For the primary time this 12 months, Thanksgiving can be noticed in low-Earth orbit by an all-female U.S. contingent, with astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara at present representing NASA aboard the Worldwide Area Station (ISS), a part of the Expedition 70 crew. Accompanied by Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Konstantin Borisov and Nikolai Chub, Japan’s Satoshi Furukawa and Expedition 70 Commander Andreas Mogensen of Denmark, the multi-national crew will take at present off, having fun with a Thanksgiving meal with a variety of treats just lately delivered aboard SpaceX’s CRS-29 Cargo Dragon.
“On Thursday, the whole seven-member crew will take the break day, calm down and revel in a hearty meal,” NASA defined. Their Thanksgiving feast is predicted to incorporate “turkey, duck, quail, seafood and cranberry sauce, adopted by treats like chocolate, pumpkin spice cappuccino, rice cake and mochi, all primarily based upon Expedition 70’s preferences.
In doing so, Moghbeli and O’Hara proceed an unbroken interval of greater than 20 years during which U.S. astronauts have celebrated this most quintessential of U.S. holidays aboard the ISS. And previous to November 2000, six earlier crews additionally tucked into their Thanksgiving meals aboard the voluminous inside of America’s Skylab house station and extra just lately the cramped confines of the Area Shuttle.
Talking through NASA TV earlier this week, Expedition 70 shared a few of their meals for the large day: packets of roast turkey, cranberry sauce, butternut squash, quorn—“one in all my favorites,” mentioned O’Hara—and a cranberry-apple dessert to complete. They usually supplied their private views of what Thanksgiving means to them.
“This 12 months on-board the Worldwide Area Station, we’re grateful for a lot of issues, one in all which is our distinctive vantage level, wanting again at our lovely house planet, Earth,” mentioned Moghbeli, who marks her 89th day in house at present after a 26 August launch aboard Dragon Endurance. “It’s a reminder to us that whereas everybody we all know and love is again house on Earth, we have to shield it and care for it.
“Not everybody celebrates Thanksgiving in the identical means,” mentioned O’Hara, who has been in orbit since mid-September and is observing her 69th day in orbit. “Whereas it is a time for gratitude, it’s additionally a chance to mirror on our historical past and bear in mind those that may not get to go house for Thanksgiving or get pleasure from Thanksgiving dinner.
“We hope everybody will get to get pleasure from moments crammed with peace and spend time with their family and friends, family members and with Planet Earth,” she added. “On-board Area Station, we’re wanting ahead to a quiet break day and likewise a pleasant Thanksgiving dinner collectively.”
NASA boasts a protracted custom of observing the vacation from low-Earth orbit. The primary U.S. astronauts to spend November’s fourth Thursday off the planet had been Gerry Carr, Ed Gibson and Invoice Pogue—Skylab’s remaining crew—means again in 1973.
They carried out a six-hour, 33-minute session of Extravehicular Exercise (EVA) on the large day itself, 22 November, to load digicam movie into Skylab’s Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM). That night, the three males ate prime ribs, turkey and rooster, which they described as considerably bland, although salt and condiments enhanced the style just a little.
Twelve years later, in November 1985, Atlantis’ STS-61B crew broke out Thanksgiving meals and drinks in house for the primary time within the shuttle period. They’d launched a day earlier than the large day and a number of other of the astronauts’ stomachs had been nonetheless within the strategy of adapting to microgravity, which made turkey and trimmings not particularly welcome.
Nevertheless, the crew did get themselves into the vacation spirit at Florida’s Kennedy Area Middle (KSC) earlier than launch. On-orbit, the seven astronauts—together with Mexico’s first man in house—ate turkey, mashed potatoes, inexperienced beans and corn.
Talking a few years later, STS-61B Pilot Bryan O’Connor remembered fighting the meals as his abdomen tailored to weightlessness. “The gravy didn’t style superb to me,” he advised NASA’s Oral Historical past Venture. “The mashed potatoes had been nice, however I didn’t go for that turkey.”
The following pair of shuttle-era Thanksgivings got here in November 1989 and November 1991, throughout a pair of Division of Protection missions. Each included astronauts Fred Gregory and Story Musgrave, who collectively turned the primary Individuals to have fun the festive day in house on two discrete events.
Gregory appreciated the chance to share a “civilized” meal along with his crewmates, consuming on trays. And when Musgrave flew once more in November 1996, he turned the primary U.S. citizen to watch three Thanksgivings in house, an achievement since matched by fellow astronaut Peggy Whitson throughout her three ISS increments in 2002, 2007 and 2016.
Along with Musgrave and his STS-80 crewmates, November 1996 proved distinctive in that one other American was additionally in orbit, aboard a distinct spacecraft. Astronaut John Blaha, who had additionally flown over Thanksgiving with Gregory and Musgrave in 1989, was midway via a four-month increment on Russia’s Mir house station. A equally distinctive occasion occurred a 12 months later, when the STS-87 crew ate turkey, cranberries, pumpkin cookies and pecan pie aboard shuttle Columbia as Dave Wolf noticed Thanksgiving from Mir.
An extra three years would elapse earlier than the daybreak of everlasting habitation of the ISS and the start of a steady U.S. presence in house for each successive Thanksgiving. In November 2000, Expedition 1 Commander Invoice Shepherd and his Russian crewmates Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev discovered time to get pleasure from a meal of ham and smoked turkey.
Three shuttle crews had been in orbit in the course of the ISS period, both docked on the house station or having just lately undocked on the day itself. In November 2008, STS-126 astronauts Don Pettit and Steve Bowen toasted the vacation, previous and current, and loved the pleasure of merely being in house—“simply because we will”—with small packets of candy tea.
Like Story Musgrave earlier than her, Peggy Whitson is one in all solely two Individuals to have noticed three Thanksgivings off the planet in her life. Her first mission was aboard Expedition 5 in 2002, throughout which her crew welcomed shuttle Endeavour and the STS-113 astronauts over the festive interval.
This was the primary time {that a} shuttle had ever been current at an area station throughout Thanksgiving. A spacewalk was carried out on the day itself, however the shuttle and ISS crews later gathered across the desk for a ten-person meal. “After a difficult day of labor,” recalled Whitson, “we celebrated with smoked turkey in foil pouches, rehydrated mashed potatoes and rehydrated inexperienced beans and mushrooms,” adopted by a dessert of blueberry-cherry cobbler on tortilla.
5 years later, in November 2007, Whitson was getting into her second month as the primary feminine house station commander, main Expedition 16. On this event, no shuttle was current and she or he was joined as a substitute by her long-duration crewmates Dan Tani of NASA and Russia’s Yuri Malenchenko.
“After we take into consideration Thanksgiving,” Tani defined, “we take into consideration the Pilgrims coming to the New World and increasing their data of their Universe and making new discoveries and in search of a greater life for themselves.” Floating alongside him, Whitson chipped in by explaining that many of the station’s Russian foodstuffs got here canned. Nevertheless, she and Tani had a selected penchant for the Russian rooster, including woefully: “There’s none of that left!”
All advised, together with Moghbeli and O’Hara, a complete of 80 Individuals have celebrated Thanksgiving in house, with Musgrave and Whitson having accomplished so 3 times and ten others of NASA’s best—Fred Gregory, John Blaha, Mike Lopez-Alegria, Shane Kimbrough, Barry “Butch” Wilmore, Randy Bresnik, Scott Kelly, Shannon Walker, Mike Hopkins and Mark Vande Hei—having accomplished so twice. Added to their ranks, astronauts and cosmonauts from Russia, Mexico, Japan, Ukraine, Germany, Belgium, Italy, France and Andreas Mogensen from Denmark have celebrated alongside them.
Subsequent 12 months’s Thanksgiving crew complement aboard the ISS is but to be confirmed by NASA and the Worldwide Companions, though November 2024 will mark the twenty fifth steady 12 months {that a} U.S. human presence in house has been maintained over the vacation season. And with Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman—who just lately spoke with AmericaSpace’s Alex Longo in a pair of interviews, right here and right here—and his crewmates Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canada’s Jeremy Hansen additionally concentrating on a November 2024 launch, there stays an opportunity that humanity’s subsequent lunar voyagers might fly to the Moon for the primary time over Thanksgiving.
And that, absolutely, would make Thanksgiving 2024 a vacation to recollect.
