Cocoa Beach, Fl. - This is not your grandmother's front parlor! The heavy velvet curtains with the tassels, and the over-stuffed chair would look at home just about anywhere except where they are at this very moment...23,000 miles above the earth, and circling the planet at 17,000 miles per hour.
The other problem? It's the result of unauthorized remodeling done by astronauts in their spare time while aboard the International Space Station.
The Victorian Parlor, the garish Jungle Room-think Elvis' Graceland-and the other spaces designed and redesigned by astronauts are the result of boredom and creative use of materials.
And it's just not spaces which are getting make-overs. Astronauts who are lucky enough to do space walks outside the space station, have been known to snag some pretty interesting materials for their craft projects.
"Just look at my new gold Lemay pants!", exclaimed astronaut Shirley Booth, as she displayed her new attire, which she made using material freshly scavenged from the solar sails of a defunct Soviet-era satellite.
While NASA officials are justly concerned by the unauthorized activity aboard a distant satellite-which may be difficult or impossible to reach should the astronaut's experimentation result in catastrophe-not everyone thinks it's a problem.
Psychologist Brandon Falls sees it as perfectly normal. "It's called "nesting" and it's among the most primal of human desires. If I were NASA, I might even encourage such behavior. Maybe even set up a deal with IKEA(The furniture company) or something. At least that way they'd have some control over what the astronauts do up there."
For now NASA is adamant about the misuse of space station space. They have even scheduled an extra shuttle launch just to remove what they view as junk from the station. A move unprecedented in agency history.
