ArcaMax

We're living in divisive times. It's something said so often that it's become cliche. But collaboration across divides still happens, and the International Space Station is a great place to witness this in action. The ISS is entering its 25th year with crews on board modeling scientific collaboration on global research projects. Crew members also take time to share their enthusiasm for their work with kids across the globe using ham radio, also known as amateur radio.

Will Merchant is a retired aerospace engineer who now volunteers with Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS), an organization that helps students worldwide experience the excitement of talking directly with ISS crew members. Merchant's wife Anne emailed me after reading a previous column, thinking I might like to talk to her husband. She was right.

Merchant first got involved with amateur radio when working at University of California's Space Sciences Lab at Berkeley in the early 1990s. He helped work on the Extreme-Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE), which was a spinning spacecraft designed to rotate about the earth/sun line. "It was Berkeley's first satellite," he said.

It was there that Merchant learned about SAREX, the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment, which placed ham radio stations aboard space shuttles. Owen K. Garriott was the first astronaut to chat with ham-radio enthusiasts on Earth while aboard the Columbia STS-9 mission in 1983.

Merchant, along with who he called his "fellow professional space geek engineers," had the idea to connect school groups with astronauts. Luckily, right down the hill from the Space Sciences Lab is The Lawrence Hall of Science, which is a hands-on children's museum that the university runs. There, they set up equipment for kids to talk to astronaut Brian Duffy aboard the STS-57 mission.

Thanks to SAREX, NASA figured out that amateur radio was actually a useful thing to have on board. Merchant said, "it was good emergency communications back up, and the crews enjoyed it, and it was a good stem outreach activity for them."

When Merchant moved back to Virginia to help build autonomous aircraft for NASA Science purposes, he was invited to be part of the SAREX team.

Then, when the International Space Station became a reality, NASA decided that amateur radio should be a part of it. These days the ISS has an internet phone for crew members to talk to loved ones, but in the early days, amateur radio was a much-appreciated resource for connecting to people on the ground.

The first school group to speak to ISS via amateur radio was Luther Burbank School in Illinois. Students spoke to Expedition I Commander William Shepherd on Dec. 21, 2000.

"About once a week," Merchant said, "one of the ISS crewmembers will speak to a school via amateur radio." Anyone within range can listen to these. Because the ISS is at such a high altitude, the signal from the station can be heard over a very large area. "So when an astronaut is speaking with a school via amateur radio," he said, "lots of people can listen in to what the astronaut is saying to the school."

Merchant is retired now but continues to volunteer with ARISS to help students and the general public connect with astronauts on the ISS. ARISS is a volunteer-run organization with around 200 volunteers worldwide.

Student groups have to submit a proposal to be considered for ISS contact. The next proposal window for U.S. schools and educational organizations opens Jan. 13, 2025, for contacts planned between July 1 and Dec. 31, 2025. The proposal deadline is Feb. 28 at 11:59 p.m. PST.

All ham radio enthusiasts can participate in the Slow Scan TV activities. This is where "ISS transmits pictures down to the ground every couple minutes," Merchant said, "and then people around the world try to pick those up on their radio and decode the pictures and see what the pictures are."

Merchant spends most of his volunteer time with SSTV activities these days and enjoys seeing the worldwide interaction. The most recent activity involved holiday greetings sent from ISS starting on Christmas Day. When I spoke to Merchant on the phone on Jan. 3, ARISS had received over 9,000 images submitted, and many more were still rolling in.

Merchant reported that 164 of those folks were in Africa; 2,200 in Asia; 167 in Australia; 3,200 folks from Europe; 1,200 from North America; 326 from Oceania; and over 1,000 people from South America. About 900 folks did not identify their location.

The conversation around STEM outreach tends to be about encouraging innovation and ensuring our future economy. How America needs to fill the job gaps of the future in science and technology sectors. That may be true, but there's a bigger lesson that STEM can offer us about how countries collaborate in science for the future of all humanity.

No matter where they are from, no matter what the race, religion or political ideology, people come together every day to study our world, participate in science and solve problems. For these amateur radio enthusiasts decoding images from space, it doesn't matter if our countries are political friends or not; we are friends and collaborators in science. That gives me hope for humanity.

Do you know anyone who's doing cool things to make the world a better place? I want to know. Send me an email at Bonnie@WriterBonnie.com. Check out Bonnie's weekly YouTube videos at https://www.youtube.com/bonniejeanfeldkamp. To find out more about Bonnie Jean Feldkamp and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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