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ESA Astronaut Schlegel: We Can’t Take Borders With Us Into Space
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- ESA astronaut Schlegel inside the ISS during the February mission.
- (© ESA/NASA)
ESA Astronaut Hans Schlegel is currently traveling around the United States with Léopold Eyharts of France and other US and European astronauts from mission STS-122 in February 2008. The highlight of that mission was the delivery and installation of Europe’s Columbus Module to the International Space Station. Schlegel performed a nearly seven-hour space walk during the mission to help prepare the laboratory and to replace an expended nitrogen tank on the station.
A graduate of both Lewis Central High School in Council Bluffs, Iowa (as an exchange student), and Hansa Gymnasium in Cologne, Schlegel has worked with DLR, the German Aerospace Agency, since 1988. He has two tours in orbit behind him.
Germany.info spoke with Schlegel after a press briefing at the German Ambassador’s Residence in Washington, DC, on June 24.
Germany.info: You mentioned the moments of joy you experience while in orbit. What were some of those moments?
Hans Schlegel: The joy of being in space is mastering certain difficult phases of the flight. First, after the main engines shut off and you are weightless. The main engine shut-off is a critical part of the flight.
Living and working in zero gravity is really hard. You’re used to one G [on earth] and all of a sudden you can’t move from A to B. If I push off from the wall I have to learn to maneuver, to brake and to fix myself. On earth a room as one floor and one ceiling. In space, suddenly a room has six floors, and you may not recognize the room. There is a lot of information to digest.
Using a screwdriver, for instance, is not simple. When I put it down, it must be secured with Velcro or a rubber band. You can’t drop anything. If you do, it’s gone when you turn back around. It’s really hard to find anything.
The biological factors, fluid shift, for example. Your face is puffy. It’s not painful, it’s just different. It’s hard in the beginning, but on the other hand it’s fun. You can start to use weightlessness to your advantage.
Germany.info: What is the view like from orbit?
Schlegel: The fact is that you are 350 kilometers above the Earth, outside the atmosphere. You don’t see any borders; you don’t see any religions, races. You just see continents.
And the stars, they don’t blink. They are just like needle points of light.
It takes one-and-half hours to circle the earth. So in one-and-a-half hours we see day and night, what takes 24 hours on earth. On the night side of the planet, we see lightening. We saw the Northern Lights. There are so many impressions.
Germany.info: Tell me about your spacewalk.
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- Among Schlegel's tasks was replacing a nitrogen tank on the ISS.
- (© ESA/NASA)
Schlegel: It was a first for me. There was high anticipation. But the moment we opened the hatch and I grabbed a glimpse of the Earth through the hatch, I knew it would not be a problem for me. With the suit on, you are trying to maneuver around 230 kilograms, that's more than 500 pounds. It takes about an hour to adjust.
A half hour into the flight, we came across my hometown of Aachen and Cologne. I recognized the river Rhine and the Rhine Valley and Cologne. It couldn’t be more perfect. The first time you go out, we’re working on the European module, the weather is perfect, and we are flying over Germany.
Germany.info: Will you go into space again?
Schlegel: I am 57 years old. There are other European astronauts. I do not know if I will be selected again, but I would go in a heartbeat.
Germany.info: After your post-orbit debriefings and PR tours in Europe and now the United States, what will you do next?
Schlegel: I will take leave this summer and go on vacation with my family. We will go to Germany to my hometown to see the Earth from below, going very slowly. When I come back to Houston, I will either continue to train as an astronaut or be Europe’s liaison officer in Houston at Johnson Space Flight Center.
Germany.info: What have you told your children about your time in orbit?
Schlegel: We are living in a community with more than 100 astronauts. For the children it’s everyday life that parents go into space. They do space science projects. Maybe for my kids space is so normal; for them the excitement will be in a different field.
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- The crew of STS-122 and ISS Expedition 16 included astronauts from Germany, France, United States and Russia.
- (© ESA/NASA)
Germany.info: What will be the language in space?
Schlegel: It depends on what they speak on Mars.
We have pretty much decided. The international language right now is English. But it’s a good idea to learn a foreign language. It gives you as human beings awareness that there is another culture out there beside your own. We need to accept the differences between cultures.
Germany.info: Will humans be able to carry out permanent missions in space in the future without establishing borders and territories?
Schlegel: The International Space Station and the US flight to the moon, these are the first steps to make mankind aware that we must cooperate internationally in space.
When we leave the planet, we can’t take our borders with us. Our border is the atmosphere. Once we have crossed that… We as mankind, we have only a chance if we manage to leave that behind.
