Helen Sharman's Tomorrow's World Interview
When the Russian Space Station Mir and the American Shuttle Atlantis docked, in June 1995, Science Line teamed up with Tomorrow's World and Helen Sharman to cover the event. Helen Sharman, Britain's first astronaut in space, answered questions and provided the following information about her time on board Mir and about living in space generally.
My Mission
The first time that I saw the Earth was 160 seconds into the launch when the protective fairing around the rocket was jettisoned. All I could say was 'Wow!' From space the Earth looks mostly blue (the seas) and white (clouds). Countries show up very clearly being grey-brown, brown, or brick-red, and look exactly as they do on a globe. Because I was only 220 miles above the Earth, I could not see the Earth all at once, but I could see that it is curved and in one glance out of the window I could see all of Western Europe.
The launch is rather bumpy and jerky. As the rocket accelerates you feel the G-forces increasing and pushing you down in your seat. I experienced 3.5g during my launch so I felt 3.5 times heavier than I normally do on Earth. The launch lasted for 530 seconds and finished when we jettisoned the final rocket stage when we felt weightless for the first time.
Weightlessness was without doubt the best thing about being in space. I could not sit down or stand up. It feels a bit like floating on top of a swimming pool, except There's no water around you. If you put your arm out in front of you, your body moves backwards. At night, you can sleep on the ceiling if you want to! Feeling weightless is easy to get used to mentally, but the body takes time to adjust. Half of all astronauts feel space sick because the balance system in the ears is not giving the brain signals of up and down any more. Fortunately none of my crew was sick, or else there might have been a chain reaction! Fluids in the body also change. On Earth we are used to feeling gravity which pulls body fluids down towards our feet. When weightless this does not happen and more fluids than normal accumulate in the upper body and head. It takes two or three days before the body excretes this extra fluid as urine.
Team work is much more important now than it was in the early days of space travel. To work well as a team with the other astronauts in your crew, you really have to know them well. On Shuttle missions, which are short, arguments are not so much as a problem, but for long Mir missions they can create difficulties. Russians have always put a strong emphasis on psychology and have carefully selected their crews. They do have their ups and downs but no severe conflicts have been reported.
I was only in space for eight days so I was never bored! We had a guitar, a small keyboard, books, magazines and a video player, but mostly if we had any spare time we just looked out of the window.
When I was at school I did not think it was possible to be an astronaut. I always wanted to use science or technology somehow, so I studied science and then worked as a technologist in industry. I heard of the chance to go into space on my car radio as I was driving home from work. I would love to go into space again, as there is so much to discover there. You can do experiments that are impossible on Earth, and see space from outside our atmosphere which makes it clearer and easier to understand. You can also learn a great deal about Earth from space too!
On coming back to Earth I felt very heavy! There was much to do with all of the debriefings and press conferences, and then I started to work to make science fun and more part of our everyday lives.
Living in space
Living in space for a long time can affect you in many ways - both physically and mentally. While every effort is made to reduce the problems that can arise from being stuck in a confined space for months at a time with the same people, still not enough is known about reducing the physical and mental problems experienced by crews. There are certainly long term effects of weightlessness - that area of research has been a major focus for many years of the Russian space programme. NASA has suffered from the lack of long term missions and so the Russians are the acknowledged world leaders in long term space medicine and will contribute greatly in this area during the building of the space station Alpha. many of the research programs to be undertaken on Mir in the lead up to this event are focused on Biomedical research.
About half of all astronauts complain of backache. This probably comes about because the discs between the vertebrae expand in weightless conditions (in much the same way as they do when you are lying flat in bed - the reason why everyone of us is a centimeter taller in the morning than in the evening).
Another general complaint is that most people suffer from stuffy heads and puffy faces as gravity no longer holds fluids lower in the body. One particular concern is the loss of calcium from bones. In effect being in space is an extreme case of the Sports Science motto 'If you don't use it you lose it', which probably applies to the strength and size of bones, muscles and tendons. It isn't possible to do weight based workouts to combat these effects, so a series of special exercises were designed. The Mir crews spend many hours a week keeping up with these exercise programmes. They have an exercise bicycle, bungee cords, a penguin suit with internal elastication that forces the wearer to keep stretching and the Chibis
suit which creates low pressure around the legs to simulate gravity. Crews on long missions do increasing amounts of exercise as the time to return home draws near otherwise their muscles that haven't had to do much over many months wouldn't be able to cope with the sudden gravity. Actually astronauts tend to lose weight as their muscles waste away through lack of use and the food they have to eat is not exactly the best in the world!
Mentally, life on Mir can be quite tiring. Mir crews can talk to and se via TV, their families once a week and mail, newspapers and personal items are sent up every 2-3 months. But even so crew members have to be carefully selected to try and ensure they don't end up killing each other!
Day to day living in space is also quite tricky to get used to. So many of the things we take for granted on the Earth are difficult to do or get hold of in space. Water is a problem. A certain amount - mostly that collected from condensation in the spacecraft and from washing water - can be recycled, basically cleaned up and used again. It is, however necessary to deliver extra water to space stations like Mir to top up the supply of recycled water. Future space stations are likely to have complete recycling systems whereby urine can also be recycled, which is technically not too difficult. People may not like the thoughts of it, but once the impurities are extracted, all that is left is plain water. If we want to go to Mars this will be an absolute necessity!
Being ill can also be tricky. If the problem is really serious, Mir crews can usually head back home within a couple of days. If they can't get back for some reason, there is usually a cosmonaut on standby to fly a solo Soyuz for rescue. Crews do have some medical training and some medical equipment and quite often Mir and Shuttle crews carry medical staff anyway. The first mission to be ended early by illness was Soyuz-T14 in 1985 when commander Vladimir Vasyutin suffered from depression.
Both the Shuttle and Mir carry toilet units that substitute air flow for gravity. The Shuttle's is tucked away in a corner by the main hatch. The user sits on the toilet as normal, urine is sucked into a close fitting tube. The waste collects in a bag, which is then compacted into storage tubes with odour and bacterial filters.
Washing in space is also a problem. On the Shuttle they use wet wipes and damp flannels. Mir does the same, but there is also a small hand unit in the toilet. One of Mir's modules had a shower but it didn't work well and wasn't used much for the two years before it was dismantled.
And going to sleep can be a problem if you don't want to float away. Mir has two small cabins with sleeping bags to hold the sleeper down. Or crews can take their sleeping bags to wherever they feel most comfortable. Noise is a problem in Mir. The Shuttle is more cramped but they strap sleeping bags to the mid-deck walls.
Writing is simple as long as you use a pen with a sealed and pressurised ink unit - such as a Papermate. On the Earth, pens like ordinary biros work by using gravity to pull the ink down through the pen and on to the paper - that's why you can't write upside down. But pens like Papermates use pressure to force the ink down through the pen - that's why you can write upside down with them. Alternatively, you could use a pencil that doesn't rely on gravity at all.
On the Earth, it is the temperature of the air that makes you feel hot or cold. As there is no air in the vacuum of space, you feel neither hot nor cold. But if your space suitor space craft is bathed in sunlight, then you will feel warm - just as you feel warm in the sunlight on Earth. Apollo craft used to turn slowly to stop any one side getting too hot.
Shuttle crews only wear altitude suits (like those jet pilots wear). They have inflatable legs that stop you passing out because all the blood rushes to your feet when you accelerate quickly in a jet. They only wear the suits for a few hours, so there isn't really time to become uncomfortable. Soyuz crews wear pressure suits and keep them on for longer. In emergencies they can be worn for two days which isn't pleasant as they have no in-built toilet facilities. Suits for space walks are very different and can be worn for about seven hours. EVA's (extra vehicular activities or space walks) can be very strenuous so suits can be uncomfortable. Russian EVA suits don't have toilet, food or drink facilities inside them so wearing them for 7 hours can't be much fun. On Mir, suits are only worn for the actual launch and re-entry. Apollo crews used to take off their suits while cruising between the Earth and the Moon. For a while Russian crews stopped wearing suits at all, resulting in the deaths of three cosmonauts in 1971 when their Soyuz depressurised on the way down.
