Contacts With Astronauts             

I must say that some of my favorite contacts have been with astronauts and cosmonauts aboard orbiting spacecraft. While there are no awards for these contacts, other than QSL cards, the thrill of making these contacts is rewarding enough. When I talked with Astronauts Shannon Lucid and John Blaha aboard the Russian Mir, I had the tape recorder handy. These recordings were converted to files with a nice program that filters much of the noise and allows editing to cut out undesirable areas of noise and silence. I have two contacts with Dr. Lucid on 19/May/96 and 20/May/96. My contact with Col. Blaha was on 13/Oct/96. My call at the time of these contacts was N4DPC. Both sound clips can be heard by clicking below.

Both Lucid and Blaha are veteran astronauts who have flown on Discovery, Atlantis, and Columbia missions. Dr. Lucid holds the record for a woman and any American for staying aboard the Russian Mir for 188 days. She received the Congressional Space Medal of Honor from President Clinton and the Order of Friendship Medal from Russian President Yeltsin. Col. Blaha also received the Order of Friendship Medal and many more medals as an astronaut and from military service. More information and biographies for both astronauts are available by clicking below.

         Biography: Shannon Lucid                                            Biography: John Blaha

 

Click below to hear my contacts with astronauts. Both files are in MP3 format for the fastest download time.

  Contacts With Shannon Lucid                                        Contact With John Blaha 

  

If you are an amateur operator interested in working satellites and/or spacecraft, the following site is filled with valuable information, which includes tracking and frequencies.

VA3RJ's Ham Satellite - SAREX - Shuttle - I.S.S.

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