It's the ultimate showdown in space … at chess.
Astronaut Gregory
Chamitoff is taking on the world in a galactic chess match from his perch
aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Chamitoff, a NASA flight engineer, began the chess match
Sept. 29, playing against the public on Earth, led by the kindergarten through
third grade U.S. Chess Championship Team and its chess club teammates from Stevenson
Elementary School in Bellevue, Wash. The astronaut is set to talk live to his
student adversaries Thursday at 2:05 p.m. ET (1805 GMT).
"I started off playing Mission Control and now
I’m playing against the school kids," Chamitoff told SPACE.com
this week. "They’re from Bellevue, Washington, and they're kind of
leading the charge here on an Earth versus space chess game, which I think is
great."
Chamitoff and his adversaries make about one move a day on
weekdays, as long as the space station schedule allows. When it's Earth's turn,
the students choose up to four possible moves, and then the public votes on
which move to send to orbit. Anyone can vote via the Web site:
www.uschess.org/nasa2008.
"I think it’s a really good game for kids to play
to help them learn how to think in ways that are very important for math and
science," Chamitoff said during the on-orbit interview. "It's a good
game to stimulate kids’ thinking and it’s been a lot of fun to play
with them."
The online voting is being hosted by the U.S. Chess
Federation (UCSF).
"We hope the excitement and interest this game
generates will inspire students to become interested in chess," said USCF
executive director Bill Hall. "Chess is a valuable tool to lead students
to become interested in math and to develop critical thinking skills,
objectives we focus on in our work with schools nationwide."
Chamitoff launched
toward the station aboard NASA’s space shuttle Discovery
on May 31. A lifelong chess aficionado, he brought a set up to space with him,
and added Velcro to the pieces so they wouldn't float away in weightlessness.
During the four-and-a-half months he's been in Earth orbit
during the station’s Expedition 17 mission, Chamitoff has been playing
chess games against space station mission control centers around the world. So
far, he is undefeated.
As for who will win the ultimate contest between Earth and
space, time will tell.
"It's sort of still at the beginning, so it’s
hard at this point to tell who’s ahead, but we’ll see,"
Chamitoff said this week. "Hopefully, we’ll have a conclusion here
before it’s time for me to have to leave."
Chamitoff has spent much of his time activating the space
station’s new Japanese laboratory Kibo, which arrived with him in June
aboard the shuttle Discovery. He will join the station’s new Expedition
18 when two new crew members launch Oct. 12 aboard a Russian Soyuz
spacecraft. Chamitoff is due to return home aboard the STS-126 space shuttle
mission in late November.
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