A small South Island school has been given the opportunity of a lifetime \u2013 a question-and-answer session with an astronaut on board the International Space Station.<\/p>\n
Sixteen students at Diamond Harbour School on Banks Peninsula were selected to ask questions to NASA’s Jack Hathaway.<\/p>\n
The teacher in charge, Katrina Pringle, told 1News yesterday’s meeting was an “awesome opportunity” for the kids.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s been a year in the making and we are excited that the night has finally come.”<\/p>\n
The signal was relayed through a telebridge ground station in Casale Monferrato, Italy and was all made possible through ARISS (Amateur Radio on the International Space Station). <\/p>\n
The programme allowed students to experience talking directly with crew members of the ISS.<\/p>\n
For a school of just 120 students aged between five and 13, the experience was monumental.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s a once in a lifetime opportunity to speak to an astronaut,” said 10-year-old Maddy.<\/p>\n
Starting at 8.30pm on Monday, the starry-eyed students could barely stay in their seats as they did a run-through prior to making contact.<\/p>\n
It was followed by a poi performance under a starry sky and a final technical check in a classroom crowded with teachers, parents and students.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s a rare occasion that we get to stay up this late at night but it’s not every day that you get to talk to the space station,” noted one parent.<\/p>\n
After multiple nerve-wracking attempts to call through to the International Space Station, the connection finally went through around 9.51pm.<\/p>\n
The students lit up with joy as they heard the long-awaited answers to questions they had been planning to ask for months. These ranged from the commander\u2019s life story to exercise routines and science.<\/p>\n
When asked about the scariest thing to have happened to him in space, Hathaway joked: “Eating the last dessert without asking anyone if they wanted it first.”<\/p>\n
Students weren\u2019t the only ones blown away by the event. Parents were fascinated with the work it took to bring it all together.<\/p>\n
“Tonight, we have a teacher who has literally inspired her students by showing them what space is all about . It\u2019s very exciting to see,” said parent Matthew Barbati-Ross.<\/p>\n
With ARISS only choosing 60 to 100 schools from across the globe annually, Pringle described the event as a career highlight.<\/p>\n
“It meant everything to be able to give the students this kind of opportunity. It\u2019s not something you can offer very often in your career.”<\/p>\n
\u2013 by Mason Herbert<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A small South Island school has been given the opportunity of a lifetime \u2013 a question-and-answer session with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":390965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[158,84,111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-390964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-christchurch-canterbury","tag-education","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}