Boeing to let students communicate with astronauts

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Top US aerospace company Boeing Co. will host a televised downlink with astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) next week to allow them to talk with students about living and working in space.

Boeing said on Friday that the dialogue will take place on May 10 between the ISS astronauts and STEM students from middle and high schools in Houston, Texas, who are participating in a research contest called the Genes in Space.

The astronauts aboard the ISS, Drew Feustel and Scott Tingle, will take questions from the two Genes In Space students whose experiments recently were conducted aboard the station, plus other contestants and from the audience.

About 200 students from Houston-area middle and high schools will attend the event, which will be aired live on Facebook and the NASA TV, Boeing said.

The Facebook live show will feature research specialists including the chief scientist for the ISS, a biologist, a leader of Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, and an engineer of Boeing's Starliner virtual reality training system.

Founded by Boeing and miniPCR, the Genes In Space competition offers students in grades 7 through 12 the opportunity to develop DNA-based experiments that could be performed on orbit by astronauts aboard the ISS.

The miniPCR, created by two graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University in 2013, is a handy, portable and personal DNA lab that anyone can use as an analysis tool to explore the mysteries of the wonderful DNA world.

The Genes in Space student competition program was established by Boeing and its partner to instil the love of science and engineering in the next generation.

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency