For eleven days in 1999, Julie Payette was on top of the world, circling the Earth every 90 minutes, 153 times in all. “Out the window of the Space Shuttle you see an extraordinary spectacle, called the planet Earth. You see the planet being alive: volcanoes, erosion-you can even see where tectonic plates are colliding,” Payette told The Varsity.
Her trip began at the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, with the astronauts firmly strapped into their seats. “You’re on your back for about two hours before launching,” said Payette. That is when final launch preparations take place. “The first two minutes are a very shaky ride,” she said. This is due to the explosive power of the Shuttle’s solid-fuel boosters, one on each side of its main fuel tank. “You can feel the push – you’re going upwards, and you’re going fast.”
When the spent boosters fall away into the ocean, the Space Shuttle’s three main engines kick in. “The ride becomes much more smooth,” Payette said. The liquid hydrogen and oxygen fuels in the Shuttle’s bullet-shaped tank mix to provide the final thrust to escape the Earth’s grip. As the craft accelerates upwards, astronauts feel gravity’s force pulling them ever more strongly in the opposite direction. “You weigh a hundred pounds more due to the space suit, and you can feel yourself getting pushed back into your seat.”
The most remarkable event occurs eight or nine minutes after take-off, when the Shuttle’s engines switch off. The astronauts go from being pulled back by a force three times their mass to feeling completely weightless – in a quarter of a second. “It’s an amazing feeling, because it’s impossible to train for it on the ground,” said Payette.
She is Canada’s chief astronaut. Along with the Canadian Space Agency’s four other astronauts, Payette is embedded in NASA’s astronaut corps, and works as capsule communicator (CAPCOM in NASA-speak) at mission control in Houston. One of four astronauts hired by the CSA in 1992, Payette was selected from a field of 5,200 applicants.
She spoke at the U of T space design competition fair, which took place May 6-7. Fifteen teams of Ontario high school students presented scale models and designs of space colonies for 10,000 people-a project students had worked on since last October.
They also heard from Bob Richards, a space industry expert, who in 1987 co-founded the International Space University (ISU) in Strasbourg, France. The institution has graduated over 2,300 students, creating a network of individuals whose passion is to further the exploration of space. “ISU is Starfleet Academy,” said Richards. “It really exists.” He hopes space exploration will embolden humanity to begin to see itself as an interplanetary and interstellar species. “Are we going to be a two-dimensional society with two-dimensional thought, battling over borders and resources?” he asked. “Or are we going to start seeing ourselves as a planetary society and Earth as a spaceship in a three-dimensional universe?”
Richards said he is encouraged by the recent success of the Ansari X-Prize in stimulating private-sector interest in space travel. The $10-million award challenged would-be astronauts to soar 100 kilometers above the Earth’s surface twice within two weeks. Burt Rutan, whose team won the X-Prize last fall, has signed a deal with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic that may make the brief hop into space available to paying customers by 2007. The ride will last about 40 minutes, and is expected to cost around US$200,000-this in order to experience three minutes of weightlessness.
For all the private sector’s recent successes, however, Payette said that getting into space remains a very risky business. “We are still in the infancy of putting people into space.” Nonetheless, she said it underscores our continued interest in exploration. “The fascination that we’ve always had as humans with traveling in space, exploring, going farther is still there-just look at the popularity of science fiction,” Payette said. “If more people would have the chance to go to space and see the planet from above, I think we’d have a different perspective on how to tackle its maintenance and conservation for the years ahead.”
Payette does not know when she will fly on the Shuttle again. She is now helping prepare for the Shuttle’s future missions. “When they’re on the ground, astronauts put together the missions of the others,” she said. “It’s months and years of preparation.” The first step is getting the Shuttle fleet flying again. “The planned date for the next mission is in July,” she said. NASA’s long-term goal is to put a human on Mars, but that probably will not happen for at least two or three decades, according to Payette. Still, she says, “there is a saying at NASA that the first Martian is alive today.”
