Lunch With an Astronaut
Ever met an astronaut? Cath Johnsen and her family did at NASA’s space centre in Houston, Texas, and it was out of this world
It’s not quite space travel, but may be the next best thing.
Colonel Brian Duffy’s second f l ight into space as an astronaut and pilot was on the STS- 57 Endeavour shuttle. When they’re on a mission, they try and eat one meal together each day. This day, he and the crew had just gathered to enjoy a floating dinner together when, “All of a sudden, some dirty underwear came floating by… we all stared at it and started laughing, before our commander asked, ‘Anybody want to claim those?’” says Colonel Duffy.
My family and I have only just begun our ‘Lunch with an Astronaut’ session at NASA, Houston, and already our guest astronaut has my three children in stitches. Clearly, he knows his audience, which mostly consists of families, along with a few astronomy nerds, identifiable by their T-shirts emblazoned with slogans like ‘It’s not rocket science… oh wait, yes, it is’.
Over the next hour, we pick at lukewarm chicken and vegetables, and the kids mindlessly consume platefuls of reheated chicken nuggets and stodgy macaroni cheese, but let’s face it, we’re not here for the food. We’re seated at round tables in the NASA function room to listen to the personal insights and anecdotes of an astronaut who has completed four space missions, including two as commander and one that took him to the International Space Centre, a large spacecraft which continuously orbits the Earth.
Colonel Duffy, 66, the son of a postal worker and a stay-at-home mum, began his career as a fighter pilot in the US Air Force, before responding to a NASA call-out in 1985 for shuttle pilot applicants.
“I thought it sounded like the ultimate test pilot job, so I applied with probably 10,000 other people who also thought it sounded like a fun job,” Colonel Duffy laughs.
“But I was fortunate enough to be one of 150 that they invited for an interview, and one of the 13 they
selected that year.” But six months after his training began at NASA, the Challenger accident happened, in which the crew of seven died shortly after take-off.
All future missions were grounded, and it wasn’t until 1992 that Colonel Duffy was finally assigned his first mission.
“The 1992 mission was a nine-day science mission,” he tells us. “We had 16 different instruments to study the sun and the Earth’s atmosphere and the relationship between the two. In between the data collection I would have 45 minutes to just look out the window and I loved that. I got to know the Earth really well.”
This observat ion prompts my 13-year-old daughter to ask a question: “What does it feel like, looking down on the world and all its problems from such an elevation?”
Colonel Duf f y pauses before answering her. “You don’t see a lot of things from up there – you don’t see wars and you don’t see famine and there’s only a couple of borders that you can see. The Earth is really beautiful, but you feel very detached from it,” he says, slipping into a more reflective tone.
“We call it the astronaut’s paradox – here we are in a position where we have the best view of planet Earth, but we can experience none of it. You can’t smell the grass that’s been freshly cut, you can’t feel the wind blowing through your hair … if you happen to have hair,” he quips, running his fingers through his receding hairline, and eliciting another round of laughs.
More questions follow from the audience, wanting to know everything from the philosophical to the practical: Did you get space sick? Were you ever frightened? And, inevitably, did you see any aliens?
“That quest ion is supposed to come from him, not from you!” laughs Colonel Duffy, pointing to the grandson of the woman who posed the question about extra-terrestrial life. “But no, I didn’t see any evidence of aliens.”
ALTHOUGH WE LIVE IN A WORLD where you can google anything about space and where you can watch astronauts at work on NASA’s YouTube channel, there’s nothing quite like shaking hands with one in person, hearing the stories firsthand, and asking your burning questions to someone who has spent 40 days, 17 hours and 34 minutes in space, to be exact.
Plus, it makes a great photo for any social media account.
“Where y’all from?” Colonel Duffy asks, as my family gathers around him for a photo. “We’re all the way from Australia,” my son answers. “Oh, Australia looks amazing from space,” Colonel Duffy enthuses.
I guess we’ll have to take his word for it.
FIRST APPEARED IN ENVOYAGE MAGAZINE