Astronauts cutting their hair in space is not unusual but Indian-American flight engineer Sunita Williams has cut her crowning glory in space which would be used for making a wig for a patient.Sunita, who has always cherished her long beautiful hair, arrived at the orbiting outpost last week with flowing and floating hair, arranged to have her locks cut last Sunday.And, the clippings were stowed on Discovery for a future hairpiece to be donated to a patient suffering from long-term medical hair loss, collectSPACE.com reported.Her hair stylist for the orbital trim was none other than the mission specialist Joan Higginbotham, another female astronaut, who worked with Sunita on the station to operate its robot arm and helped in the effort to transfer supplies, including William's own items, from Discovery to the ISS.Sunita's new hairdo was noticed soon after by mission control, who commented on it but made no mention of where the separated strands were destined.Sources close to Sunita said the astronaut intended to donate her hair to a charity that would use it to make a wig for a medically unfit patient."This it the first [we] have heard of anything like this.It sounds pretty cool but we haven't heard anything yet," a spokesperson for the Florida-based non-profit Locks of Love said.Sunita's hair will land with the Discovery crew, which is scheduled to return to earth on Friday, while Sunita will stay back for another six months.During long duration missions, astronauts do cut their hair but the clippings are generally discarded and no one had earlier thought of such a noble cause.
