An International Space Station Expedition 14 ARISS school contact has been planned with students at the Kashiwabara Community Center, Sayama, Japan on Wednesday, 27 Dec 2006. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 12:27 UTC.

The contact will be direct between stations NA1SS and 8J1K. Interested parties are invited to listen in on the 145.80 MHz downlink. Additional listening options are listed below. The participants are expected to conduct the conversation in English.

Kashiwabara is in Sayama city which is about 30Km from Tokyo. Kashiwabara Community Center has two schools. One is Kashiwabara Elementary school and another one is Kashiwabara Junior High school. The Community Center selected about 50 students from those schools. They studied about ISS and Space for 4 months. In addition, they learned English conversation and Amateur radio. Finally, the Community Center made 14 groups of students and each groups made two questions.

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

1. What made you become an astronaut?
2. Did the subject you studied in elementary school reflect your work now?
3. As an astronaut what is important?
4. What kind of work do you do?
5. How long can you work in the space suits?
6. Can you watch every countries TV programs?
7. Is the DVD player and TV the same as it is on earth?
8. When you get home what will you do first?
9. Which is easier to live on earth or space?
10. What do you do when you are sick?
11. Can you see shooting stars?
12. What moved you the most about space?
13. When you went to space, did you feel scared?
14. How does non-gravity feel?
15. When you get to earth what do you want to eat?
16. How many kind of different food do you have?
17. When did you want to go to space?
18. How does the earth look from outer space?
19. In space, what do you have to be careful of?
20. How many rooms are there in the station?
21. Is space ship food delicious?
22. What is the difference between looking at the stars in space and earth?
23. What do you use the bathe?
24. Did you see a UFO?
25. Did you see any aliens?
26. How long does it take from the earth to the moon?
27. What kind of research do you do out there?
28. In the space station, what do you do for fun?

For everyone's information and future reference. When any ARISS event is supported through the IRLP "Discovery" Reflector 9010, audio is automatically streamed to the Internet. It is then available via the "Discovery" Reflectors companion web site www.discoveryreflector.ca . Once on its main page, select "Audio Library" (left sidebar). The prompt to join the audio stream is posted at the top of this page. More directly the URL is as follows: www.discoveryreflector.ca:8000/listen.pls

Information about the next scheduled ARISS contact can be found at 'NextContact'.

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 www.rac.ca/ariss (graciously hosted by the Radio Amateurs of Canada).