Students Speak To NASA Astronauts In The Space Station

The Santa Monica High School students in Santa Monica, California will speak to the NASA astronauts living, working and doing research aboard the International Space Station at 11:50am on Monday October 30th.

The 20-minute, Earth-to-space call will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website. Students will interact with NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik and Joe Acaba who are aboard the International Space Station on Expedition 53.

Each homeroom in the school submitted questions to the astronauts. Discussion will include topics about living aboard the space station, NASA’s deep space exploration plans, and science in space.

This is Bresnik’s second mission to the station. He currently is serving as Expedition 53 commander after launching to the station on July 28. He’s scheduled to return to Earth in December. Acaba arrived at the space station September 12th, beginning his third space mission and will return to Earth in February 2018.

Bresnik graduated from Santa Monica High School in 1985. Jonny Kim, a recently announced member of the astronaut candidate class of 2017, also graduated from Santa Monica High School in 2002.

Four Santa Monica High School students recently flew an experiment onboard the space station as part of the Student Space Flight Experiments Program (SSEP) Mission 11.

The experiment, ‘The Effect of Microgravity on the Rate of Fermentation in Saccharomyces Cerevisiae,’ studies whether microgravity on the space station affects the quantity of ethanol produced from yeast fermentation.