Kildare school links up with international space station
Pupils at Rathmore National School, near Naas, are to link up with a private crew mission to the international space station.
The opportunity for the school’s sixth class to, in a sense, join the mission came about during the discussions between American Janine Shoffner and Sorrel Klatzko.
Sorrel is a parent of three children attending Rathmore NS. Sorrel is also a dressage competitor who hopes to represent Ireland at the Paris Olympic Games 2024.
At the time, Janine’s husband, John Shoffner was in the early stages of planning and preparing his own life goal of a trip to Space.
John Shoffner is a life-long space and STEAM (Science, Engineering, Technology, Art, Maths) enthusiast.
At 8 years of age, he formed a young astronauts club with his friends in his hometown of Middlesboro, Kentucky. While space was his first passion, it didn’t make for a widely accepted career, so he took a more traditional route.
Despite finding success in the fibre optic telecommunications industry, John’s wild ambition to become an astronaut never escaped him.
In fact, he held onto a painting he created at 10 years old of an astronaut floating in space.
Little did he know that painting would accompany him to the International Space Station (ISS) and inspire a global art contest.
Whilst he is in space, John will also be announcing the winners of each age category of the space art contest www.spaceartcontest.com which was open to all children worldwide and was entered enthusiastically by the children of the school.
John’s story is one that proves dreams never fade and creativity knows no limits.
During their eight-day mission, the private astronauts of Axiom Space’s Axiom Mission 2 will run activities from student outreach to scientific experiments.
Axion Mission 2, targeted for launch on May 21, will carry crew members for the second private astronaut mission to the international space station (ISS), including Commander Peggy Whitson, pilot John Shoffner, and mission specialists Ali Alqarni and Rayyanah Barnawi representing Saudi Arabia.
Lift-off is scheduled for 5:37 pm EDT on Sunday May 21 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The crew will travel to the orbiting outpost aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, named Freedom, after launching on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket.
Subject to a successful launch on May 21, John Shoffner has agreed to set up a live interaction with the children in sixth class on Wednesday May 24 at 1.15pm.
John will conduct some fun scientific demonstrations from space during the live link-up.
The children in teacher Shane Walsh’s sixth class were invited to submit questions for approval by NASA that they would like to ask John and his crew directly during their mission to the ISS.
The Rathmore school principal, Lucy Travers is over the moon and honoured that Rathmore NS is the only Irish school invited to participate in this live link-up and she has been in regular contact with John’s team and publicist Stateside, as part of the planning process since Autumn of 2022.
“Whilst it feels like this couldn't be happening, it really is, and we are all getting very excited in the school that the Ax -2 mission launch date is getting closer.
“The sixth class teacher, Shane Walsh and I have already participated in a demo run of the event as part of the technical checks required.
“As you can imagine, there is a huge amount of planning and preparation to enable this live link-up to happen.
“It is a fantastic way to ignite the children’s interest and encourage their participation in STEAM activities and shape their future career pathways.”