Nov. 14, 2006 — Astronauts aboard the International Space Station participated in the first high-definition television
broadcast from space Wednesday.
"You can see the pores on their skin," said project manager Kevin
Hanes with NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. "It's so good,
you almost don't want to look at people."
The broadcast was shown exclusively on The Discovery Channel's HD
Theater at 11:30 a.m. EST and on the Japanese broadcast network NHK.
The firms donated money to develop the HDTV system and certify it for
spaceflight as part of a 2002 agreement with NASA. Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency, known as JAXA, donated the HD broadcast-quality
camera.
Discovery Channel also plans to air the broadcast in the Discovery
Channel stores.
Station commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and flight engineer Mikhail
Tyurin was the on-air talent, while European Space Agency
astronaut Thomas Reiter served as the orbital cameraman.
"It will really show you what it's like to live on the space
station, how much stuff there is aboard and how crowded it is," said
Rodney Grubbs, the NASA principal investigator.
The crew offered viewers a short tour of the orbital complex
and filmed themselves eating a meal.
