three lessons about earth from astronauts

To mark the launch of a free-to-download BBC virtual reality project, three astronauts give us their impressions of floating above the world.

“my first view of earth occurred a few seconds after launch,” says scientist helen sharman, the primary british astronaut. “as soon as the fairing is blown away, mild streamed through the window and i had a view of the pacific ocean – truely splendid, fabulous.”

sharman become 27 whilst she blasted into area to spend 8 days at the russian (then soviet) mir space station in 1991. throughout the task, she spent as much time as she should peering out thru the station portholes on the earth beneath. on her very last night time in orbit, she stored the window blind open to watch the sunrise every 90 mins as the distance station whipped around the planet.

i interviewed sharman for a series of latest 360 movies for the bbc, offering astronauts describing their impressions of searching down on this planet from area. as viewers glide (in reality) above the earth, sharman, us astronaut ron garan and italian luca parmitano describe what it’s want to be in area and the training we will cast off from their reports.

the films had been produced to mark the general public release of the bbc’s severely-acclaimed digital fact (vr) spacewalk. this interactive vr experience, for the htc vive and oculus rift, is to be had to down load totally free (through the steam keep and oculus keep).

luca parmitano: our planet is breathtaking

ecu space corporation astronaut luca parmitano first stepped outside the global area station (iss) at eight.02am on tuesday nine july 2013. the spacewalk – or eva (more vehicular hobby) – involved clamping his toes to one of the station’s robot arms to be carried to his paintings vicinity. “i had a privilege and luxury only a few astronauts are given,” he says. “i had a payload in my hands, so i couldn’t take any photographs and couldn’t go anywhere – for six mins i had virtually nothing to do besides look.”

the spacewalk turned into timed for dawn and, as the iss crossed the atlantic, the sun got here up. “the mild simply explodes,” parmitano says. “i was flying over western africa and on this explosion of light, unexpectedly, there has been the yellow, the red, the red of the dawn.

“within the foreground there has been the deep, deep blue of the ocean under me… white wherein the ocean waves crash into the sand… then the colours of the wilderness – ochre and terracotta. all of this suddenly, it’s now not a slow discovery, it explodes and just takes your breath away.”

ron garan: area puts the earth into attitude

former nasa astronaut ron garan has spent 178 days in area, such as extra than 27 hours out of doors the gap shuttle and iss for the duration of four spacewalks. the reports have transformed his lifestyles and he’s devoted much of his career on the grounds that to conveying what he calls the “orbital attitude” via books, portray and movie. he additionally recently offered the bbc world carrier programme on the voyager missions, space 1977.

“seeing our planet from space, specifically on a spacewalk is an emotional experience,” says garan. “what i experienced turned into a profound experience of gratitude – gratitude for being able to see the planet from that attitude and gratitude for the planet we’ve been given.

“being bodily indifferent from the only international i had ever regarded made me experience deeply interconnected with absolutely everyone on it,” he says. “the iss is, arguably, the maximum complicated shape ever built and what hit me became the realisation that if we were capable of take this level of collaboration and produce it all the way down to the earth’s floor… how plenty further might we progress as a species in fixing our maximum pressing demanding situations?”

helen sharman: remember what’s most important

“i’d like to inform human beings how unimportant fabric stuff is to us,” sharman says when we communicate in her office at imperial university london for the bbc 360 films.

“i’m no longer pronouncing it’s wrong to have a superb purple, vibrant sports activities automobile or the present day in something it's miles people are genuinely after – each to their own, that’s quality – but clearly that’s now not what lifestyles’s really about,” sharman says. “what searching again on the earth made me recognize became the importance of those human relationships in life.

“so long as you’ve were given your very fundamentals for survival, the next maximum vital matters are those character relationships we have,” she adds. “it’s our own family and pals that in the long run are more essential than anything else in the international.”