Astronauts Skip Super Bowl for Space Shuttle Launch

The six astronauts who rocketed into space early Monday will have to play football catch-up when they return home in a couple of weeks since they opted to skip watching the Super Bowl in order to blast off on the space shuttle Endeavour.

Shuttle commander George Zamka and his crew launched into space before dawn from NASA's Kennedy Space Center today, but they actually started their spaceflight preparations Sunday night, when most sports fans were tuning into Super Bowl 44 to see the Indianapolis Colts battle the New Orleans Saints.

Because they were preoccupied donning spacesuits and conducting prelaunch checks, the astronauts didn't even get the chance to switch on a TV or radio for an update.  

"We asked them if they watched it and they said no," NASA spokesperson Mike Curie told SPACE.com.  

The astronauts did, however, get a chance to find out who won before they launched, he added.

But not everyone at NASA spurned the Super Bowl. Mission Control beamed the game up to the International Space Station, where the five astronauts living there had the opportunity to watch the championship football game.  

"We sent it so they could watch it if they wanted," Curie said.

Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, who has lived aboard the station since December, used his space Twitter account to ask viewers on Earth how the Super Bowl's trademark quirky commercials were going.

Noguchi even sent a congratulatory note to the New Orleans Saints after the team defeated Indianapolis 31-17.

"Congrats, New Orleans Saints!!!" Noguchi wrote. He also sent a photo of New Orleans as seen from space.

Even NASA engineers got into the game-day spirit.  NASA's space shuttle fuel tanks are built in New Orleans, the Saints' home turf. Engineers at the agency's Michoud Assembly Facility there digitally enhanced their photograph of Endeavour's 15-story fuel tank so that the giant orange tank was emblazoned with the Saints' fleur-de-lis logo and catchphrase "Who Dat?"

A spokesperson for Lockheed Martin, which builds the shuttle fuel tanks for NASA, told SPACE.com that the photo gag was aimed at showing some team spirit ahead of the Super Bowl.  

Endeavour launched on a 13-day mission to the International Space Station to deliver a brand-new room and observation deck to the orbiting laboratory.

The shuttle was initially slated to launch on Super Bowl Sunday, but was delayed one day due to low clouds. Former NFL linebacker Johnny Holland of the Green Bay Packers attended Endeavour's launch, NASA officials said.

The space mission was the first of NASA's five final shuttle flights and the last one scheduled to blast off at night. NASA has been launching space shuttles since 1981, but the agency's three remaining orbiters are due to be retired later this year.

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