This story was updated at 10:23 a.m. EST.
It's Thanksgiving Day on Earth and
in space today, and for 10 astronauts at the International Space Station it'll
be one to remember.
The seven astronauts of NASA's space
shuttle Endeavour will gather together with the station's three-person crew for
as traditional
a Thanksgiving meal as possible in orbit before shutting the hatches
between their two spacecraft. They're nearing the end of almost two weeks of
space renovations to ready the station for larger, six-person crews next year.
While space
station crews have celebrated Thanksgiving every year since 2000, it's the
first time in six years that a U.S. space shuttle as been in orbit on the U.S.
holiday. Both astronaut crews will take some time off for a meal that,
according to Endeavour skipper Chris Ferguson, should be pretty tasty.
"We've managed to scare up a full
Thanksgiving dinner complements of some rations the food people back in Houston
were nice enough to put together for us," Ferguson said. "We'll have a true
Thanksgiving feast."
On the menu: Smoked turkey, candied
yams, green beans and mushrooms, cornbread dressing and a cranapple
dessert.
"I'm looking forward to the turkey,"
Endeavour astronaut Steve Bowen told SPACE.com
before flight, adding that it's a family staple. "I always like turkey with a
little cranberry sauce, so I'm interested in how that's going to taste in
space."
The astronauts won't, however, be
washing their meals down with any
of the recycled water from a new system they activated - after several days
of glitches - at the station to convert urine and sweat back into drinking
water. Regular tea with sugar will suffice, according to their menus.
"The NASA engineers don't want us to
drink any of it right now. We're taking all the samples back home for
analysis," Endeavour
astronaut Don Pettit said of the urine recycler. "We're going to get
a number of weeks running on the machine before they're going to bless the
operation for human consumption. And I think that's the smart thing to do."
Turkey in space
Ferguson said the Thanksgiving
dining room for today's meal will be the station's Harmony module, a connecting
room delivered to the orbiting lab last year that serves as the front door to
the outpost. From the module, astronauts can fly into U.S., European and
Japanese laboratories depending on which hatch they choose.
NASA roused
the crew with the song "Hold on Tight" by the band Electric Light
Orchestra, a tune chosen for Endeavour astronaut Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper as a
Thanksgiving treat for her and the entire crew.
"Thank you
for that great song on this Thanksgiving Day that we can give thanks for what
we have and never stop dreaming," Stefanyshyn-Piper said.
Endeavour's STS-126 astronauts didn't
have enough Thanksgiving fare for all 10 members of the joint
shuttle-station crew, so they've scrounged up food from other meals to create
worthy sendoff meal.
"It's going to be sad tomorrow to
see all our STS-126 friends leave, but it's going to be a Happy Thanksgiving,"
station commander Michael Fincke told Mission Control late Wednesday.
Renovated space station
Endeavour astronauts are wrapping up
a nearly two-week
orbital makeover at the space station, where they delivered the urine
recycler along with two spare bedrooms, a second kitchen and bathroom, new gym
equipment and a space food refrigerator. They also performed an unprecedented
four-spacewalk lube job to grease up a balky solar array-turning gear and clean
metal grit from its inner mechanism.
But today, they'll take a half-day
off to rest and enjoy one last group meal before shutting the hatches between
their two spacecraft at about 5:55 p.m. EST (2255 GMT).
Back on Earth, Thanksgiving will
actually come three times - once per shift - at the station and Endeavour's
Mission Control rooms in Houston.
"We have folks that are willing to feed
us," said space station flight director Holly Ridings. "So they'll be bringing
Thanksgiving to us."
Want to put a taste of space in your
Thanksgiving dinner? Try this NASA-approved recipe: Space
Cornbread Dressing.
NASA is providing live coverage of
Endeavour's STS-126 mission on NASA TV. Click here for SPACE.com's
mission coverage and NASA TV feed.
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