Santa Gets a Helping Hand From Houston Space Center

For those who always suspected Santa Claus had more than just reindeer to help him make all his deliveries in one night, NASA had an answer Friday.

NASA Television broke into live coverage of the third and final spacewalk of space shuttle Discovery’s repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope with news of “a high-speed object descending from the north.”

About 6:30 p.m. CST on Christmas Eve, NASA’s Mission Control cleared the Jolly One to land in Houston.

Once Old Saint Nick identified himself, mission controllers bedecked in elves’ hats and fake reindeer horns began guiding his landing.

“OK, go/no go for Santa’s approach for Houston,” Santa’s flight director called out, mimicking the poll NASA launch directors take just before every liftoff. “Reindeer?”

“Reindeer is go, flight.”

“Sleigh?”

“Sleigh is go, flight,”

After a check of all of Santa’s other critical systems--presents, cookies and milk--the Jolly Old Elf alighted briefly in Houston.

The spoof was videotaped in Mission Control earlier and did not involve the astronauts, who were busy repairing the telescope. This is just the third spaceflight to be up during Christmas in NASA’s 38 years of human space exploration, and the first Yuletide shuttle mission.