But while space travel is undeniably equal parts awesome and scary, it turns out that going into space isn’t what frightens those who leave Earth.
In fact, it’s travelling back down to Earth that is the most terrifying part of the whole ordeal.
Several astronauts appeared on a 2018 National Geographic documentary called One Strange Rock, in which they claimed the re-entry to Earth is ‘the most dangerous thing an astronaut will ever do.’
(Paul Hennessy/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Apparently the journey is even worse if you happen to be sitting on a window seat, because if you look out the window, you’ll see ‘orange and purple flames of 3,000 degrees’ right outside where you’re sitting.
“That’s pretty freaking scary,” one astronaut said, while another added, “Flying the Russian Soyuz is a little bit, like, maybe, flying a meteorite home.”
That’s because on the journey back into Earth, the vessels the astronauts are travelling in hurtles into the atmosphere at eyewatering speeds of around 17,500 miles per hour.
In fact, it’s so fast that a spacecraft re-entering Earth is actually even faster than the speed of sound—beyond anything most of us Earthlings can even comprehend.
Unsurprisingly, space travel comes with a lot of risk, and spending time in space can cause a myriad of effects on the human body – I’d ask Frank Rubio, who spent a year in space.
Earlier this month, it was announced that four astronauts who had recently returned to Earth after spending 200 days in space in the SpaceX Dragon capsule were hospitalized.
SpaceX’s Crew-8 landed on October 25 (Paul Hennessy/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The team landed in Florida on October 25, and one astronaut received immediate medical care; however, NASA later announced that all members would be sent to the hospital.
Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps, and Alexander Grebenkin were taken to Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola hospital in Florida to be evaluated ‘out of an abundance of caution’.
All four have since been released and are said to be in good health, NASA has confirmed; however, they declined to explain the reasoning behind the hospitalisation.
They wrote in a blog post: “To protect the crew member’s medical privacy, specific details on the individual’s condition and identity will not be shared.”
Regardless of the reason, it’s probably best that we keep our feet firmly on the earth’s ground and leave it to the professionals.
