Now that they have delivered their biggest package to the Russian space station Mir – a 4.5-ton room – the gifts the Atlantis’ astronauts will present today to their hosts will be a little less grandiose.
Atlantis’ five-man crew will give the three cosmonauts who have been aboard Mir since Sept. 3, fresh food, videotapes of their families and other gifts. And the Mir crew has commemorative items for Atlantis’ five astronauts in a ceremony to include United Nations memorabilia.
But for that special gift, what do you buy someone who has to spend four more months in space, including Christmas and birthdays?
“We wanted to bring something up there that would help fill the empty hours and improve the quality of life,” astronaut Chris Hadfield said last month. “I’m a guitar player and I thought: Wouldn’t it be nice when you’re sitting, looking out the window in the evening and you can’t go for a walk and you can’t watch a movie, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to play guitar.”
But guitars are big for a cramped space station. So the Atlantis crew found a collapsible classical practice guitar that folds up to 13 inches long and only weighs three pounds, Hadfield said. German cosmonaut Thomas Reiter plays guitar.
Some of the fresh food – which is really appreciated after 10 weeks in space – will be made into a massive feast, astronauts said.
The largest gift in size was the new room for Mir, a docking module built in Russia, that will become a permanent part of the nine-year-old station. Five future shuttle crews will use the tunnel to dock with Mir.
Atlantis astronauts are lugging 10,000 pounds of equipment, containers of water and experiments to Mir and just as much stuff from Mir to Atlantis.
That’s not a very far trip thanks to the smooth docking that took place early Wednesday about 245 miles above the China-Mongolia border. Atlantis commander Ken Cameron inched the docking tunnel into Mir with little rocking, three seconds ahead of schedule.
Then, a few hours later, Cameron opened the hatch separating the two ships, while grasping the traditional Russian housewarming gifts of flowers and chocolate.
“You guys make the incredible look very, very easy,” NASA international space station director Wil Trafton radioed from Moscow. “It’s an important step in the building of an international space station.”
In a brief welcoming ceremony in Mir in front of flags of Germany, Canada, Russia and the United States, Cameron said, “For me, I think (it’s) a dream come true and for all the crew, an honor to be part of a program that will lead us all so far.”
On Friday, officials from the United Nations will call to congratulate the two crews, they will have a joint news conference, bid each other goodbye and at 3:16 a.m. on Saturday, the two ships will separate. Atlantis will try to land at Kennedy Space Center on Monday at 12:31 p.m.
