U.S. President Barack Obama made a really long-distance call on Thursday, telephoning the International Space Station to congratulate the crew of the shuttle Discovery on its final mission.
“It must be a great honour to be the last commander of Discovery,” Obama told astronaut Steve Lindsey as the six member crew of the shuttle and six international astronauts living aboard the ISS gathered for his call.
“It’s appropriate that it’s performing this critical and iconic mission,” Obama said as the Discovery makes its last flight. Just two more shuttle flights are scheduled for later this year before the entire fleet is retired.
NASA added an additional day to the flight on Thursday afternoon to give the crews more time to unload supplies carried to the orbiting space laboratory aboard Discovery. The craft is now set to land at Cape Canaveral, Florida on Wednesday after a 13-day mission.
Among the gear delivered by Discovery is a human-like robot known as Robonaut 2 (R2).
Obama asked the astronauts if they had already put R2 to work “washing dishes” or other chores aboard the ISS, but was disappointed to learn they had not gotten around to taking him out of his packing foam yet.
“Come on guys, unpack the guy,” Obama joked. “He flew all that way and you aren’t unpacking him?”
