“Only fun”: after six months in orbit, Thomas Pesquet is back in shape in Europe

Published on : 11/10/2021 – 01:11

“I’m very good !” French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who spent six months in space, arrived Tuesday, November 9 in Cologne, Germany, visibly well recovered from his dawn landing off the coast of Florida.

From the medicalized plane of the French Army that brought him back from the United States, he walked out, alone, before appearing all smiles in front of some fans who came to applaud him on the tarmac at Cologne airport, where is the European Astronaut Center.

He said he felt “still a little heavy” after six months spent in zero gravity, 400 km above the Earth. “There, I will not be able to run a 100 meters,” he told reporters on the spot.

The 43-year-old astronaut, who has just completed the second mission of his career, has experienced a return trip “less hard” than the first time, in 2017 in the steppes of Kazakhstan. “I’m in better shape than at the same stage four years ago,” said Thomas Pesquet, for whom the landing was a first.

“We didn’t necessarily smell very good”

Eight hours after undocking from the ISS on Monday evening, SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, which carried three other astronauts (two Americans and a Japanese), made a dizzying descent towards Earth, slowed down by the atmosphere and then by immense parachutes. Although eventful, the experience was “a little smoother on Earth with retro rockets (parachutes, editor’s note), it was just fun and really spectacular,” he said.

As soon as they arrived at sea, the astronauts were extracted one by one from their capsule, and placed on a stretcher. What hit him first? “The smells of people who came to pick us up: they smelled super good of laundry and soap, which means that we didn’t necessarily smell very good …”, joked the astronaut.

His crew of “Crew 2” was hoisted to the mainland to be transported to the NASA space center in Houston, where the French made a brief stop before flying to Europe.

“Land animals”

He said he slept and recovered during this flight. “You get used to gravity very quickly”, “we are really land animals made to live here,” he observed. The first desires of the astronaut? “A good shower, earthly foods, a good night’s sleep in a good bed” … and “a vacation”.

But the astronaut will first have to undergo a three-week physical rehabilitation program in Cologne. He will also undergo scientific samples in order to contribute to the collection of data on the effect of micro-gravity on the human body.

And after ? “You have to find yourself a challenge. I know a lot of astronauts, maybe I am one of them, who when they leave say to themselves ‘this is the last time’ and after six months they want to leave. “

The astronaut does not hide his future ambitions for the Moon. “It is true that there has never been a European, but the most exciting thing would not be just to go back to plant a flag but to go there for scientific reasons. to be explorers. “

At the European Space Agency, the decision of who will be the next European to orbit the moon, or even to tread its ground, has not yet been made. But with his experience, Thomas Pesquet “ticks all the boxes to fill one of the three seats guaranteed with NASA for the Moon”, commented on France 5 the French astronaut Jean-François Clervoy, veteran of three space missions.

With AFP