If your bedtime story routine is getting a little tired, maybe it could use a boost from the Global Space Education Foundation. You’re probably doing a great job, mama, but they’ve got something calledStory Time in Space. And it’s as cool as it sounds - astronauts reading popular kids’ books while they’re on missions in space so your kids can watch them way down on Earth.
The idea came from Patricia Tribe, the former director of education at Space Center Houston, and Alvin Drew, the first NASA astronaut to read a story in space for the program. They wanted to come up with a way to encourage reading for children and promote STEM education, so they developed this concept to have on-duty astronauts read science-based kids’ books while gravity-free.
So your little one can listen to astronaut Kathleen Rubins read “Rosie Revere, Engineer” from the International Space Station, hurtling through space at 17,500 miles an hour. And that might be just a little more exciting than hearing you try to work up excitement reading “The Cat in the Hat,” for the 147th time.
Story Time in Space has a diverse set of astronauts reading books from a wide range of STEM topics and their program is expanding all the time. They’re adding nine simple experiments for kids that were done on the space station as well as new books, like “Mousetronaut” by astronaut Mark Kelly. So don’t feel bad if your kids would rather hear these than listen to mom read books in gravity again.