Educator-astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger and fellow crew members aboard the shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station answered questions from 700 Kindergarten though 12th grade students on Saturday about their space flight experiences.
Metcalf-Lindenburger took a break from her job as a Vancouver, Wash., high school science teacher and cross-country coach in 2004 to join NASA and train as an astronaut.
She lifted off with six others aboard Discovery on April 5 on her first space flight, a two week trip to the station to deliver new scientific equipment and other supplies.
“Floating is one of my favorite things. I wish I could float all the time,” she told 700 curious students gathered at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, Calif.
“And looking out the window. I’ve had a chance to watch the crescent moon, it’s a waning crescent,” Metcalf-Lindenburger answered another student who wondered what the mother of a three-year-old daughter is enjoying most about the experience. “I’ve looked at some really cool constellations.”
When possible, the former teacher is doing her sightseeing from the station’s new observation dome, called a cupola, that was added to the space station by a shuttle crew in February.
Discovery docked with the space station last Wednesday, uniting 13 U.S. Russian and Japanese astronauts. The vision of so many astronauts on one spacecraft had one student wondering about what it would be like to travel to another planet someday.
“Obviously, Mars is the closest planet and the one we would probably try to reach in the near future,” said Metcalf-Lindenburger. “But if you try to go to Mars using the technology we have right now, it would take anywhere from six to nine months. I don’t know about you but six to nine months with anyone in tight quarters might be a little bit too long.”
Discovery pilot Jim Dutton, who also on his first spaceflight, joined his colleague to take a question about what he thought was most thrilling about Discovery’s mission so far.
“The launch was probably the most exciting part,” said Dutton, the father of four boys.
“I have looked at space shuttle posters and pictures all my life and have always been enthralled by the launch,” he explained. “Then to be sitting there when the main engines roared, it was actually chaotic. The main engines don’t start up really smoothly, and then when the solid rocket boosters lit, it was like having a mine go off underneath you.”