Stephanie Effken

    After 151 days, 18 hours, 21 minutes and 14 seconds in space; 64 million miles; and 18 hours, one minute of space walking time, Nebraska native Clayton Anderson is back on Earth and made a visit to Malcolm Public Schools.
     On April 1, Anderson gave an assembly for Malcolm students and where he discussed the basics of space and shared stories of his experience.
     Anderson graduated from Ashland-Greenwood High School in 1977. He then received a bachelor of science degree in physics from Hastings College and a master of science degree in aerospace engineering from Iowa State University.
     In 2007, Anderson spent five months working aboard the International Space Station. He launched to the Station on June 8, 2007, on Shuttle Atlantis.
     While at the Space Station, he served as the science officer for the expedition. He said one his experiments included burning things at zero gravity. These experiments were done to create better smoke detectors for spaceships, and in turn, better smoke detectors for Earth.
     A student asked what it was like when he returned to Earth.
     "It was hard," Anderson said. "My head was spinning, but I threw up and felt much better. The next day I was pretty normal."
     One of his activities with the students involved showing the small amount of living space on the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Many students felt they could live in tight quarters with seven people for two weeks.
     "It looks like we have some future astronauts out there," Anderson said.
     He also demonstrated the docking of Atlantis on the Space Station using a football–the shuttle speeds up or slows down depending on the docking area of the Space Station.
     Also, using a blow-up planet Earth, small rubber balls and string, Anderson demonstrated the positions of planets in relation to Earth. The position of Mars, however, could not be accurately demonstrated–the student would need to be in Lincoln.
     After a video on his travels, Anderson opened the floor for questions.
     Among them was a question about training in water. The students were in awe when he described the tanks as two of Malcolm's gymnasiums with 6.2 million gallons of water. He discussed the "neutrally buoyant" state the water provides and how it related to the gravity in space.
     "I didn't walk around in space, I would fly," Anderson said. "I was Superman every single day in space."
     When asked about possibily of returning to space, Anderson said he would love to, but the long tours are hard on his family.