한국항공우주연구원

 Online conference with American astronaut to deliver instructions
for Korea’s space educational experiment kit

Korea Aerospace Research Institute announced that Korea’s first astronaut Dr. Yi So-yeon will hold an online conference (at 11:00 p.m. on August 13, 2008) with American astronaut Richard Garriott, who is scheduled for space flight in October 2008, about educational experiments in space.

During the online video conference, Richard Garriott will be at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia (6:00 p.m. Russian time) while Dr. Yi will be at the Songam Observatory in Gyeonggi-do, Korea(11:00 p.m. Korean time).

This conference is taking place by request of Richard Garriott who showed an interest in the educational experiments and equipment that Korean astronaut Dr. Yi used on the International Space Station (ISS). Dr. Yi will give instructions to Richard Garriott twice (August 13 and August 20) on how to use the educational experiment kit and what precautions are required. The educational experiments conducted by Korea’s first astronaut include those explaining the principles of science such as the comparison of water phenomenon found on earth and in space, Newton’s Law, surface tension, and how a pen works in space.

On April 8, 2008, Korea’s first astronaut Dr. Yi carried out five space educational experiments among the 18 experiments she conducted during her 10 days at the ISS in order to explain the basic principles of science to students.

Initially, all the experiment kits used by Korea’s astronaut were to be incinerated when entering the Earth’s atmosphere while being carried onboard the cargo module. However, the Russian astronaut Oleg Kononenko, who was a crew member with Dr. Yi during her space flight, expressed the intention to film an educational video for Russian children. Just before the return of the Korean astronaut, a request was made not to destroy the Korean educational experiment kit. That request was accepted, and the kit was preserved and kept on the ISS.

Dr. Yi will have a second conference on August 20 to support Richard Garriott’s experiments in order to continue improving the usefulness of space experiments.