The NASA astronaut who survived last week’s failed launch and emergency landing knew he needed to stay calm.
US Air Force Colonel Nick Hague on Tuesday described the closest call of his career: His space capsule violently ripped from his damaged rocket shortly after liftoff, then with lights flashing and alarms sounding, plunged steeply back to Earth with punishing force.
Hague said he and his commander, Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin, were flung from side to side and shoved back hard into their seats, as the drama unfolded 50km above Kazakhstan on Thursday last week.
Photo: AP / NASA TV
One of the four strap-on boosters failed to separate properly two minutes into the flight to the International Space Station and apparently struck the core rocket stage, resulting instantaneously in a rare launch abort.
It was the first aborted launch for the Russians in 35 years and only the third in history. Like each one before, the rocket’s safety system kept the crew alive.
Hague — the first American to experience a launch abort such as this — communicated in Russian throughout the more than half-hour ordeal.
“All of my instincts and reflexes inside the capsule are to speak Russian,” said Hague, who had two years of training in Russia. “We knew that if we wanted to be successful, we needed to stay calm, and we needed to execute the procedures in front of us as smoothly and efficiently as we could.”
The astronauts experienced a few moments of weightlessness after their Soyuz capsule catapulted away from the rocket.
Hague, making his first launch, saw the curvature of the Earth and the blackness of space.
Between the abort and touchdown, Hague looked out of the window to make sure the capsule’s systems were operating properly and to check their landing.
They braced for the extreme force — seven times the force of gravity — of the unusually steep descent and the shock of the parachutes popping open.
They landed on the smooth, flat terrain of Kazakhstan.
“You can imagine the scene,” Hague said. “We’re kind of hanging upside down from our straps ... and we looked at each other, big grins. He holds out a hand. I shake his hand and then we start cracking a few jokes between us about how short our flight was.”
Neither man was injured.
Hague, 43, said he has dealt with in-flight emergencies during his air force career, but nothing like this.
“Any time you’re launching yourself into space and your booster has a problem when you’re going 1,800 meters per second, things are pretty dynamic and they happen very fast,” he said.
He is grateful the emergency system worked, despite the fact it had not been called into action for decades.
His emotions bubbled up once he was reunited with his wife, their two young sons and his parents, back at the launch site.
His youngest wanted to know when he was going back to space.
Hague said he has no clue as to when he would get a second shot, but is ready as soon as he gets the go-ahead.
A Russian accident investigation is continuing, with all crew launches to the space station on hold. Meanwhile, the space station is managing with a crew of three.
“What can you do? Sometimes you don’t get a vote,” Hague said. “You just try to celebrate the little gifts that you get, like walking the boys to school this morning.”
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese