Christmas is around the corner, a festive season that brings people together with their families on Earth. While people celebrate with joy down here, astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) also mark this significant holiday for Westerners, along with other traditional festivals. So, how do they celebrate in space?
According to a report on the website of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), astronauts on the International Space Station observe holidays in a unique way while balancing their daily lives and work duties. Each astronaut takes a moment to admire the view of Earth from outer space, communicate with loved ones, and share meals with their fellow crew members.
In a historic moment in human history, the crew members of the Apollo 8 mission, including astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders, celebrated Christmas while orbiting the moon in December 1968. These astronauts broadcasted images of Earth from near the moon’s surface on Christmas Eve, reciting the opening verses of the Book of Genesis from the Bible to mark the occasion. It is estimated that around one billion people from 64 countries listened to their broadcast.
In 1973, astronauts Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson, and William Pogue of Skylab 4 celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year in outer space. They crafted a Christmas tree from leftover food containers, decorated it with colorful stickers, and placed a comet-shaped paper cutout at the top of the tree.
On December 15 of the same year, Carr and Pogue embarked on a 7-hour spacewalk to change film reels and observe Comet Kohoutek passing by. Upon returning to the space station, they enjoyed a Christmas feast with fruitcake, contacted their families, and exchanged gifts.
After NASA launched the Hubble Space Telescope into Earth’s orbit in 1990, astronauts were sent on space shuttles to provide maintenance services for the telescope. In 1993, astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman celebrated Hanukkah with a travel menorah and dreidel after completing the third spacewalk for maintenance tasks.
Finally, in 1999, astronauts on the Space Shuttle Discovery, including Curtis Brown, Scott Kelly, Steven Smith, John Grunsfeld, and Michael Foale, celebrated Christmas for the first time in space. They shared a meal of foie gras with Mexican corn cakes, beef stew, and salty pork and beans with European Space Agency astronauts Claude Nicollier and Jean-François Clervoy.
Smith and Grunsfeld successfully repaired the Hubble Space Telescope during a spacewalk on December 24, 1999. Since then, at least one American astronaut celebrates Christmas in space each year.
In November 2000, Expedition 1 became the first long-term mission crew to visit the International Space Station, including NASA astronaut William Shepherd, Roscosmos astronauts Sergei K. Krikalev and Yuri Gidzenko. They initiated the tradition of reading messages of goodwill for people on Earth during the holiday season, with Shepherd penning a poem in the ship’s log as the first record of the New Year.
For the past 24 years, NASA has continuously supported American astronauts in their missions to the International Space Station. Astronauts have learned how to live and work in space through the station. With NASA’s ongoing assistance in missions to and from the ISS, astronauts will continue to celebrate holidays in space in the years to come.