NASA Astronaut to Answer Live Questions Aboard International Space Station

NASA astronaut Gregory Chamitoff, the flight engineer and science officer currently aboard the International Space Station, will participate in a long-distance question and answer session with Boy Scouts Troop 105 at UC Santa Barbara on Tuesday, August 19. The public is invited to attend.

The conversation will begin precisely at 8:35 a.m. on the observation deck located on the roof of Broida Hall. To get to the deck, take the elevator to the sixth floor and follow the signs that lead to the roof.

At 8:35 a.m., as the space station moves across the horizon in its orbit, members of the Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club will make direct radio contact with Chamitoff. Once communication has been established, the scouts will have an opportunity to ask specific questions and hear Chamitoff's reply –– from outer space. After roughly 15 minutes, radio contact will cease as the space station continues along its orbit and passes out of range.

"Normally, it's a five-year wait for this kind of event," said Glenn Schiferl, who manages the computer systems for the physics department and is scoutmaster for Troop 105. "But one of my assistant scoutmasters was a classmate of Greg at Cal Poly. They kept in touch and anticipated doing this."

Chamitoff is serving a six-month tour of duty aboard the space station. He launched to the station with the crew of STS-124 on May 31, and docked with the station two days later. He will return to Earth on shuttle mission STS-125. Previously, Chamitoff was a member of the crew on the Aquarius undersea research habitat for nine days as part of NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) 3.