life in the darkness

Yesterday was a brilliant day. After breakfast I had a cup of tea and a bath then got ready to go to see Tim Peake. The show was called, Tim Peake, My journey to space. The hall was half full. It started off very loud. The vibrations came through your chest and the feeling of exhilaration was probably palpable among all of us. A huge explosion, and crackles like a firework sparkler on steroids, then we were off! Tim appeared in his space suit. , huge version of trousers but with tubes made of metal going through them lwith visors and things to keep him safe in space. I was lucky enough to step into one once, when at college. I also got the chance to go into a capsule too! I’ll never forget that. It was extremely high up, and literally shaped like a ball, but cut in half. As the door was open. Or rather, hatch. Rather like the part of the ball that ceils the ball shut, was taken off. I had to ly on my back.

Back to Tim. Off we were taken, up into space! The 4 stages of launch, included boosters being used, silence, and a slight problem with docking onto the space station once we had metaphorically arrived! It was metaphorically, Tim taking us up there with him! That’s how I felt anyway! So, we were now taken to the space station, but, if we wanted to metaphorically become astronauts, we had a lot of training to do first! Which included, a 33 back to back nose up and down flight on an air craft, formally known as the Vomit Comit! Why? Because if you made it through that without throwing up, you were lucky!

After gruelling training that took at least 2 years, we were metaphorically, ready! Tim was our commander, and we were off! So we went through the launch again, having said goodbye to everyone down on earth, which after listening to Mr Peake, seemed like miles away! On the metaphoric journey, we were now on the space station, the ISS. And we had tasks to do. But… Erm, how do you do them when floating? Ask Mr Peake! He explained that one had to hold onto the walls of the module to enable oneself to get round corners and things. I tried to imagine floating through my bedroom door half way between sitting and standing! Very very weird! The space-walk was the most interesting of his talk though. The description he gave was rather like being on the edge of a black drop into nothingness! He called an obiss. He said he felt very isolated as there was just him and his crew mate, also called Tim, out there on their own! He then described the stars, lightning strikes every second somewhere on earth. 16 sunrises and sunsets every day. Flying into the aurora borealis and the aurora australis (The northern and Southern lights) He said flying directly into them was like flying into a green fog! Sitting in my chair, I tried to imagine it. I only wish I could see just to see that beauty! People describe it like beautiful music, but it’s never, ever, going to be the same as seeing it! I only wish I could have met Mr Peake, after the talk, but sadly, it wasn’t to be! I would love to have a chat with an astronaut though, just to ask them questions like, Can you hear in Space? What do you hear in launch, in between the noise of launch and the arrival where it goes completely silent? What do you hear on reentry? What’s it like on a spacewalk? What does it feel like? Is it cold in the ISS? Or warm? Do you feel wind or anything up there even if it’s a vacuum. How do you deal with medical issues in space? What’s it like to see lightning strikes on earth from up there? What space debris can you see? What does sunset and sunrise look like in space? What’s it like to get back onto earth and what do you feel like when you have to stand up etc? How do you hear each other in space? Why are voices slightly lower in pitch? Or higher? What’s it like when things go wrong? How would you evacuate if things went wrong, because you’d be in space? What does dobking feel like?

I have a lot of questions that I would love answered. Again, thank you Major Peake for that brilliant brilliant talk! Thank you for reading your autobiography on audible, which I have now downloaded! It will be good to hear your voice reading it. Next time, please, can I meet you!