We watched a spectacular sunrise from up there and then gazed at this marvelous achievement of 15 countries and 12 years of work together. This was right at the end of the very last spacewalk for the construction of the space station. You can’t climb any higher, and the view from there was just breathtaking. During the fourth spacewalk we had climbed high up on a platform called ELC-3 on the truss. There was a very special moment during STS-134, the last flight of Endeavour, that I will never forget. I’m very lucky to have been part of the International Space Station program from the very beginning, when it was just PowerPoint slides, to the point of physically attaching the last bit of hardware as part of its assembly with my own hands. What story or memory will most stick with you from that last mission to space?Ī. You’ve logged nearly 200 days in space, and you were part of the very last spacewalk for Space Shuttle Endeavour. In that case, it’s considered psychological support! I also brought favorite music and extra guitar strings so I could play along with a guitar we have up there. Especially for long, it’s nice to have personal items, such as family photos. So it was great to be able to show them that Sammy was with me when I had a video-link with them once a week for six months. My kids were only 3 and before the flight I had them 100 percent convinced it was a real animal. On my first mission, I brought up a puppet that we called Sammy the Skunk. One of the most important … to me was to fly something that was meaningful for my kids. Nevertheless, quite a variety of items have made their way onboard. There are a lot of constraints on what can fly. We also get a small allocation of space to bring a few things for organizations and individuals. Astronauts are typically allowed a very small volume of personal items that they can bring to space.

What are some other unique and unexpected mementos that space shuttle astronauts have brought up with them? And why do you think there’s this attraction to bringing mementos from Earth to space?Ī. You’ve been known to bring mementos up in space rumor has it that you’re even responsible for introducing the first bagels in space. He talked with MIT News about some of his favorite moments as a space shuttle astronaut. The penultimate flight of the space shuttle program - followed in July by the final voyage of Space Shuttle Atlantis - also installed the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a particle physics observatory, on the International Space Station to look for dark matter and clues to the beginnings of the universe. On May 27, Space Shuttle Endeavour astronaut Greg Chamitoff PhD ’92 was part of the last-ever spacewalk by a space shuttle crew.

Space shuttle endeavour iss audio