The moon and sun share top billing in 2026.
— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) December 28, 2025 at 1:00 PM
While most people spent Thanksgiving with their feet firmly on the ground, Chris Williams finally got to spend a day journeying to the stars, fulfilling a lifelong dream.
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost.com) December 27, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Per the Washington Post, “A Maryland astronaut achieves his childhood dream of traveling to space”
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… Chris Williams, who grew up in Potomac, Maryland, has been an astrophysics researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a clinical physicist at Harvard Medical School. He has helped build a low-frequency radio telescope array in Western Australia, studied supernovas at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in D.C. and volunteered as an emergency medical technician and firefighter.
But Williams always dreamed of going to space, floating weightless and seeing the Earth as a tiny blue ball.
Last month, the 42-year-old father of two took off from Kazakhstan in a spacecraft headed for the International Space Station. He’ll be in space for about eight months. The crew is doing stem cell research and working with artificial intelligence, among other things.
After settling in at the ISS, Williams talked with The Washington Post this month about how the start of his time in space is going and how it feels to shoot for the stars and finally reach them…
Your parents told me “Star Trek” was a big inspiration for you.
Absolutely. Growing up, we didn’t watch a lot of TV, but that was one of the shows that we watched sort of together as a family. I think that the ethos they express on “Star Trek,” of wanting to explore for the benefit of all, that’s certainly something that’s really imprinted on me and something I firmly believe in.How does it feel physically to be up there? I know you trained for it, but I’m sure that it’s different.
It’s definitely different. Being weightless and in microgravity, it’s a super interesting experience. I think it took me a couple days for my brain to kind of get used to it. You work in three dimensions. So we have lockers and drawers and experiments that are on the walls, but are also on the ceilings and on the floor. …
Will you get to do a spacewalk?
We have some spacewalks on the schedule coming up in January, and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to go out and be a part of that. I think that’ll be a really great experience…I wanted to ask how your experience with the Montgomery County schools fostered your interest in space?
I do not think I would be where I am today without the upbringing I had in Montgomery County, in particular, the fabulous public school system. I felt like growing up I had so many opportunities to pursue my interest in science. I went to Blair High School, which just had fantastic opportunities to really push my passion for science and to give me the opportunities to really explore what it would look like to be a scientist.I was also able to take advantage of the fact that there are a ton of wonderful opportunities with federal research labs. As a high-schooler, I was able to do astronomy research at the Navy Research Lab in D.C.
One other thing that I think is pretty special about Montgomery County is its diversity, the fact that you’re surrounded by people who come from all over. In the International Space Station, we’re a collaboration of 15 different countries. And my work every day involves interfacing with people from all across the world. Growing up in Montgomery County, you get really comfortable with that, which is really, really wonderful…
A paraplegic engineer from Germany blasted off on a dream-come-true rocket ride with five other passengers, leaving her wheelchair behind to float in space while beholding Earth from on high.
— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) December 21, 2025 at 8:00 AM
The Associated Press, “Paraplegic engineer becomes the first wheelchair user to blast into space”:
… Severely injured in a mountain bike accident seven years ago, Michaela Benthaus became the first wheelchair user in space, launching from West Texas with Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin. She was accompanied by a retired SpaceX executive also born in Germany, Hans Koenigsmann, who helped organize and, along with Blue Origin, sponsored her trip. Their ticket prices were not divulged.
An ecstatic Benthaus said she laughed all the way up — the capsule soared more than 65 miles (105 kilometers) — and tried to turn upside down once in space.
“It was the coolest experience,” she said shortly after landing.
The 10-minute space-skimming flight required only minor adjustments to accommodate Benthaus, according to the company. That’s because the autonomous New Shepard capsule was designed with accessibility in mind, “making it more accessible to a wider range of people than traditional spaceflight,” said Blue Origin’s Jake Mills, an engineer who trained the crew and assisted them on launch day…
Benthaus, 33, part of the European Space Agency’s graduate trainee program in the Netherlands, experienced snippets of weightlessness during a parabolic airplane flight out of Houston in 2022. Less than two years later, she took part in a two-week simulated space mission in Poland.
“I never really thought that going on a spaceflight would be a real option for me because even as like a super healthy person, it’s like so competitive, right?” she told The Associated Press ahead of the flight.
Her accident dashed whatever hope she had. “There is like no history of people with disabilities flying to space,” she said.
When Koenigsmann approached her last year about the possibility of flying on Blue Origin and experiencing more than three minutes of weightlessness on a space hop, Benthaus thought there might be a misunderstanding. But there wasn’t, and she immediately signed on…
“.. fame and exceptionalism can be very, very destructive. .. I think it’s good to make your own bed, it’s good to go do your shopping, to have your feet on the ground, to know that you’re a human being as well. The other stuff is projection.”
– Annie Lennox, born today in 1954 ??— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) December 25, 2025 at 7:56 PM
Monday Morning Open Thread: Reaching for the StarsPost + Comments (109)