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．春 生．
[NANJING] "Can you see the Great Wall of China from the space station?" This is the first of 20 questions raised by 20 Chinese students in Nanjing through amateur radio with the astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) between 18:50:00 and 18:59:00 local time (Beijing Time) on Sunday August 26, 2007. This is the first time Chinese students, including one from Hong Kong, participated in the telecommunication project between amateur radio and the International Space Station (ARISS) and a "milestone radio contact" in its own right.
When the ISS entered the outer space above Nanjing at 18:50:12 Sunday afternoon, the Nanjing No.3 Middle School Amateur Radio began raising American astronaut Clayton Anderson on board the ISS. The ground-space conversation started after Anderson acknowledged the call and the two parties exchanged confirmation.
To the very first question from 13-year-old Chinese student Tang Jiewen, ISS Flight Engineer Anderson replied: “Regrettably we have not seen it so far, but we really hope to see the beautiful Great Wall of China.”
For all of nine minutes and 44 seconds, students from Nanjing, Shanghai and Guangzhou asked 20 questions and received answers to all of them.
The second student to ask question is 13-year-old Shangben Weilang, a Hong Kong native currently enrolled in a middle school in Nanjing, because his parents work there. He has been living there since he was an elementary school pupil.
He told Wen Wei Po that he had prepared for this Q & A session for a long time and decided to ask if the astronauts sweat while working in the ISS and how they deal with it. The answer he got from space is “Yes. But, because of zero gravity, sweat doesn't roll down.”“I was very nervous and my heart was pounding like crazy,”Shangben Weilang said, adding he began calming down only when he heard the astronaut's voice. “I'm very satisfied with the answer.”
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