On The Doorposts of Your Spaceship?

Outer space got a little more kosher in 2008, courtesy of Dr. Garret Reisman, the first Jewish astronaut to have lived in the International Space Station.

“The mission went pretty well, I did not break anything that was too expensive,” he says. When he got to the space station, via the space shuttle Endeavor, he was quick to put up a mezuzzah in the bunk where he slept. “I did not consult any rabbi, so I hope I did not get into any trouble,” he says. Full story.

The hilarious and cute Dr. Reisman (check out his interview with Stephen Colbert) was in Israel last week for the Ilan Ramon International Space Conference; it’s heartening to know Israel still wants its hat in global space endeavors after losing the first Israeli astronaut, Ilan Roman, after the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas in 2003, killing all seven crewmembers.

But let’s just hope they don’t let Mel Brooks on the strategic planning committee:

(Hint: The Jews get to space around :50.)

Tip o’ the yarmulke to FailedMessiah.com.

4 thoughts on “On The Doorposts of Your Spaceship?

  1. My wife really likes Reisman, he came to speak at our Synagogue a few weeks ago. Apparently, he was pretty funny. I stayed home with my son. I have Bell’s Palsy right now, so I don’t go out without my cape and mask.
    Ilan Ramon went to our Synagogue while he was in the U.S. We were supposed to go to Ellington AFB to meet him when he came back to Houston on Sunday. I can’t hear the word “Columbia” without getting a lump in my throat.

  2. So sorry about Bell’s Palsy, Johnny – is there anything they can do? (Besides the superhero gear?) Maybe your son will be inspired to space someday by these brave Jews…

  3. They put me on steroids, prednisone, I think. The Bell’s Palsy sent off a chain reaction of crap. So, I have Bell’s Palsy and make face doesn’t work, right? So I take a medical leave of absence from the volunteer fire department because I don’t want to get smoke, chemicals or blood borne pathogens in my eye, and because I’m not going to trainings, I get lax about working out and gain some weight and then the steroids do a number on my weight. So now, I’m fat and my face doesn’t work, and because my face doesn’t work, my two year old son is accidentally able to poke my right eye (paralyzed side) while he is putting on his pajamas. So, he causes a pretty decent abrasion in my retina. As I’m on the floor, doubled over in pain, he starts crying and telling me that he needs a drink. My guess is that he wanted me to get up because he was scared. Anyway, after I get a drink for him and put him to bed, I patch my eye and go to sleep but by the next morning, the pain is so bad that I can’t open my left eye because it will cause my right eye to move, effectively leaving me blind. So, my wife takes me to the doctor, who sends me to an ophthalmologist, who dilated my eye and puts this cool little contact lens patch on my eye. I can’t see well out of that eye with the contact lens so my left eye tries to compensate and gives me headaches. A few days later I had to go to Galveston to have the patch removed and got to see piles of what used to be houses, so that was interesting, but my eye is still dilated, more than a week later. And then this weekend, possibly because my immune system was weakened from the steroids, I got strep throat. But to answer your question, I don’t really care for Elvis Costello.

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