An International Space Station school contact has been planned with participants at Women in Engineering @ Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY on 23 July. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 13:27 UTC. The duration of the contact is approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds. The contact will be direct between NA1SS and W2RIT. The contact should be audible over portions of the east coast of the U.S. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. The contact is expected to be conducted in English.

The Women in Engineering Program at Rochester Institute of Technology (WE@RIT) is dedicated to increasing the representation of women engineers and women leaders within the engineering profession. Founded in 2003, WE@RIT strives towards achieving gender parity within the Kate Gleason College of Engineering and hosts a comprehensive series of pre-engineering outreach, recruitment, and community building programs in support of this vision.

Participants will ask as many of the following questions as time allows:

1. How long did it take to build the ISS?

2. How much preparation and training is required to be ready to spend time

on the ISS?

3. What tools do the crew members on the ISS use to gather information?

4. a. What kind of research are you doing on the ISS?

b. How does weightlessness affect your research?

5. How do your pillows stay in place in space, or do you have things that

keep them from floating away?

6. How do you keep your food from floating away when you're eating?

7. Without gravity in the ISS, when you exercise do your muscles feel tired?

How does it feel? Is it hard to exercise without gravity?

8. Can you have pets on the international space station?

9. What is the smallest thing on earth that you can see with a telescope

from the space station?

10. What is different about boiling water when you are on the space station?

12. Do you crave things in space that you have on earth but can't eat in

space? If so, what do you crave?

13. Do you feel more nauseous or hungry in space than on earth?

14. How do the astronauts know when to wake up and go to sleep?

15. a. If the International Space Station is designed to be in a permanent

orbit around the earth, then are there corrections/adjustments that

have to be made to maintain that orbit to adjust for influences such as

the earth's gravitational force?

b. If corrections/adjustments are necessary, how does the space craft

accomplish these?

c. Are any corrections/adjustments pre-programmed into the flight control

computer or does it constantly adjust for instantaneous influences?

16. Why do astronauts travel to space?

17. How old do you have to be to travel to space?

18. How many miles do the astronauts travel each day?

19. Have they found aliens on Mars?

20. What do you do for fun when you are not doing space station work?

21. Do Astronauts get haircuts while at the ISS? If so, how?

Information about the upcoming ARISS contacts can be found at http://www.ariss.org/upcoming.htm#NextContact.

Next planned event(s):

1. 2nd International Industrial Forum of Youth "Engineers Future 2012",

Irkutsk, Russia, direct via RKØSWB

Mon 23 July 2012, 22:40 UTC

2. Virginia Air and Space, Hampton, VA, direct via KE4ZXW

Thu 26 July 2012, 14:05 UTC

ARISS is an international educational outreach program partnering the participating space agencies, NASA, Russian Space Agency, ESA, CNES, JAXA, and CSA, with the AMSAT and IARU organizations from participating countries.

ARISS offers an opportunity for students to experience the excitement of Amateur Radio by talking directly with crewmembers on-board the International Space Station. Teachers, parents and communities see, first hand, how Amateur Radio and crewmembers on ISS can energize youngsters' interest in science, technology, and learning. Further information on the ARISS program is available on the website http://www.ariss.org/ (graciously hosted by the Radio Amateurs of Canada).

Thank you & 73,

David - AA4KN