SB SPACE @ ARL $ARLS015
ARLS015 Ham-astronaut Mike Foale to be active from Mir
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Space Bulletin 015 ARLS015
From ARRL Headquarters
Newington, CT May 15, 1997
To all radio amateurs
SB SPACE ARL ARLS015
ARLS015 Ham-astronaut Mike Foale to be active from Mir
Ham-astronaut Mike Foale, KB5UAC, took off on the space shuttle
Atlantis Thursday, May 15, to swap places with colleague Jerry
Linenger, KB5HBR, aboard the Russian Mir space station. Foale was
one of several hams aboard Atlantis for the STS-84 mission, the
sixth docking with Mir. He is scheduled to remain aboard Mir until
September.
Other hams on the STS-84 crew include Commander Charles Precourt,
KB5YSQ, and Mission Specialists Edward Lu, KC5WKJ, Carlos Noriega,
KC5WKK, and Jean-Francois Clervoy, KC5WKG. The Atlantis is carrying
badly needed replacement equipment for the Mir space station,
including a new oxygen-generation unit.
During the STS-84 pre-flight press conference, Foale talked about
ham radio and his stay aboard Mir. Foale said he took his ham radio
exam in preparation for the STS-56 shuttle mission. ''My commander
then (Ken Cameron, KB5AWP) was a pretty serious radio ham, and he
encouraged the whole crew to do it,'' Foale said. ''Since then, I've
enjoyed taking part in those activities, and I do look forward very
much to using the ham radio on the Mir throughout my stay there to
talk to anybody who can speak to me in either English, American, or
Russian.''
Foale said he's open to talk about anything and with anybody. ''I
really enjoy having slightly longer contacts than just the brief
collections of QSOs we do on shuttle. As a long-duration crew
member, I'm hoping that (hams) will allow me to talk longer with
them, so I can have some contact with them and their countries and
understand the people's conditions where they live as I fly over
them.''
NASA says its Shuttle Web will provide continuous audio and video
coverage of the STS-84 shuttle-Mir mission in a second test of the
latest technology for streaming video over the Internet. Links to
the video stream are available on the NASA Shuttle Web,
http://shuttle.nasa.gov.
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