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By NASA
ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti pictured aboard the International Space Station on Dec. 20, 2014, during Expedition 42.Credit: NASA Crew members aboard the International Space Station celebrate the holiday season in a unique way while living and working at the orbiting laboratory. Each crew member, including the current Expedition 72, spends time enjoying the view of Earth from the space station, privately communicating with their friends and families, and sharing a joint meal with their expedition crewmates, while continuing experiments and station maintenance.
This view of the rising Earth greeted the Apollo 8 astronauts William Ander, Frank Borman, and James Lovell on Dec. 24, 1968, as they approached from behind the Moon after the fourth nearside lunar orbit.Credit: NASA As the first crew to spend Christmas in space and leave Earth orbit, Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders, celebrated while circling the Moon in December 1968. The crew commemorated Christmas Eve by reading opening verses from the Bible’s Book of Genesis as they broadcast scenes of the lunar surface below. An estimated one billion people across 64 countries tuned in to the crew’s broadcast.
Skylab 4 astronauts Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson, and William Pogue trim their homemade Christmas tree in December 1973. Credit: NASA In 1973, Skylab 4 astronauts Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson, and William Pogue celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s in space, as the first crew to spend the harvest festival and ring in the new year while in orbit. The crew built a homemade tree from leftover food containers, used colored decals as decorations, and topped it with a cardboard cutout in the shape of a comet. Carr and Pogue conducted a seven-hour spacewalk to change out film canisters and observe the passing Comet Kohoutek on Dec. 15, 1973. Once back inside the space station, the crew enjoyed a holiday dinner complete with fruitcake, communicated with their families, and opened presents.
NASA astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman pictured with a dreidel during Hanukkah in December 1993.Credit: NASA After NASA launched the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope into Earth’s orbit in 1990, NASA sent a space shuttle crew on a mission, STS-61, to service the telescope. In 1993, NASA astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman celebrated Hanukkah after completing the third spacewalk of the servicing mission. Hoffman celebrated with a traveling menorah and dreidel.
STS103-340-036 (19-27 December 1999) — Wearing Santa hats, astronauts John M. Grunsfeld and Steven L. Smith blend with the season for a brief celebration on the mid deck of the Space Shuttle Discovery. The interruption was very brief as the two mission specialists shortly went about completing their suit-up process in order to participate in STS-103 space walk activity, performing needed work on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).Credit: NASA As NASA continued to support another Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission, the STS-103 crew celebrated the first space shuttle Christmas aboard Discovery in 1999. NASA astronauts Curtis Brown, Scott Kelly, Steven Smith, John Grunsfeld, and Michael Foale, along with ESA (European Space Agency) astronauts Jean-François Clervoy and Claude Nicollier enjoyed duck foie gras on Mexican tortillas, cassoulet, and salted pork with lentils. Smith and Grunsfeld completed repairs on the telescope during a spacewalk on Dec. 24, 1999, and at least one American astronaut has celebrated Christmas in space every year since.
Expedition 1 crew members Yuri Gidzenko of Roscosmos, left, NASA astronaut William Shepherd, and Sergei Krikalev of Roscosmos reading a Christmas message in December 2000.
Credit: NASA In November 2000, the arrival of Expedition 1 crew members, NASA astronaut William Shepherd and Roscosmos cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, aboard the International Space Station, marked the beginning of a continuous presence in space. As the first crew to celebrate the holiday season at the laboratorial outpost, they began the tradition of reading a goodwill message to those back on Earth. Shepherd honored a naval tradition of writing a poem as the first entry of the new year in the ship’s log.
For more than 24 years, NASA has supported a continuous U.S. human presence aboard the International Space Station, through which astronauts have learned to live and work in space for extended periods of time. As NASA supports missions to and from the station, crew members have continued to celebrate the holidays in space.
Expedition 4 crew members, NASA astronauts Daniel Bursch and Carl Walz, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Yuri Onufriyenko, pose for a Christmas photo in December 2001. Credit: NASA Expedition 8 crew members, NASA astronaut Michael Foale, left, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Kaleri, right, celebrate Christmas in December 2003. Credit: NASA Expedition 10 crew members, Roscosmos cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov, left, and NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao, right, celebrate New Year’s Eve in December 2004.Credit: NASA Expedition 12 crew members, Roscosmos cosmonaut Tokarev, left, and NASA astronaut William McArthur, pose with Christmas stockings in December 2005. NASA Expedition 14 crew members, Roscosmos cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, left, and NASA astronauts Michael Lopez-Alegria and Suni Williams pose wearing Santa hats in December 2006.Credit: NASA Expedition 16 crew members, Roscosmos cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, left, and NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Daniel Tani, with Christmas stockings and presents in December 2007. Expedition 18 crew members enjoy Christmas dinner in December 2008. Expedition 22 crew members gather around the dinner table in December 2009.Credit: NASA Expedition 26 crew members celebrates New Year’s Eve in December 2010.Credit: NASA Expedition 30 crew members pictured in December 2011.Credit: NASA Expedition 34 crew members pictured in December 2012. Credit: NASA Expedition 42 crew members leave milk and cookies for Santa and hang stockings using the airlock as a makeshift chimney in December 2013.Credit: NASA Expedition 50 crew members celebrate New Year’s Eve in December. Credit: NASA Expedition 54 crew member NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei pictured as an elf for Christmas in December 2017.Credit: NASA Expedition 58 crew members inspect stockings for presents in December 2018 Expedition 61 crew member NASA astronaut Jessica Meir pictured with Hanukkah-themed socks in the cupola in December 2019. Expedition 61 crew members NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan, Christina Koch, and Jessica Meir, along with ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano share a holiday message on Dec. 23, 2019, from the International Space Station.Credit: NASA NASA astronaut Kayla Barron pictured with presents she wrapped for her crewmates in December 2021.Credit: NASA Expedition 68 crew members wear holiday outfits in December 2022.Credit: NASA Expedition 70 flight engineer NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli’s husband and daughters made a felt menorah for her to celebrate Hanukkah during her mission. Since astronauts can’t light real candles aboard the space station, Moghbeli pinned felt “lights” for each night of the eight-day holiday. A dreidel spun in weightlessness will continue spinning until it comes in contact with another object but can’t land on any of its four faces. Expedition 70 crew members recorded a holiday message for those back on Earth.
Expedition 70 NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli’s felt menorah and dreidel that she used to celebrate Hanukkah in December 2023. Credit: NASA NASA astronauts Don Pettit and Suni Williams, Expedition 72 flight engineer and commander respectively, pose for a fun holiday season portrait while speaking on a ham radio inside the International Space Station’s Columbus laboratory module. Credit: NASA To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
Expedition 72 video holiday message from the International Space Station. Credit: NASA The International Space Station is a convergence of science, technology, and human innovation that enables research not possible on Earth. The orbiting laboratory is a springboard for developing a low Earth economy and NASA’s next great leaps in exploration, including missions to the Moon under the Artemis campaign and, ultimately, human exploration of Mars.
Go here for more holiday memories onboard the space station. To learn more about the International Space Station, its research, and its crew, at:
https://www.nasa.gov/station
News Media Contacts:
Claire O’Shea
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
claire.a.o’shea@nasa.gov
Sandra Jones
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
sandra.p.jones@nasa.gov
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By NASA
More than 30,000 scientists gathered in Washington, D.C. during the second week of December – many to show off the work of NASA’s science volunteers! The American Geophysical Union held its annual meeting of professionals this month – the world’s largest gathering of Earth and Space Scientists. Here’s what they were talking about.
Eighteen NASA-sponsored project team members presented discoveries made with volunteers on topics from solar eclipses to global freshwater lake monitoring and exoplanet research. Overall, 175 posters and presentations featured the work of volunteers (up from 137 in 2023). Overall, 363 scientists and presenters at the conference described themselves as being involved in citizen science research (up from 201 in 2023). Two dozen scientists at the meeting gathered for lunch in the atrium of the National Portrait Gallery to talk about doing NASA science with volunteers. They discussed projects about asteroids, landslide hazard prediction, solar eclipse science, water quality, martian clouds, and more. Science done with volunteers is often called citizen science or participatory science – it does not require citizenship in any particular country. “Between the immense datasets being collected by NASA missions and the perennial need to open wide the doors to science so everyone can experience the joy and rewards of doing research together, citizen science is needed now more than ever!” said Sarah Kirn, the participatory science strategist at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute in Portland.” You can join one of NASA’s many participatory science projects right here!
Two dozen scientists gathered for lunch in the atrium of the National Portrait Gallery to talk about working with volunteers. They discussed projects about asteroids, landslide hazard prediction, solar eclipse science, water quality, martian clouds and more. Credit: Sarah Kirn Facebook logo @DoNASAScience @DoNASAScience Share
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By NASA
5 Min Read NASA’s Ames Research Center Celebrates 85 Years of Innovation
The NACA Ames laboratory in 1944 Credits: NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley pre-dates a lot of things. The center existed before NASA – the very space and aeronautics agency it’s a critical part of today. And of all the marvelous advancements in science and technology that have fundamentally changed our lives over the last 85 years since its founding, one aspect has remained steadfast; an enduring commitment to what’s known by some on-center simply as, “an atmosphere of freedom.”
Years before breaking ground at the site that would one day become home to the world’s preeminent wind tunnels, supercomputers, simulators, and brightest minds solving some of the world’s toughest challenges, Joseph Sweetman Ames, the center’s namesake, described a sentiment that would guide decades of innovation and research:
My hope is that you have learned or are learning a love of freedom of thought and are convinced that life is worthwhile only in such an atmosphere
Joseph sweetman ames
Founding member of the N.A.C.A.
“My hope is that you have learned or are learning a love of freedom of thought and are convinced that life is worthwhile only in such an atmosphere,” he said in an address to the graduates of Johns Hopkins University in June 1935.
That spirit and the people it attracted and retained are a crucial part of how Ames, along with other N.A.C.A. research centers, ultimately made technological breakthroughs that enabled humanity’s first steps on the Moon, the safe return of spacecraft through Earth’s atmosphere, and many other discoveries that benefit our day-to-day lives.
Russell Robinson momentarily looks to the camera while supervising the first excavation at what would become Ames Research Center.NACA “In the context of my work, an atmosphere of freedom means the freedom to pursue high-risk, high-reward, innovative ideas that may take time to fully develop and — most importantly — the opportunity to put them into practice for the benefit of all,” said Edward Balaban, a researcher at Ames specializing in artificial intelligence, robotics, and advanced mission concepts.
Balaban’s career at Ames has involved a variety of projects at different stages of development – from early concept to flight-ready – including experimenting with different ways to create super-sized space telescopes in space and using artificial intelligence to help guide the path a rover might take to maximize off-world science results. Like many Ames researchers over the years, Balaban shared that his experience has involved deep collaborations across science and engineering disciplines with colleagues all over the center, as well as commercial and academic partners in Silicon Valley where Ames is nestled and beyond. This is a tradition that runs deep at Ames and has helped lead to entirely new fields of study and seeded many companies and spinoffs.
Before NASA, Before Silicon Valley: The 1939 Founding of Ames Aeronautical Laboratory “In the fields of aeronautics and space exploration the cost of entry can be quite high. For commercial enterprises and universities pursuing longer term ideas and putting them into practice often means partnering up with an organization such as NASA that has the scale and multi-disciplinary expertise to mature these ideas for real-world applications,” added Balaban.
“Certainly, the topics of inquiry, the academic freedom, and the benefit to the public good are what has kept me at Ames,” reflected Ross Beyer, a planetary scientist with the SETI Institute at Ames. “There’s not a lot of commercial incentive to study other planets, for example, but maybe there will be soon. In the meantime, only with government funding and agencies like NASA can we develop missions to explore the unknown in order to make important fundamental science discoveries and broadly share them.”
For Beyer, his boundary-breaking moment came when he searched – and found – software engineers at Ames capable and passionate about open-source software to generate accurate, high-resolution, texture-mapped, 3D terrain models from stereo image pairs. He and other teams of NASA scientists have since applied that software to study and better understand everything from changes in snow and ice characteristics on Earth, as well as features like craters, mountains, and caves on Mars or the Moon. This capability is part of the Artemis campaign, through which NASA will establish a long-term presence at the Moon for scientific exploration with commercial and international partners. The mission is to learn how to live and work away from home, promote the peaceful use of space, and prepare for future human exploration of Mars.
“As NASA and private companies send missions to the Moon, they need to plan landing sites and understand the local environment, and our software is freely available for anyone to use,” Beyer said. “Years ago, our management could easily have said ‘No, let’s keep this software to ourselves; it gives us a competitive advantage.’ They didn’t, and I believe that NASA writ large allows you to work on things and share those things and not hold them back.”
When looking forward to what the next 85 years might bring, researchers shared a belief that advancements in technology and opportunities to innovate are as expansive as space itself, but like all living things, they need a healthy atmosphere to thrive. Balaban offered, “This freedom to innovate is precious and cannot be taken for granted. It can easily fall victim if left unprotected. It is absolutely critical to retain it going forward, to ensure our nation’s continuing vitality and the strength of the other freedoms we enjoy.”
Ames Aeronautical Laboratory.NACAView the full article
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By NASA
A method for evaluating thermophysical properties of metal alloys
Simulation of the solidification of metal alloys, a key step in certain industrial processes, requires reliable data on their thermophysical properties such as surface tension and viscosity. Researchers propose comparing predictive models with experimental outcomes as a method to assess these data.
Scientists use data on surface tension and viscosity of titanium-based alloys in industrial processes such as casting and crystal growth. Non-Equilibrium Solidification, Modelling for Microstructure Engineering of Industrial Alloys, an ESA (European Space Agency) investigation, examined the microstructure and growth of these alloys using the station’s Electromagnetic Levitator. This facility eliminates the need for containers, which can interfere with experiment results.
European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Alexander Gerst is shown in the Columbus module of the International Space Station during the installation of the Electromagnetic Levitator.ESA/Alexander Gerst Overview of techniques for measuring thermal diffusion
Researchers present techniques for measuring thermal diffusion of molecules in a mixture. Thermal diffusion is measured using the Soret coefficient – the ratio of movement caused by temperature differences to overall movement within the system. This has applications in mineralogy and geophysics such as predicting the location of natural resources beneath Earth’s surface.
A series of ESA investigations studied diffusion, or how heat and particles move through liquids, in microgravity. Selectable Optical Diagnostics Instrument-Influence of VIbrations on DIffusion of Liquids examined how vibrations affect diffusion in mixtures with two components and SODI-DCMIX measured more-complex diffusion in mixtures of three or more components. Understanding and predicting the effects of thermal diffusion has applications in various industries such as modeling of underground oil reservoirs.
NASA astronaut Kate Rubins works on Selectable Optical Diagnostics Instrument Experiment Diffusion Coefficient Mixture-3 (SODI) DCMix-3 installation inside the station’s Microgravity Science Glovebox.JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency)/Takuya Onishi Research validates ferrofluid technology
Researchers validated the concept of using ferrofluid technology to operate a thermal control switch in a spacecraft. This outcome could support development of more reliable and long-lasting spacecraft thermal management systems, increasing mission lifespan and improving crew safety.
Überflieger 2: Ferrofluid Application Research Goes Orbital analyzed the performance of ferrofluids, a technology that manipulates components such as rotors and switches using magnetized liquids and a magnetic field rather than mechanical systems, which are prone to wear and tear. This technology could lower the cost of materials for thermal management systems, reduce the need for maintenance and repair, and help avoid equipment failure. The paper discusses possible improvements to the thermal switch, including optimizing the geometry to better manage heat flow.
A view of the Ferrofluid Application Research Goes Orbital investigation hardware aboard the International Space Station. UAE (United Arab Emirates)/Sultan AlneyadiView the full article
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