One of NASA’s first Moon missions launched on December 21st 1968, meaning those astronauts were orbiting the lunar landscape on Christmas Day. Now we have astronauts aboard the International Space Station year-round, so what is Christmas like for those brave men and women up there?
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00:00One of NASA's first moon missions launched on December 21, 1968, meaning those astronauts
00:08were orbiting the lunar landscape on Christmas Day.
00:11In fact, this photo was taken by the Apollo 8 crew on Christmas Eve.
00:15Now we have astronauts aboard the International Space Station year-round.
00:18So what is Christmas like for those brave men and women up there?
00:21Well, it turns out they have their own zero-G traditions.
00:25Years before the Apollo missions, Jingle Bells was the first song to ever play in space.
00:29That was in 1965.
00:31But nearly a decade later, astronauts were celebrating properly aboard Skylab.
00:35Those astronauts constructed a Christmas tree out of empty food containers.
00:39They even had a Christmas feast.
00:41Of course, it was a less traditional, mission-control-approved variety.
00:44In 1993, Geoffrey Hoffman became the first Jewish astronaut to celebrate Hanukkah in
00:49space.
00:50Over the years, gift exchanges have even occurred with loved ones still on Earth as well.
00:54With an arriving cargo craft bringing presents up and hanging stockings that the astronauts
00:58woke up to on Christmas morning.