Retired NASA astronaut Steve Swanson recalls time aboard space station

"You can float your whole body down into it for the most dramatic views of Earth,” he says. "Looking at it over a period you become familiar of where mountain ranges are, rivers, lakes and oceans and how they interact and watch it change over the seasons. It’s fantastic to get that unique perspective on our planet."

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Swanson is one of the rarefied band of just over 500 humans who have reached Earth orbit, joining NASA in 1987 as a systems and flight engineer, then as a mission specialist on board the shuttles Atlantis in 2007 and Discovery in 2009. 

His last trip to orbit was on board the Russian Soyuz TMA-12M spacecraft in 2014 where he spent six months on the ISS conducting an array of Earth remote-sensing and biology, bone and muscle physiology studies.

Swanson’s extended time in space would require him to take on a more challenging role – as the station’s commander and he had clocked up a total of 195 days in Earth orbit when he left NASA in 2015.

This month he is speaking from Boise State University in Idaho, where he is an educator in residence deploying his extraordinary experience to inspire students in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). 

Last year Swanson and Michael Foale, the British-born astronaut, were inspiring students at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) which has launched a partnership with the International Space School Education Trust (ISSET), one which sees UWS research projects being tested on the ISS.

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The initiative will give the university and its PhD students the opportunity to collaborate with NASA and other US institutions to apply research to challenges faced both on Earth and in space. 

Swanson also joined 200 young people in Paisley for a week-long space school, working to design a science experiment that can be carried out in space as part of Mission Discovery Renfrewshire, working with student mentors from UWS to learn about NASA’s approach to leadership, team building and personal development.

Mission Discovery involves students between 14-18 years old working under the guidance of NASA astronauts and personnel, to design a winning experiment which could benefit the human race to be performed aboard the ISS.

"The kids in Paisley showed tremendous enthusiasm," says Swanson. "Today’s young people are very intuitive and perceptive in their questioning. Sure, a favourite question is ‘how do you go to the bathroom in space’ but there’s also interest in sustainability – what do you do with your trash? – and they think outside the box to apply these problems to the environment of space.

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"Students get really excited about projects that involve space exploration and having had that experience makes it relatively easy for me to motivate them on these educational programmes," he adds.

Easier then, than Swanson’s time on the ISS, which involved four extravehicular activities - EVAs or, to most of us, spacewalks, which involved activities such as building truss segments and solar arrays on to the space station. 

An experience which he describes as a turmoil of emotions: "You’ve been trained for it and you know you are well  secured but you’re out in your own little spacesuit in an alien environment with a very difficult task to do that requires all your concentration and effort.

"Plus, you have a lot of people watching you to make sure you don’t make any mistakes so that’s stressful. Is it terrifying? … Yes."

The Soyuz mission involved living aboard the ISS for six months, a very different challenge from Swanson’s two shuttle missions. "It’s long duration, the pace isn’t so fast and essentially it’s like living a foreign country; you become immersed in the local culture."

And when that culture involves living in microgravity, it ensures a unique experience.

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"When I got back to Earth I had to reincorporate the sensation of gravity into my system," he says. "I found my balance was pretty bad, especially with my eyes closed and no visual reference – I couldn’t take a step without falling over."

Chris Barber, director at ISSET, is interested in advancing the STEM agenda but says the organisation’s aim is to work with a diverse range of abilities and people and, he says, offer them a life with maximum choice. 

"In terms of being role models, Steve and the other people we work with are great. They are doing a job that is quite literally out of this world because every mission involves something that no one has ever done before. Their training, teamwork and effort is a model of how if a group of people tackles any particular problem, whether here or in space, they can solve it."

The Mission Discovery experiments have been sent to the ISS on SpaceX launches and Swanson is happy that a pairing between an agile commercial company and NASA is launching humans into space again from the US. 

And Mars – the next frontier?

"We’ll need a base orbiting the Moon or on the Moon as the proving ground to get our equipment ready for that. I’d go in a heartbeat but it’s a long way off," he says. "What’s good though is the prospect of getting there – and that can only increase the enthusiasm for space exploration."

Read the story in full on Thursday in the March edition of Business HQ