Astronauts Send Video Wishing The Human Race - from International Space Station

As people on Earth welcomed 2017, astronauts aboard the International Space Station joined in the celebrations by ushering the New Year in with a special video message. 

The video which was introduced and recorded by four astronauts wished New Yorkers as well as the world a very Happy New Year. It was broadcasted on the Toshiba Vision screen located in Times Square where people were celebrating the beginning of a New Year in a big way. 

Introduced by the astronaut Mike Massimino, three other NASA astronauts namely Rick Mastracchio, Mike Hopkins and the Koichi Wakata also wished their fellow Earthlings the very best for the New Year before floating out of view and into space.

These three, are members of the Expedition 38 crew, which also includes three Russian cosmonauts as well.

Karen Nyberg, who had just returned from a mission also wished the world, and especially New Yorkers, said that the earth is a beautiful and fragile place when seen from 260 miles above. She also mentioned that their time spent in living and working at the space station was for two purposes: learning more about Planet Earth while also working towards sending humans much further into the solar system that space explorers have gone before.

But that wasn’t the last time that the astronauts remembered us as in 2014. There were videos released in the following years: 2017 and 2017 as well.

On December 30, 2014, an interview was conducted with the crew members of Expedition 42 namely Commander Barry Wilmore and Flight Commander Samantha Cristoferetti. In sharing their plans for the New Year, they revealed a fruit juice toast was in order apart from making a few New Year resolutions too.

It must also be said that the crew carried out operations while the world was preparing to usher in a New Year. Most of these include experiments that range from human life sciences to observations on Earth and physics. Apart from this, they also perform routine maintenance on station systems as well. In addition to the interview, they also sent a gallery of six images titled “Our Beautiful Earth”.

As for 2016, it was the turn of the six-member crew of Expedition 46 who were led by Station Commander Scott Kelly to wish the people back home a Happy New Year while showcasing some images that they managed to take of our beautiful planet in space.

NASA Flight Engineer Tim Kopra and Flight Engineer Tim Peake from the European Space Agency also wished their fellow humans a very Happy New Year. However, the latter had something special in store since he enjoys the distinction of being the first Briton to be fully employed by a space station.

He greeted his fellow Britons by welcoming them warmly while also explaining that the station works on Greenwich Mean Time and which means that they would be welcoming the New Year at the same time as everyone else in the United Kingdom. After this, he wished everyone a fun New Year’s Eve as well as a happy, healthy 2016 too.

Right after this, he went on to perform a backflip and finished it with a flourish after which fireworks went off. It was a fitting end indeed to the message sent by ISS astronauts for the year 2016.