Talk about swing votes. Flying more than 200 miles above Earth, astronauts Greg Chamitoff and Mike Finke today delivered a message to American voters who haven't yet cast ballots.
"If we can do it, so can you," they said from the International Space Station, before completing a weightless back flip.
Here's a link to the video broadcast today on NASA TV.
The two astronauts plan to cast electronic votes this year, a right several other space travelers have exercised since the passage of a Texas bill in 1997, according to a NASA press release.
A NASA spokeswoman said the Johnson Space Center's Mission Control would transmit to the crew secure electronic ballots generated by the Harris and Brazoria County Clerk's offices in Texas.
The astronauts then fill out the ballots electronically and return them to Houston, which e-mails them to the clerk's offices recording the votes.
"Although we're a long way from home as we orbit more than 200 miles above our beautiful planet, we are exercising our constitutional right and privilege and casting our ballot this election day," said Finke.
There was no word on which candidates the orbiting voters will support.
Chamitoff arrived on the station in April, and is scheduled to return to Earth late next month with shuttle Endeavour.
His place on Expedition 18 will be taken by astronaut Sandra Magnus, a member of the Endeavour crew targeted for a Nov. 14 launch from Kennedy Space Center.
Finke, the Expedition 18 commander, arrived on the station Oct. 14 with cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov in a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. They are expected to stay on board for six months.
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