Mike Fincke has been aboard the International Space Station for five months now, so Grant Goetze of Sewickley Academy wanted to know: Have you encountered anything strange?
"We haven't run into any aliens, any extraterrestrials, any little green men," the Emsworth native and Sewickley Academy graduate assured Goetze yesterday. "We haven't run into anything that strange."
The answer satisfied Goetze, one of 16 local students who posed questions to Fincke and Gennady Padalka, his Russian colleague, during a 17-minute downlink yesterday from the space station to the Carnegie Science Center. But the boy isn't sure he's ready to join Fincke up there.
"I'm a little shaky about it," Goetze said.
More than 900 students from area schools gathered at the science center for yesterday's event, watching and listening as the space station crew's images were projected at the Buhl Planetarium, the Rangos Omnimax theater and the Highmark Science Stage. It also was broadcast on NASA television.
Fincke, who couldn't stop grinning during the event, played to his audience, performing effortless somersaults and gobbling M&Ms as they floated weightlesslessly through the cabin. He displayed his photos of Hurricane Frances, taken earlier this month, and of Pittsburgh's swollen three rivers, taken Monday afternoon.
His brother and sister-in-law, Glenn and Jodie Fincke of Bethel Park, also were on hand yesterday, bringing their 20-month-old son to the planetarium to see his famous uncle.
When it comes to keeping in contact with his older brother, "we've actually been pretty lucky," Glenn Fincke said. His brother called his Bethel Park house for a chat just two days after the launch in April. The family also visited with Mike during an extended, hour-long teleconference earlier this summer at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
In addition to phone calls and teleconferences, the astronaut has also maintained e-mail connections with his parents and his eight younger siblings while in space.
Fincke and Padalka, who have performed three extended space walks during their expedition, are scheduled to return to Earth aboard a Soyuz spacecraft next month.
Fincke told the students that his own childhood visits to the Buhl Planetarium helped shape his dream of becoming an astronaut.
"I never gave up on my dream," he said as he signed off, "and I encourage you not to give up on yours either."
First Published: September 23, 2004, 4:00 a.m.
