SOUTH AFRICAN space tourist Mark Shuttleworth complained of gravity-loss related backache on Sunday but said being at the International Space Station (ISS) meant getting to see 15 extra sunsets a day.
”We have 16 orbits around the world … so 16 sunrises, 16 sunsets. We get to see a lot of the world. I look down past my feet, we have passed Japan and we are headed across the Pacific,” he said in an interview with a South African radio show.
”It is Sunday morning here too, we stick to Greenwich Mean Time,” he added, when asked what day it was in outer space.
Shuttleworth (28) on Thursday became the world’s second space tourist after blasting off in a Soyuz rocket with Russian flight commander Yury Gidzenko and Italian engineer Roberto Vittori. The trio landed at the ISS early Saturday.
”You can’t help but feel a number of things: first the sheer beauty of the world and secondly that it is such a small and precious thing that protects us and should keep us all together,” he enthused.
The Internet millionaire paid $20-million for the 10-day trip during which he will carry out science experiments at the ISS, including one on the HIV-virus.
The main objective of the trip however is to replace another Soyuz currently attached to the orbiting space platform, part of a regular twice-annual rotation.
”We have a very busy schedule, yesterday we were working until midnight and I am guessing it will be that way every day we are up here,” Shuttleworth said, adding that after three days in space he was suffering from gravity-loss related backache.
”I got a bit of backpain, apparently that is a symptom of the spine stretching from the lack of gravity and the way water is distributed in the body.
”I guess I am maybe a couple of centimetres taller but sadly it won’t last after we get back to the ground.”- Sapa-AFP