Discovery News: Space Diary

A Transcendental Moment -- Not

Rookie astronaut Garrett Reisman was sort of expecting a transformation of human spirit when he finally got to orbit and took his first look at the majesty of Earth in its global, planetary context. Nice idea, but it never happened.

"My fundamental outlook hasn’t changed," the 40-year-old Reisman told a reporter on Tuesday as he prepared to leave the International Space Station after a three-month mission.

"I don’t mean to rain on anybody’s parade, but I was kind of thinking that when I first saw the Earth out the window it may be a real transcendental moment.

"I got to tell you that it was beautiful -- I’ve never tired of looking at the Earth -- but it was similar to what I’ve seen from high-altitude airplanes. I didn’t have a sudden urge to hold all my crewmembers’ hands and sing Kumbaya, which I thought maybe might happen to me."

Reisman may be a realist, but he's also a romantic. He told the press yesterday he could state in two words what he was most looking forward to about coming home: Simone Francis, his wife.

"I talked to her last night on our IP telephone from up here and she was furious with me for embarrassing her like that," Reisman added today. "But the truth is, when I look out the window at the planet and I look down at all the people down there, I'm usually just thinking about just one of all those billions of people. And that's definitely who I'm looking forward to seeing the most."

Thanks for sharing the love, Garrett.

Caption: He will hug, but apparently not from seeing the Earth. That's Reisman in the middle, his replacement Greg Chamitoff on the left, and Discovery astronaut Mike Fossum on the right.

A Passover in Space

As Jews around the world prepare for Passover, the festival of freedom, one adventurous soul is experiencing emancipation in a most literal fashion.

In his new abode aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Garrett Reisman, a 40-year-old mechanical engineer from Parsippany, New Jersey, has slipped the bonds of gravity and does not intend to return to Earth’s shackles until sometime in June. He is the first Jewish astronaut to live on the orbital outpost, a multi-national complex that has been under construction for the past 10 years.

Living in weightlessness requires adaptation. There will be no matzos in orbit, for example, because the flyaway crumbs would be uncontainable. Shortly before Reisman launched aboard the shuttle Endeavour on March 11, I asked him about the prospect of a Passover in space.

“I haven’t really thought that much about that,” he replied. What Reisman did spend some time planning was how to honor Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon, who died in the 2003 shuttle Columbia disaster.

After the accident, Reisman was given a choice to help with the investigation or provide emotional support to Ramon’s family. He chose the latter. “It was so incredibly tragic,” Reisman told The Jerusalem Post during a visit to Israel. “Ilan had a great sense of humor and worked very hard to represent not only Israel but every Jew in the world.”

Later, when he was tapped for a space mission of his own, Reisman asked Ramon’s widow Rona if there was anything he could fly for her.

“I’m taking a couple of things,” Reisman told me in a preflight interview. “Ilan flew a copy of the Israeli declaration of independence. It was scroll and he kind of played with it in orbit and they have video of that. She gave me another copy so I can kind of have the same experience with it up on orbit and then I intend to return it to her when I get back.”

Reisman also is flying a cloth with the symbol of the state of Israel that has been signed by Pres. Shimon Peres, a necklace blessed by a Buddhist priest and a set of rosary beads. “I pretty much have all my major religions covered,” he joked.

Reisman’s Passover in space will be spent getting to know two new crewmates, Sergey Volkov and Oleg Kononenko. The cosmonauts replace the current space station commander Peggy Whitson and flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko, who depart the station on April 19, the first night of Passover.

Fortunately for Reisman, his Russian is stronger than his Hebrew -- he made it through cosmonaut training without a translator and took his exams in Russian as well. But his Jewish heritage comes through as well. When one of his U.S. colleagues asked about his camera view during a spacewalk last month, Reisman quipped, “I think you’re doing great with that camera. We’re going to hire you to do my cousin's bar mitzvah.”

Soon, the space station will have a more permanent mark of Jewish contributions to space exploration: Reisman’s replacement, Jewish astronaut Gregory Chamitoff, is bringing two mezuzahs.

A visit to a matzo factory