World Space Week: Skyp Chat with Michael Lutomski (By M. P. , M. M., E. P., E. B and M.S.)

“Ring, ring, ring”. Suddenly Mr. Lutomski started to talk. “Hello!”, and Ms. Margot said, “Say 'hi' everyone”. Mr. Lutomski worked for NASA for a long time, and for the last 10 years he was the Risk-Manager for the International Space Station (ISS). He’s also very funny. When we talked to him, he was eating breakfast because he was getting ready to go to work. We asked him questions about the ISS, and lots of them were about the new movie “Gravity”.

E. P. reports the following:  If you are a NASA lover, you need to know that this talk was “miraculous, exciting, awesome and even interesting”! I asked him, “Has NASA ever had another critical event like Apollo 13?” He answered, “Yes. Many, many events. But, you know, Apollo 13 was a successful failure because the crew did not die! They almost ran out of air, had a lot of CO2, the environment was getting colder, and like five other bad things happened. We were glad that the crew came back down safely.” Then I said, “Thanks”.

We also found out that the water that astronauts drink on the ISS is “recycled”…think about that for a minute.

His advice for students who want to go into space science one day was to “study hard, not get in trouble, and most importantly to learn math well”. We think that it was so awesome to learn about space exploration that our brains almost exploded. Pooff!

 

World Space Week: Skype Chat with Ecuadorian NASA Engineer Juniper Jairala! (Written by E.P., M.D.C and B. A)

On October 9^th an enthusiastic group of 1^st and 4^th graders had the opportunity to interview Ecuadorian NASA engineer, Juniper Jairala, via a Skype chat. She answered questions the many of us had, and it was a day that we definitely won’t forget!

M.D.C.’s question was, “How old were you when you knew that you wanted to be an engineer”? She answered that she when she was about 10 years old she wanted to be an astronaut, but knew that she needed to learn more about space and other things first. So she became an engineer. 

   We found out that when she was little, she liked to build with things like Legos and fix things. She and her brother even went through the trash to find materials! Some of us admitted that we do that too J.

                The Skype chat was awesome because we got to know about the many projects that Miss Juniper has done for NASA and the International Space Station, and she also told us about the fiction and non-fiction parts of the movie that is coming called “Gravity”. Our teacher also showed us videos of how Miss Juniper practices, and helps astronauts train, by working in a big pool.

Testing an emergency mask for the ISS

                It was a pleasure to meet Miss Juniper and to get to see her, and we were excited to hear her answers!

Teacher note: Not only is Miss Juniper a great role-model for our girls, she 

is also an example of a well-rounded individual who has a joy for life...

Check out our Juniper on the Discovery Channel!

 



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1YXX2KFeeE&feature=youtu.be

 

World Space Week Begins! Skype Chat with Ecuadorian Astronaut Ronnie Nader (written by the whole class)

 On October 4^th our class, along with a class of 5^th graders, got to Skype chat with Ecuador’s only astronaut, Commander Ronnie Nader. For the start of our celebration of World Space Week (October 4 to 10), seven people in our class got to ask him questions like these:

·         D. G.  asked: Is the next satellite, Krysaor, being launched in November because it’s a good time for weather? The answer was: There were many things were involved in the decision for the launch date, but weather wasn’t one of them. He also said that right now the 24 international satellites are being organized inside the top of the Russian rocket.

·         A.C. asked: What were the challenges of building Krysaor? Astronaut Nader answered: Everything was a challenge. For example, if the measurements were off by just a tenth of a millimeter, then the whole mission could fail!

·         A.C.G. asked: How did you learn how to build satellites? Commander Nader said: He and the team learned how to do this on their own with their education, books, papers, information from the Internet and Commander Nader’s training as an astronaut in Russia!

·         E.L. asked: What do you hope to learn from the new satellite? He said: One thing would be that, by watching the live video camera on board, we could know if a meteorite was approaching; like the one

that surprised everyone in Russia this last year.

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       E. B. asked: Is there anything that we can do to prevent Krysaor from hitting an object in space and spinning, like what happened with Pegasus? His answer was: Since debris  going around the Earth are in unstable, descending orbits, there’s not much we can do to prevent these kinds of accidents. 

We were VERY lucky to get to ask our own questions of Ecuador’s only astronaut, and it was a pleasure to Skype with him!