ISS crew member finds locker filled with vintage floppy-disks from past missions

tech2 News StaffNov 22, 2018 10:03:28 IST

NASA just celebrated the 20th anniversary of the first International Space Station components in space. And in an almost-convenient surprise, one of the space station crew members, European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst, stumbled on a folder of floppy disks full of space station memorabilia.

Gerst tweeted a photo of his "amusing" find on Tuesday.

I found a locker on the @Space_Station that probably hasn't been opened for a while... / Ich habe hier auf der #ISS ein Fach gefunden, das vermutlich schon seit einer Weile nicht mehr geöffnet wurde... #SpaceStation20th pic.twitter.com/XOc3FS8tMm

— Alexander Gerst (@Astro_Alex) November 20, 2018

Gerst said that he discovered the locker, which looked like it hadn't been opened in a very long time. One of the floppies was even labelled "Norton Utilities for Windows 95/98".

The ISS ran for many years on Windows 95/98, according to a space enthusiast and radio jockey John Gardi.

Windows 95/98 ran on the #ISS for years! #NASA even had their own 'hardened' version that was supposedly less prone to crashing. I ran a mashup version of Windows 98/ME until about 2006. That PC retired as a router with 4 network cards. It ran for months at a time & NEVER crashed pic.twitter.com/hzEIXHwTp3

— Just A. Tinker (@John_Gardi) November 20, 2018

Others were labelled with NASA logos, with titles like "Crew Personal Support Data Disk".

That last floppy disk had the names of "Shep" and "Sergei", probably intended for NASA astronaut William Shephard and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, who were both crew members in the first manned ISS mission, Expedition 1, in 2000.

The fun reminder of how far the space station has come, and all it has endured over its 20-year stint flying through space left the crew feeling nostalgic.

But it also makes you wonder: Maybe its time the giant orbiting lab got a spring cleaning service?