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IQALUIT
Students at Iqaluit's Inuksuk High School have some out-of-this-world questions they want answered, and they'll be posing them directly to astronauts on the International Space Station on Feb. 8.

The International Space Station, photographed from the space shuttle Discovery as it departed after upgrading the station in March 2009. - photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

A committee chose 20 questions from those submitted by high school students, and the selected students will have their questions answered in front of a large audience of students from all local schools.

"We should have 400-500 students," Inuksuk High School principal Terry Young said, "and quite a few dignitaries, elders and Arctic College students, so it could be 500-600 people there."

Young is impressed with the questions his students plan to ask.

"There are some really interesting questions, like 'After being in space, what's your opinion about life out there?'" Young said. "The astronauts will have an experience that most of us will never experience. What is their perspective?"

Students also want to know how to become an astronaut, and "'How did your family feel when you got involved?' because it's a big commitment being away from home for months at a time," he said.

Over the years, organizer Ron Ralph of Ottawa has arranged similar question periods with astronauts at Iqaluit schools through an Ottawa amateur radio group.

"We were approached by Ron, and we jumped," Young said. "We've been so fortunate over the years to get events like this, visits from celebrities and dignitaries, it's a huge list in the 12 years I've been here. Prime ministers and governor generals, the Queen and Prince Philip in 2002. It's just incredible."

The school will make contact with the space station at 10 a.m. Feb. 8, and there will be other related presentations in the afternoon. Among them will be a video conference with NASA in Houston, Texas, where representatives will give a robotics display. There will also be a presentation on Northern lights, and Iqaluit airport manager John Graham will share stories of the astronauts he has met throughout his career.

Already faced with a crowd of up to 700 people, Young said the event is closed to the public without an invitation.

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