Five time Space Shuttle Astronaut Scott Parazynski, 46, will be fulfilling a life long dream of climbing Mt. Everest "on his own time and on his own dime time" this May. True to form, Parazynski's packing list would make any Shuttle commander proud, down to the weight in grams of everything he is taking with him.

What is different about this mission however is how participatory it is. Scott is blogging about the trip, has posted his packing list online (down to what is in his "Summit Bling" bag), and will even be twittering from Everest. You can follow all the action at www.onorbit.com/everest.

Parazynski plans to summit the highest mountain in the world with Ang Namgya, Adam Janikowski, and Ang Chhiring. According to his most recent blog post (and the posted timeline) Scott has left Kathmandu and is beginning the 11-12 day trek to Everest Base Camp (EBC).

In addition to the summit team there is also a group that calls themselves "Team NASA," 17 people who work in and around NASA's Johnson Space Center who will do their own trek to Everest Base Camp in support of Scott in early May. Although Team NASA is also taking annual leave and paying their own way to participate in the expedition, NASA is being very supportive.

Team NASA has their own wiki where you can meet some of them too. I highly recommend checking it out, it is not only heartening but also very humorous.

OnOrbit.com includes a "trailer" about the upcoming expedition to help get you in the trekking mood:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=&hl=en

My favorite quote from Scott's blog is him talking about the parallels between space missions and high altitude mountaineering:

[T]here are so many parallels between the exploration we do in space to what we'll be doing in the Himalayas. Years of training, abiding by lessons learned from earlier missions, attention to detail when preparing your gear, the importance of teamwork, the use of technology to solve difficult problems, the importance of diet and hydration, and monitoring of the weather to plan your activities are some of the many commonalities we hope to explore over the course of the coming weeks on the mountain.

You can also get really participatory and join Team NASA in training for the expedition by visiting their train like a rocket scientist page...

Photo courtesy Scott Parazynski via OnOrbit.com