Space is Limited

Jessica Meir grew up in Caribou, a small town at the top of Maine, and her mom says she started talking about being an astronaut when she was five. She studied biology, learned to fly in college, spent a season doing research in Antarctica, and has already lived on the International Space Station once. Now she is going back as the commander of NASA's Crew-12 mission, in charge of the spacecraft, the station, and two crewmates who have never been to space.

Six months is a long time to be away from everything you own. Every astronaut gets to bring one small personal kit, and NASA decides how small. The crew that flew around the Moon this spring got a bag about five inches by two inches, weighing no more than three pounds. One packed his family's wedding rings. One packed handwritten notes from home. The commander packed a notebook so he could write to his two teenage daughters, and the Canadian on the crew packed maple syrup and cookies, not for himself, but for everyone.

Your Task:
Imagine you are the third member of Meir's crew, and your bag is due at the scale tomorrow.

1. The Bag
Six months in orbit, one bag, five inches by two, about three pounds. Decide what goes in. It could be one thing that matters or a dozen small things, something for you, something for a crewmate, something useful, something that just makes you laugh. The only rules are the size and the weight. Say what you packed and what it is for on a bad day up there. (5 to 6 sentences.)

2. Over at the Scale
Your bag comes in half a pound over. Rank what you packed from the first thing you would give up to the last, say what comes out, and name the one thing you would argue with NASA to keep and what you would say to them. (3 to 4 sentences.)

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