Space station
commander Michael
Lopez-Alegria lit up New York City's Times Square during the first
live HDTV broadcast from space.
Lopez-Alegria,
a veteran NASA astronaut and commander of the Expedition
14 mission aboard the International Space
Station (ISS), and his crewmates filmed the first live high-definition
television broadcast from Earth orbit on Nov. 15. The broadcast, which appeared
live on the Discovery Channel’s Discovery HD Theater and Japan’s NHK television
service, also appeared on an immense screen in Times Square for all to see.
Expedition
14 flight engineer Thomas
Reiter—a German astronaut representing the European Space Agency—filmed
Lopez-Alegria as he discussed life in space with an interviewer on Earth. Among
the highlights were descriptions of ISS food, an entertaining orange juice
demonstration (Lopez-Alegria made a perfect sphere with the liquid, then drank
it down), and stunning views of the Earth
from windows aboard the space station as it orbited 220 miles (354 kilometers) above
the planet.
The
Expedition 14 crew made two HDTV broadcasts on Nov. 15. The special
high-definition camera equipment arrived at the ISS during NASA’s STS-115 shuttle
mission in September, NASA officials
said, and provides up to six times the resolution of regular video. The system
makes up the Space Video Gateway to transmit high bandwidth digital television
signals down to Earth and results from a collaborative effort between NASA, the
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Discovery HD Theater and NHK.
As an
aside, Lopez-Alegria has listed video
editing among his hobbies and has said in the past that he hopes to take up
the task during his free time aboard the ISS. If he is able to do so with the
HDTV system, it may make for some stellar space programming.
In addition
to Lopez-Alegria and Reiter, veteran Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin is
serving as part of the Expedition 14 crew. Tyurin and Lopez-Alegria are due to
make the first
spacewalk—which includes an orbital golf shot [image]—of
their mission on Nov. 22.
-- Tariq Malik
Credit: Discovery Channel.
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