Orbiting Italian Astronauts Receive Presidential Call
CAPE CANAVERAL (CBS4) – A pair of Italian astronauts orbiting the Earth on the International Space Station have received a second VIP call in as many days.
Italian President Giorgio Napolitano phoned the shuttle-station complex Monday morning and spoke with the two Italian astronauts, Paolo Nespoli and Roberto Vittori.
The two held up an Italian flag, one which Vittori received from the president to mark the 150th anniversary of Italy's 150th unification. It will return to Earth with Nesopli.
The president asked Nespoli whether he could see the gondalas and Grand Canal of Venice. Nespoli said by using a zoom lens, he could see ferries, but no gondalas. Nespoli is ending a five-month space station mission.
On Saturday, Pope Benedict XVI bestowed a historic blessing upon the 12 astronauts circling Earth during the first-ever papal call to space. The pontiff wished a wished a swift recovery for shuttle Commander Mark Kelly's wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was wounded in an assassination attempt in January.
Near the end of the 18-minute conversation, Benedict expressed condolences to Nespoli, whose 78-year-old mother died in northern Italy at the beginning of May while he was serving on the space station.
"How have you been living through this time of pain on the International Space Station?" the pope asked.
"Holy Father, I felt your prayers and everyone's prayers arriving up here where outside the world ... we have a vantage point to look at the Earth and we feel everything around us," Nespoli replied in Italian.
Nespoli will end his five-month space station mission Monday, returning to Earth aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule.
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