Sometimes it’s easy to forget that astronauts are people too. From the very first space missions, they were considered heroic individuals, bravely crossing new frontiers that most people only experience in movies.
But, says Tim Peake, they are more like us than we think. And there is nothing more recognizable than the desperate search for a toilet.
“I discovered it while I was writing,” Peake says of his new book. Space: a human story“This Alan Shepard [the first American in space] sat on his rocket and needed to urinate because NASA didn’t plan for him to have to sit there for hours before launch. Here he stands, without a diaper, without access to the toilet and asks permission to wet himself before entering the water. And they were the smartest minds in the world!” – he says with a laugh. “There were always mistakes.”
Peake, only the seventh Briton to ever fly in space, has never failed. However, he followed the pre-launch tradition of the first man in space, Russia’s Yuri Gagarin, by sitting on the back wheel of the crew’s launch vehicle for good luck.
He tells me this story over the phone as an illustration for his book, which not only presents a non-linear history of space travel, but also paints a picture of what it was like for the more than 600 people who left Earth. since 1961: dedication and sacrifice; politics and pantomime; practicalities and dangers; fame and glory; adaptation to ordinary life. As the Shepard anecdote illustrates, this work can be both deadly serious and sometimes ridiculous.
Space: a human story is a fascinating, detailed and funny book based on extensive research (Peake met seven Apollo astronauts, Russian cosmonauts and several other space engineers) and his extensive personal experience.
Chichester native Peake, now 51, was a former soldier and Apache helicopter pilot who spent six months on the International Space Station from December 2015. He was the first Briton to walk in space and was partly responsible for operating the $100 billion facility. . You’d never get that impression talking to him: The peak is definitely not in your face; a gentle, humble man, even as he became the face of space travel for a new generation in Britain. Children are especially attracted by the understandable manner in which he talks about the complexities of the life of astronauts. He easily perceives all the excitement around him.
His book is an attempt to demystify a completely alien experience. He readily admits that “part of his job is to be an ambassador for space” and that the awe people feel for him over his achievements needs to be put in context.
“It’s not so much that people don’t treat you like a normal person,” he says of life after space travel, “but it’s hard to deal with.” These are ordinary people who happen to perform extraordinary tasks.”
Astronauts were once some of the most famous people on Earth; Children dreamed of becoming one. Since the first space wars between America and the Soviet Union in the 1960s, the Mercury 7 and Apollo crews, including Neil Armstrong, John Glenn and Buzz Aldrin, have become household names. But Peake believes that after the initial fascination, public interest faded as space travel “became routine.” This attention deficit, he says, means that astronauts can actually be misunderstood: he says the general public doesn’t know what astronauts actually do.
This is perhaps best illustrated by the characteristic but strikingly aggressive interview Peake received from Jeremy Paxman. News evening in 2013. Paxman pestered the impressively unflappable Peak about exactly what going into space was all about. “I actually thought it was a bit lazy journalism. He was just aggressive, Jeremy. He said something like, “Just keep flying and playing guitar.” Peake told me that scientific research in space takes up to sixteen hours a day.
But his book is not so much about his own experience as it is about the experiences of others. There is anecdote after anecdote about famous astronauts and successful missions, as well as missions that sometimes tragically failed. First of all, this is a book about the psychology of an astronaut: what makes him want to fly into space and what he has to endure to get there. It turns out that nothing has changed since the 1950s: Peake’s training at the European Space Agency was a grueling five-year physical, mental and technical test (“If you can do it, space travel will be a piece of cake”). was selected from an initial 8,000 applicants.
How is this possible? Technical skills, yes. But it also helped that he was “a person who got along well with other people”: training for spaceflight is a strange mixture of camaraderie and competition, and a spaceship is like any other workplace. “People get sick and irritated. We’re still working on what makes teams work and not work.” It’s hard to imagine him ever saying a bad word to anyone (though he assures me he has had his “moments” in space).
And Peake readily admits that much of space travel is pure politics: who gets to do what and when is often determined by the budgets—and whims—of successive governments around the world (the race to the moon, for example); that historical decisions can be made on the most insignificant things. Gagarin was the first man in space because the Soviet government ultimately felt he looked and sounded more Russian than his rival German Titov. “It was incredible that after everything they had been through, your name and your smile mattered.”
The risks of space travel are obvious: the book describes a number of unsuccessful launches, near disasters and tragic deaths (fifteen astronauts and four cosmonauts died during the flight). Before his own launch in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, Peake hosted a farewell dinner with his family, his wife Rebecca and his parents (his two sons counted as two small children).
“It’s definitely an emotionally charged moment. And you definitely have a voice in the back of your mind that says, “This could be the last goodbye.” And yet he did it. Why? “You need to be honest with yourself. I think if I said, “I’m not going to do this,” where would you draw the line? What Are Are you ready for this? Will I have a very risk averse outlook on life? And what does this say about me? And what message does this send to my children?”
He says this attitude “may or may not be inside you.” And while Peake’s book makes it seem like the astronauts feel like they’re sacrificing themselves for the greater good, he admits that the thrill factor is also part of the appeal. “What we’re seeing now in commercial spaceflight and tourism missions is that there are people who are very happy to get on a rocket and take risks. This element is also present in all astronauts.”
And what does he think about space tourism, which is being offered by extremely wealthy people like Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos? “I don’t think the public wants to see rich people flying around in space for a few minutes without thinking about sustainability,” he says diplomatically.
Peak was a very modern space adventure. Upon arrival, he ate a bacon steak pre-cooked by chef Heston Blumenthal; he presented a Brit Award and also ran the London Marathon on a simulated treadmill; He was there for Christmas when he ate a specially prepared and sealed irradiated turkey dinner (no gravy due to the spiciness). “It’s a very special feeling to be able to enjoy Christmas while looking down on most of the world who are also enjoying Christmas.”
But as the old saying goes, what goes up must come down, which Peake said poses a unique mental challenge for every astronaut. Peake writes about the difficulties that arose after the discovery of many people who experienced significant changes in their personality: Jim Irwin found God; John Glenn struggled with mental health issues. Compared to these examples – and he notes that “the Apollo astronauts experienced something even deeper and more profound than he did, both in terms of distance traveled and media attention” – Peake seems remarkably sedate.
Has space changed him at all? “Yes, I think you are a very strange person if you don’t experience anything like that and it doesn’t change you.” “In terms of perspective, expanding your horizons. Our place in the Universe, from the point of view of this kind of connection, we can feel protected. And I think once you feel comfortable and safe in the environment, you start to squint a little.
“Even if you visited every corner of the earth, you always looked up and saw the stars from the earth. But when you leave the Earth and look down at the planet, everything falls into place and you connect with the Universe.”
Peake says, “We are on the threshold of a new era of space exploration.” The eventual goal is a trip to Mars, which he believes will happen by the end of the next decade.
In Uncharted, it would take three years in space – is he ready for that? He says it’s an exciting prospect, but it would be a “selfish decision” to leave while his children are still adults and it’s probably “out of my professional time frame.”
But his answer isn’t exactly “no” – and after our interview Peake will reverse his decision to step down in January to lead Britain’s first astronaut mission. Space travel is in his blood; If he had said about Mars, “Maybe I can do it, you never know,” he would not have been able to do it.
Source: I News
I am Mario Pickle and I work in the news website industry as an author. I have been with 24 News Reporters for over 3 years, where I specialize in entertainment-related topics such as books, films, and other media. My background is in film studies and journalism, giving me the knowledge to write engaging pieces that appeal to a wide variety of readers.