News / Education
Shirehampton school contacts Tim Peake
As students, parents and teachers assembled in the main hall at Oasis Brightstowe Academy, the atmosphere was buzzing with excitement. Leading Friday’s assembly would be Tim Peake, streaming live from the International Space Station.
Ready and waiting on stage, a group of students were armed with questions for the first British European Space Agency astronaut.
Behind them sat radio operators working on the computers that controlled the antennae tracking the space station as it passed over the school.
Oasis Brightstowe School Band entertained the crowds before scheduled contact with Tim.
The band led with a rendition of the theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey and then passed over to Space Oddity (below), a group of space cowboys, for The Final Countdown.
Antennae placed on the roof of the school were pointing to the west, aiming to follow the space station as Tim crossed over the horizon.
The school is one of only 10 schools in the UK to be selected for the link with ISS and Ciaran Morgan from ARISS Operations, in charge of the link-up, was on hand to explain the “massive experiment”.
“Experiments can go wrong” he warned us. “We never know.”
Contact time of 2.19pm came and we were listening and standing by.
And suddenly there he was waving at us from space: the experiment was a success. A short time later and we had live video streaming from the space station.
Student Emily asked Tim which was the most important experiment he was carrying out. The astronaut answered: “It’s difficult to pick just one, I wouldn’t like to show favouritism… Medical research into vaccinations and looking at ways of recycling are both important. Energy and medicine I would say.”
Louis asked: “How did you build up the confidence to go into space?”
Tim joked: “I never really lacked the confidence. I’d always dreamed of going, it was something I always wanted to do.”
Jack asked: “Do you age at a different rate in space?”
Tim replied: “I will be a little bit younger due to the fact that we travel so fast in space.”
After 16 minutes, contact was over.
Ciaran signed off: “This is golf bravo one oscar alpha bravo seven threes off and clear.”
At 220 miles over our heads, the space station continued travelling at 17,150mph, the students from Shirehampton never forgetting the day they talked to space.
Our top newsletters emailed directly to you
