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Italian astronaut meets HCT students

Italian astronaut, Maurizio Cheli had a detailed interaction with the students of Higher Colleges of Technology(HCT) Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. The meeting followed the signing of Memorandum of Understanding between Italian Space Agency and the UAE Space Agency on Monday

Italy signs MoU with UAE on space cooperation The Italian Ambassador to Abu Dhabi, Liborio Stellino, wants to take the bilateral relations to a much higher level, which includes space. The annual US$7 billion trade between Italy and the UAE is not enough. "We cooperate with the UAE in many fields, but if you want a strategic partnership, you have to go beyond the ordinary," he told Khaleej Times. On Monday, the Italians went indeed beyond the ordinary, when the Italian Space Agency signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UAE Space Agency. "We agreed on multi-disciplinary cooperation, including training and research programmes," said the ambassador. Stellino stated they wish to bring to this partnership a lot of expertise, as the Italian Space Agency was established 50 years ago. "Over this time we sent several astronauts into the space."

Cheli shared his trilling experience of travelling to space with the students. A lieutenant colonel in the Italian Air Force, Cheli, was one of the six European astronauts sent by the European Space Agency in 1992 to train at Nasa and four years later he was among the seven cockpit crew to fly the space shuttle Colombia for a 16-day mission.
"Ever since I was a kid I dreamt of flying and I never let go of that desire," Cheli told the HCT students.
It took him a lot of patience and dedication to make it to space. Looking back, he says, it was not very difficult, "but it would not have been possible without passion to reach for the stars."
"Passion is the biggest engine we have; it is what inspires and motivates us," he said.
Years of training don't quite prepare one for the actual experience of going beyond the atmosphere.
"The launch of a space shuttle is extremely physical; the first two minutes you shake and vibrate with the machines," described Cheli.
He said the liquid nitrogen is burned at 260 degrees for fuel and feels like sitting on a bomb.
"In less than 40 seconds you go supersonic and in two minutes you fly five times the speed of sound. Eventually, you reach over 25 times the speed of sound!"
"There are 1,300 switches in the cockpit and physically you cannot lean over to switch one; you need the competency of several people sitting next to you. If you press the wrong switch at the wrong time, you blow up!"
Cheli explained that the space shuttle travels for the first two minutes or 220 kilometres vertically, then gradually starts flying horizontally like an airplane.
Once it goes beyond the gravitational field, things start to become fun, he said. Individual meals, planned months in advance come from a drawer and are often the subject of trade among crew as an omelette at 12pm today may not be as appealing as you might have thought when you put it on the menu all these weeks ago.
Everyone has a sleeping bag for sleeping, but not a bed, as in the lack of gravitation, everyone floats.
"This posed a problem for people who cannot sleep without a pillow, since the pillow would float around. So Nasa came up with this idea of just strapping the pillow to the head," said Cheli.
The shuttle travelled to the lower orbit, just 400 kilometres "up" from Earth. It was far, yet close enough to see and recognise different countries and continents. These were often lessons in geography, but also in sustainability.
"Pollution, deforestation, these are issues you read about in newspapers, but from out there they become pictures! You see the forests gone from the Amazon, or a massive cloud of carbon dioxide covering an area of China, underneath which millions of people live," said Cheli, making a pledge for sustainability.
For him, the experience of flying out into space was most memorable at the time of the return! Since the shuttle has to land at sunrise, the journey back to Earth starts in the night.
"When you enter the atmosphere you have to drop the speed from 25,000 kilometres per hour to 2800 kilometres per hour," he pointed out.
This means the shuttle has to "break" creating heat reaching 1,600 degrees.
"You become a bowl of fire, which is right in front of your nose! When you look out of the window, all you see is flames in multiple colours, from white to red to orange and pink. It's something really incredible!"
With no chance of turning back, the shuttle is landed by computer calculations, landing at 600 kilometres per hour!
Cheli advised the future UAE space engineers and astronauts to follow their passion. He also asked them to care for the blue planet, which looks out of this world, when explored from high up there!
silvia@khaleejtimes.com

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