Six months completely weightless
Seeing the earth from space - who wouldn't want that? ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter has already been in space twice. Eleven years ago he orbited the earth on board the Russian space station MIR, his most recent stay was on board the International Space Station ISS. Combining both flights, it spent a total of 350 days in Earth orbit. This means that he has the longest space experience of all European astronauts.
Reiter raves about the grandiose view of our home planet: "From a height of almost 400 kilometers you can't see the earth as a sphere against the blackness of space, but this perspective is overwhelming.” However, the mission specialist did not have much time to look out of the window – there was a lot of maintenance work to be done inside and outside the space station and scientific experiments to be carried out.
The ESA has now summarized the highlights of Reiter's six-month stay in weightlessness on board the ISS in a video, which the astronaut himself comments on. Reiter talks about life on the space station and reports on the medical and scientific experiments he carried out. He will also present his approximately six-hour extravehicular activity – known in astronaut jargon as EVA, extra-vehicular activity. “A spacewalk has nothing to do with a walk. It's hard work." The resting phases in his sleeping cabin were more comfortable for him: on 0.6 square meters he could keep some privacy and occasionally - hanging in his sleeping bag on the wall - look out of the small window at the blue planet, which is "below". passed him.
UR
