Mission control became his opponent, with flight controllers in different locations taking turns making moves. The rate of play was roughly one move a day.

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On NASA’s Web site, Chamitoff was quoted as saying that having the flight controllers work together would help build camaraderie. The site also quoted Heather Rarick, a NASA flight director, as saying: “This competition with the crew has been well received. Part of it may be the competitive nature of our flight controllers. Who wouldn’t want to beat an astronaut, someone with the right stuff?”

This is not the first Earth vs. space chess match. In June 1970, the Soviet astronauts Andrian Nikolayev and Vitaly Sevastyanov, who were aboard the Soyuz 9 spacecraft, played a consultation game against the earthbound Viktor Gorbatko, another astronaut, and Nikolai P. Kamanin, a Soviet general who was the head of the astronaut training program. The game, played over the course of a few hours, ended in a draw.

Chamitoff, playing White, did much better in his first game. He beat ground control handily, managing to trap Black’s queen with a nifty maneuver beginning with 12 Nb5.

After the first game ended, he began six simultaneous games  one against each of the mission’s ground stations. The game against mission control in Houston has only reached move 5 so far. NASA is keeping a record of the games on its Web site (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition17/chess_chamitoff.html).