Challenger Center Links Students Live to the Space Station

Alexandria, VA – Richard Garriott, the next civilian to fly into space and son of NASA’s Skylab Astronaut Owen Garriott plans to talk to students through live video and audio downlinks during his upcoming October flight to the International Space Station. Garriott’s efforts will continue Barbara Morgan and Christa McAuliffe’s legacy of teaching from space and will reach children around the world from space during three planned live downlinks broadcast on Challenger Center’s national website, http://www.challenger.org . The downlink events will be held during Garriott’s flight in mid-October with schools from the metropolitan D.C. area and students from Challenger Learning Centers across the country and around the world. Downlinks will be arranged by amateur radio and NASA video teleconferencing systems.

Mr. Garriott is conducting a variety of educational activities as a part of his scheduled flight to the International Space Station, slated for October in partnership with the Challenger Center for Space Science Education. Over the past several months, Garriott has conducted interactive webcasts about his astronaut training in Russia, and recorded a series of podcast interviews with Challenger Center for students. Teachers and their students can replicate various activities to demonstrate important concepts in physics that Garriott plans to do in space; and share their predictions about what might happen during the same experiment in the microgravity (weightless) environment of space online. Lessons in support of Garriott’s on orbit activities, plus his archived webcasts, podcasts, and blogs, and student’s predications submitted by YouTube video are available on Challenger Center’s national website, http://www.challenger.org .

Challenger Center for Space Science Education was founded in 1986 by the families of the astronauts of the space shuttle Challenger 51-L mission. It is dedicated to the educational spirit of that mission and impacts over 300,000 students and 25,000 teachers each year. Challenger Learning Center programs at 50 centers around the world continue the crew’s mission of engaging teachers and students in science, mathematics, engineering and technology. To locate a Challenger Learning Center near you, visit http://www.challenger.org

For program information, please contact:

Rita Karl, Director of Educational Programs
Challenger Center for Space Science Education, Alexandria, VA
703-535-1345; rkarl@challenger.org

If you are a member of the media and would like to request an interview with Richard Garriott, please contact: Stacey Tearne, Space Adventures 703-894-2192, stearne@spaceadventures.com