They are homes.
And splashdown, CREWD I'm back on Earth.
Jesus nun.
Waiting him in the sky. Splash down, copy, flash down, we see main shoots, cut Nick, Alex Butch, Sonny on behalf of s Basic, Welcome home.
And there you have it.
The side hatch is open for the first time since September.
Oh, looks like we're getting our next crew member here. That is none other than Sonny Williams. Big smile, big waves. She, like her other crew members, now will be assisted onto the Nobility Aid.
There we have it. Some waves, some thumbs up and some smiles.
Well you did you and got some food and missed a key moment of it, but I was glued to the screen.
Hi, y'all, let's bring in Professor Alan Duffy. Now, good morning, professor. What a cue teacher day yesterday, I'm gathering it all went to plan.
Yes, good morning. It was a great outcome, absolutely perfect de orbit landing, and they even got a pod of dolphins to greet them, which is one of the more surreal experiences. It was incredible, right.
It was like watching a movie watching that whole scene play out. As an expert in the field, were you watching it with any nerves or trepidation or did you just know that it was going.
To work out?
No, No, I was worried for the crew. There's a few stages which are incredibly dangerous. That there's the one where you're coming from essentially twenty eight thousand kilometers an hour and slowing down, burning through the atmosphere. That's very dangerous. I guess the sixteen hundred degrees on the outside, there's flames flicking up over the windows. These are the really dangerous which is.
One it looked like a bit of a burnt marshmallow, right, What's happening to your body when you're traveling that quickly?
Yeah, so look you're getting an incredibly violent roller coaster. It's been described as so the crew are coming from this kind of serene experience sitting in orbit. They haven't walked for nine months, they haven't felt gravity, the weight of gravity, They've become very frail, and then they have to go through that on the way down, which becomes an extremely grueling physical experience. Just two minutes and it's over.
Was about to say how long would that part be? Just the two minutes, because all that was it a seventeen hour trip home.
Yes, so seventeen hours of agonizingly boring I think tension building orbits of the Earth getting ever closer until finally they go in for that last plunge through the atmosphere.
So they press the button like they decide when they plunge.
No, they've got no control there.
They just strapped in.
They're strapped in the moment from the space station. They've got a seventeen hour automated roller coaster.
This might be a stupid question, go here we go. Is there any sort of on board entertainment?
I knew you were going to ask for seventeen.
Hours, I'm sorry, Like you download a podcast or something, wouldn't you.
It's a great question. There's a lot of there's a lot of screens monitors on board the Dragon particularly, it's it's drag. Yeah, the Dragon capsule. It's made by SpaceX. Same that's a Lottle Master. It's the same as test Us. So there are screens that it looks like an incredible tesla. And but my understanding is there are no entertainment. There's no movie streaming. You might sneak a podcasts through the earpiece,
but I think they probably would prefer the astronauts. Wow, focusing on the mission.
So it's obviously, like you said, like a violent rollercoaster for a couple of minutes coming in and then you saw those we also those extraordinary pictures of them floating down to land in the ocean, coming in through the atmosphere is very dangerous. What about the parent like the parachutes to me just looked so basic. Is that like, were you scaring that part or once the parachutes had come out, were you like, no, we are safe as houses now.
Yeah. No, it was the big moment for the parachutes are the deployment. When they fully perfectly deploys and you get four of them, then you know you're fine. But yes, there was always there's always a sort of a heart in the mouth moment watching for the deployment. If they tangle, then yeah, very bad day. So yes, thankfully it was a perfect deployment. There's even if you lose one, you can still descend safely. But yes, that was another scary moment for sure.
We are on the air with Professor Alan Duffy this morning. We are talking about Butcher and Sunny, the astronauts returning to Earth. After what nine months? They were saying, because you know, zero gravity nine months, they wouldn't be able to obviously walk straight away. But then I've just seen shots this morning of them getting off a plane back at NASA. So is that almost like a pins and needles job, You just got to slightly work your legs until they kick in or would they just have no muscle?
Yeah? No, so's there's two issues they're facing. The first is that sitting on board the space station, they haven't felt the weight of gravity quite literally, I mean their bodies have been floating for nine months, meaning they've become frailer, the muscles have wasted away, the bones have even become less dense, they've aged, essentially have become very frail. On the other challenge, they also don't they haven't walked for ninemens. They haven't got a sense of down, a direction of down.
So once they finally get on the Earth and their bodies are feeling this is the direction down, it confuses the inn ear. They get unbalanced. In other words, they have to regain their land legs and they come off swaying and very confused as well as frail. So if they then do full they really can hurt themselves, which is usually why they're off in stretchers or wheelchairs and off actual and that key key first few hours.
Hey, professor, what did they be? Gods? They were stuck up there for so much longer than they anticipated. Were they given extra tasks? Like did they achieve anything that they weren't actually initially set out to do?
Yeah, that's great question. They had lots of duties. They pulled their weight while up there. There's always tasks to fix this aging space station, but in particular there are a lot of science experience. I think Butcher clocked nine hundred hours of science experimentation up there my own Unich swimmer and we actually fly up experiments every year to the space station with schools across the country. So these are Sadly, I'm not sure that any of ours were
getting helped by bus that would call moment. But yes, there's a lot of science done on board the space station.
Exactly were they how far away from land from Earth were they on the space station?
Yes? So the space station orbits about four hundred kilometers above our heads. It doesn't lap. It's really a few hours at highway speeds to get up there. It's a very In fact, it's close enough and it's big enough the space station that during sunset, if the timing is just right, you can actually see the space station so overhead. Is this the brightest star in the night sky? And it would slowly move across across the sky in a couple of minutes.
Space freaks, man, that's pretty.
Well.
I recently watched Matt Damon in The Martian where he grew the potatoes because he was stuck on Mars. Enough food at the space station for the nine months they were stuck their head. How they go with supplies?
Yeah, look, they do grow a little bit of food up there. Mostly let us another other perishables, get some you know, actual variety in their diet. Most of it. Yes, it's packaged up. It's their little squishy sacks food. It's not great. It doesn't look very fun. Well, the biggest challenge is they can't. They've got no sense of taste or smell because without gravity to pull all the fluids from your head to your feet like we have every day, it just builds up. It swells your sinuses. It's like
you've got a cold for nine months. You cannot smell taste anything.
Oh would be so fit if we couldn't smell or taste.
Hey, professor, bro Bro, Professor, do you believe in aliens?
I do? I think there are so many habitable We have now discovered so many twins of the Earth in our galaxy alone. We've not yet found life on any of them. But the chances are billions to one against alone, So I think the stats have to play out the way.
Alon's really work getting Do you think he's going to get there in our lifetime.
Bro, I actually think he does. He's a billionaire who has the most powerful rocket in the world.
We're taking the Tesla's and we're going to Mars, Baby.
Professor, our and Duffy joining us on the air Mate, thank you so much. That was a great insight. We appreciated that.
I think Smith, imagine you serious.
You would have had a few yesterday watching that thing. My an, Professor, I'm actually training for a run. I had nothing coffee, I know, but it was it was a ninety year What am I going to do?
No time doesn't count in space, Professor, Like the international departures at the airport, Champagne is fine at anytime. Jason Lauren Jason Lauren Wake Up Feeling Good on number one hundred.
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