Gulf News spoke to Nasa astronaut Thomas Marshburn to understand how astronauts feel during liftoff.
Category
đź—ž
NewsTranscript
00:00All your senses are saying, we've done this before, but you're very excited.
00:10What's very different is before the launch, the rocket, certain things that you can hear
00:15on the outside that you never hear on the inside, like clouds opening and the umbilical
00:20cord is very disconnected.
00:21When you hear the bang, you start to move a little bit, and you realize you're at the
00:25top of a very, very tall rocket.
00:29And then of course, when it launches, you feel it.
00:32How does it feel?
00:33How do you feel inside?
00:34Do you feel the vibrations?
00:36Oh yeah, it's a combination of being incredibly excited, but at the same time, you want to
00:42do a good job.
00:43And yes, it shakes your whole body, everything on the inside, you start to shake.
00:48And then you feel the pressure in your chest, and then as it accelerates, you feel your
00:55legs start to get pulled back, and everything starts to sink down into the seat.
00:59And when that's happening, you have to work your jaw and kind of move your head back and
01:04forth.
01:05You have a little device stuck in the side as you need it to kind of press your nose
01:08in, so you can clear your ears.
01:09What does 4G feel like to the body?
01:12It feels like a lot of suction, like a magnet pulling you back.
01:18It can be a little hard to swallow, because your esophagus can kind of squeeze.
01:23So when you swallow, you have to work it a little bit.
01:27A little bit hard to breathe.
01:29After a few minutes of that, because eight and a half minutes, after about eight minutes
01:33of it, your body's getting tired, and you start to breathe in sips.
01:37So breathing shorter as well.
01:40Your body fatigues a little bit, all the pressure.
01:43But from with gravity to zero gravity, how does it feel?
01:48Oh, that's, yeah, it's sudden.
01:50Not only does suddenly all that force go away, but also it's very quiet.
01:55It's very quiet.
01:56All you can hear is the fan on the inside that keeps the air circulating.
02:00And it's wonderful, because you feel everything on the inside rise up.
02:05And some people feel like they just tilted upside down.
02:09What was your first reaction when you saw those things flying around?
02:14It's an absolute, I think it's magical.
02:18For more information visit www.FEMA.gov