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00:00Right now there is a shift change going on, not a normal workplace handover, it's
00:05one that's going on 400 kilometres above our heads in the International Space
00:08Station in the sky. It's moving the platform around 28,000 kilometres an hour,
00:14it's orbiting the earth every 90 minutes. Inside that capsule, astronauts Butch
00:19Williams and Sonny Wilmore, they were finally being relieved of duty on what's
00:24supposed to be an eight-day mission but they've been stranded for the last nine
00:28months now. This is the moment the capsule was opened and the handover
00:31space team were greeted. There it is, confirmation that the Dragon Hatch is
00:37open. That time of hatch opening is 1235 a.m. Central Time on March 16th, 2025.
00:49Onishi, the first Crew 10 astronaut through the hatch. So in the end they
00:59had to wait to hitch a ride back to earth on a specially made SpaceX rocket
01:03because of technical problems with the experimental Boeing aircraft, one that
01:07was being tested to rival SpaceX missions in future. Slightly embarrassing
01:10for Boeing, say insiders, Butch and Sonny though, they are due to return in the
01:15next couple of days. So questions how, why has it taken so long and what's it
01:19been like for them? Fewer than 800 people have been into space. One of them is my
01:24next guest, Michel Tonini, a distinguished, celebrated French astronaut,
01:29test pilot, engineer who's made significant contributions to space
01:32exploration and has logged 19 days in space across two missions including 14
01:38days on the Mir space station. Michel beautifully describes a human side of
01:43life in a book, A Coffee in Space, and he joins us now from northern France. Pleasure,
01:49a delight to talk to you Michel this evening. Can I ask you first, I want to
01:52talk about your book and having a coffee in space in a moment, but what was going
01:56through your mind when you saw those images today, the final replacement shift
01:59arriving, what were you thinking of? Well it's always a nice time when you are in
02:06space for a long time and you get a new crew because the only problem you have
02:10in space is you miss new figures, new faces, you always see the same
02:15person every day, so new crew arriving on the space station is
02:21always a nice moment. But I would say the two astronauts, Sonny William and Butch
02:27Wilmore, that I know very well because I was in training at NASA with them,
02:31feeling very good and I talked to them in November during the Astronaut
02:35Congress in the Netherlands and they felt very good, in a good spirit, so I
02:42don't worry at all for them and I know that the media told that they were
02:47stuck in space and they couldn't come back, but this is not true. Well I guess
02:53let's look at that because on the term stranded and being being stuck, there's a
02:56number of issues at play here aren't there, because on the level of there was
03:00a fault, there was a technical issue with the Boeing, so therefore they couldn't go
03:04back with that or NASA at least, Boeing said they would go back up, but
03:07NASA had said they wouldn't have zero risk when it came to their life, they
03:12wanted to keep as low as possible, so that moves on to Elon Musk. Now Elon Musk,
03:16let's take a listen to what he had to say, this is a couple of weeks ago, on
03:19the idea that they could have been brought back earlier, but he claimed it
03:24was all political. Let's take a listen.
03:28Are you still rescuing those people that are stuck in the space station? Yeah,
03:32that's coming up in a couple weeks I think. Whoa. Okay, so here's Elon Musk
03:38saying the rescues operation is ongoing, let's take a listen to what he says
03:41about the politics involved. My first question is, is that true and if so what
03:49would that have looked like, was he offering to make another flight, push
03:52seats on another flight, could you give us some background there?
03:57I can only say that Mr. Musk, what he says is absolutely factual,
04:05we have no information on that though whatsoever, what was offered, what was
04:09what was not offered, who was offered to, how that process went, that's information
04:13that we simply don't have, so I believe him, I don't know all those details and I
04:18don't think any of us really can give you the answer that maybe that you would
04:21be hoping for. So we heard the butch response there,
04:23Michelle, I should say that Elon Musk went on to say, we heard a little bit of
04:26that, that it was ultimately he claimed down to the Biden administration, he
04:31offered to pick them up earlier and he said it's politically, they told him to
04:34wait until after the election, now we haven't heard back from the Biden
04:37administration, NASA said that's not true, but Butch appeared to say I agree
04:41with what Elon Musk is saying, which, what's your make, take of that, because
04:46clearly these two astronauts are prepared to stay longer, but it looks
04:49like that from an outside looking in, they very much could have potentially
04:54come home a lot earlier. Okay, the fact is that they came to space for a flight of
04:59eight days and the Starliner didn't work properly and there were a few engines not
05:04working nicely because of a helium leak, this happened a lot because the engine
05:09on Starliner, the hydrazine engine, are the same as the one that we use on the
05:14space shuttle, so it is not an unusual fact and when they couldn't come back
05:20with a Starliner, Starliner came back alone and they stay on the space station,
05:24but we asked them if they agreed to stay longer and the process we have for the
05:30rotation of crew on the space station is to have one crew vehicle arriving to the
05:36space station every three months, so the next one was a Crew Dragon arriving
05:41in September with two persons on board instead of four and the goal was to
05:46return with four persons instead of two, the two coming in September plus the two
05:52of Starliner, so that was a plan, but obviously we ask always to the astronaut
05:57if they agree to stay longer or not, this is not the first time Russian
06:01cosmonauts also stayed longer in space at several times, they could have come
06:08back earlier, but you know, space for us is really something that we really enjoy
06:13and when you fly in space for one week and they ask you to stay longer, it's
06:19always a benefit for you, it's like if you say you go to the special island for
06:22one week but maybe you can stay six months, you say yes, this is because
06:28you get used, you get a very good process, and after a while you
06:34feel so good in space, you don't want to come back here. Well to the extent
06:39Michelle, it is fascinating to hear and also brilliant actually to have you on
06:43right now Gavin, you've met them both, you can attest to their
06:46personalities because this was a press conference a couple of weeks ago that
06:50Sonny and Butch were inside the capsule and we were hearing, inside the
06:54station, we were hearing from organised through NASA and Sonny Williams has asked
06:58what was the biggest challenge, let's have a listen to what what she said.
07:02Immediately it brings to mind family and all the people on the ground to support
07:06us, so you know it's been a roller coaster for them, probably a little bit
07:11more so than for us, you know, we're here, we have a mission, we're just doing what
07:16we do every day and you know every day is interesting because we're up in space
07:19and it's a lot of fun, so I think the hardest part is you know having the
07:24folks on the ground have to not know exactly when we're coming back.
07:28She called it her happy place, it goes, attests to what you've just been talking
07:32about a moment ago. Lots of questions when it comes to your experience and
07:36what would be going on in there. First of all, are you trained as an astronaut in
07:40cohabitation, how to get on with each other in the event of a long mission
07:44like this? So we have two processes to get a long long for a long duration of
07:50flight. The first one is we make a selection, we make the selection with a
07:55lot of a barrier, psychological tests, so we want to be sure that the psychological
08:01behavior of the astronaut will be good for a long duration flight and this is
08:05not easy, this is not for everybody. I can tell you that I know some astronauts
08:10from the former time that didn't like to stay a long duration flight in
08:15space and then when they are selected, we provide what we call HBP for human
08:21behavior and performance, which is a special training that you do every year
08:25on the special conditions like in the mountain, underwater, under the ground, in
08:30the cold or in survival. So you do that every year by time of two weeks and each
08:37of the training you get with new crew members that you will fly with or not, so
08:42after five or six years you start to know all the people and you suffer
08:49so much during this training that going to space compared to that is really easy.
08:53Wow, what was your biggest challenge on the MIR space station? So this was
08:58basically an orbital outpost that lasted 15 years, I think Russian led in the
09:03beginning, that became an international endeavor as well, so talk about the
09:06conditions, the calibrations, oxygen, nitrogen, I think it was certainly more
09:10rough and ready wasn't it than the International Space Station is now, tell
09:14us about that. The MIR space station was the previous
09:18standard of space station, so it was not so comfortable than today. For instance, on
09:23the International Space Station today, you have a lane which is you have a
09:27computerized link between all the parts of the modules and you have a laptop in
09:33any place of the space station to see and to command all the system of your
09:40space station, but also to see on the second laptop all the checklists
09:44corresponding to your actions, so this is really really convenient that we didn't
09:49have on the MIR space station. And also on this space station, we have an
09:55international cooperation which is fixed, for instance you have a European module,
09:58Columbus, where European astronauts can go and work and do science for the
10:04benefit of Europeans, but also on this Columbus module you have also Japanese,
10:09Canadian and American working on this module, you have also the Japanese
10:14module, Kibo, you have the US lab which is also really important, and you have the
10:19Russian side. One good aspect of this mission on the Starliner with
10:25Butch and Jenny William is that we did for them what we call OPT, which is
10:31on-board training. These people were going to fly for one week only, but after
10:37the failure of Starliner, we asked them to stay nine months, but nine months they
10:42were not prepared for a nine months flight, so we had to give all the
10:46certification weeks after weeks, to give all the training while they are in space,
10:51and the instructor was on the ground, to teach them and to make qualification, so
10:57they were able to do all the job as an astronaut, to do EVA, extravehicular
11:01activity, to do the robotic action, and to do all the docking part and the docking
11:05system operation that we have to do regularly, like every month. So this is
11:10the first time we do OPT in space with such a way, and this is really good
11:15for us. Tell us about one thing that, when I'm in conversation about this, it
11:20always comes up, what they will be eating every day there. Is it mostly carbs,
11:24vegetables, any fresh fruits, and how's it changed since you were at the Mir
11:28station, the type of thing that you would have been eating in little
11:31kind of meals ready-to-eat packets, I imagine? When I flew on the Russian
11:36space station, I had Russian food, so you have to get used to the Russian food, you
11:39have to like borscht and stuff like this, but it's like camping food, it's
11:45not so good. But today, we have like 500 meals to choose before your flight. Most
11:51of it is dry food, but you have also cans, and now we have also like a
11:56chef, like a chef, you know, a cook that makes good cuisine for you, and one day
12:05of your flight, you can have the food for you and for your crew to share with. So
12:09this is really a good time for people to have a very nice food, and to talk
12:14about the food, and also all the culture going with the food. Tell us about Coffee
12:18in Space, because this is a really interesting book that you've brought out.
12:23I imagine you're, first of all, just the idea, I guess, that you set out to be
12:28human, actually trying to find moments of Zen, moments where you can breathe and
12:31relax, and that comes with with Coffee in Space as well. I also imagine your
12:35taste buds are deeply affected by being up there. The Coffee in Space is a story
12:42that I talk to people when I meet people, and during my first flight, we
12:49launched from Baikonur with the Soyuz rocket, and after two days on the Soyuz
12:54rocket, on the Soyuz spacecraft, you join the Mir space station. So you are tired
12:58because it's like not very comfortable, so you are a little bit exhausted, you
13:02don't feel very well, you have all the feeling of being in space, like
13:08motion sickness, and not so good, and during the docking, the docking is going
13:13very slowly, so we are behind the space station, we go slowly, and you stop
13:16every 10 kilometers, so you stop at 50 kilometers, and then 30 kilometers, and
13:22there is a time where you wait to be on the dead time to get to do the docking.
13:26So we have to wait a long time, so we were doing the night, so imagine yourself
13:30on a small capsule, which is three cubic meter, and you stay with three people,
13:35three of us, and the people on the space station talk to us, and there was a blank,
13:41there was a time where it was free, we could say whatever we wanted, and
13:45they told us, how do you feel? We said, well, we feel very good, we are very excited to
13:50join the space station very soon, and imagine you are 28,000 kilometers an hour,
13:56you are at 400 kilometers, you are above the atmosphere, and the Russian
14:00cosmonauts ask us, okay, you're going to join to dock very soon, what do you want to
14:06drink after docking? Do you want tea, or coffee? Do you want coffee with sugar, or with no sugar, or coffee with milk?
14:15You see the difference between the time when you feel so
14:19concentrated on your mission, you feel the docking is going to join, and docking
14:24is something very special during the flight, and people ask you, do you want coffee
14:28with sugar, or with no sugar? So the difference between the tone of what they said, and the
14:33thing that I had at the time, was so extreme, so I decided to make a book, Occupy Space.
14:40I love it. Let's take a look at this, on that theme, because I believe actually a
14:44few years ago as well, Lavazza got in on the act, and he brought in what they
14:46called a espresso machine inside for a trial there, but let's take a look,
14:51this is Major Tim Peake, back in 2016, on the International Space Station, this is
14:55his coffee moment. Let's go find a cup of coffee.
15:18So now our coffee packet is filled with nice hot water, we just need a little
15:23plastic straw, insert the straw, take the cap off,
15:31and drink. You and Tim, Michelle, one of few people
15:36that know what space coffee tastes like. Briefly, we've got 30 seconds or so, but I
15:40would like, you astounded me, surprised me, the idea that actually you'd
15:43want to spend as long as possible in space, given that you're there in the
15:47moment. What's your take on the Mars mission being planned for 2029, 2031 for
15:51humans, and would you say yes if you were asked? Well, I would say yes, even
15:57today, I mean, not today because I am not training today, but tomorrow I can go.
16:02You know, we are about 600 astronauts in the world, from China, from
16:09Russia, from America, from Europe, and if you ask all of them if they want to fly
16:14in space, they would say yes, even for a very, very long flight. The problem going
16:19to Mars is not the longer duration of the flight on Mars, it's the fact that you
16:23have so many radiation that you will die after 45 days. So today we are not ready
16:28to go to Mars, we need to go around the Moon for a shorter flight in order to
16:33prepare and to protect ourselves from the radiations. Delighted to talk to you
16:37Michelle. Michel Tognini, a celebrated French astronaut, brilliant to hear your
16:42experiences too. Thank you for joining us.