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NASA Astronaut Celebrates a Very Space-y Birthday (Video)

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A "happy birthday" sign hangs behind NASA's Butch Wilmore on the International Space Station.
NASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore celebrated his birthday in space on Dec. 29, 2014. (Image credit: NASA)

How do you celebrate a birthday in space? A NASA astronaut on the International Space Station found out how to have a cosmic birthday party Monday (Dec. 29).

NASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore celebrated his 52nd birthday from his post on the space station yesterday. Mission Controllers on the ground sang "Happy Birthday" to Wilmore in honor of the special day. You can watch a video of NASA officials singing to Wilmore as well.

"That was fantastic. You ought to consider going on tour," Wilmore joked with the flight controllers after the song. Wilmore flew to the space station for his approximately 6-month-mission in September with cosmonauts Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova. NASA astronaut Terry Virts, European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti and cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov also join the three crewmembers on the station.

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Miriam Kramer
Miriam Kramer
Staff Writer

Miriam Kramer joined Space.com as a Staff Writer in December 2012. Since then, she has floated in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight, felt the pull of 4-Gs in a trainer aircraft and watched rockets soar into space from Florida and Virginia. She also served as Space.com's lead space entertainment reporter, and enjoys all aspects of space news, astronomy and commercial spaceflight.  Miriam has also presented space stories during live interviews with Fox News and other TV and radio outlets. She originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee where she and her family would take trips to dark spots on the outskirts of town to watch meteor showers every year. She loves to travel and one day hopes to see the northern lights in person. Miriam is currently a space reporter with Axios, writing the Axios Space newsletter. You can follow Miriam on Twitter.