After an almost ten-month stay on the ISS, two ISS astronauts returned to Earth last week. The space psychologist Viktor Oubaid tells what she is expecting here in an interview with T-Online.
The two US astronauts should stay on the ISS for a week for a week and Butch Wilmore, which made it almost ten months due to a breakdown. Back on Earth, space drivers not only expect everyday life, but they primarily come up with physical and mental challenges in order to cope with life on earth again. Viktor Oubaid knows how the astronauts deal with stress, the space psychologist of the German Aerospace Center.
T-online: Mr. Oubaid, would you fly into space?
Viktor Oubaid: Sure, immediately. In 2008 I asked the ESA astronaut selection whether they didn’t need a psychologist up there. I was then told very politely that I needed me down here.
Good for you. Otherwise they might have remained unplanned in space for almost 10 months like the NASA astronauts and Butch Wilmore instead of 8 days. That must have been an incredibly stressful situation for the two, right?
Rather not. The ISS crew members are selected in such a way that they can deal with such imponderables and uncertainties during a mission.
And what about the families of space travelers?
The relatives are also aware of the special situation and know what they are involved in. Unlike, for example, in film Apollo 13, in which the wives of the astronauts are waiting nervously for news from the crew, you have to imagine reality much more objectively and more rational. It is clear to everyone involved that it is a dangerous company that you have to prepare well.
And which you also have to prepare. The US astronaut Scott Kelly has in his autobiography after his one-year stay in space From incredible physical agony reported. What do astronauts suffer from?
Among other things, there are symptoms through a stretched spine, the muscles that have receded in weightlessness, and a very stressed cardiovascular system that has to adapt first.
Scott Kelly is a former US astronaut. From 2015 to 2016 he was almost a year at the international space station. The mission was part of a NASA study in which his body was compared to that of his twin brother Mark Kelly to examine the effects of a long-term stay in space on the human body. Kelly recorded his experiences in the book “Endurance: My Year in space”.
Why do astronauts take that?
They do this for the same reason why competitive athletes do their sport. Talk to an NBA player like Detlef Schrempf, who complains about broken joints after 20 years of professional career. Or take Toni Schumacher, the former German goalkeeper, whose fingers are crippled because they have been broken again and again during sports. These people not only see the negative, but what they achieve.
Success. If we humans weren’t that, the United States would not exist as a state: nobody would be sailed into the unknown in search of a shorter sea route to India. This adventure spirit, the ability to put everything else about the risks is deeply human. Just like the motive to want to be the first. Just like the Apollo astronauts. They worked under much more dangerous conditions than today’s astronauts and risked their lives to be the first people on the moon. Scott Kelly should also have known at the time that after his stay in space he would return with major physical problems. Nevertheless, he flew.
How do astronauts manage to arrive again in everyday life?
This should not be easy, especially in the case of the two American astronauts. The physical is one thing. But the psychological must not be forgotten either.
For example, the great attention: The two astronauts who have now returned were strongly in the focus of the media by extending their stay in space. So the question is: How does the transition from this intensive public presence go back to a normal private life? How do I deal with it if I just want to order a pizza, but the supplier instead wants an autograph from me – and I don’t feel like it?
