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NASA astronaut, Livingston woman visits Park High students from orbit

Christina Koch, member of first all-women space walk, talks to students from space
Posted at 2:43 PM, Dec 13, 2019
and last updated 2019-12-13 16:43:33-05

High school students in Livingston got a visitor from out of this world -- literally.

NASA astronaut Christina Koch (“Cook”) made a special stop to Park High School via webcam from the International Space Station.

Her mission -- to visit with a room filled with about 500 students and a lineup of Science Olympiad members -- all with questions (which she answered). Koch showed students demonstrations about how astronauts exercise and things like how water works in space.

She’s familiar with the area she's orbiting above -- Koch is from Livingston -- and some of her friends from the area also stood by as she represented Montana from orbit.

"Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for coming. I wish I could see you all there but I can imagine all the support," Koch said from the ISS. "I can feel it from up here. I wanted to thank you Natalie for this awesome shirt and the Park High Rangers sticker."

"It's really awesome," says Zoe Bradley, freshman at Park High. "I've always had a passion for space. I do a lot of Space-E activities and I do some NASA summer camps."

"It's really incredible to see somebody that's from this community go so far and literally is orbiting the earth out of this world," says Hannah Harshbarger, senior at Park High.

Koch also talked about her recent historic achievement -- being a part of the first all-women space walk.