Students at a Somerset County charter school had an out-of-this-world experience Tuesday while questioning a U.S. astronaut stationed aboard the International Space Station.
NASA astronaut Nick Hague was around 250 miles from the Earth when he answered a dozen pre-taped questions from students at the Thomas Edison EnergySmart Charter School in Franklin Township.
The 20-minute session was streamed by NASA+, the space agency’s streaming service, starting at 11:10 a.m. in the school’s gymnasium.
Students in kindergarten through ninth grade remotely asked questions on a wide range of topics that offered insights into life aboard the space station, which NASA describes on its website as an “orbiting laboratory” circling the Earth 16 times per day.
“Can you go plant in the space station?” asked student Nida Rafic.
Yes, replied Hague. He discussed successful efforts to grow wheat, tomatoes and algae as part of NASA’s future plan of returning to the moon and eventually reaching Mars.
“Learning how to grow and sustain ourselves as we go and explore deeper and further into the universe is gong to be important. As we go to the moon, and then we go on to Mars, we’re going to have to figure out how to feed ourselves. We’re not going to be able to take all our supplies with us, like we have on the space station,” Hague said.
Hague has been in space since Sept. 28, when he launched from Florida as commander of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission alongside crewmate Aleksandr Gorbunov. Both are serving as flight engineers aboard the space station for more than five months.
They are in the space station with Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, both test pilots and retired navy captains, who were supposed to go to space for eight days, but have had their stay extended to more than nine months. They are set to return to Earth with Hague and Gorbunov next month.
The students asked Hague about the work the astronauts do in the space station.
Student Aarjav Shah asked,“What kind of data do you collect and does it help you study the climate?”
Hague gave several examples. He said small satellites occasionally are launched from the space station, external sensors regularly provide feedback on the atmosphere’s composition and photos help track changes on the Earth’s surface.
“We’re looking at the Earth just as much as we’re looking into space,” Hague said.
Prior to the NASA chat, a second astronaut was in the gym and spoke with students. Gregory Linteris served as a payload specialist astronaut on two space shuttle missions in the 1990s.
Thomas Edison EnergySmart Charter School is the second New Jersey school in a month to participate in NASA’s outreach program connecting students with space station crew members. Students in the Toms River Regional school district in Ocean County questioned astronauts Don Pettit and Butch Wilmore on Jan. 14.
Hague, 49, is a native of Kansas and served in the U.S. Air Force prior to becoming an astronaut in 2013.
When the signal briefly was lost Tuesday, three minutes into the discussion, Hague explained to the students that interruptions are an unavoidable reality of speeding around the Earth.
“We’re going so fast around the Earth that we have to switch satellites,” Hague said.
Some of the questions focused on experimental topics.
“Have you ever blown up a balloon on the space station? If so, how is it different when you do it on Earth?” asked student Om Patel.
Hague responded that the crew had recently done so, to celebrate a birthday.
“If I put in hot air, if I put in helium, that balloon doesn’t want to rise, and the reason it doesn’t want to rise is because everything floats up here. We’re all in this micro-gravity environment. Even I float. So, if I blow up a balloon, and I fill it full of helium, it’s just going to stay right here,” Hague said.
Betul Arsian asked, “What was your scariest moment in space?”
Hague discussed a rocket malfunction on his first launch to the space station in 2018, in which the capsule had to be ejected.
“My scariest moment in space was trying to get to space,” Hague said.