August 8, 2017 by Danny Baird A Girl Scout raises a ham radio antenna to the sky in preparation for the ARISS contact. Credit: Girl Scouts of North East Ohio <\/p>\n
On June 23, NASA astronaut Jack Fischer spoke with 22 Girl Scouts of North East Ohio, while he was aboard the International Space Station. More than 400 people attended the event, with many more watching live footage online. <\/p>\n
Children all over the world can connect with astronauts aboard the space station via Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS), and with the help of volunteer ham operators. ARISS delegates from the United States, Russia, Canada, Europe and Japan help connect the world, from Senegal to Cincinnati, with the station. These contacts endeavor to inspire youth worldwide to pursue science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) interests and careers. <\/p>\n
\"Ham radio was one of the most rewarding things to do on the International Space Station,\" said NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, a former Girl Scout and Ohioan. \"Having that connection with kids on Earth who have worked hard to understand and build HAM radio was priceless. Their excited voices, echoing through equipment they had a hand in building, brought numerous smiles and often tears to my eyes. Afterward, getting the reports on how the kids enjoyed the event, and how amazed that they were that they were talking directly with a space ship, really made me understand how important and how easily we can get kids interested in STEM. ARISS is a great project and we are so happy to be part of it on the International Space Station.\" <\/p>\n
The Girl Scout mission is to build girls of courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place. Williams embodies this tenet. She's lived more than 322 days in space over the course of four expeditions to the ISS, Expeditions 14, 15, 32 and 33. During her stay, she logged more than 50 hours of space walks, ran the first marathon and triathlon in space, and participated in a number of ARISS contacts. She currently trains to fly America's first commercially built spacecraft, the Boeing CST-100 Starliner and the SpaceX Dragon. <\/p>\n
The week prior to the contact, Sydney Walter, an 11-year-old Girl Scout, participated in the Girl Scouts of North East Ohio's Space Cadettes program at Camp Timberlane in Lorain County, Ohio. She met with NASA professionals, learned what it's like to float in zero gravity and explored constellations with a Starlab portable planetarium. The ARISS contact rounded off a week of activities devoted to STEM education. <\/p>\n
\"I really like that NASA can do this for kids at schools and Girl Scouts at camp,\" said Sydney. \"It was a really fun experience and I will never forget it.\" <\/p>\n
Programs like this instill powerful memories that can spark a lifelong passion for STEM. For 10 minutes, with the space station in range of northern Ohio, a field of girls spoke with humans among the stars. Their vests now bear patches honoring that moment in time. Pink and green encircle a yellow tent with the bold gray shadow of the space station above. The patches honor 10 minutes when they were not Girl Scoutsthey were astronauts. <\/p>\n
Volunteers from national amateur radio organizations and AMSAT run ARISS events. For more information and to learn how your community can get involved, visit http:\/\/www.ariss.org<\/a>. <\/p>\n Explore further: Space station astronauts ham it up to inspire student scientists <\/p>\n On Thursday, March 10, 2016 astronauts on the International Space Station logged their 1,000th educational contact with the ground. NASA astronaut Tim Kopra answered questions posed by the North Dakota Space Grant Consortium ... <\/p>\n Replay of the docking of the Soyuz MS-05 spacecraft to the International Space Station with ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli, NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik and Roscosmos commander Sergey Ryazansky. The astronauts were launched ... <\/p>\n A group of pupils at a Zagreb high school on Wednesday marked their country's July 1 entry into the European Union by talking to an astronaut at the International Space Station (ISS). <\/p>\n A Soyuz space capsule blasted off Thursday for the International Space Station, carrying an American astronaut making his first space flight and a veteran Russian cosmonaut. <\/p>\n Two US astronauts aboard the International Space Station successfully completed a spacewalk Thursday to make repairs and install new equipment. <\/p>\n President Donald Trump will speak next week to the commander of the orbiting International Space Station. <\/p>\n After conducting a cosmic inventory of sorts to calculate and categorize stellar-remnant black holes, astronomers from the University of California, Irvine have concluded that there are probably tens of millions of the enigmatic, ... <\/p>\n Studies of molecular clouds have revealed that star formation usually occurs in a two-step process. First, supersonic flows compress the clouds into dense filaments light-years long, after which gravity collapses the densest ... <\/p>\n A group of astronomers led by Javier Lorenzo of the University of Alicante, Spain, has discovered that the binary star system HD 64315 is more complex than previously thought. The new study reveals that HD 64315 contains ... <\/p>\n The five sunshield layers responsible for protecting the optics and instruments of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope are now fully installed. <\/p>\n In our hunt for Earth-like planets and extraterrestrial life, we've found thousands of exoplanets orbiting stars other than our sun. The caveat is that most of these planets have been detected using indirect methods. Similar ... <\/p>\n A NASA mission designed to explore the stars in search of planets outside of our solar system is a step closer to launch, now that its four cameras have been completed by researchers at MIT. <\/p>\n Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Read the rest here:<\/p>\n NASA program gives students access to astronauts - Phys.org - Phys.Org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" August 8, 2017 by Danny Baird A Girl Scout raises a ham radio antenna to the sky in preparation for the ARISS contact. Credit: Girl Scouts of North East Ohio On June 23, NASA astronaut Jack Fischer spoke with 22 Girl Scouts of North East Ohio, while he was aboard the International Space Station Continue reading