A red-and-white Santa hat that completed a world-encompassing journey on Christmas Eve—this time not perched atop a jolly man and his reindeer, but worn by a NASA astronaut aboard a space shuttle—has found a temporary home in Kansas for the season.
The Cosmosphere, a Hutchinson-based space museum and science-education center, is featuring the Santa cap that STS-103 mission specialist John Grunsfeld wore during the Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission in December 1999. Over the nearly eight-day mission, the cap traveled about 3.25 million miles (5.23 million kilometers) and completed 119 orbits around Earth, including a Christmas Day in orbit—the only such occurrence among the 135 space shuttle flights.
Guests can view the space-flown Santa hat as part of the Cosmosphere’s 13 Days of Christmas Celebration, which blends space history with holiday spirit.
The hat—characterized by its fluffy white trim and a pom-pom at the tip—was one of seven caps aboard the space shuttle Discovery, corresponding to each STS-103 crew member. The roster included commander Curt Brown, pilot Scott Kelly, mission specialists Michael Foale and Steven Smith (NASA), and Jean-François Clervoy and Claude Nicollier (ESA). Grunsfeld loaned his flown cap to the Cosmosphere for this display.
During a trio of spacewalks, Grunsfeld, Smith, Foale, and Nicollier installed several upgrades on the Hubble, such as new gyroscopes, a faster main computer, and an improved data transmitter to relay astronomical information back to Earth.
Photos captured Grunsfeld and his spacewalk partner Smith in their Santa caps while still suited up, and the entire crew wore their hats to send a message back to the technicians and observers on the ground.
Brown reflected on the symbolism of the moment, noting that the timeless Christmas story has echoed across civilizations for millennia as people looked to the heavens in search of wisdom and meaning. The Cosmosphere shared the hope that the universe’s lessons can speak to humanity’s universal longing for peace and goodwill, especially as the new millennium approached.
STS-103’s Christmas celebration was a rarity among NASA missions that have spent holidays in space. The earliest example goes back to Skylab 3 (SL-4) in 1973, when Jerry Carr, Ed Gibson, and Bill Pogue marked the season aboard their extended 84-day mission with a makeshift Christmas tree crafted from surplus containers and cardboard—no Santa hat present at the time.
Two decades later, John Blaha and David Wolf celebrated Christmas aboard Russia’s Mir space station in 1996 and 1997, respectively. It’s unclear whether Blaha wore a Santa hat, but a photo does show Wolf and cosmonauts Anatoli Solovyov and Pavel Vinogradov gathered around a spacesuit wearing one. Wolf, who is Jewish, also celebrated Chanukah with a menorah during the mission.
Since the launch of the International Space Station in 2000, Santa hats have become a more common sight in space, with astronauts donning the festive headgear from Expedition 10 in 2004 through Expedition 72 in 2024.
On Earth, Grunsfeld’s STS-103-flown Santa hat will remain on display at the Cosmosphere through the holiday season, extending to January 5, 2026.
