by Grania
Samantha Cristoforetti is back from her 199 day mission on the International Space Station and spoke to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour about her experience there and being back on our planet. Long story short: gravity is a nasty welcome back to earth and we are all crew members on Spaceship Earth.
She talks about the experience of being able to fly in zero gravity (“I was like Superman!”) and the future of manned space travel, and getting children into science and technology.
And as a lagniappe, an article on the rehabilitation astronauts receive on returning planet-side. Things like blood pressure, bone density and thinner skin all need repairing.
The research on astronaut’s skin is a new investigation and was started because many astronauts had complained about skin problems; so Cristoforetti’s team had their skin scanned before and after the mission to help with this.
“We use femtosecond laser pulses. We scan the skin and we get signals from the skin, particularly fluorescence, as well as another signal called second harmonic generation,” he explained. “So with these two signals we can build up images and get a precise look into the skin with a high resolution. The resolution is a factor of one thousand times better than ultrasound.”
The article also shows many of her favorite photographs that she took while on her ISS mission. I love this one of Carribean.
Here’s a dramatic set taken of noctilucent clouds, not an angle we often get to see.
Hat-tip: Heather Hastie & John Hucul