Welcome, space rangers! This morning, members of @NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 mission, which launched on April 23, 2021 for a six-month mission to the @ISS and returned to Earth on November 9, 2021, were on hand at National Park Service headquarters in Washington D.C. While visiting, they met with rangers and park leadership and heard about the NPS Dark Skies and Astronomer in Residence programs. Nighttime views and environments are among the critical park features the National Park Service protects. For many years, the National Park Service and NASA have teamed up to collaborate on research, data collection, and outreach about our night skies, and recently worked together to create a web-based tool that helps park managers better understand the impact of outdoor lighting and noise on animal species in national parks. It’s no wonder that in 2016, the NASA Astronaut Corps were officially named honorary park rangers! Thanks for the visit! We look forward to continuing this out of this wor...