[sarex] HEADING TO SPACE

[Arthur Rowe <azrowe80@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

SUBMITTED BY ARTHUR N1ORC - AMSAT A/C #31468

Permission granted by Eagle-Tribune newspaper of N. Andover,Ma..


*Schoolkids' T-shirt going up in space*


HAVERHILL | It will take 90 minutes for a spaceship carrying a Golden 
Hill Elementary School T-shirt to orbit the Earth.
It took a year to get the T-shirt in the cargo.
Students signed the shirt last year, when NASA astronaut Mark E. Kelly 
told them he would try to carry it with him on the Atlantis shuttle.
That mission was canceled, but Kelly kept trying.
Yesterday, the students found out in a school assembly that the shirt 
will be traveling with Kelly on the Discovery space shuttle, which is 
scheduled to launch July 1.
The students said they never doubted that their shirt would fly, but 
they were still excited.
"This is going to give Golden Hill a good name in the city," Bill Pepe, 
10, said. "A lot of people are going to know about it. Our names are 
going into space."
Jonah Atkins, 11, said he thought the shirt might float up there. Lia 
Zaino, 9, said she thought it would be cold, but it would be easy for 
the astronauts to do gymnastics.
When the shuttle returns to Earth, Kelly will ship the T-shirt back to 
the school with a certificate of authenticity.
Judi Zaino, supervisor of elementary curriculum for Haverhill's public 
schools, said the school plans to display the shirt and the certificate 
in the school.
"Anything you can do to personalize it makes learning more important," 
she said.
Kelly's relationship with Golden Hill started last year, when his 
college roommate, John Zaino, who is Judi Zaino's brother-in-law, asked 
if Kelly could answer some questions from students there. Students Lia 
and Joshua Zaino are in the fourth and fifth grade.
Over e-mail, Kelly told the children zero gravity feels like going over 
the top of a roller coaster at first. When you get used to it, he said, 
you can "fly around the spaceship like Superman."
He told them how long it takes for the ship to orbit the Earth and said 
the shuttle does a lot of laps in a typical trip.
He also said if he couldn't bring the Golden Hill shirt on the space 
shuttle with him, he would wave to students as he passed over.
Now Kelly can do both.
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