Station this is Houston, Are you ready for the events?

Soon as the station we're ready for the event.

Houston ACR this is Mission Control Houston.

Please call station for voice text.

Station this is Houston ACR.

How do you hear me?

I've got you loud and clear how us.

For all of History, Man has looked to space as a source of all in wonder striving not only to better understand our universe, but also our place in it.

In 16th century Italy.

Galileo Galilei discovered Earth was not the center of the universe.

In 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to journey into space.

Tonight in 1984, President Ronald Reagan approved the development of what would eventually become the International Space Station.

Our fascination with the promise of space station research grew throughout the 1990s, President Bill Clinton worked with scientists to redesign the structure, inviting the Russian government to partner in Space station research and development.

This redesign made real time communication with astronauts easier and more consistent.

These live conversations were called Downlinks on November 2nd, 2000, crewmen scientists Bill Shepard, Eureka Zanco, and Sergey Kurkela began the first long term stay aboard the International Space Station.

Work aboard the structure has been almost continuous since then.

Technology advanced in our ability to communicate with the scientists aboard has become more reliable.

Downlinks are commonplace for Space Center screw across the globe.

On December 10th of 2020, two decades after Shepherd's ancho, an kurkela made their historic trip a group of Arkansas students continued that time honored tradition of exploration and discovery by sharing their very own downlink with the scientists aboard the ISS.

Even more impressive, the downlink was the first communication the space station ever shared with people on Arkansas soil, a truly historic day, the students select representatives from Steam Intermediate School an metalton Arkansas spent the fall semester of 2020 working on NASA themed projects to help solve problems faced by the astronauts aboard the space station.

The students worked on robotic arms, water filters, plant growth chambers and space suits.

Their research and hard work spurred a once in a lifetime conversation for everyone involved.

Good morning and congratulations to the entire Nettleton Steam Schools community.

As you prepare to downlink with NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

This is the first time a school in Arkansas has been chosen for this honor.

And it's a real testament to the hard work and curiosity of the students.

As well as the innovative ways seems educators have incorporated the space program across your entire curriculum and also like to acknowledge Arkansas State University an all the partners in the Jonesboro community have helped make this happen.

And of course, I want to thank Kate Rubins, Shannon Walker and all their colleagues aboard this space station for their service and their extraordinary efforts to expand our understanding of our universe and ourselves.

It was a great honor for me to work with the men and women of NASA when I was president, including on the creation of the International Space Station.

I'm proud that at the time I left office, we'd launched the Unity module and had our first international crew reside on the station.

And I'll always be glad that I sent the first presidential email to space to my good friend.

Then 77 year old John Glenn.

As he was aboard Space Shuttle Discovery, our technological capabilities have grown exponentially since then, and that's what makes the work of the International Space Station and Nettleton's team both very exciting and very important.

With a great education in the same fields, America's young people can help us keep pushing the horizon of our knowledge and understanding further and further for many years to come.

I can't wait to see what you'll discover.

So again, thanks, and congratulations to everyone who's helped make this day possible.

Have a great conversation and my best wishes to all of you for much more learning, exploration, excitement and success.

Since Houston ACR, how do you hear me?

I've got you loud and clear how long clear.

Hello, my name is Patrick Taylor and I have 1/5 grader from Middleton Steam and Jonesboro AR.

My question is about the future Artemis missions, how the difference in microgravity on the prices on the International Space Station impact playing girls chambers hey from the International Space Station that is such a great question.

We actually have been doing plant growth experiments up here.

Just this last three weeks so we have a lot of plant growth experiments onboard the International Space Station.

One of the things that we've really worked on in microgravity, which is where we are right here floating, is how to water the plants so the water floats up.

It kind of Wicks along the stem and the leaves of the plants, and it doesn't go to the roots in microgravity, because everything floats.

So we think that on the moon we're going to have 1/6 of Earth gravity, and that's actually going to help us grow plants a little bit better.

It's going to bring the water down to their roots, and it's hopefully going to allow us to grow plants.

On the moon we can grow them pretty well.

In space.

I grew some radishes and we even harvested them.

Shannon got a chance to see an.

We've grown many, many other kinds of plants on the International Space Station in microgravity.

It just takes some special equipment.

Great question.

Hello, my name is Emily Perez and I am a fourth grader.

The new Artemis Expedition will involve the first woman and the next man on the moon.

What will be the significance of being the first woman on the moon?

Hey, thank you for the question.

It's a really exciting time for the Artemis program at NASA, and as you can imagine, there's a lot of people that are thinking about this, and they're talking about this.

And for Shannon and I, we get asked this question a lot.

What what's it like?

What's it like to be the first in your class to do something?

What's it like to be one of the only females in Graduate School program?

Those kinds of things.

I would say we don't think about it that much.

We don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about.

The fact that that we're women and we're doing something.

Or just people and we're just doing what we love.

So I think that there's there will be a significant there's going to be a significance for a lot of kids growing up who are able to get the moon and to know that we have people walking on the moon.

That was just this absolutely critical moment a few generations ago and I'm really excited that your generation is going to get to see it.

And so I think the significance is that we're going to the moon.

We're sending people and we're doing this with your generation.

You guys are the Artemis generation.

Hello, my name is Genesis Chadwick and I am a third grader from Nelson's team in Jonesboro, AR.

My question is what Pacific things are you going to study during your time on the International Space Station?

Well goodness we are studying so many things on the International Space Station it's really hard to capture them all.

We've got studies going on in biology.

We got studies going on in material science.

We've got studies outside looking at the Earth looking at the universe.

So I think some of my favorite studies though, are the ones that involve the human body.

It's really interesting to me to understand how the human body reacts to being in space, 'cause there are some changes that happen, and so we need to understand them, especially if we're going to spend more time in other places on the space station on Moon, hopefully on Mars, in other places in the future.

Hello, my name is Sam.

Sorry, I'm 1/5 grader.

My questions for Doctor Rubin.

I read that you were the first astronaut to sequence DNA in space.

What were the challenges of sequencing DNA in microgravity?

That is such a good question from 1/4 grader.

I'm so impressed that you read about sequencing DNA in space.

It was incredibly cool.

I have to say the first time we sequence DNA anwer, even we're even working on this expedition in 2020 on sequencing more DNA in space.

Some of the challenges are like we talked about with plants that fluids behave differently up here.

So if you have a fluid on the earth and it gets a little air bubble in it, the air bubble always goes to the top of the tube in microgravity.

It doesn't, it just stays right there, and so we didn't know how this was going to affect our equipment.

So this was our very first chance to test this equipment out in microgravity on the space station.

And we actually found that everything worked pretty much the same as Earth, that the small bubbles don't bother this kind of equipment, and so that's really opens up the world of sequencing in space for the future.

Good morning, I'm Johnny key secretary of education for the State of Arkansas.

For decades, the exploration of space has captured the imagination of our country.

I'm very proud of the students and staff of Nettleton, STEAM for being selected for this great honor.

I trust that what you learn today and throughout the year will inspire you and in turn you will inspire students all across Arkansas to explore the future that Steam can provide.

Hello, my name is Angel Tarot and I. I'm a fourth grader from Nettleton.

STEAM in Jonesboro, AR.

We have been constructing an researching robotics arms in our 4th grade class.

What is the significance of astronauts using the Canada Arm 2 on the International Space Station?

Aiden, under fantastic question and very exciting to study robotics.

You know I studied robotics a lot in Mycareer with NASA, so I think the significance the the main thing is we would not have a space station without the Canada Arm.

It was used to construct the space station.

We took pieces out of the shuttle payload Bay and we attached them to the pieces in orbit on the space station.

So it is absolutely vital now that the station is constructed, we use the arm to do experiments on the outside.

Sometimes we need to move equipment outside from one place to another, and sometimes we need to capture our cargo vehicles that are coming up and attach them to station so we can get provisions up here.

So there is no way we would have a space station.

Without a robotic arm hello, my name is Allison Moss and I'm a fourth grader.

My question is, can you show us how you drink water and space and how water behaves in space?

Hey Allison, that is a great question and we have a lot of videos.

Actually if you go to nasa.gov there are a ton of videos there.

It shows you how astronauts drink water in space and we even have a video with some really big tanks of water there clear so you can see the water move around.

I I had a really fun experiment.

That was looking at fluid dynamics and this is this is the question that you are asking is is fluid dynamics.

The properties of fluids in space and in microgravity?

So go check those out, and I bet you're going to be amazed.

Hello, my name is Bryson Gannon, almost third grader at Middleton Steam in Jonesboro, AR.

And 3rd grade.

We've been learning about water filtration devices.

Can you tell us how your water filtration device works?

Wow, water filtration in 3rd grade?

That's that's amazing.

And the awesome.

So yes, we filter our water out here.

We take all the liquid's that we have and clean them up so we can drink them.

And So what does that mean?

We actually take our urine.

We take the sweat that comes out of the air that goes into the humidity.

We take anything that we can find.

We get into a tank.

We typically sort of heat the water so would evaporate.

So just the clean water evaporates off an all the nasty stuff stays behind.

Then we take that clean water and we actually make it even better.

We filter it.

We put some iodine in it to kill any bacteria and it comes to us as pure clean drinking water.

It tastes pretty good.

Hello, my name is Amelia Westman Forbes and I am a 6th grader.

My question is for Doctor Shannon Walker was routine.

You follow each day on the International Space Station.

It's actually pretty interesting.

Each day is different up here.

We typically get up about 6:00 in the morning.

We have some time to read our schedule for the day to eat some breakfast and along about 7:30 in the morning we start talking to the Control Center.

All over the world, we talked to Houston, we talked to Huntsville.

We talked to Moscow.

We talked to Europe, we talked to Japan.

We get instructions from them or what we need to do each day.

So when we get up and we see our schedule, sometimes we're doing maintenance on the space station.

Sometimes we're doing experiments, we're doing a lot of those.

An recently we just had a cargo ship come up.

So we've been doing a lot of unpacking the cargo ship to get more science on the space station.

We do that all day long.

We get a little break for lunch and then about 7:30 at night.

We go around the world again and talk to all the all the ground control centers again.

They tell us anything we need to know for that day or for the next day.

Then we have dinner and we go to bed and get up the next day and do it again.

Good morning, I'm congressman French Hill.

I want to congratulate the students of Nettleton's Team Intermediate School on this opportunity to share a downlink conversation with the astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

Opportunities of this scope wouldn't happen without engage.

Community partners like Arkansas State University, an Jonesboro Mayor, Harold Perrin.

This down leak project might be the first of its kind, but it surely won't be the last.

Hello, my name is Layla, whispered Anne.

I'm a six grader from Nelton steam in Jonesboro, AR.

My question is for Doctor Kate Rubins, can you talk about an interesting experiment that you have worked on in space?

Layla, I can tell you are a scientist in the making that is a great question.

Yeah, we have some great experiments, so this morning and this afternoon I was working on a really interesting experiment.

It's called Cardinal heart an.

It's actually taking a cell type called cardiomyocytes.

So these are the kinds of cells that are in your heart.

We can actually take those an grow those and special chambers in microgravity.

It's it's amazing.

Yeah, it's really cool, and we're trying to see what the differences are between cells that are grown in space and cells that are grown on.

In Earth, so you can imagine there might be some differences, so we're going to send some of these cells are going to live onboard the space station for 30 days, and we're going to send them back to the ground, and then we can compare the two different kinds of heart cells.

Hello, my name is Olivia Exum and I'm 1/5 grader.

My question is what has been accomplished in space that you would like to see happen within the next five years?

Well, that is a wonderful question.

There are so many things that can happen in space.

But what I think would be really neat to see in space is for us to have.

Other space stations and places for tourists and ordinary people to go visit space right now you can see we sort of live in a laboratory and there's a lot of work that gets done here.

Sometimes it's just hard to enjoy and it's just professional astronauts.

They get to come up here.

So what I would like is for ordinary people to be able to go into space.

Hello, my name is Brooklyn Bailey and I'm a 6th grader from Nettleton, Steven Jonesboro, AR.

My question is for Doctor Shannon Walker.

What changes have been observed in the human body during a long duration?

Spaceflight, you know, it's really interesting how the body changes when it goes into space.

One thing that happens immediately is your spine grows, so you get a little bit taller when you're in space.

Yep, exactly some things that we have seen that we're still studying is we've actually seen changes in people's vision when there in space.

Don't know why that is, but we're certainly studying it.

We've actually seen changes at the DNA level.

I believe in the cellular level that we're still studying.

We see that people have a lot of bone loss in space and so we exercise a great deal to prevent that so that we're healthy when we come home.

So there's a lot to study about how the body reacts in space.

Hello, my name is McKinney Smith and I'm 1/5 grader.

My question is what variables affect plants growth in microgravity?

Hey nakina, that is an awesome question and so we are studying that very thing up here.

We have done a whole series of plant experiments and some of the variables that we find that are really critical for plant growth are the atmospheric conditions.

So you might have studied about plants.

They like to absorb.

CO2CO2 is not good for humans.

We produce a lot of it, but we don't want to breathe a lot of it, but plants love it and they need it.

And so we've studied plants up here and determine that they really need a good atmosphere.

And we can separate the plant atmosphere from the human atmosphere, so we can give the plants a lot of CO2 and we can keep the CO2 away from the humans.

And this is really good for plant growth.

The other really critical factors.

Of course.

Water plants love water, they need water to live, and so how we provide water to these plants is really important.

The water has to be provided in a very special way so that the plants can still grow in microgravity, and the third thing is of course nutrients.

So plants just like people.

They need food and they need water.

So how you give plants nutrients an orbit is actually pretty similar to the ground.

They need very similar kinds of chemical composition.

They need light and they need nutrients in their soil to grow.

Great question.

20 years ago we launched the International Space Station.

Last year marked the 50th anniversary of landing on the Moon, so think about where you're going to be in 20 years.

Because the generation I'm talking to right now.

Is, I believe the generation that will be the first man or woman to walk on Mars.

File that away and then 20 years from now.

Maybe we'll talk.

But congratulations on a great effort.

Hope you enjoy it.

Hello, my name is Carter Massey and I'm a fourth grader from Nettleton Steam in Jonesboro, AR.

My question is for Doctor Walker, what skills outside of stem, particularly science, are needed for long term space travel.

Carter excellent question.

A lot of people think it's only about science and engineering.

I think there's two critical skills that people need for long duration spaceflight.

I think you need to be a really good team player, and I think you need really good communication skills.

The reason is the following.

So we have our crewmate team that we have to work with and we live with every day, so that could be months on end.

So you've got to be a team player to get on with your crewmates and but the bigger team is the people on the ground that are working the mission with you.

It could be hundreds or thousands of people you've got to be able to work with them.

Understand them when they send you information that you need to know to do your job.

So team players, one communication is the other, communicating with each other is very important, so you don't get angry with each other.

Just like with your family, you gotta communicate just right communicating with the ground on the science and engineering that you're doing is hugely important.

You're doing experiments for scientists that aren't with you, so you've got to be able to tell them what is truly happening, and then finally, if we're going on long, long duration flight.

You've got to be able to communicate with people around the world so that they can understand what you're experiencing, 'cause you're experiencing everything for them, and so that's why I think communication and teamwork are the two skills you need.

Hello, my name is Jack Patton.

I'm a 6th grader from Nelson's team in Jonesboro, AR.

We designed a pressurized spacesuits and in our 6th grade class then we are curious about how the space it feels whenever you out of the space station wearing it.

Could you please tell us?

Hey, I can't believe that you're designing spacesuits in 6th grade.

I wish I could have done that in six grade.

That's really amazing.

So the spacesuit is actually like its own personal spacecraft.

It has to keep the human alive outside the space station, so we have to deal with things like being in vacuum.

We have to have a pressure garment we have to keep the human either hot or cold in the right side of the temperature because the temperature swings from really hot to really cold we have to deal with radiation, there's radiation.

Outside the space station and we have to be able to deal with things in microgravity, so we have to not float away from the space station.

This is rule number.

One of spacewalking is don't float away from the space station, and so all of these things combined to make a pretty big Anna pretty bulky suit.

We train a lot in this suit an actually it feels pretty much like training in the ground.

The suits, about £300 total and you have to you have to move this suit around as you're floating outside the space station.

The things that are different.

Are that you actually float in the suit, so this feels a little bit better than it does when you're in gravity and the other thing is that everything around you is floating, so you have to deal with all the tools and all the equipment in kind of a different way than we do when we train underwater in the swimming pool.

So I am really looking forward to us wearing a space suit that you design someday.

Hello, my name is Arena Shinova and I'm a third grader.

We've researched that day and night changes every hour and a half.

How is this occurrence affecting your sleep patterns?

You know that's an interesting question, 'cause a lot of people do ask that since we do go around the earth every 90 minutes.

But The funny thing is if you look around us, you don't see a whole lot of windows.

We do have windows on the space station, but we don't see them.

We have to cut it, go and look out the window so our life up here is kind of like living in an office building on the inside so you don't really notice the day night cycle so much in our crew quarters where we sleep.

We don't have windows at all, which is really sad.

I would love to have a window and like that, so as much as it would be interesting to say that it affects us, it really doesn't affect us at all.

I remember the amazing moment on TV when I watched an American astronaut become the first man to walk on the moon.

Here we are, 50 years later and students can talk to astronauts in the International Space Station.

Thank you, NASA, an all the astronauts for giving the students at Nettleton, Steam and all across Arkansas this amazing moment.

To say the downlink in December of 2020 was an incredible experience for the students of Nettleton's team would be an understatement.

But thanks to the hard work of Steam faculty and staff as well as several community partners, that opportunity was made available to others across the state, the country and even the globe.

One of Steam's first steps in getting the word out was working with the city of Jonesboro and declaring November 2nd, a citywide steam day.

This declaration got the attention of organizations like Arkansas State University.

And the Arkansas Department of Education ASU faculty shared zoom calls as well as virtual tours with steam students to give them a more real world perspective on the scientific problems they were facing.

While the Arkansas Department of Education called on their long term partner Arkansas PBS to provide the equipment and expertise to live stream the event over the Internet, while Nettleton STEAM students pose their questions to the astronauts, doctor Shannon Walker and Doctor Kate Rubins the excitement of the day was shared by students from.

Other Arkansas school districts.

Other states such as South Dakota and even steam sister schools as far away as Acuna, Mexico and Johannesburg, South Africa, and so an Intermediate School in northeast Arkansas shared a once in a lifetime opportunity with children and communities around the world through the events of the fall of 2020, Nettleton's team has proven itself not only a shining example of the steam educational philosophy of using science, technology, art and mathematics to prepare its students for solving real world problems.

But also as a living example of the ideals which inspired the founding mission of the International Space Station ideal centered on working Tord Discovery and sharing the knowledge gained for the betterment of a worldwide Brotherhood.

A Brotherhood undivided by national borders or political ideas, a Brotherhood of man striving for a brighter future.

This program has been brought to you by Arkansas PBS and the Arkansas Department of Education's Division of Elementary and Secondary Education.