Anchorage Daily News

Alaska astronaut Bill Oefelein will have a unique conversation with home Wednesday: Students in Kenai will ask the space shuttle pilot questions, and he'll answer them -- live from space.

This conversation is brief, only 10 minutes, and precise, starting at 10:12 a.m. It's for a limited audience: Only Alaska students have a scheduled videoconference with the space shuttle Discovery.

The conversation will be part ultra-long-distance phone call and part videoconference. While Kenai students at the Challenger Learning Center will be the only ones who can interact live with Oefelein, students in schools from Dillingham to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta to the Fairbanks area are expected to listen and watch.

Many Anchorage schools wanted to join the videoconference but lacked the technology to make it happen, said Heidi Embley, spokeswoman for the Anchorage School District. School districts decide what technology to purchase, and rural Alaska districts that depend on distance education are more likely to set up videoconferencing than Anchorage schools that aren't so remote, said Craig Mollerstuen, a GCI vice president of Alaska operations. Highland Tech High School, a charter school in Anchorage, is one exception. Principal Mark Standley said he'll use the school's videoconferencing to allow Highland students to watch the live link.

Just how does an astronaut in space talk to students on Earth?

"Technologically," Mollerstuen said, "It's quite interesting. Quite fun."

NASA sets up a download audio and video from the space shuttle. It sends those signals back up to a satellite, which GCI connects to, downloading the sound and pictures again to Alaska. GCI converts all of that into a videoconference and sends it to learning centers throughout the state.

Due to the various satellites hops, the conversation between space and Alaska may lag four to five seconds, said Mollerstuen. Students also can expect a tightly-scripted talk, as questions must be picked and approved ahead of time, said Leah Eskelin, a lead educator with the Challenger Learning Center in Kenai.

She said she asked Kenai-area students to submit questions. If their questions are chosen for the conversation, the students will be invited to stand up and ask them. The exact questions had not been picked yet, but children wanted to know what astronauts ate in space, what colors they saw on Earth and what the most exciting and difficult parts of the mission were, Eskelin said.

Eskelin said the conversation will show students here what an Alaskan can accomplish.

"We can say as many times during the day that you can do whatever you put your mind to," Eskelin said. "But this is certainly our best example of it."

In the meantime, Oefelein is keeping a blog about his adventures and intends to update Alaskans about the mission from space, Eskelin said. The public can monitor that at akastronaut.org/blog.

Mollerstuen said GCI also hopes to bring Oefelein back to Alaska at the end of February to visit schools and talk about his mission.

Daily News reporter Ann Potempa can be reached at 257-4581 or apotempa@adn.com.