Shaoni Bhattacharya

Kathryn D Sullivan

Science journalist

Shaoni enjoys the latest book by Maggie-Aderin Pocock, aimed at pre-teen children.

What does it feel like to spacewalk?

Imagine being able to ‘swim’ anywhere in a room with just the touch of a finger, with no sense of falling, being right-side up or upside down. The freedom of movement is magical, even when wearing a spacesuit that weighs 136kg on Earth. Although it weighs nothing in orbit, it still has considerable mass, which you learn to account for as you move.

Were there any scary moments during Hubble’s deployment?

In orbit, the telescope began to sway left to right as soon as Steve Hawley began to lift it. This was a huge worry, because it filled the cargo bay with mere inches to spare. Any bump could damage its equipment. We all breathed a sigh of relief when it cleared the cargo bay walls. Another anxious moment was when the second solar array jammed. Bruce McCandless and I rushed to don our spacesuits and go outside to crank it out by hand. Luckily, it was an instrumentation problem they were able to fix with a software command. It was unlucky for Bruce and me, however: we were stuck in a partiallydepressurised airlock, between the Shuttle’s cabin and outer space. Instead of doing a spacewalk and witnessing Hubble’s deployment, we could only listen as events unfolded.

What is Hubble’s legacy?

It transformed astronomy scientifically and socially, changing our understanding of how the Universe works and our place in it.

Kathryn D Sullivan was a crew member on three Space Shuttle missions. She is the Charles A Lindbergh Chair of Aerospace History at the Smithsonian Institute