The seven astronauts of Expedition 70 are celebrating Thanksgiving in space.
The astronauts from three different countries aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will take Thursday, Nov. 23, off, allowing them to calm down and luxuriate in a Thanksgiving feast of turkey, duck, quail, seafood, corn and cranberry sauce. The Expedition 70 crew shared a video message ahead of Thanksgiving, sending well wishes to everyone 200 to 250 miles (370 to 460 kilometers) below the Earth.
“We will likely be celebrating Thanksgiving together in space, but our thoughts are with our families at home and everybody else on Earth celebrating Thanksgiving,” Commander Andreas Mogensen said in a video shared by NASA. “We might prefer to take this chance to share this message on Thanksgiving from space with you.”
Flight engineer Jasmin Moghbeli continued: “This 12 months onboard the International Space Station, we’re thankful for a lot of things, considered one of which is our unique vantage point looking back at our beautiful home planet Earth.
“We get to see it in a really unique way and see how special and delightful it’s. It is a reminder to us that, while everyone we all know and love is back home on Earth, we’d like to guard it and handle it,” Moghbeli added.
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Mogensen, Moghbeli, flight engineers Satoshi Furukawa, Loral O’Hara, and Konstantin Borisov, Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub of Russian space agency Roscosmos may even enjoy some sweeter Thanksgiving treats. These will range from chocolate, pumpkin spice cappuccino, rice cake, cran-apple dessert, and mochi.
“We might also like to acknowledge that not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving in the identical way. While it is a time for gratitude, it is also a chance to reflect on our history and remember those that may not get to go home for Thanksgiving or enjoy Thanksgiving dinner,” O’Hara added. “We hope everyone gets to enjoy moments crammed with peace and spend time with their family and friends.”
“Comfortable Thanksgiving to you all,” Furukawa said, concluding the vacation message from the Expedition 70 crew, who will spend next Thanksgiving at home after returning to Earth in spring 2024.
A Thanksgiving care package
The cornucopia of holiday food was shipped to the ISS by the SpaceX CRS-29 Dragon resupply service mission, which blasted off from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on Thursday, Nov. 9, atop a Falcon 9 rocket. CRS-29 docked on the ISS on Sat, Nov. 11.
Skipping the prep (and the dishes)
In 2014, Expedition 42 commander and NASA astronaut Chris Hadfield Barry “Butch” Wilmore shared images of what the Thanksgiving fare on the ISS looks like before it is ready.
Like other food sent to the ISS, the festive treats for Thanksgiving are shipped in foil or plastic packaging and are refrigerated or dehydrated. The ISS crew prepares these meals by adding water and heating in a suitcase-sized food warmer — skipping the hours of intensive preparation underway in households across the U.S. currently.
It may not be much, however it beats the tubes of paste that Yuri Gagarin ate during his trip to space in 1961.
The seating arrangements on the ISS for Thanksgiving dinner will likely be radically different, too. Magnets and Velcro will hold down the crew’s cans and utensils because the astronauts eat in microgravity. Not only will the central galley table lack a centerpiece Horn of Plenty, however the ISS team also won’t even have chairs to sit down on!
The ISS crew may even skip washing up as astronauts on the space station because after eating, astronauts on the ISS need to get rid of utensils and food packages to avoid the rapid growth of bacteria.