14 DAY TRIAL // About a week and a half ago, on September 2, a crew of three astronauts launched into orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Their destination: the International Space Station.
The space explorers, Sergey Volkov of Roscosmos, Andreas Mogensen of ESA and Aidyn Aimbetov of the Kazakh Space Agency, joined the crew already aboard the orbital complex just a couple of days after their launch, on September 4.
True, astronauts Gennady Padalka of Roscosmos, Andreas Mogensen of ESA and Aidyn Aimbetov of the Kazakhst Space Agency returned to Earth just yesterday. Until their departure, however, the orbital complex was a tad crowded.
With nine people aboard, the International Space Station looked less like a science lab and more like a locker room. All the same, the space explorers managed to get along just fine.
The video below, released by NASA this past Friday, shows the space explorers having dinner together before Sergey Volkov, Andreas Mogensen and Aidyn Aimbetov left for Earth.
They're not eating pizza or anything equally divine, but the astronauts seem to be having the time of their life. The fact that the food and the spices are simply floating about is probably the underlying cause of their enthusiasm.
“When there are nine people aboard the International Space Station, it's a bit of a full house,” NASA astronaut Scott Kelly commented on the experience.
“Dining together can radically shift perspectives, blurring boundaries just as looking down on Earth from our vantage point, especially, when dinner partners are from all different corners of the world,” he added.
