"Is anyone out there..."

A Message from the Stars

On the 20th October 2001 when most people are fast asleep and the owls and possums are wide-awake, a lone group of Australian Venturers, 3rd Rose Bay Judean Scout Group (with a few members from 1st Kingsford), participated in JOTA (Jamboree On The Air). JOTA is an annual affair and very fun but this time an extremely rare but exciting conversation with the commander of the International Space Station, Frank Culbertson, took place while the space station flew over Australia for around 10 minutes. 

The rendezvous was very rare as the astronauts rarely have time to speak to amateur radio operators, but since JOTA is a global network and a special experience they decided to join in. We (the venturers) eagerly picked up the signal of the ISS at approximately 11:42pm on Saturday night. After trying to get hold of the space station for about 3 minutes we finally made contact with those in the galaxy far far away! The thought of talking to astronauts high up in space seemed like something out of a fairytale but our dreams had luckily come true! We made contact after sending a few signals which sounded like "NA1SS" (ISS radio call sign), this is VK2BV (our radio call sign) calling out for JOTA, this is VK2BV is anyone out there?". After a few unsuccessful tries we were finally able to personally address the commander himself, and for the next 10minutes minutes had a very fast paced but exciting conversation.

The 1st question we asked him was in relation to his star signs, after reading about male star signs in a women's magazine earlier that afternoon. We found out that the commander was a Taurus. How interesting!

Following this, each of us Venturers quickly thought up questions to ask the commander regarding many topics of interest, such as what the commander does in his free time in the way of entertainment and what the purpose of the expedition was.
During our conversation we obtained the following information. Frank Culbertson enjoys using his email, listening to tapes and watching movies in his free time, and of course admiring the wonderful view that lies out the window of the space station. Frank responded to the question of "how's the view?" saying that "It's really amazing up here!" We also found that the space Station follows Greenwich Mean Time and travels at mind boggling speeds of 8km a second, which explains why we were only able to speak to the commander for 10 minutes while the Station raced over "our land down under" [actually, an adelaide group led by Vk5ZAI was saying goodbye just as they came over head-].
Rose Bay Scout Hall

So far, the expedition had lasted 71 days and the Station's crew is expected to land back here on earth on the 10th December 2001. At the time of the conversation, the Station was at an altitude of 310km.

We found out the commander's routines consisted of getting up at 6am and going to bed at 10pm in between performing laboratory experiments on the effects of "Zero G" on Human Beings. As part of the expedition, Frank is also participating in his 1st spacewalk which will take place in 2 weeks, although 2 spacewalks have already been carried out by other members of the space station. In response to the question we asked him about homesickness, Mr Culbertson said that "I do miss my friends and mostly my kids and wife but keep myself busy by writing emails, listening to tapes and watching movies."

We made the comment that we were all very jealous of him having the opportunity to live in space. In response to this he said "we wish there were more people up here!"

He was very impressed with the questions that we had put together which made the conversation both interesting and entertaining for both camps.

The following morning we were informed that we were possibly the first Australian JOTA group to make contact with the space station via radio. This indeed excited us considering that we were competing with other scout groups around Australia wanting to speak to the International Space Station, on Saturday night as it passed over Australia. Surprisingly, we were the only JOTA group that had called up the ISS in the time it passed over our part of Australia, so we were able to speak to the commander for the entire 10 minutes without any other competition or interference. It was pretty amazing to think that we were able to look up to the heavens and say that we spoke to astronauts. The reception between both radios was (contrary to our beliefs) very good and was crystal clear, with the response time just as quick as if we were talking to someone on a telephone. The only difference being that we were talking to a space Station high above our heads. It was a wonderful experience and we consider ourselves very lucky to have been able to witness and participate such an amazing event!

From 3rd Rose Bay (Judean) Venturer Unit: Trudi Arnold
                                                                Anna Gankin
                                                                Alpha Gould
                                                                Simone McConie
                                                                Ari Shammay
                                                                Sharni Van De Weyr
                                                                Nicholas Wolf
                            And from 1st Kingsford: Jared Beaumont
                              And from Queensland: Karen
Special Thanks to Raffy Shammay and all of the Waverly Amateur Radio Society who helped us get on air

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http://scouts.raffy.net