No Pets, Voting Booths in Space, Astronaut Tells High Schoolers

Physics students at Walton High School listen to Mike Fincke reply to a question. A microphone is at the left. Eight juniors and seniors participated in the event. [John Hampel, AB2IC, Photo]

Science teacher Tom Fralick gets ready for the ISS contact at Walton High. Fralick just passed the Technician exam and is awaiting his new call sign. [John Hampel, AB2IC, Photo]

Astronaut Mike Fincke, KE5AIT, appears to be juggling fresh fruit that just arrived aboard the ISS and is floating in near-zero gravity. [NASA Photo]

An artist's rendering depicting the starboard side of the ISS following activities of May 24, 2004. The solar array on the ISS can generate 22 kW of electrical power. The Soyuz 8 transporter is docked to the Zarya module's nadir port. [NASA Graphic]

NEWINGTON, CT, Jun 3, 2004--A high school student's question about keeping pets aboard the International Space Station almost stumped astronaut Mike Fincke, KE5AIT, on June 2. The query came during an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) school group contact in which eight physics students at Walton Central High School in New York participated. One of them asked Fincke, who's NASA ISS Science Officer, if any astronaut had ever considered having a pet on the ISS, and, if so, what pet. Fincke said it was the toughest question he's ever had to answer about life on the ISS.

"I'm not even sure pets can survive up here," he said. "We can feed them and such, but they can't really move around. I'm not sure that many dogs or cats or any other types of pets actually would be able to handle weightlessness." Fincke said that while birds and rodents have been flown into space as part of scientific experiments, they were not considered pets.

Since Election Day will be nearly at hand when Fincke returns to Earth from his six-month ISS duty tour, another student wanted to know what kind of technology might permit US astronauts to exercise their right to vote while still in space.

"We are not going to probably be able to use any kind of technology to vote in space, although we had started to look at some different options, but we can still always use the absentee ballot," Fincke said, provided the launch was close enough to the election. Current duty tours are six months, Fincke explained, but they could eventually be extended to one year.

Fincke also told the students that the ISS loses some 25 meters (approximately 82 feet) per day in altitude, and the crew needs to adjust the orbit approximately every three months to compensate. He said the crew can use the thrusters from a docked Progress supply rocket or the spacecraft's onboard thrusters to correct the ISS's orbit.

CLICK HERE to listen to audio of the ARISS contact with students at Walton Central High School in New York: [10:44] ARRL thanks MCI for making this audio available.

Questioned about scientific research on the ISS, Fincke said the crew has been working with a new ultrasound device to see how the microgravity aboard the ISS might be affecting their internal organs. "It's pretty advanced," Fincke said, adding that the experiment marked the first time in space that a crew has been able to observe how different organs react to weightlessness. The experiment was one of approximately 100 ongoing ISS experiments, he said.

To accommodate the ISS orbital path, ARISS Club Station NN1SS in Greenbelt, Maryland, handled the Amateur Radio end of the contact with NA1SS aboard the ISS. Mark Steiner, K3MS, served as the control operator. MCI provided a teleconference link to make two-way audio available to Walton Central High School. Will Marchant, KC6ROL, served as moderator for the event.

ARISS is an international educational outreach with US participation by ARRL, NASA and AMSAT.

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