First, on behalf of the Virginia Beach Amateur Radio Club (VBARC), we wish to express a great deal of appreciation to Ed Williams – KN4KL, Butch Burke – KE4AZL, Don Stevens – WQ1E, and others who provided the equipment, station setup and testing, and know-how to enable this event.  This ARISS event is the first in the history of Virginia Beach.

The Virginian-Pilot captured the event which started at 1443 EDT on April 23, 2007.  This was the time when Ed - KN4KL called NA1SS:  “NA1SS de (this is) KN4KL over”.  Then the sound from the receivers’ speaker clearly returned the voice of Astronaut Sunita “Suni” Williams. Suni was then asked if she was ready for the first question, and the rest of the event went like this, as quoted from The Virginian-Pilot.

At 2:43 p.m., the speakers began to crackle.

"I wanted to say hi to everyone at Kingston Elementary," said the voice, projected across amateur radio from 200 miles above Florida. "It's great to be here with you today."

"Kingston Elementary students wait to hear from astronaut Sunita "Suni" Williams, who spoke to them Monday from the international space station.

Floating aboard the international space station, astronaut Sunita "Suni" Williams was ready to take questions from 13 students lined up in the school's multipurpose room. The principal and teachers selected the students, in grades three through five.

The school's 582 students tuned in on closed-circuit television.

The first question, about spacewalks, came from Julia Inglesby, 10. Julia's dad, Navy Cmdr. Ken Inglesby, graduated with Williams from the Naval Academy in 1987. The two also attended flight school together before being assigned to sister helicopter squadrons in Norfolk.

"Tell your parents and your brother and sister I said hi," Williams told Julia.

Williams, who ran the Boston Marathon in space last week, told the students that astronauts use treadmills with harnesses and bikes with pedal clips to exercise in zero gravity.

Julia Inglesby, a fourth-grader at Kingston Elementary, spoke to astronaut Sunita Williams first. She asked about spacewalks.

About five minutes later, Fatima Chaudhry, 9, asked how astronauts communicate with Earth. By that point, the space station was zooming above the North Carolina-Virginia border.

"If you went outside, you could see it overhead now," whispered Lewis Steingold, public information officer for the Virginia Beach Amateur Radio Club.

The club provided manpower and equipment for the contact, the first in the area in a few years.

Williams explained that the astronauts have an Internet, cell phone and e-mail access in space.

With the space station passing overhead at a speed of 17,500 mph, the contact could only last about 12 minutes.

Lisi Hamm, 10, got in one last question as the space station sped out above the Atlantic Ocean, northeast of Nova Scotia.

"Do you ever get lonely?" she asked.

Williams said the three person crew eats meals like a family, but she misses her home and her dog.

After the contact, Christian Sorensen, 10, was in awe. He was still thinking about space experiments Williams described.

"How many kids get the opportunity to talk to an astronaut?" he asked.

[story by Lauren Roth, photos by Stephen M. Katz, courtesy of THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT]