St. Mark's Episcopal students get out-of-this-world chat with space station astronauts

Students at St. Mark's Episcopal School got an out of this world experience when they got to chat with astronauts on the International Space Station.

Deb Strange, head of school at St. Mark’s, recounting her own experience at age 5 watching the Apollo 11 astronauts step out onto the lunar surface, became emotional when talking about the conversation students were about to have with astronauts.

“There’s a saying that I like: ‘It’s kind of fun to do the impossible,’” she said, sharing Walt Disney’s famous quote. “And I think back to that moment and the impossibility of a person being on the moon and then I think, here we are right now with pre-K children in classrooms, with children in an elementary middle school performing arts center and all of us sitting in a church getting ready to have a live conversation with astronauts sitting on the International Space Station…

“It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.”

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NASA astronauts Steve Bowen, Woody Hoburg and Frank Rubio answered prerecorded questions from pre-K and second through eighth grade students. The Earth-to-space call aired live Thursday morning on NASA TV and was part of the school's "Space Week" activities.

The education downlink is part of NASA's Stem on the Station program to bring real-time science and technology projects to students and educators on the ground.

Find out more at nasa.com/stemonstation

Rob Landers is a veteran multimedia journalist for the USA Today Network of Florida. Contact Landers at 321-242-3627 or [email protected]. Instagram: @ByRobLanders Youtube: @florida_today

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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Palm Beach Gardens students talk space with NASA ISS astronauts