Nelson school takes on final frontier

Victory Primary talks to ISS crew right after US President Obama 

Victory Primary School children had the unique opportunity to talk to astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) on 4th March, 2011 - directly after US President Barack Obama congratulated the crew on their accomplished mission.

Using Amateur Radio on the ISS (ARISS), 18 students put prepared questions to the in-orbit crew ranging from ‘Where do you put your rubbish?’ to ‘Can plants grow in space?’. 

The event took place in the school’s hall and was broadcast via the radio around the world.

As the space station travels at 27,000km/h and orbits the earth sixteen times in a 24-hour period, it was in range of Nelson for only nine minutes.

“We had a wonderful connection during the nine minutes and the students were able to put all their questions forward,” says Scott Smithline, Victory School volunteer and instigator of the project. 

400 students, teachers as well as parents, Nelson MP Nick Smith, and councilors attended the event. “You could hear a pin drop. It was a captivating experience for all of us,” Smithline says.

“It was a historic event; not only because it was the last mission of the Discovery shuttle to space, but also because for the first time, a primary school was able to speak to the crew,” he says.

What made the event also special was the great cross-section of students who were able to ask questions. “We had Pakeha, Pacific Island and Maori students, a recent refugee student and also a student that had left Christchurch due to the quake.”

School Board of Trustees Chair, Helen Watson, says, “We are a very culturally diverse school with 29 nationalities and 26 languages. The space station reflects this diversity with 16 nationalities represented by the astronauts.”

The ARISS programme is an educational tool designed to inspire young people worldwide in the fields of science, technology, engineering and maths. 

The use of ARISS began in 1983. Since then, ARISS volunteers have conducted 565 successful contacts in 40 countries, allowing thousands of students to share the excitement of talking to astronauts.