An International Space Station Expedition 14 ARISS school contact has been planned with students at the Hanazono Elementary School, Akashi-city, Hyogo-pref, Japan on Thursday, February 15, 2007. The event is scheduled to begin at approximately 08:31 UTC.

Station 8N3F in Akashi-city, Japan will call NA1SS at approximately 08:31 UTC.

Our school, Hanazono Elementary, is located in Akashi, the city that Japan Standard time is defined by. We sometimes go to the planetarium of the astronomical science building in Akashi or observe the starry sky at the playground. Students went to camp at astronomical observatory park in our prefecture when they were 5th grade and looked at stars through a two-meter telescope. We are breeding the Japanese killifish that were on the space shuttle with the astronaut Chiaki Mukai. There are many children interested in outer space in our school.

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

1. Why did you want to become an astronaut?
2. Do you sometimes have arguments with other astronauts?
3. How do you deal with carbon dioxide there?
4. Can you keep animals in space?
5. Can you see the forest destruction and desertification from space?
6. What is beautiful in space?
7. Can you tell when it is night or morning in space?
8. Is it tiring to float?
9. What would you do when you are sick or get injured?
10. What is convenient and what is not in a gravity-free space?
11. Is it true that meteorites are flying around in space?
12. Do you have any hot space food?
13. Do you miss the earth?
14. What smells do you have at the space station?
15. Where do you throw away trash & etcetera?
16. What is the future plan of space station?
17. Is the starlit sky the same in space?
18. How much monthly trash is there in space?
19. Do raw foods get spoiled in space too?
20. What is the hardest experience during the training before going to space?
21. Is it true that you will lose your balance after you come back from space?
22. What do you do at the space station?
23. Have you ever seen an UFO?
24. Is it possible for us to go to space without training?

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).