USA — Army astronaut takes command of space station

WASHINGTON (Army News Ser­vice) — The first U.S. Army astro­naut to com­mand the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion said Wednes­day the expe­ri­ence has been the pin­na­cle of his career.

Col. Doug Whee­lock, who now com­mands the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion, is shown in his Extrave­hic­u­lar Mobil­i­ty Unit space­suit, in the Quest air­lock of the Inter­na­tion­al Space Sta­tion, pri­or to a space­walk ear­li­er this year. Click to enlarge

Army Col. Doug Whee­lock with the Army Space and Mis­sile Defense Com­mand, who had already been aboard the ISS for four months, took com­mand of the sta­tion Sept. 22. Whee­lock talked with Army reporters Oct. 13 via satel­lite about his respon­si­bil­i­ties for the six-mem­ber team of inter­na­tion­al astro­nauts, the station’s equip­ment, main­te­nance and sci­en­tif­ic research. 

“It would be hard to imag­ine some­thing that would top this … I have to pinch myself every day,” Whee­lock said of the expe­ri­ence. “I feel very blessed just to be here … it’s the oppor­tu­ni­ty of a lifetime.” 

Trav­el­ling at 17,500 miles per hour, or about five miles per sec­ond, the space sta­tion orbits the earth every 90 min­utes, giv­ing the astro­nauts on board views of a sun­rise or sun­set every 45 minutes. 

Com­mand­ing the space sta­tion, Wheel­er said, is sim­i­lar to a small unit com­mand in the Army. 

“Like the com­man­der of any unit, I’m respon­si­ble for every­thing that goes on here,” he said. It’s a real fun job, and I’ve got a great crew, which makes it very exciting.” 

The station’s pri­ma­ry focus is research, and as Whee­lock describes, it is an “orbit­ing lab­o­ra­to­ry.” Whee­lock explained that ISS research includes stud­ies on bone loss, cures for can­cer, new meth­ods for trans­port­ing phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals through the body to fight off dis­ease, and how humans can be bet­ter stew­ards of the planet. 

He said that spe­cif­ic empha­sis is placed on what hap­pens to the human body while in space, which will help future gen­er­a­tions make trips deep­er into the unknown. 

But Whee­lock did­n’t always dream of becom­ing an astro­naut — he start­ed out his career as a pilot. 

“Ear­ly on it was too big of a dream for me … I just want­ed to fly,” he said. 

Whee­lock explained that as a young stu­dent, he thought the notion of going to space was beyond his reach. 

But after stints at West Point, and lat­er as an exper­i­men­tal test pilot with the Army Avi­a­tion Tech­ni­cal Test Cen­ter, Whee­lock set his sights a lit­tle higher. 

“I think that’s where every­thing came togeth­er for me,” Whee­lock said of test-pilot school, where, he explained, he was exposed to peo­ple who were involved in the space program. 

Whee­lock went on to assign­ments as NASA’s direc­tor of oper­a­tions at the Gagarin Cos­mo­naut Train­ing Cen­ter in Star City, Rus­sia, and lat­er aboard the STS-120 Dis­cov­ery in 2007. Pri­or to join­ing the crew on the ISS, Whee­lock had already clocked 362 hours in space, includ­ing more than 20 hours dur­ing three space walks. 

Whee­lock said chal­lenges the ISS staff faces include extreme tem­per­a­ture swings — the out­side tem­per­a­ture can shift up to 500 degrees in 45 min­utes. Also, solar and cos­mic radi­a­tion can wreak hav­oc on the station’s com­put­ers and elec­tri­cal systems. 

“Space always seems to have sur­pris­es for us,” said Wheelock. 

He also explained that work­ing with his Russ­ian coun­ter­parts has been a reward­ing experience. 

“It’s a real thrill,” he said. “For me, it’s a neat expe­ri­ence to look back and see where we’ve come from. It’s real­ly encour­ag­ing, and I think it speaks vol­umes of those who have gone before us and have paved the way.” 

Whee­lock received his flight train­ing dur­ing the Cold War, and he said he’s glad Amer­i­ca and Rus­sia are now work­ing so close­ly togeth­er through their space pro­grams, and hopes that future gen­er­a­tions will car­ry on this partnership. 

In addi­tion to the col­lab­o­ra­tion dis­played by astro­nauts from dif­fer­ent coun­tries on the ISS, Whee­lock said being in space has changed his per­spec­tive on humanity. 

“It makes you think about the things that we wor­ry about … pet­ty dif­fer­ences,” Whee­lock said. “When you look down on the plan­et, you can see the con­ti­nents, but there are no bor­ders. These pet­ty dif­fer­ences that you think about when you are on earth seem to fade away, and you begin to think of things in a broad­er picture.” 

“We’re all try­ing to live and work togeth­er on this lit­tle blue mar­ble in the mid­dle of space, and some­times I think we tend to lose per­spec­tive,” he continued. 

Whee­lock said it has been chal­leng­ing to be away from home for sev­er­al months, but he had very much looked for­ward to the expe­ri­ence of liv­ing in space, and has not been disappointed. 

“When you look at deep space, it’s so dark and so vast, it’s actu­al­ly pret­ty fright­en­ing­ly emp­ty … and then you turn toward the earth, and it’s this explo­sion of col­or and explo­sion of motion and life in the mid­dle of this vast waste­land of noth­ing,” he said. “It’s quite a dra­mat­ic con­trast — look­ing at the earth com­pared with the back­drop of deep space. It real­ly takes your breath away.” 

In the future, Whee­lock said he’d like to return to space if pos­si­ble. He is due to return to earth in November. 

Source:
Unit­ed States Army 

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