Superman, Darth Vader and Dracula: Astronauts Show How They Celebrate Halloween on ISS
Despite the fact that there are no trick-or-treaters knocking on the ISS entrance hatch, astronauts are not averse to celebrating Halloween. They like to dress up in spooky and other creative costumes, often made from materials available on board the space station. To celebrate Halloween, NASA has compiled a selection of their best looks from the past years.
Source: NASA
For Halloween 2007, NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson decided to pay tribute to Dracula by wearing a black cape. It's a good thing you don't have to be a vampire to fly in zero gravity.
NASA astronaut Nicole Stott is also an artist, which helped her to get creative for the 2009 Halloween celebration. She wore a dress with bright orange fringe. In the picture, it wraps around her while Stott flies in microgravity.
Nicole Stott's colleagues on the 16th ISS expedition also joined the celebration by preparing their own costumes.
Italian astronauts are very fond of superhero motifs. So, for Halloween 2013, Luca Parmitano dressed up as Superman. And Paolo Nespoli became Spider-Man for Halloween 2017.
Source: NASA
Randy Bresnik, Paolo Nespoli's colleague on the 53rd expedition, chose a minion costume.
Of course, Halloween in space cannot be complete without Star Wars. During his stay on the ISS in 2018, ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst tried on the image of the dark lord of the Sith, Darth Vader.
Source: NASA
The 2021 Halloween celebration was more modest than in previous years for a rather prosaic reason: the crew was supposed to return to Earth by 31 October, but due to bad weather, they had to stay on the station. Nevertheless, although the astronauts did not initially prepare to celebrate Halloween in space, they still found a way to pay tribute to it.
In 2022, the ISS crew returned to the tradition of dressing up in costumes. This time, the astronauts chose to dress up as computer game characters and comic book characters.
And in 2023, Jasmine Mogbeli was the most creative, portraying... a box of bread. Her colleagues also joined the celebration by preparing their own outfits. Loral O'Hara wore a Colorado-themed hat, Satoshi Furukawa chose a Luigi hat costume, and Andreas Mogensen parodied conspiracy theorists by wearing a foil hat and a T-shirt with the words Birds aren't real.