| |
|
|
|
|
|
||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
Chancellor Merkel Talks with Astronaut Reiter on ISS
Chancellor Angela Merkel made a very special long distance telephone call on July 20 –from the ESA control center in Darmstadt, she spoke with German ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter aboard the International Space Station. “It is simply amazing the things that are made possible by technology today,” Chancellor Merkel said. After greeting Commander Pavel Vinogradov in Russian, Merkel, a physicist by training, asked Reiter how his scientific experiments were going. Reiter, a colonel in the German Air Force and flight engineer on this mission, briefed the Chancellor on two medical experiments. In one, researchers are gathering data on the astronauts’ eye movements in zero gravity to better understand the human balance system. In the other experiment studying airway inflimation, the astronauts periodically perform and inhalation-exhalation procedure using a sensor. The Chancellor also asked whether Reiter has had time to play his guitar, but the astronaut said he has been so busy working and getting oriented on the ISS that he has only had time to tune his instrument. Reiter, who is scheduled to spend at least six months aboard the ISS, also reported that sleeping in weightlessness, held in place only by a sleeping bag, is an amazing feeling and that he is sleeping wonderfully. “Then you are sleeping better than one is in Germany right now,” Merkel commented, referring to the current heat wave. For Reiter, however, the heat wave had an upside, allowing him to take remarkably clear pictures of Germany, particularly Frankfurt and his hometown of Neu-Isenburg.
She signed off with greetings for all three ISS Expedition 13 crew members, Reiter, Vinogradov and NASA’s Jeffrey Williams. After the Chancellor, Hessen Minister President Roland Koch and ESA Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain also participated in the call, which lasted a total of about 20 minutes. The call was part of a tour of ESA’s Space Operations Center by Chancellor Merkel and Minister President Koch. A total of 54 European satellites as well as deep space, scientific and Earth observation missions, including the Huygens mission to Saturn moon Titan, Mars Express, Venus Express and Envisat, have been guided from the Darmstadt center. “Space exerts not only a great fascination but also provides via scientific experiments great value, in particular for research in the health and medical sector,” Chancellor Merkel said during the visit, according to ESA. “This visit to ESOC has demonstrated again that ambitious space programs cannot be done by one country alone; international cooperation is of the utmost importance. Therefore, Germany will remain a constant and reliable partner in the European space program.” July 20, 2006 Links
|
|
 What's New? 
 Newsletters
 Printer-Friendly
Page
Email This Article |
||
|
|||||
|
|||||
