Surrounded by floating sweet canes and a makeshift snowman made out of stowage baggage, the astronauts aboard the Worldwide House Station gathered collectively to want a Merry Christmas to everybody again on Earth.
Expedition 72 commander Sunita “Suni” Williams, sporting a pair of festive reindeer antlers, joined fellow NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore, Don Pettit and Nick Hague to share some vacation cheer from their dwelling away from dwelling, 260 miles (420 kilometers) above the planet.
“It is a good time of yr up right here,” Williams said in a video recorded on Monday (Dec. 23). “We get to spend it with all of our household up on the Worldwide House Station. There’s seven of us up right here, and so we will get to take pleasure in firm collectively.”
Along with the 4 NASA astronauts, the station’s crew additionally consists of Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and Aleksandr Gorbunov of Russia’s federal house company Roscosmos.
“In Christmas time, the vacation season, it is about spending time with family and friends and family members. This yr, we will be in orbit away from them,” stated Hague, who’s scheduled to return to Earth in March. “We’re not the one ones which might be going to spend time away from our households over the vacations. There’s an enormous workforce on the bottom that is going to assist us in mission controls across the globe.”
“I need to thank them for the sacrifices that they are making collectively. We work hand-in-hand with the bottom day by day and over the vacations, we maintain this mission going,” he stated.
The bottom groups ready a particular vacation meal for the station’s crew, which Pettit gave a fast preview of within the video.
“Christmas is synonymous with meals and feasting. And boy do now we have a feast packaged up right here,” he stated.
Along with the meals and treats, the crew even have a small synthetic Christmas tree and ornaments adorned with their households’ images.
Hague, Pettit and Wilmore donned Santa caps for the message, with Wilmore, a Tennessee native, stretching his over a cowboy hat. Wilmore can be an ordained minister and religious Christian, main him to remind everybody in regards to the spiritual side of the vacation, as nicely.
“And, after all, Christmas is Christ. Hallelujah, a savior is born,” stated Wilmore.
The astronauts closed out their message with a easy, “Merry Christmas!”
In the event you’re planning to search for on the night time sky this vacation, our Christmas night time sky information has recommendations on find out how to see Venus and different planets. And if you happen to’re extra historical past minded, take a look at our Star of Bethelehem information as astronomers debate what it might have been.
