Astronauts enjoy 'space food' feast on Thanksgiving

Grip it and rip it.

Good advice on the golf course -- or for astronauts preparing Thanksgiving dinner aboard the International Space Station.

In a video sent to the ground this week, NASA astronauts and Expedition 45 crew members Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren showed off a sample Thanksgiving feast of "space food" consisting of pouches stuck to a panel with Velcro.

Lindgren peeled away a foil container of irradiated smoked turkey, sliced it open with small scissors and nibbled a slice.

"We don't have much of this stuff so I hope he enjoys that, because that was his Thanksgiving dinner right there," Kelly joked.

Kelly ripped away a see-through bag of candied yams, nearly causing a portion of rehydrateable corn to float away.

He opened the zip-lock container, squeezed out a blob of the thermo-stabilized yams and took a bite.

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"Man, they are delicious," he said, somewhat unconvincingly, as Lindgren laughed.

"Good stuff," Lindgren agreed.

Not needing much time to cook their Thanksgiving meal, the NASA astronauts, members of a six-person crew hailing from the U.S., Russia and Japan, will have Thursday off and plan to watch some football games beamed up from the ground.

Turning serious, they expressed thanks for the opportunity to live in space, for their families and for the thousands of others supporting their mission from the ground.

"I'm personally thankful for my friends and family, especially my wife and children, and I'm looking forward to seeing them here soon," said Lindgren, who is due to return to Earth on Dec. 11 to end his nearly six-month spaceflight.

Kelly will return home in March to conclude a yearlong mission.

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"Being on the space station here and looking down at our our incredibly beautiful planet gives us a different perspective on what it means to be citizens of planet Earth," he said in the recorded message. "Since I've been up here, I've seen so many bad things that often happen down there. We follow that on the news. And it just makes me really thankful to live in a country like the United States that provides us with freedom and opportunity, and for me being a middle class kid from New Jersey to just to have the privilege to come up here and represent my country like this. So this is what I'm thankful for on this Thanksgiving."

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com.And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdeanand on Facebook at facebook.com/jamesdeanspace.