I came across a very interesting document on the Internets the other day: the official list, from NASA, of all the books, movies, television and music available for viewing on the International Space Station (the complete list is here). Among the ISS’s DVD collection, there are exactly three television shows:
- Stargate: SG-1 (season one)
- Millennium (season one)
- Sealab 2021 (season one)
I’ve got to say that Millennium is kind of an alarming choice; the ISS is a pretty small, confined place with no way to leave, and watching that show might give the astronauts some troubling ideas. In addition, there’s a separate list of current TV shows available on the ISS (it’s not explained how they watch them - maybe some sort of On Demand system? I’ve no idea what sort of bandwidth the ISS has). Anyway, here’s that list:
- 60 Minutes
- Channel 11 News
- Cheers
- The Colber1 Report
- CNN Headline News
- CSI: NY
- Emeril
- Entertainment Tonight
- ER
- ESPN Sports Center
- Everyday lIalian
- Fox News Sunday
- Frasier
- Friends
- Good Eats
- Hogan’s Heroes
- Horne Improvement
- Larry King Live
- Late Show with David Letterman
- Law & Order
- Lost
- MASH
- NBC Nightly News
- NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
- Saturday Night Live
- SCOLA News
- Scrubs
- Seinfeld
- Shark
- Smiley’s People
- The Daily Show
- Stargate SG-1
- The Dog Whisperer
The Food Network shows seem an odd choice; it’s not as though they’re cooking from scratch on the ISS. And The Dog Whisperer is also a head-scratcher; I didn’t think the ISS was pet-friendly. But at least they watch Lost!

What a great find!
I have to say, though, that if I were on the ISS and had some downtime, watching television would fall pretty low on my list of things to do. If I ever find myself amidst the wonder of space and decide to watch Larry King Live instead of staring out a porthole for an hour, somebody please jettison me out the airlock.
Comment by danterner — June 1, 2008 @ 5:36 pm