Ukrainian astronaut in training to fly aboard U.S. space shuttle (09/14/97)

Ukrainian astronaut in training to fly aboard U.S. space shuttle

by Oleh Bula
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - The first Ukrainian astronaut will fly aboard an American space shuttle on November 19. On a 16-day mission, Payload Specialist Col. Leonid Kadenyuk will conduct a variety of microgravity science experiments. These experiments are of particular interest to hundreds of thousands of students in both the United States and Ukraine.

As Col. Kadenyuk is conducting experiments in space, high school teachers from both countries will be leading their classes through the very same experiments here on Earth. Special downlinks have been established, and while orbiting far above the Earth's surface, in space, Col. Kadenyuk will be speaking directly with students in both Ukraine and the United States.

Ukraine will be linked through a special communications network set up with a Ukrainian television station. Ukrainians throughout the country will be watching their own astronaut as he works with the other crew members on the Space Shuttle orbiter.

Dr. Thomas Dreschel, science education coordinator for the Life Sciences Support Center at the Kennedy Space Center, explained the experiments that will be performed by Col. Kadenyuk, which are known as the Collaborative Ukrainian Experiments (CUE). He is working together with Dr. Paul Williams of the University of Wisconsin, who developed the Fast Plants program, an integral part of CUE, and with Dr. Mary Musgrave, the principal investigator for the United States.

The CUE is an international effort where-by teachers and students will have the opportunity to investigate plants - very special fast-growing plants that are able to germinate in under 48 hours - in space. Aboard the Space Shuttle mission in November (STS-87), Col. Kadenyuk will work on pollination of the Wisconsin Fast Plants, whose correct scientific name is Brassica rapa, otherwise known as Chinese cabbage.

Middle and high school students and teachers in the United States and Ukraine will then duplicate the flight experiments in real time and communicate online. After the shuttle mission, the pollinated plants will be recovered, dissected and investigated in the laboratory. This information will then be shared with students in both countries.

In May 1995, the presidents of the United States and Ukraine issued a joint statement on cooperation in space, directing the National Aeronatics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Space Agency of Ukraine (NSAU) to cooperate on a joint space shuttle mission. The United States and Ukraine announced that a Ukrainian payload specialist would fly aboard mission STS-87, and this project was called CUE. Col. Kadenyuk and an alternate, Dr. Yaroslav Pustovyi, were selected by the NSUA for the position.

CUE consists of five primary plant research experiments. These experiments were designed in joint cooperation between five U.S. scientists in four universities and 16 Ukrainian scientists at six institutes of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Dr. Volodimir Nazarenko of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences is the principal coordinator for Ukraine.

Speaking from the main Life Sciences laboratory at the Kennedy Space Center, Dr. Dreschel explained that his first meeting with Dr. Nazarenko was back in January of 1996 and then again in October of that year.

Before discussing the CUE, Dr. Dreschel provided this writer with an opportunity to tour the Kennedy Space Center laboratory facilities. He showed the testing facilities and the actual preparation areas where Col. Kadenyuk has been practicing for the November mission and the final staging areas for the CUE before flying in space.

Dr. Dreschel said most of the preparation had already been completed in both the United States and Ukraine. He credited a great deal of the success thus far to Dr. Nazarenko and his group of colleagues in Ukraine. Dr. Dreschel also credited Peter Chetirkin of the Kennedy Space Center for his superb job as translator on the Ukraine trips.

Dr. Dreschel has worked both by weekly telephone conference and daily e-mail with Dr. Nazarenko. U.S. and Ukrainian teachers have been identically trained with the Wisconsin Fast Plants, and both countries have "lead teachers" who are experts in the science.

Teachers' workshops in U.S., Ukraine

To ensure the success of the educational initiatives of CUE, Dr. Williams, with the help of Dr. Dreschel and Mr. Chetirkin, led workshops in both the United States and Ukraine. In Ukraine, Dr. Dreschel had the opportunity to work with 16 Ukrainian secondary school "lead teachers" under the direction of Dr. Nazarenko. He also met with hundreds of Ukrainian students to answer questions and to discuss the upcoming experiment. The original 16 teachers returned to their respective regions and trained more teachers, in a kind of "cascading effect." In the United Sates, 18 of these original "lead teachers" were trained this summer.

Dr. Dreschel expects CUE to have a large impact on secondary science education in both countries. Today, with concern in the United States over falling science and math test scores, and the fact that progressively fewer students enter the fields of science and engineering, it is initiatives like CUE that will spark interest in young students, he underlined.

Dr. Dreschel concluded by expressing how impressed he was by both the warmth and hospitality of the Ukrainians he met and by the true professionalism he experienced in working with the teachers and researchers in Kyiv.

As an American in Ukraine for the first time, he said, "I was quite impressed with Kyiv. It is a beautiful city, with the cathedrals, and they are obviously doing a lot of rebuilding."

Dr. Dreschel added, "The people I spoke with are very optimistic about the future of Ukraine and had a lot of pride about their independence."

"We had a chance to attend a mass at St. Volodymyr Cathedral, and it was really quite moving. The students we met with were really quite impressive. Many of them spoke English, more so than the adults. Generally, it seemed that anyone who was in their teens spoke some English. The enthusiasm of the children was overwhelming," he said.

CUE investigators, teachers and astronauts are all ready for STS-87 in November. In Ukraine, the excitement for CUE is brimming, and the students can hardly wait to get under way. It is a historic mission - the first for Ukraine and the United States together in space.

Oleh Bula teaches and conducts research in science education at University High School and the University of Central Florida in Orlando. He also works for the Spaceport Florida Authority in Cocoa Beach.

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