NASA astronauts send a Fourth of July message from space

Those who are far from home or traveling far from their loved ones will send messages today – but here’s a message from the most distant outpost. NASA astronauts currently aboard the International Space Station (ISS), zipping around Earth about 250 miles above Earth’s surface, have sent a Fourth of July message to those down here on Earth:

The space station currently has a crew of nine: six NASA astronauts and three Russian cosmonauts. Six NASA astronauts – Mike Barratt, Matt Dominick, Tracy C. Tyson, Jeanette Epps, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — came together to deliver the message, which was recorded on June 28.

„The Fourth of July reminds me of the freedoms we continue to fight for every day around the world,” Epps said. „And it reminds me of being with my family and friends, and celebrating those freedoms that we still recognize and celebrate every day.”

„To me, the Fourth of July is a reminder of the courage that our ancestors and their families had not only the will to fight for our freedom, but the courage to do so,” Tyson said.

Over the years, it has become a tradition for ISS astronauts to celebrate holidays like the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving or Christmas with video messages and playful costumes and events. previous years I’ve seen astronauts wear red, white and blue or stars and stripes. Tricky NASA astronaut Karen L. Nyberg iced an American flag cookie in space in 2013.

For some astronauts on the ISS, like Barrett and Tyson, it was their second 4th of July spent on the station. This is the largest number of Americans to celebrate the day on the ISS since 2006. The size of the ISS crew usually varies between 3 and 12 people, depending on which spacecraft is arriving and departing from the station, and is mostly made up of astronauts from Europe and Japan, as well as the United States and Russia.

The large crew at this time is due to the presence of Wilmore and Williams, who arrived at the station on a test flight of the first crew of the Boeing Starliner. They were due to take off last month, but will remain in space for a while while problems related to helium leaks on the spacecraft are further investigated.