Students’ chat with astronaut extends ‘beyond our world’
The students asking questions Thursday were in a packed gym at Indian Trails Middle School in Winter Springs.
The astronaut answering them was in the International Space Station, flying somewhere over Indonesia. The sound quality, relayed through amateur radio operators, including one in Australia, was poor at times — but it didn’t matter.
“It was still something I’ll remember forever,” said Emilie Escalera, 12, a seventh grader. “This was amazing — just getting to talk to someone beyond our world.”
Emilie was one of 15 students at the Seminole County school who asked questions of American astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor as part of the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station program.
The program, run by volunteer radio enthusiasts, aims to inspire students’ interest in space science. Three other schools — one in Rhode Island and one in Japan — were scheduled to talk with astronauts this week, too.
At Indian Trails, students filled the bleachers at the school’s gym to listen as Auñón-Chancellor answered questions about space station experiments, training for missions and “What’s the most beautiful thing about space?”
Auñón-Chancellor’s answer to the last one: “Planet Earth itself.”
That question was asked by seventh-grader Barron Roosa, 12, whose grandfather Stuart Roosa was an astronaut. Stuart