ബഹിരാകാശത്തും വോട്ടവകാശം വിനിയോഗിച്ച് നാസയുടെ മലയാളി വംശജനായ ബഹിരാകാശ സഞ്ചാരി അനിൽ മേനോൻ

Picture this: you're floating some 400 kilometers above Earth, peering at the swirling blue-and-white planet below, surrounded by humming machines and the gentle quiet of a spacecraft. Still, even in this science fiction-like setting, you can crack open your laptop and vote in an American election -- just as NASA astronaut Anil Menon did from the International Space Station (ISS). It sounds wild, but for NASA astronauts, voting from orbit has actually become routine!

What happened?

Anil Menon, the Indian-American astronaut, recently offered a behind-the-scenes look at this process, sharing a video as he filled out his ballot for the 2026 US midterm elections. He wasn't up there voting alone either. Astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney also hopped online to complete their ballots, all from the tiny, private corners of the ISS they call home.

Menon posted about it, chuckling in his note, "Yes, you can even vote from space! All three US crew members had the privilege of voting from space station. We filled out an electronic ballot and sent it securely to the election officials."

In the video, one can see him tucked inside his personal sleeping compartment, which became his makeshift polling booth, submitting his vote with a few taps and clicks on a computer. That ballot zipped down from orbit to Texas, landing in Harris County, the official voting address for many astronauts, since they train and work at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

How does voting from the International Space Station work?

Of course, this seems way cooler than absentee voting from a hotel room or overseas. Yet the process is surprisingly similar. As per NASA, before launch, astronauts fill out federal paperwork, making sure they're registered to vote absentee. When an election comes around, election officials prepare the secure, electronic ballot, which sits ready for the astronaut to pull up from space. When Menon finished his, he sent it back down through NASA's high-tech network: first bouncing off satellites, then reaching ground antennas at the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, before it's routed to Mission Control in Houston and finally lands in the correct election office. There's tight security all along the way. Encrypted files make sure only the assigned election officials see the vote, as privacy and the integrity of the process come first, even in orbit.

Has anyone voted from space before Anil Menon?

Not many people realize that voting from space isn't new. NASA astronauts have made their voices heard from orbit since the late 1990s. Per Axios, it started in Texas, where lawmakers passed a bill in 1997 so astronauts could cast their ballots even while circling Earth. David Wolf was the first to do it, sending his vote down from Russia's Mir station that same year, which is even before the ISS existed. In the years since, NASA astronauts have marked ballots from space station quarters more than a few times. Kate Rubins famously voted from the ISS in both 2016 and 2020, showing off how simple and meaningful it is for astronauts to participate in democracy from hundreds of kilometers up. NASA itself has even explained the system to the public, underlining how important it is for astronauts to keep their civic rights intact, regardless of where in the solar system they might be.

This time around, Menon and his crewmates Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney made the news. All three are seasoned astronauts living on the ISS with an international crew. Watkins and Delaney had just arrived aboard SpaceX's Crew-13 in October 2026; Menon came up a few months earlier on a Russian Soyuz ship. For all the international teamwork, there's still something strikingly personal and American about climbing into a quiet corner of the ISS, making time between science experiments and maintenance calls, and casting a ballot for the November midterms.

2026 US midterm elections: What we know

As for the 2026 US midterm elections, it's set to determine the composition of Congress halfway through a president's four-year term. The elections involve all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and a portion of the Senate, alongside several gubernatorial and local contests.

Midterm elections are particularly significant because they can change the balance of power in Congress, influencing legislation, government spending, and the administration's ability to implement its policies.For millions of Americans, voting meant heading to neighbourhood polling stations, submitting mail-in ballots or using early-voting facilities. As for Menon and his crewmates, the distance might have been considerable, but they didn't bail out because of that. In fact, the astronauts made sure to exercise their democratic rights from the inside of a spacecraft orbiting Earth.