BUDDING Neil Armstrongs were due to be beamed up to the International Space Station last night as Neston School pupils spoke to NASA astronauts on an amateur radio.

At 5.45pm a group spoke directly to astronauts on the station as it rose in the western sky.

The idea came from one of the parents, Charles Riley, when he discovered that pupils from schools in the USA were making contact with the astronauts via amateur radio.

As a radio enthusiast himself, he thought children in this country might be able to have the same experience. With vast support from the organisation, Amateur Radio on International Space Station, the idea has become reality.

Neston School is the only primary school in Britain to be taking part in the current project. The initial application was approved eighteen months ago and pupils have been linking all areas of the curriculum to their space project.

At the beginning of the year children in Year Two and above visited the Imax theatre in Bristol to see the 3D film set on the International Space Station.

The school has also just received a huge funding boost from NESTA, the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts, an organisation that invests in UK creativity and innovation.

The Nestonauts project will be the moon base, an interactive education centre for space science, housed in a dome located in the playground of the school.

NESTA has invested £35,000 from its learning programme to help the school realise its plans for this unique resource.

Headteacher Linda Davies said: "The aim for moon base is to create a learning facility, to experiment, play and inspire. Schools face difficulties in bringing science and engineering into the classroom.

"Difficult concepts can be grasped easily if pupils can see and interact with complex objects. They are literally brought to life."

Further zones will also be added to the moon base, and the children have produced designs for a mirror maze, an indoor growing area and a sculpture zone, as well as the aqua zone.

The pupils also took part in another NASA programme to polish mirrors for the Starshine satellite, which will be launched later in the year.

The pupils will be able to see the light of the sun reflected back to earth via the mirrors they polished.