{"id":27564,"date":"2015-10-27T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T15:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/astronauts-getting-new-picture-books\/"},"modified":"2015-10-27T08:00:33","modified_gmt":"2015-10-27T15:00:33","slug":"astronauts-getting-new-picture-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/astronauts-getting-new-picture-books\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronauts getting new picture books"},"content":{"rendered":"

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. \u2014<\/strong> Once upon a time, when NASA\u2019s shuttles were still flying, an astronaut read a children\u2019s story from space.<\/p>\n

Thus was born Story Time from Space, a program that takes bedtime stories to new heights in its effort to get children excited about science.<\/p>\n

The latest bundle of picture books, mostly about space, is scheduled to rocket to the International Space Station in just over a month, joining five bedtime stories already there. The astronaut readings are posted online, available at any time for children to see.<\/p>\n

The delivery, targeted for December, was delayed a year because of a Virginia launch explosion. Another launch accident, this one from Cape Canaveral in June, destroyed a set of science experiments meant to supplement the stories.<\/p>\n

As always, there\u2019s a moral to these hard-luck launch tales.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the big takeaways from spaceflight is that it takes a fair amount of patience and just perseverance to make these things happen,\u201d said Alvin Drew, the astronaut who kicked off the Story Time project during space shuttle Discovery\u2019s final flight in 2011.<\/p>\n

A cool plot twist: Two of the seven picture books going up \u2014 \u201cMousetronaut\u201d and \u201cMousetronaut Goes to Mars\u201d \u2014 were written by a former astronaut whose identical twin just happens to be spending a year in orbit.<\/p>\n

If Mark Kelly\u2019s books arrive at the space station by year\u2019s end, his brother, Scott, should be able to read them on camera before his one-year space mission ends in March.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was such a neat opportunity,\u201d Story Time\u2019s creator, Patricia Tribe, said of the Kelly brothers\u2019 connection.<\/p>\n

Also going up: ex-astronaut John (Danny) Olivas\u2019 \u201cEndeavour\u2019s Long Journey.\u201d Author-astronomer Jeffrey Bennett\u2019s latest children\u2019s book, \u201cI, Humanity\u201d will join his dog-in-space Max series already at the orbiting lab.<\/p>\n

An English schoolboy will vicariously travel along as well.<\/p>\n

Seven-year-old Roraigh Curran of Chorley in northwestern England won a contest by London-based Lost My Name books. His prize: a personalized version of \u201cThe Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home\u201d sent to the space station for a reading.<\/p>\n

The soon-to-be-space bound book shows satellite views of Roraigh\u2019s hometown, even his street and house, and stars in the sky spell out his name \u2014 Roraigh\u2019s favorite part. At school, he\u2019s already known as \u201cThe Space Boy,\u201d according to his father, Ciaran Curran.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing,\u201d Roraigh said by phone this month. \u201cI just like the fact that it\u2019s all about me!\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of the prize, he has been invited to the books\u2019 launch from Cape Canaveral on Dec. 3. The books will ride along with 7,000 pounds of space station cargo.<\/p>\n

Tribe said the beauty of the Story Time project \u2014 part of the nonprofit Global Space Education Foundation \u2014 lies in its simplicity.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody can relate to having books read to them,\u201d she said by phone from British Columbia, where she now lives.<\/p>\n

Drew did his 2011 demo as a favor for Tribe, former education director at Space Center Houston, the tourist side of Johnson Space Center. She was trying to get NASA on board.<\/p>\n

He picked Bennett\u2019s \u201cMax Goes to the Moon,\u201d reading the story about the spacefaring dog from his laptop in the cramped cockpit of Discovery.<\/p>\n

Parents loved it, kids loved it and, yes, NASA loved it, too, according to Drew.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was easy to go run with it after that,\u201d said Drew, who\u2019s temporarily assigned to the White House office of science and technology policy,<\/p>\n

Next, NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata read stories from the station\u2019s observation tower, or cupola, with Earth clearly visible out the windows.<\/p>\n

Two of the stories are posted online; three are still being edited, including one in Japanese.<\/p>\n

Through his books, Bennett seeks to share his love of science and learning, and encourage children to dream about ways to make the world a better place. The Story Time project allows them to hear his stories read from space, Bennett said via email last week. \u201cFor me, this is a dream come true.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Online:<\/p>\n

Story Time from Space: http:\/\/storytimefromspace.com\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. \u2014 Once upon a time, when NASA\u2019s shuttles were still flying, an astronaut read a children\u2019s story from space. Thus was born Story Time from Space, a program that takes bedtime stories to new heights in its effort to get children excited about science. The latest bundle of picture books, mostly about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-27564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27564"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=27564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}