Former Nasa scientist Dr. Ravi Mardasayam discusses Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore's return after 286 days in space.
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00:00Okay, let's go straight across to Dr. Ravi Margasayam.
00:03He's a former NASA scientist who's worked closely with various NASA space missions.
00:09He's in Florida at the moment.
00:11Appreciate your joining us.
00:12First, let me turn to you.
00:13When you saw that wonderful moment, Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore finally landing
00:18back on Earth after almost nine months in space, your first reactions, relieved?
00:25Well, welcome home.
00:28Yeah, I've been in the midst of many challenges with NASA for 38 years.
00:35And one of the things I always thought that, you know, I couldn't bring Kalpana Chawla
00:38back home safely.
00:41And this time, yes, we were on tenterhooks.
00:44Yeah, we were really concerned about it.
00:47But also, we knew that NASA team and the SpaceX team would do a great job because it's all
00:53about putting your full effort and, you know, anything can go wrong.
00:59But I was very happy to get them back.
01:01They were never stranded there, nor they were stuck.
01:05You know, this was a plan by NASA to continue their journey because I've been in space exploration
01:12and human space exploration for 30 years.
01:16And you know, we take advantage of humans in space because we extended mankind's reach
01:21to low Earth orbit.
01:23And with that, I want people to understand that they were never struck, or NASA didn't
01:28fail.
01:29You know, it's just a new plan we decided to extend their stay.
01:34Like, you know, if you go from here to Dubai, from Mumbai to Dubai, you don't want to stay
01:37one hour and come back, you know, you understand, spend 10 days there.
01:43And imagine I got in 1970, we got three astronauts stranded from the moon on Apollo 13.
01:50So 240 miles is nothing for me, you know, and we have already docked Soyuz rockets.
01:56So what happens?
01:57Let's say if there's a fire on ISS, you know, we can't ask Elon Musk or anybody to send
02:03a rocket to get them because it will take 24 hours.
02:06So that's where Soyuz comes into the picture.
02:09So there is a lot of misrepresentation, misinformation in India and other parts of the world that
02:14they're stuck.
02:15You know, we have to rescue them.
02:17I'm sorry to say it's not.
02:21You know, you alluded there briefly, sir, to Kalpana Chawla and how that mission sadly
02:27ended tragically.
02:28Surely, therefore, the last leg must have kept NASA and its scientists on their toes.
02:32The last leg of the return journey can always be tricky when the SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft
02:38enter re-entered the atmosphere.
02:40Yes, it's always a difficult job.
02:47As they say, I come from the launching world.
02:49I had launched 100 special rockets with 700 humans to space.
02:54And I know the importance of launching.
02:56Launching is always the most difficult part of the program.
03:00But landing is more easy.
03:01But then we found out with a really bad situation with Kalpana Chawla and I still look back
03:08at that and cry every day.
03:10But on this token, when Sumita Williams was coming from SpaceX, yes, we have checked all
03:16the things.
03:17There still can go things can go wrong because space is very unforgiving.
03:23It's like baseball.
03:24When you have like like three strikes and they're out in space, you get one mistake
03:28and you're out.
03:30So that means you have an accident or a disaster or a near miss or a close call, whatever you
03:35call it.
03:36Yes, we are always on our toes.
03:38And that's why we have the best team at NASA to work together.
03:44The extended period of time that they spent in space, do you believe they've made the
03:50best of it?
03:51What, according to you, has NASA gained from Sumita and Barry spending these nine months
03:57out there in space?
04:00Great, great question, great question.
04:04So once we found out that they couldn't come back after eight days, we decided to let them
04:12stay there.
04:13And they were never in any danger because we had supply missions from not only a Cygnus
04:20rocket and SpaceX and Soyuz and Progress to supply food and shelter food for them.
04:28So if you look at it that respect, we extended the stay because we want to do experiments
04:34in space.
04:35So what is our ultimate goal to send humans, make them live and work in space?
04:40And we have been doing that for 25 years now without any hassle.
04:44So on this thing, we did a lot of microgravity experiments, studying yeast samples, a lot
04:53of biomanufacturing, exploring how nutrients work in space and deep space missions.
05:01We also did a lot of water recovery system, which is very important for long duration
05:07travel in space, gardening, waste management, water management, improve sustainability.
05:13The whole aspect of long duration space, when I say long duration, I'm talking about more
05:18than three months to six months to nine months, you know, and this is what we are talking
05:23about going to moon, I mean, Mars will evolve.
05:28And that's where we did a lot of experiments, over 600 science, individual science missions,
05:37More than 600 science experiments carried out by Sunita and Barry in space.
05:43From a final question, from a personal point of view, how do you think Sunita Williams
05:48will now have to adjust to being back on earth after over 280 days in space?
05:52There have been concerns expressed over her health.
05:55Are you confident that she will be healthy enough maybe to go back to the space in the
05:59near future?
06:00Well, if you ask me and knowing Sunita, I launched the first two Indian women to space
06:08and I launched Kalpana twice.
06:11Second time I didn't get her back.
06:12I launched Suni in STS-116 and got her back immediately in STS-117 mission in 2006 and
06:202007.
06:21So as far as I'm concerned, if you ask her now, she says, I want to go back.
06:25But NASA won't let her do that.
06:27But yes, we have seen astronauts stay there more than 286 days, which is for Sunita Williams.
06:34She will adjust.
06:36Because don't forget that we continuously monitor them 24-7 in space, 365 days.
06:43We have doctors, we have instruments there in space, we make sure that they're monitored
06:49not only for all the physiological or psychological problems and the blood samples, dosimeters
06:56for radiation, and then they do exercises.
07:00So basically, they're part of the human research facility, HRF, where we are controlling how
07:09they feel.
07:10Now, let's say Sunita Williams got sick about six months ago or three months, I mean, not
07:14six months ago, three months ago, instead of 286 days, after 100 days, she got sick.
07:21I could put her on SOUs and get her back.
07:24So there was no problem at all.
07:26And NASA doctors are continuously working with ISS.
07:29And we have all kinds of telemedicine going on, including understanding of cancer, blood,
07:34you know, we have a centrifuge to check the blood tests and stuff like that.
07:38When she came to the ground, yes, it will take her six weeks, maybe six months to recoup.
07:44But yes, it will be slow.
07:46But sure, I've seen astronauts coming back from space to humans, they were sleeping literally
07:51like that.
07:52I mean, I've seen Andy Thomas from Australia, he stayed more than 300 days there.
07:55So it's like, you know, we do have a problem for her to adjust the bodily functions and
08:00stuff like that.
08:01But it's not nothing new that we don't know.
08:05We know all the details of how to counteract or countermeasure.
08:10Well, that's very reassuring.
08:12What you're saying is Sunita could be back in space, who knows, in the near future.
08:17I appreciate you, Dr. Margus, I am joining me there from Florida, giving us in a way
08:22an insider's view from NASA.
08:25Thanks so much.