{"id":18952,"date":"2024-12-26T21:45:26","date_gmt":"2024-12-26T22:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=18952"},"modified":"2024-12-26T23:24:11","modified_gmt":"2024-12-26T23:24:11","slug":"how-they-celebrated-the-holidays-250-miles-above-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=18952","title":{"rendered":"How They Celebrated the Holidays 250 Miles Above Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The astronauts on the I.S.S. \u2014 including two who were scheduled to return months ago \u2014 held a zero-gravity cookie-decorating contest and built a reindeer from storage bags.<\/p>\n

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In June, two NASA astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, set out for what was expected to be an eight-day trip to the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday \u2014 around six months and several spacecraft malfunctions later \u2014 they donned Santa Claus hats and wished their families the best from hundreds of miles above sea level as their tenure, which is likely to keep them in Earth\u2019s orbit for at least two more months, stretched on.<\/p>\n

Ms. Williams, 59, and Mr. Wilmore, 61, docked at the space station during a test flight of Boeing\u2019s Starliner, which was intended to be a commercial option for ferrying people to and from the station.<\/p>\n

But after a spate of malfunctions<\/a> called the safety of the return flight into question, NASA leaders decided to bring the Starliner to Earth uncrewed, leaving the two astronauts behind until another aircraft can take them back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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So Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore had a chance to participate in the long, strange tradition of celebrating the holidays in space, which began in 1968 when the Apollo 8 astronauts read verses from the Book of Genesis while broadcasting a video of the lunar surface to roughly one billion viewers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A view of the rising Earth greeted Apollo 8 astronauts as they approached from behind the moon on Christmas Eve 1968.<\/span>NASA<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The astronauts on the I.S.S. \u2014 including two who were scheduled to return months ago \u2014 held a zero-gravity cookie-decorating contest and built a reindeer from storage bags.In June, two NASA astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, set out for what was expected to be an eight-day trip to the International Space Station.On Wednesday \u2014 around six months and several spacecraft malfunctions later \u2014 they donned Santa Claus hats and wished their families the best from hundreds of miles above sea level as their tenure, which is likely to keep them in Earth\u2019s orbit for at least two more months, stretched on.Ms. Williams, 59, and Mr. Wilmore, 61, docked at the space station during a test flight of Boeing\u2019s Starliner, which was intended to be a commercial option for ferrying people to and from the station.But after a spate of malfunctions called the safety of the return flight into question, NASA leaders decided to bring the Starliner to Earth uncrewed, leaving the two astronauts behind until another aircraft can take them back.So Ms. Williams and Mr. Wilmore had a chance to participate in the long, strange tradition of celebrating the holidays in space, which began in 1968 when the Apollo 8 astronauts read verses from the Book of Genesis while broadcasting a video of the lunar surface to roughly one billion viewers.A view of the rising Earth greeted Apollo 8 astronauts as they approached from behind the moon on Christmas Eve 1968.NASAWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18954,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18952"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18955,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18952\/revisions\/18955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}