Today was the first day of the Mission Control club that will be in charge of making contact with the station!!
Soon they will be in charge of this blog.

We're making Astrolabes to track objects in the sky. As practice, we measured the angle of the sun- most of us got a reading of about 60 degrees at 11:45. (we'll be gathering more data as the project continues.)

Please we need more kids to help and more questions for the astronauts!

Some useful websites for Mission Control:

www.nasa.gov/station

http://spacestationlive.nasa.gov/timeline/

http://spotthestation.nasa.gov/sightings/view.cfm?country=United_States&region=Minnesota&city=Duluth#.UbnddfmG1SA

http://www.isstracker.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8TssbmY-GM

Some More Questions

Here are some questions we've received recently here at the museum!

What do you eat in space? Sarah Age 11

What do you eat? Joslin age 7

Why are you in space? Ray age 5

Is the moon made of cheese? Age 6

Where do you go potty? Haily Age 5

When did you start to learn about your present career? Why do you do it? Asher Age 7

What is it like in space? Colton Age 4

How big is the moon? Morgon Age 9

Where is Ceses in the asteroid belt? Dade Age 8

What is a rocket made of? Hanna Age 8

How long have you been in space? Kaydence Age 8

Is it dangerous being an astronaut? Emma Age 8

Which question from the above list is your favorite?

Cool Engineers from Hibbing

We had some 6th graders from the Cool Engineering program up in Hibbing at the museum today. They had an engineering problem of building a lander to safely drop an egg from our roof using the least amount of mass possible in their materials. They also learned about chemical engineering with some of our Nano science programming.

We were so busy I didn't get a chance to compile their questions for the astronauts. So if any of you Cool Engineers by chance read this, comment and tell us what your question might be!

Mission: Nutrition

So tonight was Mission: Nutrition here at the museum. Every third Thursday of the month we have a free night where we talk about nutrition and eat a little free food....It doesn't have a lot to do with the space station exactly but it did get me thinking- One of the main questions kids seem to have about the space station is WHAT DO THEY EAT UP THERE?

I guess it's natural to think about food. Especially in a situation where it could potentially be scarce. The idea of cooking and how they prepare food in space is particularly fascinating to me.

Here's a link to another blog that has more authority on the subject than me.
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/station/crew/exp7/luletters/lu_letter3.html


Ed Lu helped build the space station but has since retired from being an astronaut to work at Google (poor guy!). His post is from the earlier days of the space station although I think a lot of it still applies today.

WDIO's Good Morning Northland had some great coverage of our upcoming contact this week:
http://www.wdio.com/article/stories/S3031066.shtml?cat=10349

The museum had a great group of first graders from Carlton in today. They learned about the International Space Station (some of them heard about it for the first time!) . They then designed air rockets, launched them and tried to improve on their designs. Many of them decided that adding more fins would surely make the rocket fly farther, which I think we figured out wasn't always quite true.

Here are the questions the first graders had for the astronauts. Some of these we can probably answer down here on Earth, but there might be a couple of worthwhile ones in here too.

What do you think? Which question do  you like?

How long have you been in space?

What makes gravity?

Why did you go?

What happens if the ship breaks down?

How long does it take to go up there?

How far are you from the Earth?

How warm is it in space?

How cold is it in space?

How old is it?

How fast does it move around the Earth?

How much time does it take to go around the Earth?

What is your favorite thing to do?

How tall is the space station?

What is your favorite color?

What happens if you stay up in space too long?

How big is the rocket that takes you to the station?

How do you get water?

What do you eat?

Where do you get food from?

I don't think this is what we had in mind when we decided we wanted to contact space, but maybe it will spark a questions or two anyway...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo

such as how do you tune a guitar in outer space? or when do you have time on your schedule to shoot music videos?