{"id":10579,"date":"2022-04-14T18:36:35","date_gmt":"2022-04-14T10:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/commercial-crew-has-no-problem-adapting-to-life-on-space-station\/"},"modified":"2022-04-14T18:36:35","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T10:36:35","slug":"commercial-crew-has-no-problem-adapting-to-life-on-space-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/commercial-crew-has-no-problem-adapting-to-life-on-space-station\/","title":{"rendered":"Commercial crew has no problem adapting to life on space station"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

\"\"
Axiom-1 mission commander Michael L\u00f3pez-Alegr\u00eda, a retired astronaut with four previous space flights to his credit, describes the first fully commercial visit to the International Space Station in an interview with CBS News. Credit: Axiom Space<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first NASA-sanctioned all-private crew to visit the International Space Station has had few problems adapting to weightlessness, but a non-stop schedule of proprietary research and public outreach has left little \u201cwindow time\u201d for sightseeing, their commander said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Since arriving at the station last Saturday \u201cand ever since, it has been fast paced. I think that\u2019s probably the biggest surprise, just how incredibly quick time goes by,\u201d retired astronaut Michael L\u00f3pez-Alegr\u00eda, the crew\u2019s leader and mentor, said in a space-to-ground interview with CBS News.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve got a very tight timeline to keep up on all the activities that we have planned and it\u2019s a sprint, it\u2019s an all-out sprint. But the guys are doing great, everybody loves microgravity. I mean, you can imagine, it\u2019s a ton of fun. And I think the only surprise is just how hard we\u2019re all working.\u201d<\/p>\n

L\u00f3pez-Alegr\u00eda, Ohio-businessman Larry Connor, Canadian entrepreneur Mark Pathy and Israeli Eytan Stibbe, a former F-16 fighter pilot and successful investor, blasted off in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket last Friday, becoming the first all-private crew to visit the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

Houston-based Axiom Space paid an undisclosed amount for the ride to orbit and access to the space station. Connor, Pathy and Stibbe paid for their seats while L\u00f3pez-Alegr\u00eda, now an Axiom vice president, is flying on behalf of the company.<\/p>\n

With NASA\u2019s blessing, Axiom plans to launch multiple modules that initially will be attached to the space station to serve as a commercial research hub. After solar power and cooling systems are added, the Axiom modules will be detached to fly on their own before the ISS is retired at the end of the decade.<\/p>\n

The current Ax-1 mission is the first in a series of planned Axiom flights to help pave the way toward commercial operations in low-Earth orbit, something L\u00f3pez-Alegr\u00eda says is critical.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to abandon low-Earth orbit,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I say we, I mean humanity, and specifically NASA and the other international partners. The ISS is a wonderful platform, but it is a machine and it has a lifetime that will expire at some point. And when that does, we want to be ready with the next generation of orbital platform to take over from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A commercial space station, he said, offers clear advantages over government-run outposts, which operate under restrictions that do not apply to the private-sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have certain restrictions on what they can and can\u2019t do up here,\u201d L\u00f3pez-Alegr\u00eda said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re a commercial provider, you can do a lot, you can open the aperture and widen the envelope quite a bit and do other things.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve heard, probably, conversations about entertainment, about brand product placing, about endorsements, about other types of not just manufacturing in small scale or or demonstration of manufacturing capability, but actually manufacturing on a big scale, where you could actually sell those products.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, he said, \u201cthat isn\u2019t the only game in town.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf somebody wanted to come up here and look out the window all day, we would entertain that. I think it\u2019s almost a shame to waste the experience that way, without giving something back, to do some research, educational outreach up here, but that\u2019s certainly an option.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
SpaceX\u2019s Dragon Endeavour crew capsule \u2014 with the moon behind it \u2014 approaches the International Space Station for docking April 9. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Ax-1 crew chose to carry out a full slate of research, including 25 biomedical experiments and technology development demonstrations amid a full slate of public outreach downlinks. Given the busy schedule, it helps that no one on the crew had problems adapting to weightlessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cOften we have a lot of crew members get a little bit of what they call space adaptation syndrome, which includes being a little nauseous,\u201d L\u00f3pez-Alegr\u00eda said. \u201cAnd that almost didn\u2019t happen to anybody, which is really unusual out of a four-person crew.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy and large, they\u2019re doing great. I mean, eating and drinking is obviously a little bit different, as is going to the bathroom, naturally. But you know, it\u2019s just a process of adaptation, and so far, I think things are definitely meeting their expectations in terms of enjoyment and our expectations in terms of performance. So it\u2019s been great.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the crew is free to move about on their own in the U.S. segment of the space station, including visits to the cupola compartment where seven large windows provide panoramic views of the planet 260 miles below.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would imagine that we would all say we\u2019re not getting enough window time,\u201d L\u00f3pez-Alegr\u00eda said. \u201cBy the way, it\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve looked out the cupola and I\u2019m just as amazed as everybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for lessons learned, he said planners need to add more time for commercial crew members, even those who aren\u2019t affected by space adaptation syndrome, to get their \u201cspace legs\u201d and learn how to efficiently move about in weightlessness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we underestimated just how hard the adaptation would be and sort of how long it would take,\u201d L\u00f3pez-Alegr\u00eda said. \u201cYou know, we have this phenomenon that astronauts call \u2018space brain,\u2019 when you get up here, things just take about 33 to 50 percent longer than they normally do. And that\u2019s even more true for people who\u2019ve never been exposed to this environment before.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that would be one lesson for sure that I would take back and I think that message is already being heard.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Axiom-1 mission commander Michael L\u00f3pez-Alegr\u00eda, a retired astronaut with four previous space flights to his credit, describes the first fully commercial visit to the International Space Station in an interview with CBS News. Credit: Axiom Space The first NASA-sanctioned all-private crew to visit the International Space Station has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10579"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}