Canvey schoolchildren to quiz astronauts on space station (From Echo)

Canvey schoolchildren to quiz astronauts on space station

8:00pm Friday 15th March 2013 in News

CANVEY youngsters will be given lessons from space when they get to quiz astronauts orbiting the earth.

Winter Gardens Primary School, in Hilton Road, is on a waiting list of 40 schools worldwide for its chance to hold a question and answer session with six astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

The Canvey-based South Essex Amateur Radio Society, along with representatives from the RSGB (Radio Society of Great Britain) and AIRSS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station) will make contact with the space station when it travels over the UK horizon at 17,500mph and 250 miles above the earth.

Dave Speechley, the society’s secretary and president, who lives on the island, said: “It will be nice to do this with the space station because it’s not every day you get an opportunity to talk to an astronaut about what it’s like in space, what they eat and how they sleep, it’s night and day every 90 minutes up there - it’s a peculiar station to be on.”

The society also set up a similar opportunity for the former Furtherwick Park School seven years ago where pupils were able to talk to US astronaut Bill McArthur.

The Winter Gardens pupils will get about nine minutes to put 20 questions to the crew, but they will have to wait anywhere between six and 20 months for their turn to come around.

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