Gregory Olsen's Journey into Space

Russian Soyuz TMA-7 Capsule in Orbit

Have you ever wanted to travel to outer space? Experience weightlessness? So far, only 450 people have ever travelled in space, all but three of them cosmonauts and astronauts.

But for lucky people with the US $20 million for a ticket to space, it's a dream come true. In a couple of weeks, the first female space tourist, Iranian-US businesswoman Anousheh Ansari, will blast off from Russia and travel to the International Space Station in high orbit around the earth.

While Ansari orbits the earth, back in New York, Gregory Olsen will be following her progress - he's one of the three who have been there before. On the eve of the expansion of a very exclusive, club, Olsen tells Orato the amazing story of his own 10-day journey to the Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz TMA-7 capsule last year.

A company called Space Adventures had taken American Dennis Tito and South African Mark Shutlleworth to space. Olsen paid a deposit to be next. Eric Anderson, President of Space Adventures, explained the training phases, cancellation policies, insurances and on October 1, 2005 the mission would leave from Baikonur, Kazakhstan: Soyuz TMA-7.

Olsen had been grounded in June 2004, due to a black spot on one of his lungs, something harmless that went away. He had a hard time persuading the Russians to take him back into the program. Not only did he have to go through the medical tests again, but his personal doctor from America had to prove he was healthy.

In weightless environments there is a fluid shift in your body so the three of us were using the bathroom one after the other in an endless loop.

After launching, Olsen had to stay in the base of the rocket with the other cosmonauts for 2½ hours before taking off. After 50 miles in the capsule it became easier to handle; even though they we were strapped into a seat, the lack of gravity relieved the cramped feeling. They could also escape for a bit to the habitat module and float around in pairs.

Before this experience the highest Olsen had flown was at 80,000 feet on board the MIG 29. The capsule is only about 5 feet high and 7 feet around. They use a sleeping back and belt themselves to a wall. There's no gravity to mix hot and cold air, so the fans are constantly on to circulate the air and make sure the CO2 gets filtered out.

An ordinary day in the capsule would start at 8:00 a.m. (Greenwich Time), with a conference with the ground to receive radio instructions specifying missions for the day. Olsen worked with the bacteria samples for medical experiments or took photos. They had lunch around 2 p.m., dinner at 8 p.m. and in between would work on assignments.

They ate canned and dehydrated food and water- shrimp cocktail, Russian mashed potatoes. Lights would go out at 11 p.m.

Olsen wanted to grow crystals and to test a camera that sees in the dark. He did medical experiments for the European Space Agency (ESA). As a result, the ESA found a new kind of bacteria that grows in space, which is not virulent. It mainly grew in the kitchen area, the radio set and the toilet areas.

In the Soyuz, the crew made 34 orbits before docking at the ISS, where there were two other astronauts manning the station. The ISS is fairly close to Earth at 226 miles in outer space. It is about as wide as regular doorway, squared and 200 ft. long. No showers, no sinks, no running water. The crew uses wet wipes to clean up and an onboard vacuum to urinate. The crew straps into sleeping bags to sleep upright.

Olsen also conducted experiments designed to prevent and treat motion sickness in space. About half of the people who go to space get motion sickness, but no one in the mission came down with it.

Olsen had 900 hours intensive training in Russia where he learned what to do in case of an emergency. He also had a week of training in Huston, to get familiarized with the American segment of the International Space Station (ISS). In Moscow, there have high-quality simulators, exact copies of both the ISS he used 3 times a week.

Olsen returned after ten days in orbit with Sergei Krikalev and John Phillips, part of Expedition 11, who had been in space since April 2005. Soyuz is a Russian-built and operated vehicle. Of course its signs, instruments and radio commands are all in Russian. All NASA astronauts who fly on Soyuz speak some Russian -enough to communicate on Soyuz where all communication is in Russian. Olsen was in charge of opening the oxygen valve on descent.

The US space agency (NASA) has announced it will send a crew of four astronauts to the Moon for a one-week stay by 2020. There are several private companies announcing that they will start building their private spaceships this fall.