A Missouri classroom will make contact with orbit this week as NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station answer students’ science questions live from space.

NASA says astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway will respond to prerecorded questions from students in Missouri during an Earth-to-space call scheduled to begin at 10:50 a.m. EDT on Thursday, April 30. The agency plans to stream the event live on its Learn With NASA YouTube channel, giving viewers beyond the classroom a front-row seat to a rare exchange between students and astronauts working hundreds of miles above Earth.

Key Facts

  • NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway will take part in the event from the International Space Station.
  • Missouri students will ask prerecorded STEM questions.
  • The Earth-to-space call is set to begin at 10:50 a.m. EDT on Thursday, April 30.
  • NASA will stream the event live on the Learn With NASA YouTube channel.

The appeal goes beyond the novelty of hearing voices from space. These events give students a direct line to people doing science in real time, turning abstract lessons in engineering, physics, and biology into something immediate and human. NASA has long used station downlinks like this to pull young audiences into STEM fields, and the format works because it connects textbook concepts to life aboard the ISS, where every routine task depends on careful science and problem-solving.

For students watching in Missouri, the International Space Station will feel a little less distant when their questions meet answers from orbit.

The timing also underscores NASA’s broader push to make space exploration more accessible to classrooms and families online. By placing the livestream on a public YouTube channel, the agency opens the moment to anyone curious about how astronauts live, work, and conduct research in microgravity. Reports indicate the session will focus on STEM topics, though NASA’s summary leaves the exact questions to the students who recorded them.

What happens next matters because these small, vivid encounters often shape how young people see science — not as a subject to memorize, but as a world they can enter. If the event lands the way NASA hopes, it will do more than answer a handful of questions. It will show students that space remains close enough to ask, and perhaps close enough to join someday.