Faced with the chance to talk live to NASA astronauts on the International Space Station, Mount Ousley Public School kindergarten kids had two pressing questions.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Firstly, "How do you become an astronaut?" and, more importantly, "Can you eat spaghetti with runny sauce in space?".
Last night, the school contacted space station commander Kevin Ford as the satellite passed 450 kilometres above radio transmitters in Italy, as part of a program called Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS).
ARISS allows students around the world to phone in and talk to astronauts, with a different school chosen every couple of weeks.
Mount Ousley was the 800th school to take part in the program worldwide and one of just a handful of Australian schools to talk directly to astronauts.
The radio connection was set up by Mount Ousley's space-enthusiast kindergarten teacher Neil Bramsen, who last year attended a 10-day Advanced Space Camp with NASA.
Now space, rocketry and robotics play a big part in the school's science lessons and Mr Bramsen has introduced extracurricular research groups to encourage children to be passionate about maths and science.
As he ran final checks on the radio transmitters on Tuesday, he said teachers, parents and students were excited about the call and just a little bit nervous about whether the technology would work.
"All the adults in the school are just as excited as the kids, but the kids have really got on board," Mr Bramsen said.
"The school has designed a special 'mission patch' sticker to commemorate the experience and each class researched the space station and things like micro gravity and decided on the one or two best questions for their class to ask Commander Ford."
Aside from questions about spaghetti, other students wanted to know how astronauts feel physically when they come back to Earth, how their work benefited mankind, what they missed most from home and what it would take to get them to abort their mission.
For photo sales call 4221 2340.