International Space Station astronauts share their Christmas plans in space this year

With Christmas just around the corner, Earthlings are upping their preparations for December 25, and joining them in the preparations are astronauts in space. The International Space Station (ISS) currently has seven astronauts on board who will be celebrating their Christmas in zero gravity this year. In a message shared by NASA earlier today, the crew members of the Expedition 66 crew shared their thoughts on celebrating the holidays orbiting the planet and extended their greetings to their family and those on Earth. 

'We have our space family'

When asked about their thoughts on spending the holidays orbiting the Earth, NASA astronauts Kayla Barron said that now that they have their own family in space, they will come up with some new holiday traditions. "Even though we'll be up here this year, we have our space family so I think we are going to create some of our own traditions and we'll be able to talk to our family on the ground", Barron said. 

Agreeing with Barron, Indian-origin astronaut Raja Chari also said, "There's a new family here in space and so getting to spend Christmas with this family is something I'm looking forward to. The European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer also highlighted the spirit of the holidays and amusingly said, "Actually we can spend Christmas like I don't know, 24 divided by 90 minutes, like 16 times", considering the number of rotations around the Earth ISS makes in one day.

Astronaut Mashburn calls himself 'privileged' for space Christmas

Reflecting on his thoughts about Christmas aboard the space station, Astronauts Thomas Mashburn said, "Privileged to have the perspective of seeing so many countries. We can go from one side to the other in just a few minutes. It truly gives us a feeling of unification of all human beings around the world". Adding to this Chari said, "We get to see the sunrise many times a day. So thinking about the fact that people are waking up to a new year each time we see a sunrise is pretty cool". 

Besides, with the new year will begin a series of new science experiments about which Maurer said that the experiments would be a "splendid start" of 2022.