Feast planned in space
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Turkey and football will be the main Thanksgiving headliners up on the International Space Station.
NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough, the station’s commander, is serving as Thanksgiving chef for the six-person crew. He showed off the specialties he’ll be preparing in a video this week.
“It’s going to be a little bit different for us up here in space,” he said, “but I’m going to try to make it as much like home as we can.”
On Thursday — a regular work day for the crew — Kimbrough will warm up pouches of sliced smoked turkey, candied yams, and cherry and blueberry cobbler. He’ll also add water to the bags of freeze-dried cornbread dressing, green beans and mushrooms and mashed potatoes.
“You can’t have a Thanksgiving meal without green beans,” he noted.
Mission Control promises to beam up some live football games — “to complete the experience,” Kimbrough said.
It will be the second Thanksgiving in space for Kimbrough, who’s one month into a four-month mission, and the third for American Peggy Whitson, who arrived at the orbiting lab Saturday for a six-month stay. One Frenchman and three Russians round off the crew.
Kimbrough said he and the others will share what they’re thankful for this Thanksgiving. No 1 on the list, he said, is being safe.
