Ponytail in Space

Dec. 20, 2006 — -- It is item 811.1 on the Mission Control Execute summary for Flight Day 11 of STS 116, the space shuttle mission currently in orbit around Earth.

Item 811.1 is astronaut Suni Williams' ponytail. That's right. Her ponytail.

It's the first time a ponytail has been itemized on a transfer list to be returned to Earth from space. Astronaut Joan Higginbotham, Williams' colleague on the space shuttle, cut her hair for her on Sunday.

Williams' hair has been quite noticeable during the last nine days of the shuttle mission. She is a smart, tall, willowy brunette with a wicked sense of humor, and she has a zest for life.

Williams was dancing to Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" before she climbed into her spacesuit for a grueling 7½-hour spacewalk on Saturday.

She ended the spacewalk shaking a sticky solar array to get it to retract.

Williams' hair is coming back on the Space Shuttle Discovery because she made plans before her launch to donate it to a program that uses hair to make wigs for cancer patients.

Her friends are not surprised she would do something like this. Williams kept this plan very low key, but when you are in space, there's not much you can keep secret from Mission Control.

Every bit of weight counts on a space shuttle, and hence, even a ponytail will show up on a cargo list.

Zero gravity is a challenge for a woman's hair. All of a sudden hair has volume. Hair floats, so there's not much an astronaut can do about it unless you braid it like astronaut Lisa Nowak did earlier this summer on STS 121.

Commander Eileen Collins had short hair that just fluffed up a little on the first "Return to Flight" shuttle mission in 2005.

Astronaut Cady Coleman has long hair as well. For a long time, she says, women were encouraged to keep their hair tied back in space, partly for safety. She thought her hair held up well in space.

"Without gravity, it gets curlier, and your hair doesn't get in the way because the hair moves with your head," she said.