gravity.

About five minutes later, Fatima Chaudhry, 9, asked how astronauts communicate with Earth. By that point, the space station was zooming above the North Carolina-

Virginia border.

“If you went outside, you could see it overhead now,” whispered Lewis Steingold, public information officer for the Virginia Beach Amateur Radio Club.

The club provided manpower and equipment for the contact, the first in the area in a few years.

Williams explained that the astronauts have an Internet cell phone and e-mail access in space.

With the space station passing overhead at a speed of 17,500 mph, the contact could only last about 12 minutes.

Lisi Hamm, 10, got in one last question as the space station sped out above the Atlantic Ocean, northeast of Nova Scotia.

“Do you ever get lonely?” she asked.

Williams said the three-person crew eats meals like a family, but she misses her home and her dog.

After the contact, Christian Sorensen, 10, was in awe. He was still thinking about space experiments Williams described.

“How many kids get the opportunity to talk to an astronaut?” he asked.

— Reach Lauren Roth at (757) 222-5133 or lauren.roth@pilotonline.com.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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