NASA Astronaut Mark Vande Hei KG5GNP
An educational radio contact is planned with Scouts Victoria (Radio and Electronics Team), Mt Waverley, Victoria, Australia, via AB1OC.
The ISS callsign is presently scheduled to be NA1SS and the scheduled crewmember is Mark Vande Hei KG5GNP.
Contact is go for: Tuesday 4 Jan 2022, 11:27:32 UTC, 60 deg; downlink signals from ISS will be audible above New Hampshire and nearby areas on 145.800 MHz narrowband FM, pls remember: RX only! (Credit: AMSAT.)
Proposed questions generated by the Scouts Victoria students:
1. What 3 things do you miss from Earth? My Mum worked on a ship and missed; sleeping with the window open, the smell of cut grass and the sound of rain on the roof.
2. What do you have to do to become an astronaut?
3. What would happen if someone were seriously ill on the ISS, and what would you do?
4. How do you prepare and eat your meals while up in the space station?
5. What is it like to float around in no gravity without friction?
6. How does it feel going from zero gravity in space back to earth’s gravity? Does it hurt??
7. What is the scariest thing to happen to you whilst you have been in space?
8. How do you shower and go to the toilet in space?
9. After being in the space station for so many months, how does it feel to experience planet Earth and nature again with all you senses, especially smell?
10. How do the seasons affect the veggie production system on the ISS? How often do you get to eat fresh food?
11. Did you always want to be an astronaut and how did you make it happen?
12. Why do people go into space and how long is an average mission?
13. How did you feel when you first learned of your selection to go to space and has this been a life-long ambition for you?
14. Can you share some of the science that was worked on in space that we can now see on earth?
15. Is there sound or much noise in space?
16. Multiple nations have had space stations each bestowed with a specific name – Russia had Mir, NASA had Skylab and China Tiangong-1. As a truly international effort and the largest man-made object in space, does the ISS have a Nick name or is there a name that the astronauts use for the individual components?
17. What energy supply do you use to power the station. If nuclear, what type of reactor do you use? If solar, how many solar panels do you use, and what are their power density?