“Some astronauts compare it to a series of car crashes… and I wouldn’t disagree”
If you ever wondered what’s it like to take a round trip from the Earth to orbit and back, then Jack Fischer has all your answers. Fischer, a now-retired NASA astronaut, spent about nine years with NASA before returning to the US Air Force in 2018. He came back to Earth from the International Space Station in 2017 and described the ride as nothing less than a series of car crashes.
Fischer shared his experience on Twitter and posted a video in which he, along with NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson and Roscosmos cosmonaut Fyodor Yurichikhin can be seen huddled in their seats on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft while the spacecraft shakes and rattles around them, giving them a free bumpy ride on the way back home.
When we think of space travel, we often imagine the gravity-less atmosphere and floating around inside the spacecraft like a weightless balloon but the reality is far from that. Reaching the orbit and coming back to Earth offers a bizarre experience of jerks and bumps similar to riding a very bumpy rollercoaster and at higher speeds. Fischer also shared a video of the stunning window view of the reentry. “I came home from space four years ago this week, and if you’ve ever wondered what it looks like when you travel through this atmosphere — here you go,” Fischer wrote in the tweet.
It’s been 4 years since Fischer came back to Earth but seems like he’s still reminiscing the old memories of traveling to space and all the sceneries he got to witness along the way.
