Until recently, Dr. Nicholas J.M. Patrick had previously only seen China from space. In January, he finally landed in China and spoke to students from several schools at
Harrow International School Beijing’s lower school. The NASA astronaut, who graduated from Harrow in London, spoke about living in space for two weeks, the possibility of alien life forms, and the tendency of objects to float away. Jessica Pan
Yasmin Spencer, 10, UK, Harrow
Why is the flag waving in the photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon if there’s no air?
Many people ask this. One reason is that the flag was suspended from a stiff, horizontal rod. Although there’s no air on the moon, there is still the force of inertia. If you look closely, you can see that the flag is moving in a pendulum with the motion that was used to place it onto the moon’s surface. People also say, “Why can’t you see any stars in the photo?” The light from earth is so bright that it blocks out all the stars.
Johanna Li, 10, Germany, Dulwich
What would happen if you took an animal or a plant into space?
I’ve often what would happen if I took one of my cats into space. I have two cats named after stars, Spika and Vega. Spika has claws, and I know if I took her into space she would be weightless and unlike an astronaut, she would think she was falling and out would come her claws to grab onto anything she could find. People have taken plants into space and tried to grow them. Plants have a chemical mechanism that makes sure they grow away from the pull of gravity. In space that doesn’t work, so plants can grow in funny directions and not straight.
Yasmin Spencer, 10, UK, Harrow
How long does it take to get to Mars and does it have water?
It may take 6-9 months. Mars is a very long way away. What you saw was one of the rovers that landed on Mars and drove around for a year to look at craters and rocks. We think that a Mars mission would be about two-and-a-half years long.
It looks like there is water because features on Mars look like they were made by water, like dry riverbeds and ice. When we say water, it’s chemically water, but it’s ice. We think there were oceans on Mars.
Omar Saddiqi, 11, UK, Harrow
Were you the only people there?
Space is really, really empty. We didn’t see any aliens because space is so huge. Sometimes when you look out to space, each light is an entire galaxy with billions of stars, and you could never count them all. Some might have planets like Earth somewhere out there, but I do think that none of that life has ever visited us here on Earth because we are so far away from anything else.
Zach Cheng, 10, US, Harrow
How do you open the door for the
underwater habitat that you were trained in?
We don’t have a door. If you take a cup of air and put in into water, the air stays in the cup and the pressure of the air holds the water down. The habitat has a hole in the bottom like that. So when you want to go down, you don’t go in a door – you climb down a ladder into the water.
Omar Saddiqi, 11, UK, Harrow
Was Neil Armstrong the first man to walk on the moon?
Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon. Nobody ever said they got there before him.
Jack Kirkwood, 10, US, Dulwich
Has anyone ever been inside the space station longer than ten months?
Yes, but only because they spent six months there in one trip and then went back for another one. The Russians have had people in space for a year. You get really, really weak from floating around and not exercising.
Melanie Legrand, 11, Belgium,
Harrow
How do you build the space station?
We take up smaller pieces one at a time. We dock the space shuttle to the station, and we use those robot arms to pull pieces out and bolt them on to the side of the space station. Then people in space suits make the electrical connections.
Ethan Chai, 10, Canada, Harrow
How much money does the fuel cost?
I don’t know because luckily, I don’t have to buy it. It costs more than I make, I’m sure. It’s quite expensive fuel because it’s not gasoline or regular petrol. It consists of very special chemicals – liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen – and has to be kept very cold.
Yasmin Spencer, 10, UK, Harrow
Do you believe in aliens?
I don’t think they are definitely out there, but I think there is a high probability that there is alien life somewhere in the universe. It’s not quite the same as believing, but it’s thinking it’s possible.
Alice Cleeve, 10, UK, Harrow
Is it hard to read in the space station?
Your eyes work just the same way, but the problem is finding your book because it might have floated away. I went for a two-week
mission and we worked the whole two weeks and I didn’t read anything.
Kevin Hojerslev, 9, US and Australia, Dulwich
What was Sputnik’s mission?
Sputnik’s mission was to get into orbit, stay there and send a radio signal back to say it was in orbit, safely. They just wanted to find out if they could get a Russian satellite in orbit and the American one was the same. The first thing is to see if you can launch something safely in space.
Yasmin Spencer, 10, UK, Harrow
You spend a lot of money on going to space – would it be better to save the Earth?
We think one of the things we’re doing is saving the Earth by observing the changes the Earth is undergoing from space. You can see changes to weather patterns and forests shrinking – it’s a good place to do environmental study from. If you saw somebody going out with a camera to take a picture of an environmental problem, you might ask wouldn’t it be better to take your time to fix the problem? But with the photo, you can get many people to know about the problem.
Johanna Li, 10, Germany, Dulwich
Things get lost in space – do you ever bang into things?
We have a phrase for things that bang into us. We call them orbital debris – bolts or little pieces of old spacecraft from 1950s that exploded and left pieces in space because they weren’t designed as carefully. Using radar we can see pieces coming and can avoid them by burning rocket motors and moving in a different direction or vaporizing them before they can do any damage.
Zach Cheng, 10, US, Harrow
Does the moon have an atmosphere?
You might think that the moon should have an atmosphere because it has gravity. But the moon is too small and all the molecules of the gases can escape. You have to be bigger than the moon, like Venus, to have an atmosphere.
