Astronaut Answers Call From Students

Students at Chaminade College Preparatory school in the San Fernando Valley placed a really long distance call Tuesday.

Shortly after 6:30 p.m., the students reached astronaut Ronald Parise, who at the time was heading east 200 miles above Australia in the space shuttle Columbia. The craft, which is conducting scientific work using high-tech telescopes, lifted off Sunday.

Jimmy O’Donnell, an 11-year-aold from Woodland Hills, asked Parise what he would do if he saw a UFO in space.

“I’d probably just wave,” said Parise, his voice traveling more than 10,000 miles to a group of about 50 students and parents at the school.

Parise told the students that Columbia astronauts saw the Soviet space station Mir earlier that day, “but that wasn’t exactly a UFO.” Columbia passed within 50 miles of the Soviet space station.

Although the Chaminade students had prepared more questions, most of their allotted four minutes was taken up establishing contact with Columbia, using a combination of amateur radio short wave signals and satellite relays. The call was arranged with NASA by the American Radio Relay League, a nonprofit organization of ham radio operators.

“I’m kind of disappointed, but at least we got to ask one question,” said Missy Francis, 17, a Chaminade senior.

O’Donnell was supposed to establish contact with Columbia and ask one question. But because time ran out, his question was the only one.

“It was pretty amazing,” O’Donnell said. He joined the Chaminade group for the project because he is a licensed amateur radio operator.

Chaminade was one of 40 schools in the United States, including four in California, picked by the league to take part in talks with orbiting astronauts during the 10-day mission. More than 900 schools expressed interest since the program was announced in February, spokeswoman Rosalie White said.

The group is sponsoring the calls to stimulate interest among students in space exploration and amateur radio operation, White said. This is the third space shuttle mission since 1982 that has scheduled time for an astronaut to speak with amateur radio operators on Earth.

On this mission, Parise is using a compact one-watt short wave radio with a range of several hundred miles to talk with classes and operators. He tapes the radio’s antenna to a window of the shuttle, said Chaminade physics teacher David Reeves.

In addition to the classes that will be speaking to Columbia astronauts, hundreds more will be able to communicate with the craft’s computers, which can transmit prerecorded messages and other information to computers on Earth, said Chuck Biggs, a spokesman at the Johnson Space Center.

“We want to get kids interested in space and the sciences,” Biggs said.