Election day in the US is Tuesday, Nov. 4, and even American astronauts residing in house are taking the time to satisfy their civic obligation and forged their votes.
There are 4 Individuals presently aboard the Internationals House Station (ISS): SpaceX Crew-9 NASA astronauts Don Pettit, Nick Hague, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, and every has had the chance so as to add their voice to the greater than 160 million different Individuals capable of take part in tomorrow’s election.
“It is a vital obligation that we have now as residents,” Williams mentioned throughout a name with reporters in September, including that attending to vote from house, “is fairly cool.”
“NASA makes it very straightforward for us to [be included in elections], so we’re enthusiastic about that chance,” Wilmore mentioned on the decision, revealing he had simply requested an absentee poll that very same day.
Neither Williams and Wilmore anticipated to be voting absentee once they arrived to the ISS. The duo launched aboard the Boeing Starliner Crew Flight Take a look at on June 5, for a mission that was solely purported to final a few week.
Associated: How astronauts vote from house
Sadly, Starliner skilled a sequence of malfunctioning thrusters on its approach to the ISS, the place it remained docked for 3 months whereas Boeing and NASA performed floor checks to raised perceive what went mistaken. Out of an abundance of warning, NASA in the end determined to return Starliner to Earth uncrewed, leaving Williams and Wilmore with out their authentic experience residence.
By the point Starliner undocked in early September, Williams and Wilmore had been already built-in into the orbital laboratory’s obligation schedule, and had been formally assigned as members of SpaceX’s Crew-9 when it arrived a pair weeks later. And, regardless of their extra-long keep on orbit and all the upkeep and analysis duties that include residing aboard the ISS, Williams and Wilmore are nonetheless managing to vote within the 2024 election. (So, you actually haven’t any excuse to not vote tomorrow.)
Not like their Starliner-turned-Crew-9 companions, Hague and Pettit knew they’d be in house throughout election day, and really probably crammed out Federal Postcard Functions (FPCAs) earlier than launching to the station, the identical means NASA astronaut Kate Rubins did in 2022. FPCAs are like absentee ballots for U.S. residents and army personnel abroad, or, on this case, in house.
NASA’s Johnson House Heart in Houston, Texas, is residence to the house company’s astronaut coaching program. Because of this, most astronauts stay in Texas, and due to this fact declare the Lone Star State as their residency on their voter registration, in keeping with NASA. Due to this, the Texas Legislature handed a invoice in 1997 particularly permitting astronauts to forged ballots from orbit. Later that yr, whereas aboard Russia’s Mir House Station, NASA astronaut David Wolf grew to become the primary American to vote from house.
NASA additionally credit the House Communication and Navigation (SCaN) Program for facilitating astronauts’ off-planet polling place. In a weblog put up final month, NASA traced the route an astronaut’s poll takes after being forged aboard the ISS:
“After an astronaut fills out an digital poll aboard the orbiting laboratory, the doc flows by way of NASA’s Monitoring and Knowledge Relay Satellite tv for pc System to a floor antenna on the company’s White Sands Take a look at Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico,” it says.
From New Mexico, NASA transfers the poll to the Mission Management Heart at NASA Johnson after which on to the county clerk liable for casting the poll. To protect the vote’s integrity, the poll is encrypted and accessible solely by the astronaut and the clerk.”
In case you need assistance with registering to vote, discovering your native polling place or every other vote-related query, head to USA.gov for extra data.
