Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Answers from the ISS

A couple of months back I wrote a post about how you could submit questions to be answered by astronaut Greg Chamitoff, a member of the Expedition 17 crew on board the International Space Station (Greg is on the left in this crew photo). I happened to check back just now and noticed that Greg had answered two weeks worth of questions, apparently back in August (since one of the questions referred to the Beijing Olympics "going on now").

He didn't answer my question (it was about time sense or "jet lag" type effects), but he answered some interesting ones. Topics ranged from the orbital mechanics of docking, to hallucinations (none), haircuts (possible), space vs. underwater habitats (he has spent some time in one), to the behavior of flames in zero-G. And that was just week one. His answers are quite detailed yet down to Earth (figuratively speaking).

What is not mentioned in the Q&A is that Chamitoff is the first crew member to have taken bagels to the ISS. Eighteen sesame seed bagels, my personal favorite. Wikipedia never fails to inform!

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