A couple of days later, McArthur took to the air again to answer questions put to him by youngsters at St Albert the Great School in Royalton, Ohio.

"Nice to talk to you today," McArthur greeted the Peterson students. "I hope everyone's doing well in Red Springs. Of course, you know that's my home town," he added proudly.

Responding to one youngster's question, McArthur enthused that living in microgravity--commonly called Zero G--"is just the coolest thing." Germs aren't a real problem in space. "Germs do live in space, but we don't, like, catch colds up here because we don't have people who bring fresh germs up, so we stay pretty healthy," he said.

McArthur also told the Peterson pupils that he considers himself a learner too.

"To become an astronaut, you never stop studying," he explained, noting that, from kindergarten through graduate school he spent 17 years in classrooms in addition to a few years of astronaut training for his mission.

"I think the most important thing I've learned," McArthur said later, speaking of his time aboard the ISS, "is that human beings can live, be healthy and work very well for long times in space--long enough to go to other planets."

Amateur Radio on the International Space Station veteran Tony Hutchison, VK5ZAI, served as the Earth station control operator for the contact with Peterson Elementary--a culturally diverse school in rural Robeson County. An MCI teleconference bridge provided two-way audio from Australia to the US.

On January 11, members of the NASA Glenn Amateur Radio Club (NGARC) made it possible for youngsters at St Albert the Great School to talk with McArthur. NGARC President Nancy Hall, KC4IYD, a NASA engineer, served as the control operator at NA8SA for the contact with NA1SS. She had help from several local hams and GARC members in setting up the gear.

Asked how the ISS crew intended to clean up human-generated debris orbiting Earth, McArthur conceded that he and crewmate Valery Tokarev would be doing just the opposite--but he didn't consider that to be a problem.

"I need to confess, not only are we not going to clean up the space junk, we've even added to it," he said. "We discarded a small electrical component in a space walk in November, and in a space walk next month, we're going to throw away a whole space suit."

That surplus Russian Orlan space suit won't initially be trash, however. It will become "SuitSat-1," an unusual transmit-only satellite with an FM downlink on 145.990 MHz. Using the call sign RS0RS, it will beam to Earth voice messages, telemetry and an SSTV image on a nine-minute cycle as it orbits the planet.

"But the good news is that in low-Earth orbit, everything orbits on its own," McArthur continued. "Nature takes over. There's a little bit of drag. Everything slows down and eventually goes back into the atmosphere all by itself."

Seventeen of the 18 students participating were able to ask their questions during the approximately 10-minute pass, while more than 800 students and some 400 faculty members, parents and friends filled St Albert Church for the event. A local TV news crew turned out and produced a report on the contact for the station's 6 PM news.

The St Albert ARISS school group contact had been in the queue for a few years. Past NASA employee and NGARC member Art Anzic, K8BVI (SK), had helped the school apply in 2002. The school's principal, Tom Brownfield, dedicated the contact to Anzic's memory.

ARISS is an international educational outreach with US participation by ARRL, AMSAT and NASA.

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