Chatting with an Astronaut

Immanuel Christian Secondary School was one of the winning schools of the Canadian Space Agency's Junior Astronauts visit contest. On March 11, students in Grades 6-8 were able to virtually visit with Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk 

Grade 6 teacher Craig McCarthy said, "The visit went great! Josh is Canada's newest astronaut and will likely be the next Canadian to go to space. He gave about a 25 minute presentation about the intense astronaut selection process and what work astronauts do when they are not in space (it's a lot!)."

Each class had a chance for a student to go up to the camera and ask Kutryk one or two questions. His answers were fascinating! 

Q: Can you bring your phone into space to tell your parents you made it?
A: You could bring it but there is no cell service. Astronauts are allowed to bring a few personal items to the space station, but fuel is so expensive that it costs about $10 000 per pound! There is a complex phone on the station that astronauts can use, it uses multiple satellites to send signals down to earth.
 
Q: How do you do your hair in space?
A: Josh isn't planning on doing his hair (it's short), but they have complex machines to give each other haircuts in space. It has vacuums involved to keep hair from getting into the air systems. They even have to practice on earth during training so they know how to use the machine on the station.
 
This is a link to the contest ICSS won: https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/resources-young/junior-astronauts/win-an-astronaut-visit.asp
 
And this page has information about Joshua Kutryk, the astronaut who visited with our students: https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astronauts/canadian/active/bio-joshua-kutryk.asp