It was a summer session for middle school students who hadn’t flunked anything but whose minds were inclined to wonder off into space.
Shortly after noon Wednesday, a few hundred middle schoolers, parents and teachers gathered in the auditorium of Conyers Middle School and, through the marvels of technology, teleconferenced with three astronauts orbiting some 200 miles above the Earth in the International Space Station.
And, in role reversal, the kids asked the adults the questions while they watched astronauts on a big screen field the questions in a weightless environment. For effect, astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson’s long hair kept waving and weaving and floating above her head like this was comedy, not science.
Ten children asked 20 questions in the session that ran a little past 20 minutes. The interchange was punctuated by "oohs" from the crowd when they were told the speed of the station – 17,500 miles an hour -- and laughter when, at one point, the astronauts played with jelly beans floating in zero gravity.
Astronaut Doug Wheelock grabbed one jelly bean with his mouth like a dog snapping up a treat while Dyson and Shannon Walker batted one back and forth like a ping pong ball.
As school goes, it was pretty cool.
Sixth grade science teacher Vanessa Carter wrote the proposal to NASA six months ago and sold the idea, making Conyers one of five schools in the nation to partake in the agency’s Teaching From Space program, she said.
The kids' questions were provided in advance to the astronauts. Question preparation took considerable doing, said Carter: "We really had to work with them."
What questions did the students have that didn't make the cut, she was asked.
“They wanted to know how they go to the bathroom,” said Carter. “We had to pass on that.”
But the 20 questions covered plenty of territory. Cameron Smith, 12, asked what the astronauts do to prepare for launch.
“You get up, you eat breakfast and then you get in the rocket,” said Dyson. After that you sit patiently, checking dials and wait for them to “light the rocket.”
Rina Lanuza,12, asked how heavy are the space suits. They weigh zero in space, said Wheelock, just like everything else. On earth they weigh 300 pounds.
At the end of the teleconference, Wheelock performed a flip, disappearing above the screen, then floating back into view upside down with a grin.
Ladarius Cannon,11, was asked afterward if he was inspired by the event to want to be an astronaut one day. He thought a second.
“Yes,” he said. “I can do a flip.”
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