U.S. President Barack Obama, accompanied by White House Science Adviser John Holdren on the left, and middle school children, talks on the phone from the Roosevelt Room of the White House to astronauts on the International Space Station. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls.Crews Receive Presidential Call, Outfit New Station Modules
After a chat with the president an hour after their wakeup call Wednesday, it was back to the nuts-and-bolts work of spaceflight for the crews of Endeavour and the International Space Station.
At 5:14 p.m. EST on Wednesday, all 11 astronauts and cosmonauts on the docked vehicles received a congratulatory phone call from President Barack Obama, who was accompanied at the White House by a dozen middle school students from across the country who are in Washington, D.C. for a national engineering competition.All 11 astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station and space shuttle Endeavour received a congratulatory phone call from President Barack Obama Wednesday. The president was accompanied at the White House by congressional leaders and a dozen middle school students from across the country who are in Washington, D.C. for a national engineering competition.
Joining the president were 12 students from Birney Middle School of Detroit, Elkhorn Middle School of Omaha, Neb., St. Thomas the Apostle of Miami and Davidson IB Middle School of Davidson, N.C. These students are in Washington as leaders of four of 39 teams participating in the "Future City" engineering competition hosted by National Engineers Week.
