The stars finally aligned for a 13-year-old Portlander whose nearly five-year quest to contact an astronaut in space came to fruition last Friday.
Ezekiel Wheeler used a ham radio to live-stream a question-and-answer session with astronaut Sunita Williams aboard the International Space Station, an accomplishment that thrilled a crowd of about 60 people gathered on the back lawn of the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville.
Wheeler’s online-education classmates, who helped prepare 20 questions for the event, eagerly watched as each question was asked and answered. The Q&A session went off without a hitch, with students asking questions about what life aboard the space station was like and whether Williams was working on experiments to help make travel to other planets a possibility.
“We try to keep the day up here just like we have on Earth,” said Williams over the ham radio. “We get up at 6 a.m. and go to sleep around 10 p.m. and during the day we have all sorts of different activities. Science experiments, medical experiments, maintenance, maybe even a space walk. So it’s varied every single day.”
When asked how her time in space has changed her perspective of life on Earth, Williams said over the ham radio:
“You know, I think the biggest change in my perspective is that this is our one planet that we all live on, and up here it’s hard to think about anybody not being happy with each other down on Earth, because this is our place where we live.”
Williams, along with her co-pilot Barry “Butch” Wilmore, have been stranded aboard the International Space Station for 18 weeks due to a helium leak and thruster issues discovered on their return vessel. The mission was supposed to last 8 days, but the problem means they won’t return until February with the assistance of SpaceX.
“Our mission was actually to test the spacecraft while coming up here, and now while we’re here we’re doing all sorts of science experiments on ourselves,” Williams said on ham radio. “Some of it is for exploration, so you guys will be the ones who go back to the moon and on to Mars.”
The Q&A was part of NASA’s Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program, which connects students with astronauts to promote STEM education. Wheeler made the initial contact with the station using antennas he built with his class in September. Wheeler, who at 8 had started the effort with his father, led a workshop teaching the other students how to make the equipment.
“We got all of the questions in, which is amazing,” Wheeler said after the Q&A. “That means that we were able to get our signal up there early enough and be able to have it come down perfectly…. It feels just amazing.”
“I’m relieved it worked, the project was really hard,” he added. “One of the issues was the antennas’ interference issues with the signal lines. To fix it, my grandma sewed together ‘the robot,’ which is basically a sewed together t-shirt made out of shielding fabric that prevents that issue.”
Chelsey N. Ballarte, a spokesperson for NASA, said in an email that ARISS has been in operation since November 2000, giving students around the world the opportunity to talk with astronauts on the space station via ham radio. The program has hosted about 100 contacts annually and has reached over 1 million students from 49 U.S. states and 63 countries.
The process of scheduling these contacts typically takes around 6-12 months, depending on orbital dynamics, according to Ballarte. The space station typically travels 17,500 miles per hour and passes overhead for about 10 minutes every day, giving students a short window to ask questions.
Wheeler led the effort to build the equipment used for Friday’s contact with the ISS. NASA’s program encourages students to get hands-on experience working with the needed equipment.
“Engaging students with radio-science technology helps inspire them to pursue STEM interests,” Ballarte said in an email.
The atmosphere at the Evergreen Museum last Friday was charged with excitement as students, teachers and local space enthusiasts came together to witness the culmination of Wheeler’s cosmic adventure.
Wheeler said that next for him is a trip to Washington, D.C., for the National Science Fair for middle school, where he was one of the top 30 applicants out of 1,800.
Wheeler’s project for the Thermo Fisher Scientific Junior Innovators Challenge is a desktop-sized satellite tracker. He and other students will compete for a collective $100,000 total in prizes.
“This is just the beginning,” one person at the museum said as she was leaving the space Q&A. “Let’s see what he does next.”
— Tyler Brown is a breaking news reporter for The Oregonian/OregonLive. You can reach him at [email protected] or 503-221-8243.
