60-year-old Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli blasted off to the International Space Station
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Euronews’ Judith Prescott spoke to our space correspondent Jeremy Wilks about the mission by 60-year-old Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli to the International Space Station.
Judith Prescott, Euronews: “Jeremy, 60-years-old, third time in space, quite an achievement?”
Jeremy Wilks, Euronews space correspondent: “It’s a massive achievement and of course at that age a lot of people are thinking about retirement, they’re thinking about looking after their garden. Paolo’s going to go up to space and go and spend time five months in space.
“A lot of people are asking about his health: is that going to have an impact on him. Actually of course someone who’s an astronaut is in great physical shape. He was in the military beforehand, he’s been to space twice already. Physically he’s in great great condition.
“But the question is yes, what will happen to his body during that time that he’s in space? We’‘ll only really know when he comes back down in five months’ time.
Judith Prescott: “Third time, as we’ve already said. Do you think he’s made any special preparations this time?”
Jeremy Wilks: “Well he said actually when we spoke to him about this mission that he was going to try to enjoy it. Because they’ve got an awful lot of tasks to do when they’re up there. He’s looking after 50 experiments, he’s got to look after the International Space Station, together with the other crew members, but he said he’s going to try to enjoy it: look out the window, enjoy floating like superman.
“He’s also said that he’s managed to prise a little toy from his son that he’s going to be using in the Soyuz capsule, as a king of indicator of where they are, the weightlessness that they have. So there are nice little personal touches like that that he’s able to bring into this mission.”