NASA Astronauts Send Fourth of July Message to Earth From ISS (Video)

The six NASA astronauts currently living off-planet have just sent a special birthday message to their home countries.

Mike Barratt, Matt Dominick, Tracy Caldwell Dyson, Jeanette Epps, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore each took the microphone, saying a few words about the Fourth of July from their perches aboard the International Space Station (ISS), about 250 miles above Earth.

“July 4th always reminds me of the freedoms we continue to fight for every day, all around the world,” Epps said in the new video, released by NASA on Wednesday (July 3).

Four men and two women float aboard the International Space Station, with an American flag in the background — The six NASA astronauts currently living aboard the International Space Station send a July 4 message to Earth in 2024. Clockwise from top center: Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams, Matt Dominick, Mike Barratt, Jeanette Epps and Tracy Caldwell Dyson. (Image credit: NASA)

“For me, the Fourth of July is simply a reminder of the fortitude it took for our ancestors and their families to have not only the will to fight for our freedom, but the courage to do so,” Dyson said.

Barratt came prepared, holding copies of the Declaration of Independence, the first draft of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

“These are sacred words that every American should know,” Barratt said.

“These agreements are sacred because they allowed this idea of an independent, multicultural democracy to form and function,” he added. “And we continue to build our more perfect union; everyone knows that. But let’s recommit ourselves, and in doing so, let’s celebrate the Fourth of July and the great nation in which we live.”

Barratt, Dominick and Epps arrived aboard the ISS in early March aboard SpaceX’s Crew-8 mission. Dyson arrived a few weeks later aboard a Russian Soyuz vehicle. All four spend about six months aboard the orbiting laboratory.

Williams and Wilmore are short-term residents; they arrived June 6 on the first-ever crewed flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule. The mission, known as the Crew Flight Test (CFT), was supposed to last only about 10 days, but it has been extended several times as NASA and Boeing investigate helium leaks and thruster problems that have emerged on Starliner. There is currently no scheduled departure date for the CFT.

The six NASA astronauts are not the only current residents of the ISS. Cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin and Oleg Kononenko also live aboard the ISS, but they did not participate in the July 4 video message.