This is how you celebrate Thanksgiving in space
Two Americans will be celebrating Thanksgiving in a unique way this week.
NASA astronauts Peggy Whitson and Shane Kimbrough will spend their Thanksgiving floating 250 miles above the Earth aboard the International Space Station.
While the two astronauts will work through the day Thursday (unlike many Americans who have the day off), they're still planning to have a big meal with their four other international crewmembers that evening.
You May Also Like
"It's going to be a little different for us up in space, but I'm going to try to make it as much like home as we can," Kimbrough said in a Thanksgiving video from NASA recorded on Nov. 18.
The Space Station's Thanksgiving menu doesn't sound too far off from what you might make at home... except for the fact that almost everything needs to be rehydrated. Also, you can't cook over an open flame on the Space Station because, while fire in weightlessness looks really awesome, it's also incredibly dangerous.
According to Kimbrough, the crewmembers will be eating:
Turkey from a pouch
"Awesome" cherry/blueberry cobbler
Candied yams
Cornbread dressing — a perennial favorite for many astronauts on the Space Station. NASA even published its recipe for the dish online.
Green beans and mushrooms
Mashed potatoes
Sweet tea with lemon
As is tradition, the crewmembers will float around their table and discuss what they're thankful for this year, Kimbrough said.
And, of course, there will be football.
Mission controllers will beam up some live games at the request of the Space Station crew.
"Thanksgiving in my world is not complete without some football," Kimbrough added.
People have been celebrating holidays of all kinds on the Space Station for 16 years. The orbiting outpost has been continually occupied by rotating crews of astronauts and cosmonauts since 2000.
At the moment, Kimbrough and Whitson are joined on the station by European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy, Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko.
Miriam Kramer worked as a staff writer for Space.com for about 2.5 years before joining Mashable to cover all things outer space. She took a ride in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight and watched rockets launch to space from places around the United States. Miriam received her Master's degree in science, health and environmental reporting from New York University in 2012, and she originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee. Follow Miriam on Twitter at @mirikramer.
