Students to talk live with Mike aboard ISS

Staff reporter GUWAHATI, Jan 3 – The Friends of Assam and Seven Sisters (FASS) is organising a live talk, through videoconference, between the students of the city-based Axam Jatiya Vidyalaya and astronaut Edward Michel Finke, popularly known as Mike Finke, the son-in-law of the State, who is now stationed at the International Space Station (ISS), 350 miles above the Earth’s surface. This is for the first time in the country that school students will talk live with an astronaut in space, said the FASS.According to FASS, Finke, NASA astronaut and commander of the expedition 18 mission of the ISS, will talk to the students of the city school live at 1.24 pm on January 7. Mike is in outer space for the last three months, said Bidyananda Barkakoty, secretary general of the FASS India.The FASS international headquarters located in the USA is co-ordinating the event with NASA and FASS India headquarters located in the city is coordinating the event with the Axam Jatiya Vidyalaya. The FASS has already organised such space talks at Dibrugarh University and Shillong St Anthony’s College, said Barkakoty.Chairman and Managing Director of the international committee of the FASS Rajen Barua has said that from the space talk events, students would learn about life on board the International Space Station and become aware of the substantial benefits of human space flight and the exploration and discoveries that occur on space flight missions.Mike Finke, who is married to Renita Saikia, daughter of Rupesh and Probha Saikia, is now learning Assamese on board the ISS using the set of Assamese flash cards he has carried along with him to space. He has also carried a silk gamocha given to him by the FASS on the eve of his flight to the space station. He will carry back the gamocha with the autographs of his co-astronauts and himself on it.Rajen Barua, who is now based in Houston, is the chief co-ordinator of the space talks programme, Barkakoty said. source: assam tribune