Nasa astronaut shares experience of team
ASTRONAUTS are important, but it is the Nasa scientists and engineers on the ground ‘‘that are the really smart ones’’, Nasa astronaut Colonel Michael Hopkins says.
Col Hopkins captivated a crowd of several hundred school pupils and adults during a public presentation at the Alexandra Memorial Hall yesterday, when he shared a slideshow of images of astronaut training and life on the International Space Station (ISS).
Col Hopkins did two space walks during his 166day stay on the ISS in 2013, but said astronauts were only a ‘‘very, very small fraction’’ of the Nasa space programme team.
‘‘The stories that you should really be hearing are their [the rest of the Nasa team] stories.’’
It took just six hours to travel the 400km from Houston to the ISS where life was busy and focused. Astronauts were involved in a lot of experiments monitored by Nasa staff on the ground, Col Hopkins said.
Astronauts had some ‘‘care packages’’ of food from their family while on board, and staying in touch with family through a weekly video conference was vital to feel connected with Earth and to work productively in space, he said.
While in Central Otago, Col Hopkins also visited the interplanetary solar system model on the Otago Central Rail Trail and opened an astrophotography exhibition in Naseby.
He said both were ‘‘wonderful’’, and he enjoyed returning to small towns — he grew up on a farm in Missouri, where the closest town was 10km away.
During a media conference at the Centre for Space Science Technology in Alexandra, Col Hopkins said the work the centre was doing ‘‘taking advantage of what’s happening in space’’ was ‘‘fascinating’’, and a reminder there was more to the ‘‘space story’’ than humans travelling there.
Asked about the prospect of life elsewhere in the universe, Col Hopkins joked he had looked for both aliens and Santa ‘‘but not seen either yet’’.
But he said ‘‘the universe is pretty big, and so it would be surprising if there’s not some form of life out there’’.