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The holiday season and space might just be more closely connected than you thought. Check out this list of great Christmas space facts.
It’s that magical time of year again.
Christmas is a holiday celebrated by more than 2 billion people globally, so chances are that it’s important to you or someone close to you. However, you may not know that Christmas is a holiday that also has many links with space exploration.
Pretty much from the first moment that humans blasted ourselves off into the void, we’ve been keen to celebrate our most treasured holidays amongst the stars. Starting with the Gemini 6 mission in the late 1960s and stretching all the way to the modern-day, astronauts are just as keen as anyone else to have a good holiday season. As a result, there’s a surprising number of ways that space and Christmas are tied together, from Christmas trees to space cookies and even holiday-themed pranks.
To celebrate the upcoming festive period, we’ve compiled this list of 10 great facts that marry the holiday and space, in no particular order.
It’s not clear why this codename was given, and Donna didn’t reveal a timeframe, but the alleged incident was probably intended to have happened around December, hence the seasonal designations.
Now, it’s true that during the 70s, there were plenty of missions to the moon, and plenty of them happened around the end of the year (for example, the Apollo 17 mission launched on December 7, 1972.) However, the chances of these claims being true are slim. Although NASA contracted the company Donna claimed to work for in the 70s, they only provided engineering and operational support services. Therefore, neither Donna nor the company she worked for would have gotten anywhere near a photo lab, or a debriefing.
While rumors have spread that Russian crewmembers have smuggled vodka onto the base, it’s doubtful that these rumors are true. The ISS’s water recycling system is very delicate and would be overwhelmed by any amount of alcohol. According to Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli “the water processing system on the ISS… would be overwhelmed if any alcohol got into the plumbing.” So, there you have it, no Christmas tipple in space.
If you want to experience the ISS and still have a drink or two over the holidays, then check out our Space Lego deals guide.
Does that mean Santa Claus can get on board the ISS? Not quite. The gift packages are prepared on Earth, with each crew member’s family putting gifts and messages into the container, along with some personalized socks. The gifts are then launched onto the ISS with an earlier expedition to give the crew a Christmas surprise. According to U.S. astronaut André Kuipers: “They had put these presents together in April, way before our arrival, to send up with a cargo ship… it was great!”
We made space cookies and milk for Santa this year. Happy holidays from the @Space_Station! pic.twitter.com/sZS4KdPmhjDecember 26, 2019
Another fond Christmas tradition for many is baking sugar cookies. While you may not expect this to translate so well to space, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. In December 2019, an experiment was led aboard the ISS to see how cooking would work in space. The investigation took place to test the viability of cooking to extend food supplies.
The items the crew baked were chocolate chip cookies, and while these aren’t the typical sort of cookies usually baked for Christmas, this did all take place during the season. One of the crew members who took part, Christina Koch, tweeted that the crew had made some Christmas milk and cookies for Santa on Dec. 26.
The magic number for your house to be visible from the ISS would be 2,683 LED lights (opens in new tab). Researchers calculated the number using the average luminosity of store-bought LED Christmas lights but admitted that the number also relies on there being no light pollution at all, which is highly unlikely. Ryan Bradley-Evans, one of the students who took part in the research, said: “Although we oversimplified the factors involved, it was great to see this film hold up to the physics involved as often this is not the case, and who knows, maybe somebody, someday, reading this will actually try it.”
However, the exciting part is that this sci-fi cinematic tragedy happens to be the first on-screen portrayal of Mrs. Claus. The character was invented in 1849 for a short story known as A Christmas Legend by James Rees and is portrayed here by Doris Rich, a Boston native actor who retired from the profession shortly afterward. We’re sure her decision had nothing to do with how bad this film was.
As well as being the first people to orbit the moon, the crew of Apollo 8 have the honor of being the first people to be away from Earth on Christmas Day itself. The crew consisted of Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders, who made the historic mission on Dec. 21, 1968, and remained in space for six days, three hours, and twenty-four seconds.
On the evening of Christmas Eve, the crew beamed down a message to Earth. This message featured a static shot of the planet while each crew member read a passage from the Bible. While the religious message wasn’t appreciated by everyone, such as the group American Atheists that sued NASA over it, it was still a moment heard worldwide at Christmastime. You can even still watch the message today (opens in new tab), thanks to NASA’s archival process.
Related: Christmas Eve at the Moon: Apollo 8’s Historic Message Beamed to Earth Today in 1968
To redress this imbalance, the crew constructed a pretty decent-looking Christmas tree to help them celebrate the holiday in style. TV viewers even got a glimpse of the festive faux flora when it was broadcast to the world on Christmas Eve. While the tree in question is a bit tacky, you have to admit, the fact that they knocked together something recognizable as a full-sized Christmas tree is pretty impressive.
Some highlights of this phenomenon include how different crews have shared the Christmas food of their countries with their international counterparts. For example, in 2016, French astronaut Thomas Pesquet shared traditional Christmas food from Normandy, including ox tongue. The European Space Agency documented the whole event in several videos, and they still make for an exciting watch to this day.
On Dec. 16, 1965, Walter Schirra Jr. and Thomas Stafford radioed in a UFO sighting. They claimed to be picking up an object orbiting the planet before patching through a signal they were allegedly receiving from the craft. At this point, the two crewmen pulled out a harmonica and sleigh bells and recited the famous song. You can still listen back (opens in new tab) to what must have at first been quite an ordeal for those on the ground.
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