Interview: former U.S. astronaut: "best thing about spacewalk is the view!"

Source: Xinhua | 09-27-2008 14:51

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- "The very best thing about doing any spacewalk is the view!" James Reilly, veteran NASA astronaut who has performed five spacewalks totaling 31 hours and 10 minutes, told Xinhua in a recent interview.

"I wish Zhai Zhigang, Liu Boming and Jing Haipeng a safe flight," Reilly said. When asked what he would say to China's first spacewalker, Reilly said he would say the very same thing Yury Usachev (a Russian astronaut) told him back in 2001.

"When I was preparing to go outside for my first spacewalk, he told me: 'Be careful, be very deliberate on your work, but most important, take 10 seconds every hour to just stop and look around to experience the beauty of being in space.'"

"It is too easy to be focused on work to forget to stop for a while and enjoy the experience in space," said Reilly. "Yet those space view memories are the only things astronauts would truly own when they come back to earth, and those are the stories that their friends and fellow citizens would want to hear."

For the spacewalk itself, Reilly said any spacewalk is risky since astronauts are in a completely hostile environment. It can be extremely hot and extremely cold at the same time, as the places the sun shines upon are very hot while places in shadow are very cold. "It can be a difference of as many as 200 degrees Celsius," said Reilly.

Working in a space suit is another challenge, said he, as spacewalkers can't move the same way they do on earth. The suit is very rigid and the bearings are oriented in specific ways. The astronauts have to learn how to move in the suit to avoid wearing themselves out while working.

"We spent about five to seven hours training in water for every hour of a spacewalk just to get used to the suit, work out the tasks, and perfect the choreography of moving while working in space," Reilly recalled.

Space debris are dangerous too, warned Reilly. With all the debris in space, the closing speed between a piece of space debris and spacewalker and his suit could be as high as 50,000 kph. "Physics will tell us that even a small piece, say the size of a grain of sand, would hit with very high energy and will likely puncture the suit," said Reilly. "Fortunately, the sky is very large and we and the debris are very small so we haven't met yet!"

During his astronaut career with NASA from 1994 to 2008, Reillyflew on three space shuttle flights respectively in 1998, 2001, and 2007. He has logged over 853 hours in space.

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Editor:Du Xiaodan