A sports lover herself, Sunita Williams is excited about watching the London Olympics from the space and is looking forward to have some sort of relay race at her current home -- the International Space Station.
The 46-year-old Indian-origin astronaut Ms. Williams along with her two colleagues on Sunday took off for her second space odyssey on a Russian Soyuz rocket, which blasted off successfully from Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Ms. Williams, who was into sports during her days in the Naval Academy, said that she will be excited to watch the London Olympics from the station and put a much more global perspective on the mega sporting event beginning July 27.
“I was on the swim team there, I was on the cross country team, on the bike club, so a lot about sports ..... I went to jump school and stuff like that, just a lot of good outdoorsy stuff,” Ms. Williams said in a pre-flight interview to NASA.
She thinks there is a similarity between the International Space Station’s goal of fostering global cooperation and the spirit of the Olympics.
“Well, of course. It’s, I mean, the Olympics, what is it, it’s an international competition, to foster friendship and, and competition across, across the planet, and I think that’s exactly what the International Space Station is.”
When asked whether they are going to have any Olympic Games on board, she said, “Well, we probably will. I think, we’re going to go beyond the, or not cross over country boundaries, though, because, you know, we are already an international crew, so I think we might do something Soyuz crew versus Soyuz crew.
“I’m looking at some type of relay maybe or something like that. So I think we’re going to have some competitions up there. We’ll see what happens,” she said.
