So, there you are bobbing along weightlessly — another dull evening orbiting Earth. How do you pass the time? Well, if you’re on the International Space Station, you do have some entertainment options!
Thanks to a Freedom of Information request, NASA recently released a list of all the books, movies, and music currently on the station.
As you might expect from a group of scientists and space enthusiasts, the list of books is rather heavy on the science fiction. But, there are a few surprises, too. Could Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison ever have dreamed that their Federalist Papers would be in orbit? For that matter, do you think David Sedaris ever thought his Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim would make the list? And, if you’ve come to realize that the whole “space thing” isn’t for you, they also have a copy of Steven Silbiger’s The Ten-Day MBA course.
The short music list is an incredibly odd assortment. I can only imagine how the Black Eyed Peas’ Elephunk and a three-volume collection of college fight songs wound up together in this small collection.
What really jumped out at me, though, were some of the video titles. Timeless classics like Fargo, Gone with the Wind, Pulp Fiction and King Kong are alongside The Nutty Professor, Bachelor Party and Harold & Kumar.
The biggest surprise was an obvious film they don’t have — Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Oddly, though, they do have its sequel, 2010. While a far, far lesser film than Kubrick’s classic, 2010’s plot does serve to answer many of the questions raised in the original.
Perhaps those unanswered questions are just too much to handle when you’re actually living the adventure.
~ Jon T.
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