I literally got to be a part of a group that got to chat with astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson on the ISS yesterday afternoon. It was a really cool, candid, behind the scenes experience as she did a little mini-tour through the space station.

The craziest part for me was when she took her phone to the observatory and we watched the sun vanish behind the horizon of the earth. It happened so quickly and so brilliantly that it took my breath away and nearly brought me to tears. It was spectacular.

It was almost two hours with lengthy breaks as we lost contact a few times. But what an amazing experience.

[–] kinship@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 6 months ago (1 children)

How does an opportunity like that present itself?

[–] Ashyr@sh.itjust.works 21 points 6 months ago

It’s very much a factor of right place and right time.

For their mental health, the astronauts are required to have calls with people down here. Tracy is an acquaintance of someone my wife knows, so when the call was set up, we made the invite list.

We have no personal connection, we just managed to sit in the room while others talked. Tracy did put out an offer to come visit her at Johnson when she’s back, so you better believe we’ll follow up on that.