Astronaut loves life on ISS

2011-10-06 10:30

Duncan Alfreds, News24

Cape Town - An astronaut has said that living on the International Space Station is exhilarating and provides scientists with valuable information about the effects of weightlessness on the body.

"I loved living on the ISS, every minute of it. The shuttle, the Soyuz: These are ways we get up to space and we come home. We have an emergency way home if we need it, but living in space, that’s what it's all about and I loved it, Catherine "Cady" Coleman told News24.

Coleman spent months on the ISS and said that it provides a staging ground for trips to Mars.

"One of the reasons we go to the ISS is to learn how does this affect our bodies, and how can we keep people healthy, say on their way to the moon or to Mars, and we've learned a lot about exercise."

Nasa recently retired its shuttle fleet and astronauts have to hitch rides to the ISS in the Russian Soyuz space vehicles that were designed in the 1960s.

Launching experience

Nasa administrator Charles Bolden said at the International Astronautical Congress in Cape Town that collaboration would be the way forward for the US space agency.

"International co-operation is important not just because of finances, but because we can no longer... in this day and age, you can no longer afford to leave ideas on the table," Bolden said.

Coleman said the experience of launching into space is amazing, indicating that it didn't seem fast because of the weight of the launch vehicles.

"When you launch, it's just amazing. They're [shuttle and Soyuz] really heavy and they're moving with such force and with such certainty that you know that they're just not going to stop until they get to space.

What I liked about the Soyuz in particular was that it's a very small vehicle - I mean there're three of us all close together, all shoulder to shoulder - but right at my right side is a window. And I feel like it's just the three of us circling the Earth and that's a pretty neat way to be in space, even though I like the space shuttle too."

The next goal for Nasa is to send astronauts to Mars and Coleman said it was achievable, but there were concerns with safety.

UFOs

"Going to Mars is achievable in some sense now, just not achievable in the way that we'd like to in terms of safety, and if you're going to spend all this money, you need to make sure people are going to get there and come back and share what happened there.

"We're not at that point yet. And it may seem like slow steps to people but we're using the space station to understand how to live in space; what happens to people," she said.

Despite being on the ISS for months at a time, Coleman said that there were no official protocols for dealing with a possible visit by UFOs.

"We don't have any protocol, but I'm a welcoming person here on Earth so I think I'd be welcoming up there. I myself would hesitate to think that we're alone in this universe.

"It's our nature and I think at least my job to explore this universe, so we'll see who else is out there."

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