Axiom Space Mission AX-3: Astronauts Share Insights on Space Travel and Future Mars Missions | Have we gone to Mars yet?

Description

Join us for an exhilarating episode of "Have We Gone to Mars Yet?" as hosts Marcus Pettersson and Susanna Lewenhaupt dive into the awe-inspiring world of space exploration with the crew of the Axiom Space Mission AX-3. In this episode, we are thrilled to welcome esteemed astronauts Marcus Wandt, Michael López-Alegría, Walter Villadei, and Alper Gezeravcı, who recently returned from an unforgettable visit to Sweden.

As they share their unique experiences, the astronauts reflect on their diverse backgrounds and rigorous training that have prepared them for the extraordinary challenges of space travel. With the commercial space sector rapidly evolving, our guests provide valuable insights into how advancements in technology are shaping the future of space missions.

One of the highlights of their trip was a visit to Saab, where they explored the remarkable Gripen aircraft. This experience sparked a fascinating discussion about the differences between flying fighter jets and spacecraft. The astronauts candidly share their thoughts on the intricacies of piloting in different environments, emphasizing the importance of adaptability and skill in both arenas.

Throughout the episode, the crew delves into the challenges of preparing for space missions, shedding light on the rigorous training regimes and the critical role of teamwork in achieving success. Their personal anecdotes reveal the dreams that inspired them to reach for the stars and the perseverance required to overcome obstacles on their journeys to becoming astronauts.

Listeners will be captivated by their reflections on the significance of dreams and aspirations in the realm of space exploration. As they contemplate the future of human presence beyond Earth, the astronauts discuss potential missions to the Moon and Mars, igniting a sense of wonder about what lies ahead for humanity in the cosmos.

The episode culminates in an engaging live Q&A session, where the audience has the opportunity to interact with the astronauts. This interactive segment allows listeners to gain deeper insights into their experiences and perspectives on the future of space exploration.

Tune in to "Have We Gone to Mars Yet?" for an inspiring and thought-provoking conversation that will leave you dreaming of the stars and pondering the limitless possibilities of our universe. Whether you're a space enthusiast or just curious about the adventures of our astronauts, this episode is a must-listen that will fuel your imagination and passion for exploration. Join us as we continue to explore the question: Have we gone to Mars yet?

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Transcription

Marcus Wandt
Keep those dreams and just don't let them fade away, because that's super important. Otherwise, we would not have gone there if people would have let their dreams fade away.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Late this August, the Axiom Space Mission AX-3 crew visited Sweden. They had a busy schedule, of course, where they, apart from the mandatory meet and greet with the prime minister of Sweden, visited Saab, Linköping University, KTH and the Swedish Astronomical Youth Association here in Stockholm.
Marcus Pettersson
Right. And I had the great honor to conduct the conversation at Astronomical Youth. And in just a short while, we would love to share that with you. I am Marcus Pettersson.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
I am Susanna Levenhaupt.
Marcus Pettersson
And you're listening to Have We Gone to Mars Yet?
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Axiom Space AX3 is the mission our Swedish astronaut Markus Wundt went on together with his colleagues Michael Lopez-Alegria, Walter Villadé and Albert Ghezzarovci in January this year.
Marcus Pettersson
And one thing these four astronauts have in common is that they are all pilots. So when Marcus invited them to Sweden, a visit to Saab to check out our Gripen plane was a must. And when they were there, we took the opportunity to exchange a few words. So Marcus, what have you and the crew been up to since you arrived in Sweden?
Marcus Wandt
Yesterday, we got to see a bit of Swedish aviation history at the Air Force Museum here. And then today we've been at Saab looking at... how we do aerospace, how aerospace industry is working here and how we do innovation. And also we've been flying a little bit in the simulator, right?
Marcus Pettersson
Okay, and you've all flown planes before. So what's the difference between this and the kind of flying you've been doing earlier?
Michael López-Alegría
I have never been in a simulator, I'll say that modern, of a tactical airplane. That was pretty exciting for me. I liked watching Alper, he almost made me seasick a few times. But that's...
Alper Gezeravcı
typical developer well even though the platform is different aviation sold is universal so feeling yourself back in the in the air having the same freedom it's an amazing feeling but congratulations to south for this new platform that they came up with and i really enjoyed the feeling
Walter Villadei
Well, I would say comparing with the last simulations and simulators we used the Dragon, at least over here you can put the hands on the stick and doing something, while the Dragon is more like a system engineer. But definitely a nice experience to fly with Saab and the Gripen E. Yeah,
Marcus Pettersson
exactly. In the Dragon there are not a lot of hands-on things to do. So when you do a simulation for the Dragon, what do you do? Just sit and watch?
Walter Villadei
Well, actually, it's not just a sit and watch. You have a sit and watch and understand what's going on. And of course, be ready to engage with the systems if there's something which is not going as expected. And you have a lot of interaction with the ground. So it's more like being a part of a wider team. While when you fly fighter jets, you are more alone. Of course, you are in a mission. It's a kind of different approach, but I will lead the commander to expand on that.
Michael López-Alegría
You know, I noticed... There are some things that we do in the Dragon that are important and that are sometimes time critical, but the workload on a second-by-second basis flying an airplane, especially if you're trying to employ it tactically, is much higher. So I think maybe in some ways the consequences are greater in a spacecraft, but I think the pace of information flow to you is more manageable.
Marcus Pettersson
Except for being a fighter pilot, what is the best way to prepare for going to space?
Michael López-Alegría
Actually, flying is a pretty small piece of it, to be honest. This is a luxury on this crew because everybody was a military aviator, but on a prior mission that I had, none of them were at the time aviators. And I don't think, I think that it prepares you with a certain way of critical thinking and sort of prioritization of tasks. But in general, what we do on a space flight is very different from flying. It's much more about... following procedures, of course, being ready to react in an emergency situation, working well as a team, but it's not really comparable to an aviation environment. Marcus, would you agree?
Marcus Wandt
Yeah, I agree. I definitely agree. It's a lot about teamwork and the work allocation and also have a backup plan for that teamwork if things would be different. I guess that's where maybe the common ground with being a pilot is that you're used to following procedures maybe, and you're also used to thinking. What if, what if, what if? And I think those are common, but then there are so many differences as well.
Marcus Pettersson
Now, you are all part of the future of space, going on a private mission with Axiom. And Michael, you've been flying a lot, six times in space since 1995. What are the biggest changes since you started flying?
Michael López-Alegría
A lot has changed. I mean, I started flying in the space shuttle, which is a very manual spacecraft. Something like a thousand switches in the cockpit and everything we did, we did, you know. with our hands on our stick or switches or whatever happened to be. I think now things are more modern. For example, for the first time we used, for the first time in my career, we used iPads to run our procedures. I mean, obviously that was a twinkle in somebody's eye back in 1995 for my first mission. So I think the art of space flying has changed quite a bit. And more importantly, these astronauts represent a whole new universe. chapter in human space flight. So whereas before everybody was a national astronaut and that was their career, in most of these cases, even though Walter has spent quite a number of years training as a cosmonaut slash astronaut, they will go back to their so-called day jobs afterward. And this is a step toward the idea of making space accessible to more and more people.
Marcus Pettersson
And for the rest of you, what did Michael bring with him to to help you train for this mission?
Alper Gezeravcı
The knowledge doesn't always come from the written sources. Sometimes it comes, it stems from the experiences. And he has a great amount of experience coming out of different platforms and different shapes of space experience and space flight experience throughout the years. So he has been really generous to share not only the knowledge, that is already written on the documents to understand for us to digest but also the experience that he has accumulated all these years long so we are really grateful in that manner yeah and it's it's a real luxury to have some it's not uh maybe
Marcus Wandt
that's not obvious but to have someone that is so experienced like the one of the world's most experienced from space flight at this as at an arms range during a whole mission training spin up and during the whole mission and afterwards as well It's just a big source, a big wealth of knowledge that you can just ask and get answers from. It's great. And have good discussions with it as well, with new things. So that's great.
Walter Villadei
Well, I would just add that especially about living on the ISS, which is a completely different environment. We've been for quite an extensive long period of time during the Dragon, 37 hours in the uphill and 47 in downhill. But then 14 days. on the 18Ds actually on the ISS. So even get some tips and how to do easy things on the ISS that was very important for all of us.
Marcus Wandt
That is also important during the training, as you said, some things are written and some things are in the syllabus, but actually most of the training to go to space is being done by very knowledgeable, but still instructors that have not come to space. And then you need that little glue to glue all those pieces together and you can get that from Mike. So that's great.
Marcus Pettersson
Okay, so looking to the future, the ISS is getting quite old, and hopefully we're getting a new one soon with the help of Axiom. What improvements would you like to see in a new space station?
Marcus Wandt
A proper coffee machine.
Michael López-Alegría
It's a pretty long list. I think we've learned a lot with the ISS. It was built in the 90s, and really some of the design was in the 80s, and so it's fairly antiquated, and there are a lot of improvements that actually— This crew gave to Axiom for its design of its future space station. But there's a lot that we can learn about the man-machine interface and certainly the miniaturization of equipment to have a lot of the things that are today external on the truss. If something breaks, you have to go to a spacewalk to fix it. In the future, we'll open a closet and change a box out, and it'll be a lot simpler. So it's a long list of things, but that's the advance of technology. That's the normal process, I think.
Marcus Pettersson
Okay, and finally, if you got to choose your next mission, where would you go? The ISS, the Moon, or Mars?
Michael López-Alegría
Moon.
Marcus Wandt
Yeah, Moon first. Moon.
Walter Villadei
Well, if I have a choice, Mars. Why not?
Marcus Pettersson
Why the Moon?
Michael López-Alegría
Yeah, I mean, I think the practical considerations today is that a trip to Mars is a much heavier lift. And I'm just not as confident that we'll get there soon enough for me. That's who I picked. I think the moon is in reach. I think Mars is a little bit of a stretch.
Marcus Wandt
Also, if you go to the moon, you can go there to be for a mission, come back. If you go to Mars, I would like to bring my family along. They would love that. Yeah, they would love that.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Okay, so let's just clarify one thing here. Michael's not saying that we won't be going to Mars. He just doesn't think we'll go there soon enough for him to be on the flight.
Marcus Pettersson
But I say, why not? Is there anybody cooler than Michael Lopez Alegria?
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Nope.
Marcus Pettersson
I mean, he must be closer to the future than anybody else, flying rockets for a living. He's been to space six times. gone with the Space Shuttle, the Soyuz and the Falcon, done 10 EVAs and is now commander at Axiom Space.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
And you know, another cool thing is that in the future, that line of work will become more and more common. People flying on different missions on a regular basis, to and from moon bases and space stations and even asteroids. And
Marcus Pettersson
Mars. Anyway, this was quite a short interview during a busy day in Linköping. But luckily, I had the opportunity to catch up with the crew again the next day. When conducting the conversation at Astronomical Youth, I got a chance to elaborate some of the questions.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
This conversation is recorded in front of a live audience and the sound is accordingly, but the content is just as fascinating as always.
Marcus Pettersson
For sure. And similar as their piloting backgrounds might seem, there are of course differences. So why not let's get started. the astronauts start by introducing themselves one by one and move on to the questions after that.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Let's do that. And first out is our very own Markus Vant, who will tell us about his journey from the military service to space.
Marcus Wandt
I'll start from when I joined the forces, I guess, as a conscript, and then I'll go back further when we talk about space. So I did my conscription in the army as an airborne ranger. And when I did that, just before I went into that system, about half of everyone in Sweden or all males in Sweden at that time did the conscription and I was more I was leaning towards studying engineering and just skipped the whole thing but then I went to the Mönstringen and saw a picture and it just looked nice out in the woods so I figured okay let's let's do that so I did that it came out and out of that went to Chalmers to study to become an engineer and during that I had a I went back during winters and worked as a survival instructor because I liked the operational environment and the teamwork and a little bit of what you were saying, working as a team and having people to talk with. And that was great. So I applied for the Air Force because I figured I could get some tech, which I was interested in, and also the kind of community or operational environment as a fighter pilot. So I did that for 10 years and worked with some development and some... when deployed to Libya as well and came back home. And then Sweden decided to build a new jet, a new Gripen. And the engineering part of it, I had never left. I was super interested in engineering. I want to combine engineering and flying. So that's why I applied to test pilot school and went to US Navy test pilot school. Came back to Sweden and worked with developing the Gripen for 10 years and then ESA. looking for astronauts and then that space thing came back. So the space thing and I'm when I'm thinking back I get the question a lot did you always dream to be an astronaut? I dreamt about a lot of things probably astronaut, carpenter, truck driver, pilots probably I don't know and a lot of things but I remember clearly Looking up and seeing the sky and the stars and thinking about how big is space and asking my parents as well, where does it end? No, it's infinite. Oh, infinite. And that's kind of hard to grasp, right? So, no, it's got to end. But then my dad said, yeah, so what's behind the end then? And then that discussion started to grow, right? And I don't know. I don't think I had a lot of friends to discuss that with, actually. Maybe I did and maybe it stopped. No, let's just build a treehouse instead. It's okay. which is also fun right but still so i think that's a really nice thing that you have where you can go and have those discussions and have those thoughts and that keep those dreams and just and as you say don't let them fade away because that's super important otherwise we would not we would not have gone there if people would have let their dreams fade away hello again dear friends alper from turkey
Alper Gezeravcı
I'm really pleased and honored to be here in front of you. I grew up in a very small town in Turkey. And I joined the military high school when I was 14 years old. And then to the Air Force Academy when I was 18. I graduated from the Turkish Air Force Academy when I was 22, completed the flight school, and then I was selected to be an F-16 pilot serving in the Air Force for some years and then made it to the States for my master's degree program in 2006 in Air Force Institute of Technology. Returned back two years later, continued to fly in F-16, and then switched over to another military aircraft, which is... Sankara aircraft, KC-135, completed its training in the United States, returned back and started to serve in that aircraft. And then in 2013, I switched over to the airlines. And then in 2020, I returned back to the Air Force based on the need of the Air Force and started to fly in both aircrafts, KC-135 and F-16. And all of a sudden... In the middle of the night in 2022, May the 23rd, I returned back from an operational flight and I opened the TV and heard the news. The president was talking on the news and he was telling they decided to send the very first Turkish citizen into the space. I was very happy because ever since I was five years old, I had dreams as All of you have. But my dreams were always limited with the sky that I could see with my bare eyes and with the airplanes that flying. That was the limit of my dreams. Why? Because your fate is being shaped in where you were born. And at that time, our dreams were limited. with the sky. And in the morning when I heard the same news, I decided to go ahead and check for the criteria. It was about three and a half page long criteria list. I was expecting I was gonna lose one of the items while reading through and then say good luck to the, you know, citizens of Turkey. So at the end of like almost three weeks. After searching through all the open sources that you can also reach out, I was just determined and I found out that yes, I could really provide what is needed in the name of my country. And after applying for the program, that's another interesting criteria. Even though we have done it for the first time in our history, 36,000 Turkish people applied for the program in our history. And then it took about a year. At the end of the selection process, here we are.
Michael López-Alegría
Good afternoon,
Walter Villadei
everyone. My name is Walter Villadei, born and raised in Rome. As my colleagues at the end of the high school, I joined the Air Force. I studied as a space engineer. I mean, I had the opportunity to become the first space engineer. Back at the time in the Air Force, we didn't have a space program. And the university that I was attending just opened up the first course in Space Engineering. I applied and asked, can I do that? Of course, the answer was, no, you can't. Why? Because it's never done before. That's not a good answer. So I had to push a little bit the system, to stress a little bit the system, but then they realized and allowed me to do that. Again, there was no any space program, so I was assigned after the academy to my squadron. I flew with some airplanes back in some... operational theaters like Afghanistan and Iraq as flight engineers. And then around 2000 the Air Force started to get back to space program. In Italy we launched our first satellites in 1964. And it was thanks to a cooperation between the Italian Air Force and the University of Rome. So again, universities, armed forces, it's a good combination. So the Air Force came back to this stage of space and I was asked to come back to the Air Staff and to support the building up of the space program in the Air Force. I did it. And then around 2010, the Air Force and the Italian Space Agency, they signed an agreement to even allow some national astronauts to use some space flights. So we already had some colleagues, pilots, flown to space. So the Air Force was looking for different profiles. raised my hand. So I was selected for starting the training and I was sent to Star City, Russia. So my first approach with space was to go to Star City. I had my basic training course as a cosmonaut, maybe I'm one of the few Europeans qualified as a cosmonaut. And then I've been in training for many years. So another point is some of my colleagues were so lucky to move from the selection to the flight in less than two years. I've been waiting for more than 10 years. I've been back and forth from Star City for training and supporting the Italian space strategy. And then I was very close to be assigned to... flying with the Russians in the Soyuz, but then the geopolitical situation turned to be a little bit more tense. And so I was asked to come back and we turned to the US because SpaceX, as you know, in May 2020, came back to be fully autonomous and they provided the Dragon. So I went to Axiom and NASA in September 21 for starting my professional training as an astronaut. I had the opportunity to fly suborbitaly with Virgin Galactic in June 2023. So I was the commander of the Italian team with other colleagues from Virgin Galactic and we took a lot of pilots on board. And then over that time I was in training with this fine gentleman and we flew to the ISS in January this year. So that's my story.
Michael López-Alegría
My name is Michael Lopez Alegría. Maybe you can tell by my last name, I'm not American by birth. I was born in Spain, but we moved to the U.S. when I was quite young. And so I grew up between Boston and most of it in Southern California. I went to school not knowing exactly what I wanted to do. My father was a military officer in the Spanish Army. And I think it was because of him, but catalogs from the U.S. neighborhood shadowy started showing up in my mailbox. I applied them how I was accepted, and during the four years there, at the end, you have to pick, well, you give them the preference that you want, and then they pick for you your service selection. Generally, you can be a submarine officer, a surface warfare officer, an aviator, or a marine, Marine Corps. I was pretty sure I wanted to be a submariner, and then I spent three days on a submarine, and I wanted to be an aviator. I was very, very anxious. So I went to flight school, and a little bit like Marcus, I had studied engineering at the academy, and I wanted to combine that with aviation, and so I applied to the same Naval Test Pilot School. And after being a test pilot, I applied to NASA to become an astronaut. And then about three years after selection, I flew my first mission, which was on Columbia. It was a 14-day microgravity research mission. The next two missions were on Discovery and Endeavor, and they were both... assembly missions to the International Space Station. And then my fourth and final mission at NASA was also on the Soyuz. And it's a three-person vehicle, so there's a Russian commander, I was a flight engineer. And then the third person was a spaceflight participant. So this is somebody who is not a professional astronaut, who effectively paid money to go to space. So after that, that mission was seven months long. I came back, stayed at NASA for a few more years. But I left there after 20 years. pretty content with my my four mission career but the job i went to was to be an advocate for the commercial space industry because of this experience with the space flight participant so after that i i one of i started consulting in outside of that organization and one of my clients was a company called axiom space this was a job where i could help the company build a commercial space station because that's what we're about we thought of the idea of of organizing and conducting private astronaut missions and the space space x was uh already successful on the doorstep of being successful that's a four-person cockpit so we went out to try to talk to individuals governments research agencies but it was very expensive to fly because we because the cost of launch at fortune is still very high and we wanted to sell all four seats but we started talking to our customers and they really wanted somebody who had been there before and when we looked around the room to see if only space before it was just me so i i was fortunate enough to command the first all-private mission to the iss in 2022 that was ax1 we have since flown a second one in 2023 that was ax2 and and of course we flew ax3 just earlier this year and we have another mission that x4 scheduled for sometime in the first or second quarter of next year. And I think we did, as a crew, I would say much better than AX2, who did much better than AX1, and will probably be surpassed by AX4 if things are going in the right direction.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Now that we know a little bit about the crew, let's move on to the Q&A. These questions were collected from the audience at the Swedish Astronomical Youth Association. And the first one goes to Walter Villaday, who started his training at Roscosmos in Russia, which actually makes him a cosmonaut.
Marcus Pettersson
Walter, what's the difference between training to become a cosmonaut and training to become an astronaut?
Walter Villadei
Well, actually there are not such big differences because the community is pretty small. And to say that the International Space Station has been and still is a magnificent program of international cooperation. They put together two different worlds, the former Soviet Union with the United States and the Western countries. So over the time, I'm pretty sure that at the beginning, maybe the training was slightly different. Maybe a lot. Even during my training, I noticed after the training in NASA that the approach for some things is quite different, but nevertheless are much more the communalities. The needs, because we are flying all together in the same infrastructure, which is the space station, the need to fly together. So for the most, all the crews are mixed crews. So we have Americans and Russians and internationals. So you have to be able to speak the same operational language along with the normal same English-Russian language and then you are supposed to live for six months. In our case it was a short mission but for the most my training was started as being able to fly for long expeditions. That means you have to learn all of us.
Marcus Wandt
the same basics to then live and operate together safely and even to enjoy the time. Because if you stay six months in a place, as Mike was saying, with someone that you don't feel like belongs to you, it's going to be pretty difficult. So, of course, the environment is completely different. Star City is not Houston. And so, especially during the winter time, but I would say that even in the summer time, Houston is not Star City. So you have to be flexible. and adapt to both the situations. But nevertheless, I have to say that I guess I was pretty lucky to have the opportunity to have the exposure to both the training systems. So still there are some niche differences in terms of Russians that want to always know everything about the physics, I like very much. When you are in the US you have to understand very well the procedures. I guess they are very complementary. So I would say the possibility to be trained from both was definitely an added value. Okay,
Susanna Lewenhaupt
thank you. And then I got a question for all of you, but I will start with you Alper. What was it that you found the hardest thing during training before you went to space?
Marcus Pettersson
Mescosuit transition. There's a specific procedure when you have a fire emergency inside the capsule. You have to put on your mask immediately in order to be able to breath, keep breathing, and start some procedure steps. And at some point, if you based on the readings on your sensors and so on, you may need to switch over to your pressure suite. To me, it wasn't really pleasant, but after getting the command of our commander, based on his more than 20 years long experience, I could say that, yes, that was the unpleasant part of the whole training.
Michael López-Alegría
First of all, I agree wholeheartedly that that was the most difficult because, I mean, you're really physiologically stressed. So the assumption is a fire, you could took a fire out. In space, fire doesn't propagate very well because we have convection here where flames look that way because of the... the heat is rising and it's drawing in oxygen there we have to use um diffusion for the oxygen to get there so i've done some combustion experiments and the the flames grow spherically and they they go out pretty quickly so the assumption is we can put the fire out we have different ways of doing that but now you've got these combustion products in the atmosphere that are toxic and you don't want to expose your eyes or personal bones to them so That's why, as Alper said, mask on first thing. And then generally, we take readings of how those contaminants, how high they are. And we've got to do one of two things to get rid of them. One is to purge the toxic atmosphere by adding a lot of breathable gas. So it's basically air. And the second, more drastic, in case it's very high, is we have to evacuate the capsule. So we basically go to vacuum. Clearly, you need to be in your spacesuit for both of those things. So we practiced this mask to see transition. And, of course, you've got this mask on, and you have to, A, hold your breath, and, B, close your eyes. And, of course, we're helping each other. And that is probably where this crew really excelled because, you know, everybody here is a military aviator, and I think that implants a certain operational way of thinking. and we gel that would say very quickly in this thing i think even the spacex trainers who had trained many nasa pros before impressed with how quickly and how effective was we able to to do that exercise but i have to be as open that was the least favorite part also so
Alper Gezeravcı
one component also in that is when you have this mask on the oxygen flow is pretty low to that master order with the mask on And you're doing pretty hard work when you're doing this transition, or the other things we have to do to put out the fire. And then when you put your suit on, which is also physically demanding, the flow in the suit is also low. So not only are you working really hard and doing these transitions and closing your eyes and getting in there, but there's also very low in oxygen. So you're quite hypoxic actually. Yeah, that's a tough one.
Michael López-Alegría
And the other physiological thing is you're generally... filling up the heat load and so you get condensation on the inside of the mask they're not seeing very well and it's pretty loud and because these masks like uh you're basically blowing oxygen or air overboard and so you can't hear each other very well you can't see very well your hypoxic gets super fun
Susanna Lewenhaupt
So then you had a lot of training, not everything was that fun, but was there parts of the training that you enjoyed more than you thought?
Alper Gezeravcı
The whole going to the bathroom thing is very emphasized at NASA, like this trained this really well because it's more difficult in space than on Earth, but it was not as difficult as they made it sound, so that was something that was... I don't know if I want to say funner, but it was less complicated.
Marcus Wandt
At the other point... When you are in training in Building 9 at the Johnson Space Center, you follow the procedure, but you of course have the gravity. Doing the same procedure and move yourself inside the station in microgravity, that really turns to be much funner than, I mean, the simple doing the procedure on the ground. So for the most everything you do for the first time in microgravity, floating and trying to adapt yourself, is definitely from one side more difficult than expected because it's the first time you experience such a condition. But at the same time, it's even much, much more fun.
Marcus Pettersson
Being there all by itself is already a good reason to be happy. Because you must have all been to playground. Do you call it Luna Park?
Alper Gezeravcı
Krona Lund, that's right.
Marcus Pettersson
Yeah, you are buying tokens. I'm telling to the children in my country and my friends in the country, think about yourself being in this...
Alper Gezeravcı
Krona Lund.
Marcus Pettersson
Yes, this place. And then being given an... unlimited token that you can use any moment so it's just like that amazing you are really busy doing a lot of things according to your schedule but even in between these activities which makes you keep which keeps you pretty busy you
Susanna Lewenhaupt
need to get something and you are flying from one point to the other what is more amazing than that is there something that you wished you had time for to do up there that you didn't do
Marcus Pettersson
EVA?
Alper Gezeravcı
EVA, yeah. That was not a time issue, but yes.
Marcus Pettersson
Another time issue.
Michael López-Alegría
You know, we had planned to be docked to the ISS for 14 days, and because the weather was not cooperating, we ended up having four more days. And I think that was a godsend because invariably, first of all, we had a very busy, what we call timeline. So, on daily activities are scheduled. And they all had experiments that their countries had provided, and they felt a certain responsibility to do them. And so you don't really have much, I'll say, free time. In fact, you have virtually no free time. On a long mission as an ISS crew member, I worked half a day Saturday, and I had the entire day Sunday off. But as a short-duration crew, we basically, I think we had half a day off. But you've got a lot of things that you're trying to keep up with your friends and family. by email or actually on the phone and especially taking pictures because you really want to get you know it's just like you all want to take a selfie or something when you're in this cool environment well imagine you're flying over here every 90 minutes in a different part and you want to get your hometown or where you went to school or whatever you did so all those things end up sort of stacking up and you don't quite get them all done by the time we were supposed to undock and I think we had four more days which was really nice to be able to catch up.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Yes and you had four more days and as we all know there are a couple of astronauts up there right now who will have a bit more than four days extra in space. How do you think they feel and what would you feel about have to stay in space for another half hour, half a year? Half an hour,
Michael López-Alegría
sorry.
Alper Gezeravcı
Exactly, more free tokens. I think I think one thing is very important that you mentioned earlier, Mike, the uncertainty of when you're going, because there's been the discussion, right? And now the decision is made. I think that makes a big difference for the astronauts up there to get the date, even though that date is far out, because now they can focus on that, be a part of the crew and continue. And I think I would probably enjoy it mostly. And of course, it would be... Depends a little bit on the family situation or the situation at home, because other people are affected as well, right? But if when you get that data and you know that you're going to be there for half a year more and work, I think that would be fine.
Marcus Pettersson
You are mentally and physically fit and ready for any kind of circumstances and contingencies that already comes as the nature of the job that you are doing. And you are getting prepared all the way from the beginning. So I don't think that's a huge problem for them, other than the people waiting on the ground for them.
Michael López-Alegría
Yeah, the only thing I would add is they knew this was a possibility, but they lost it. It's a test of life. NASA knew it ahead of time, so they gave them training to live and work on ISS for a long duration period of time. the ISS has enough provisions, you know, food, clothing, water, fuel, that kind of thing. And so I think once you get beyond the question of when, I think that becomes secondary and you just wake up every morning and do your thing and enjoy the view.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Michael, you have a long career in space. How would you describe that it has changed from what it was to the commercial side now?
Michael López-Alegría
I mean, in many ways, it's identical among, you know, the training and sort of what you do day to day when you're in space. But I will say I feel differently about it because these are my crewmates. They're also my customers. And so my mission is, you know, first and foremost, to go well and safely. But I want to support them however I can. Whereas when you're an individual crew member as part of a crew, I mean, but it kind of does their own thing. And you get to get at the end of the day, maybe you talk about it. But I think there's a different sense when you have not only the successful completion of the mission, but their joy. Turns out with these guys, they didn't have to worry about that too much because the smiles on their faces were pretty big the whole time. It's a very different approach to how I'm... doing my day-to-day work in terms of what I need to focus on. It's kind of like the difference between flying an airplane and teaching somebody to fly an airplane. You are really invested in their success as well. And I think that made a big difference. But again, with these guys, it was pretty easy.
Marcus Wandt
Think about the sequence of the mission, because the debate about what about the commercial space flight is commercial private entities versus the institutional one, the governmental. Look at the axioms one, two and three. For the first time, there were astronauts from Saudi Arabia, the first Turkish astronaut, the second Swedish astronaut. So the possibility, the flexibility to get a much larger set of countries involved in space, it's much more flexible and powerful than in the past, where the government, of course, focused on the next step of the frontier. In this case, we are talking about the moon. But this commercial space flight and what they are doing, it was amazing. I mean, even in terms of the Potentiality is to open up much more international cooperation. So it's a tremendous added value. And then of course, it's a matter of collaboration, it's a matter of cost. So we all hope to have the possibility, and this is a challenge for you guys, how much we can really reduce the cost to access to space. We need new technologies, new systems, different engineering processes. So there's a lot at stake, but if we can really overcome these kind of limits. then really as Mike was saying at the beginning the democratization space will come to be something real.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
And how is it to be on the customer side and how would it look in the future?
Alper Gezeravcı
I think in my case it was awesome in the way that I came from one of these agencies, traditional agencies, ESA, and was put on into a commercial more customer. side in this. So it was two worlds meeting each other in a way that we haven't seen before. And I think that was a very good flight test. We talked about envelope expansion, where you can operate your vehicle. And so this was a good envelope expansion for ESA, I believe, to where can we operate our space operation? How does that work? And it was a lot of interesting... challenges in the beginning actually coming from these two worlds and meeting them and which is something that I normally enjoy because there are opens up all these possibilities and I think the the the attitude that Axiom had and that ESA had made this a very fruitful collaboration which is still ongoing AX4 also has an ESA astronaut in there and and I just want to mention since we're in Sweden that this would not have happened without that decisive Sweden's extremely fast way of aligning and deciding and helping to push ESA over this, into this world. That was awesome.
Marcus Wandt
In our case, I'm not the first one, I'm the eighth Italian astronaut. So we've been a long history of people flying to space through the collaboration with ESA and the governmental. But for the first time, and I don't consider myself nor the Air Force a customer, but more a partner with Axiom. We had the opportunity to run for the first time a mission as Italian Air Force. And we did this taking aboard the Italian Space Agency, who took care about the experiments. And for the first time we had industries. developing their own payloads and experiments and asking the Air Force in collaboration to provide the support of the subject matter expert that is in this case was the astronaut flying to the ISS. So it's really a game changer in terms of mindset and perspectives and really it's opened up multiple opportunities even including for these young women and men in the room. For instance, for conceiving new experiments and making these experiments flying faster and hopefully cheaper in the future to space. So it's really a game changer.
Walter Villadei
I absolutely love this crew. They seem so close-knit and well-casted for their part.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Michael mentioned that the AX4 mission will probably be even more successful, but I wonder if that's even possible. But we will follow their and Axiom Space's journey for sure.
Walter Villadei
Anyway, it was so great for us who weren't able to attend to get to hear these conversations. So thank you so much for that, Marcus. And always nice to hear from that other Marcus again, of course.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Please check out our website havewegone2marsyet.com for more. I'm Marcus Pettersson.
Walter Villadei
I'm Susanna Levenhaupt.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
The music you hear in the background is written and performed by Armin Pendek.
Walter Villadei
Have we gone to Mars yet? is made at Beppo by Rundfunk Media in collaboration with Saab.

Chapters

Introduction and Overview of the Axiom AX-3 Mission
0sec
Axiom AX-3 Crew's Visit to Sweden
19sec
Exploring Swedish Aviation at Saab
1min
Differences Between Fighter Jets and Spacecraft
1min
Preparing for Space: Training Insights
3min
Changes in Space Travel Since the 90s
5min
Future of Space Stations and Technology Improvements
8min
Dream Missions: Moon vs. Mars
9min
Live Audience Q&A: Astronaut Experiences and Challenges
10min
Personal Journeys to Becoming Astronauts
11min
Reflections on Training and Team Dynamics
21min
Commercial Space Flight: A New Era of Exploration
37min

About Have we gone to Mars yet?

The discoveries and development in Space are improving our chances to save life on Earth. Thats why we started Have we gone to Mars yet? A show about space and science and everything we need to get done before we can put a person on Mars. To get to meet the greatest minds within the fields of technology, medicine, astronomy, psychology and physics. We interview entreprenours, industrialists, astronauts and scientists. We want to hear the latest news and be there for the changes. To take part and be a part of all the steps taken for our future. And, soon enough we’ll be walking around on planet Mars, and we save the world going there.

Produced and hosted by Marcus Pettersson & Susanna Lewenhaupt.

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About Have we gone to Mars yet?

Produced and hosted by Marcus Pettersson & Susanna Lewenhaupt.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Description

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Transcription

Marcus Wandt
Keep those dreams and just don't let them fade away, because that's super important. Otherwise, we would not have gone there if people would have let their dreams fade away.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Late this August, the Axiom Space Mission AX-3 crew visited Sweden. They had a busy schedule, of course, where they, apart from the mandatory meet and greet with the prime minister of Sweden, visited Saab, Linköping University, KTH and the Swedish Astronomical Youth Association here in Stockholm.
Marcus Pettersson
Right. And I had the great honor to conduct the conversation at Astronomical Youth. And in just a short while, we would love to share that with you. I am Marcus Pettersson.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
I am Susanna Levenhaupt.
Marcus Pettersson
And you're listening to Have We Gone to Mars Yet?
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Axiom Space AX3 is the mission our Swedish astronaut Markus Wundt went on together with his colleagues Michael Lopez-Alegria, Walter Villadé and Albert Ghezzarovci in January this year.
Marcus Pettersson
And one thing these four astronauts have in common is that they are all pilots. So when Marcus invited them to Sweden, a visit to Saab to check out our Gripen plane was a must. And when they were there, we took the opportunity to exchange a few words. So Marcus, what have you and the crew been up to since you arrived in Sweden?
Marcus Wandt
Yesterday, we got to see a bit of Swedish aviation history at the Air Force Museum here. And then today we've been at Saab looking at... how we do aerospace, how aerospace industry is working here and how we do innovation. And also we've been flying a little bit in the simulator, right?
Marcus Pettersson
Okay, and you've all flown planes before. So what's the difference between this and the kind of flying you've been doing earlier?
Michael López-Alegría
I have never been in a simulator, I'll say that modern, of a tactical airplane. That was pretty exciting for me. I liked watching Alper, he almost made me seasick a few times. But that's...
Alper Gezeravcı
typical developer well even though the platform is different aviation sold is universal so feeling yourself back in the in the air having the same freedom it's an amazing feeling but congratulations to south for this new platform that they came up with and i really enjoyed the feeling
Walter Villadei
Well, I would say comparing with the last simulations and simulators we used the Dragon, at least over here you can put the hands on the stick and doing something, while the Dragon is more like a system engineer. But definitely a nice experience to fly with Saab and the Gripen E. Yeah,
Marcus Pettersson
exactly. In the Dragon there are not a lot of hands-on things to do. So when you do a simulation for the Dragon, what do you do? Just sit and watch?
Walter Villadei
Well, actually, it's not just a sit and watch. You have a sit and watch and understand what's going on. And of course, be ready to engage with the systems if there's something which is not going as expected. And you have a lot of interaction with the ground. So it's more like being a part of a wider team. While when you fly fighter jets, you are more alone. Of course, you are in a mission. It's a kind of different approach, but I will lead the commander to expand on that.
Michael López-Alegría
You know, I noticed... There are some things that we do in the Dragon that are important and that are sometimes time critical, but the workload on a second-by-second basis flying an airplane, especially if you're trying to employ it tactically, is much higher. So I think maybe in some ways the consequences are greater in a spacecraft, but I think the pace of information flow to you is more manageable.
Marcus Pettersson
Except for being a fighter pilot, what is the best way to prepare for going to space?
Michael López-Alegría
Actually, flying is a pretty small piece of it, to be honest. This is a luxury on this crew because everybody was a military aviator, but on a prior mission that I had, none of them were at the time aviators. And I don't think, I think that it prepares you with a certain way of critical thinking and sort of prioritization of tasks. But in general, what we do on a space flight is very different from flying. It's much more about... following procedures, of course, being ready to react in an emergency situation, working well as a team, but it's not really comparable to an aviation environment. Marcus, would you agree?
Marcus Wandt
Yeah, I agree. I definitely agree. It's a lot about teamwork and the work allocation and also have a backup plan for that teamwork if things would be different. I guess that's where maybe the common ground with being a pilot is that you're used to following procedures maybe, and you're also used to thinking. What if, what if, what if? And I think those are common, but then there are so many differences as well.
Marcus Pettersson
Now, you are all part of the future of space, going on a private mission with Axiom. And Michael, you've been flying a lot, six times in space since 1995. What are the biggest changes since you started flying?
Michael López-Alegría
A lot has changed. I mean, I started flying in the space shuttle, which is a very manual spacecraft. Something like a thousand switches in the cockpit and everything we did, we did, you know. with our hands on our stick or switches or whatever happened to be. I think now things are more modern. For example, for the first time we used, for the first time in my career, we used iPads to run our procedures. I mean, obviously that was a twinkle in somebody's eye back in 1995 for my first mission. So I think the art of space flying has changed quite a bit. And more importantly, these astronauts represent a whole new universe. chapter in human space flight. So whereas before everybody was a national astronaut and that was their career, in most of these cases, even though Walter has spent quite a number of years training as a cosmonaut slash astronaut, they will go back to their so-called day jobs afterward. And this is a step toward the idea of making space accessible to more and more people.
Marcus Pettersson
And for the rest of you, what did Michael bring with him to to help you train for this mission?
Alper Gezeravcı
The knowledge doesn't always come from the written sources. Sometimes it comes, it stems from the experiences. And he has a great amount of experience coming out of different platforms and different shapes of space experience and space flight experience throughout the years. So he has been really generous to share not only the knowledge, that is already written on the documents to understand for us to digest but also the experience that he has accumulated all these years long so we are really grateful in that manner yeah and it's it's a real luxury to have some it's not uh maybe
Marcus Wandt
that's not obvious but to have someone that is so experienced like the one of the world's most experienced from space flight at this as at an arms range during a whole mission training spin up and during the whole mission and afterwards as well It's just a big source, a big wealth of knowledge that you can just ask and get answers from. It's great. And have good discussions with it as well, with new things. So that's great.
Walter Villadei
Well, I would just add that especially about living on the ISS, which is a completely different environment. We've been for quite an extensive long period of time during the Dragon, 37 hours in the uphill and 47 in downhill. But then 14 days. on the 18Ds actually on the ISS. So even get some tips and how to do easy things on the ISS that was very important for all of us.
Marcus Wandt
That is also important during the training, as you said, some things are written and some things are in the syllabus, but actually most of the training to go to space is being done by very knowledgeable, but still instructors that have not come to space. And then you need that little glue to glue all those pieces together and you can get that from Mike. So that's great.
Marcus Pettersson
Okay, so looking to the future, the ISS is getting quite old, and hopefully we're getting a new one soon with the help of Axiom. What improvements would you like to see in a new space station?
Marcus Wandt
A proper coffee machine.
Michael López-Alegría
It's a pretty long list. I think we've learned a lot with the ISS. It was built in the 90s, and really some of the design was in the 80s, and so it's fairly antiquated, and there are a lot of improvements that actually— This crew gave to Axiom for its design of its future space station. But there's a lot that we can learn about the man-machine interface and certainly the miniaturization of equipment to have a lot of the things that are today external on the truss. If something breaks, you have to go to a spacewalk to fix it. In the future, we'll open a closet and change a box out, and it'll be a lot simpler. So it's a long list of things, but that's the advance of technology. That's the normal process, I think.
Marcus Pettersson
Okay, and finally, if you got to choose your next mission, where would you go? The ISS, the Moon, or Mars?
Michael López-Alegría
Moon.
Marcus Wandt
Yeah, Moon first. Moon.
Walter Villadei
Well, if I have a choice, Mars. Why not?
Marcus Pettersson
Why the Moon?
Michael López-Alegría
Yeah, I mean, I think the practical considerations today is that a trip to Mars is a much heavier lift. And I'm just not as confident that we'll get there soon enough for me. That's who I picked. I think the moon is in reach. I think Mars is a little bit of a stretch.
Marcus Wandt
Also, if you go to the moon, you can go there to be for a mission, come back. If you go to Mars, I would like to bring my family along. They would love that. Yeah, they would love that.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Okay, so let's just clarify one thing here. Michael's not saying that we won't be going to Mars. He just doesn't think we'll go there soon enough for him to be on the flight.
Marcus Pettersson
But I say, why not? Is there anybody cooler than Michael Lopez Alegria?
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Nope.
Marcus Pettersson
I mean, he must be closer to the future than anybody else, flying rockets for a living. He's been to space six times. gone with the Space Shuttle, the Soyuz and the Falcon, done 10 EVAs and is now commander at Axiom Space.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
And you know, another cool thing is that in the future, that line of work will become more and more common. People flying on different missions on a regular basis, to and from moon bases and space stations and even asteroids. And
Marcus Pettersson
Mars. Anyway, this was quite a short interview during a busy day in Linköping. But luckily, I had the opportunity to catch up with the crew again the next day. When conducting the conversation at Astronomical Youth, I got a chance to elaborate some of the questions.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
This conversation is recorded in front of a live audience and the sound is accordingly, but the content is just as fascinating as always.
Marcus Pettersson
For sure. And similar as their piloting backgrounds might seem, there are of course differences. So why not let's get started. the astronauts start by introducing themselves one by one and move on to the questions after that.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Let's do that. And first out is our very own Markus Vant, who will tell us about his journey from the military service to space.
Marcus Wandt
I'll start from when I joined the forces, I guess, as a conscript, and then I'll go back further when we talk about space. So I did my conscription in the army as an airborne ranger. And when I did that, just before I went into that system, about half of everyone in Sweden or all males in Sweden at that time did the conscription and I was more I was leaning towards studying engineering and just skipped the whole thing but then I went to the Mönstringen and saw a picture and it just looked nice out in the woods so I figured okay let's let's do that so I did that it came out and out of that went to Chalmers to study to become an engineer and during that I had a I went back during winters and worked as a survival instructor because I liked the operational environment and the teamwork and a little bit of what you were saying, working as a team and having people to talk with. And that was great. So I applied for the Air Force because I figured I could get some tech, which I was interested in, and also the kind of community or operational environment as a fighter pilot. So I did that for 10 years and worked with some development and some... when deployed to Libya as well and came back home. And then Sweden decided to build a new jet, a new Gripen. And the engineering part of it, I had never left. I was super interested in engineering. I want to combine engineering and flying. So that's why I applied to test pilot school and went to US Navy test pilot school. Came back to Sweden and worked with developing the Gripen for 10 years and then ESA. looking for astronauts and then that space thing came back. So the space thing and I'm when I'm thinking back I get the question a lot did you always dream to be an astronaut? I dreamt about a lot of things probably astronaut, carpenter, truck driver, pilots probably I don't know and a lot of things but I remember clearly Looking up and seeing the sky and the stars and thinking about how big is space and asking my parents as well, where does it end? No, it's infinite. Oh, infinite. And that's kind of hard to grasp, right? So, no, it's got to end. But then my dad said, yeah, so what's behind the end then? And then that discussion started to grow, right? And I don't know. I don't think I had a lot of friends to discuss that with, actually. Maybe I did and maybe it stopped. No, let's just build a treehouse instead. It's okay. which is also fun right but still so i think that's a really nice thing that you have where you can go and have those discussions and have those thoughts and that keep those dreams and just and as you say don't let them fade away because that's super important otherwise we would not we would not have gone there if people would have let their dreams fade away hello again dear friends alper from turkey
Alper Gezeravcı
I'm really pleased and honored to be here in front of you. I grew up in a very small town in Turkey. And I joined the military high school when I was 14 years old. And then to the Air Force Academy when I was 18. I graduated from the Turkish Air Force Academy when I was 22, completed the flight school, and then I was selected to be an F-16 pilot serving in the Air Force for some years and then made it to the States for my master's degree program in 2006 in Air Force Institute of Technology. Returned back two years later, continued to fly in F-16, and then switched over to another military aircraft, which is... Sankara aircraft, KC-135, completed its training in the United States, returned back and started to serve in that aircraft. And then in 2013, I switched over to the airlines. And then in 2020, I returned back to the Air Force based on the need of the Air Force and started to fly in both aircrafts, KC-135 and F-16. And all of a sudden... In the middle of the night in 2022, May the 23rd, I returned back from an operational flight and I opened the TV and heard the news. The president was talking on the news and he was telling they decided to send the very first Turkish citizen into the space. I was very happy because ever since I was five years old, I had dreams as All of you have. But my dreams were always limited with the sky that I could see with my bare eyes and with the airplanes that flying. That was the limit of my dreams. Why? Because your fate is being shaped in where you were born. And at that time, our dreams were limited. with the sky. And in the morning when I heard the same news, I decided to go ahead and check for the criteria. It was about three and a half page long criteria list. I was expecting I was gonna lose one of the items while reading through and then say good luck to the, you know, citizens of Turkey. So at the end of like almost three weeks. After searching through all the open sources that you can also reach out, I was just determined and I found out that yes, I could really provide what is needed in the name of my country. And after applying for the program, that's another interesting criteria. Even though we have done it for the first time in our history, 36,000 Turkish people applied for the program in our history. And then it took about a year. At the end of the selection process, here we are.
Michael López-Alegría
Good afternoon,
Walter Villadei
everyone. My name is Walter Villadei, born and raised in Rome. As my colleagues at the end of the high school, I joined the Air Force. I studied as a space engineer. I mean, I had the opportunity to become the first space engineer. Back at the time in the Air Force, we didn't have a space program. And the university that I was attending just opened up the first course in Space Engineering. I applied and asked, can I do that? Of course, the answer was, no, you can't. Why? Because it's never done before. That's not a good answer. So I had to push a little bit the system, to stress a little bit the system, but then they realized and allowed me to do that. Again, there was no any space program, so I was assigned after the academy to my squadron. I flew with some airplanes back in some... operational theaters like Afghanistan and Iraq as flight engineers. And then around 2000 the Air Force started to get back to space program. In Italy we launched our first satellites in 1964. And it was thanks to a cooperation between the Italian Air Force and the University of Rome. So again, universities, armed forces, it's a good combination. So the Air Force came back to this stage of space and I was asked to come back to the Air Staff and to support the building up of the space program in the Air Force. I did it. And then around 2010, the Air Force and the Italian Space Agency, they signed an agreement to even allow some national astronauts to use some space flights. So we already had some colleagues, pilots, flown to space. So the Air Force was looking for different profiles. raised my hand. So I was selected for starting the training and I was sent to Star City, Russia. So my first approach with space was to go to Star City. I had my basic training course as a cosmonaut, maybe I'm one of the few Europeans qualified as a cosmonaut. And then I've been in training for many years. So another point is some of my colleagues were so lucky to move from the selection to the flight in less than two years. I've been waiting for more than 10 years. I've been back and forth from Star City for training and supporting the Italian space strategy. And then I was very close to be assigned to... flying with the Russians in the Soyuz, but then the geopolitical situation turned to be a little bit more tense. And so I was asked to come back and we turned to the US because SpaceX, as you know, in May 2020, came back to be fully autonomous and they provided the Dragon. So I went to Axiom and NASA in September 21 for starting my professional training as an astronaut. I had the opportunity to fly suborbitaly with Virgin Galactic in June 2023. So I was the commander of the Italian team with other colleagues from Virgin Galactic and we took a lot of pilots on board. And then over that time I was in training with this fine gentleman and we flew to the ISS in January this year. So that's my story.
Michael López-Alegría
My name is Michael Lopez Alegría. Maybe you can tell by my last name, I'm not American by birth. I was born in Spain, but we moved to the U.S. when I was quite young. And so I grew up between Boston and most of it in Southern California. I went to school not knowing exactly what I wanted to do. My father was a military officer in the Spanish Army. And I think it was because of him, but catalogs from the U.S. neighborhood shadowy started showing up in my mailbox. I applied them how I was accepted, and during the four years there, at the end, you have to pick, well, you give them the preference that you want, and then they pick for you your service selection. Generally, you can be a submarine officer, a surface warfare officer, an aviator, or a marine, Marine Corps. I was pretty sure I wanted to be a submariner, and then I spent three days on a submarine, and I wanted to be an aviator. I was very, very anxious. So I went to flight school, and a little bit like Marcus, I had studied engineering at the academy, and I wanted to combine that with aviation, and so I applied to the same Naval Test Pilot School. And after being a test pilot, I applied to NASA to become an astronaut. And then about three years after selection, I flew my first mission, which was on Columbia. It was a 14-day microgravity research mission. The next two missions were on Discovery and Endeavor, and they were both... assembly missions to the International Space Station. And then my fourth and final mission at NASA was also on the Soyuz. And it's a three-person vehicle, so there's a Russian commander, I was a flight engineer. And then the third person was a spaceflight participant. So this is somebody who is not a professional astronaut, who effectively paid money to go to space. So after that, that mission was seven months long. I came back, stayed at NASA for a few more years. But I left there after 20 years. pretty content with my my four mission career but the job i went to was to be an advocate for the commercial space industry because of this experience with the space flight participant so after that i i one of i started consulting in outside of that organization and one of my clients was a company called axiom space this was a job where i could help the company build a commercial space station because that's what we're about we thought of the idea of of organizing and conducting private astronaut missions and the space space x was uh already successful on the doorstep of being successful that's a four-person cockpit so we went out to try to talk to individuals governments research agencies but it was very expensive to fly because we because the cost of launch at fortune is still very high and we wanted to sell all four seats but we started talking to our customers and they really wanted somebody who had been there before and when we looked around the room to see if only space before it was just me so i i was fortunate enough to command the first all-private mission to the iss in 2022 that was ax1 we have since flown a second one in 2023 that was ax2 and and of course we flew ax3 just earlier this year and we have another mission that x4 scheduled for sometime in the first or second quarter of next year. And I think we did, as a crew, I would say much better than AX2, who did much better than AX1, and will probably be surpassed by AX4 if things are going in the right direction.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Now that we know a little bit about the crew, let's move on to the Q&A. These questions were collected from the audience at the Swedish Astronomical Youth Association. And the first one goes to Walter Villaday, who started his training at Roscosmos in Russia, which actually makes him a cosmonaut.
Marcus Pettersson
Walter, what's the difference between training to become a cosmonaut and training to become an astronaut?
Walter Villadei
Well, actually there are not such big differences because the community is pretty small. And to say that the International Space Station has been and still is a magnificent program of international cooperation. They put together two different worlds, the former Soviet Union with the United States and the Western countries. So over the time, I'm pretty sure that at the beginning, maybe the training was slightly different. Maybe a lot. Even during my training, I noticed after the training in NASA that the approach for some things is quite different, but nevertheless are much more the communalities. The needs, because we are flying all together in the same infrastructure, which is the space station, the need to fly together. So for the most, all the crews are mixed crews. So we have Americans and Russians and internationals. So you have to be able to speak the same operational language along with the normal same English-Russian language and then you are supposed to live for six months. In our case it was a short mission but for the most my training was started as being able to fly for long expeditions. That means you have to learn all of us.
Marcus Wandt
the same basics to then live and operate together safely and even to enjoy the time. Because if you stay six months in a place, as Mike was saying, with someone that you don't feel like belongs to you, it's going to be pretty difficult. So, of course, the environment is completely different. Star City is not Houston. And so, especially during the winter time, but I would say that even in the summer time, Houston is not Star City. So you have to be flexible. and adapt to both the situations. But nevertheless, I have to say that I guess I was pretty lucky to have the opportunity to have the exposure to both the training systems. So still there are some niche differences in terms of Russians that want to always know everything about the physics, I like very much. When you are in the US you have to understand very well the procedures. I guess they are very complementary. So I would say the possibility to be trained from both was definitely an added value. Okay,
Susanna Lewenhaupt
thank you. And then I got a question for all of you, but I will start with you Alper. What was it that you found the hardest thing during training before you went to space?
Marcus Pettersson
Mescosuit transition. There's a specific procedure when you have a fire emergency inside the capsule. You have to put on your mask immediately in order to be able to breath, keep breathing, and start some procedure steps. And at some point, if you based on the readings on your sensors and so on, you may need to switch over to your pressure suite. To me, it wasn't really pleasant, but after getting the command of our commander, based on his more than 20 years long experience, I could say that, yes, that was the unpleasant part of the whole training.
Michael López-Alegría
First of all, I agree wholeheartedly that that was the most difficult because, I mean, you're really physiologically stressed. So the assumption is a fire, you could took a fire out. In space, fire doesn't propagate very well because we have convection here where flames look that way because of the... the heat is rising and it's drawing in oxygen there we have to use um diffusion for the oxygen to get there so i've done some combustion experiments and the the flames grow spherically and they they go out pretty quickly so the assumption is we can put the fire out we have different ways of doing that but now you've got these combustion products in the atmosphere that are toxic and you don't want to expose your eyes or personal bones to them so That's why, as Alper said, mask on first thing. And then generally, we take readings of how those contaminants, how high they are. And we've got to do one of two things to get rid of them. One is to purge the toxic atmosphere by adding a lot of breathable gas. So it's basically air. And the second, more drastic, in case it's very high, is we have to evacuate the capsule. So we basically go to vacuum. Clearly, you need to be in your spacesuit for both of those things. So we practiced this mask to see transition. And, of course, you've got this mask on, and you have to, A, hold your breath, and, B, close your eyes. And, of course, we're helping each other. And that is probably where this crew really excelled because, you know, everybody here is a military aviator, and I think that implants a certain operational way of thinking. and we gel that would say very quickly in this thing i think even the spacex trainers who had trained many nasa pros before impressed with how quickly and how effective was we able to to do that exercise but i have to be as open that was the least favorite part also so
Alper Gezeravcı
one component also in that is when you have this mask on the oxygen flow is pretty low to that master order with the mask on And you're doing pretty hard work when you're doing this transition, or the other things we have to do to put out the fire. And then when you put your suit on, which is also physically demanding, the flow in the suit is also low. So not only are you working really hard and doing these transitions and closing your eyes and getting in there, but there's also very low in oxygen. So you're quite hypoxic actually. Yeah, that's a tough one.
Michael López-Alegría
And the other physiological thing is you're generally... filling up the heat load and so you get condensation on the inside of the mask they're not seeing very well and it's pretty loud and because these masks like uh you're basically blowing oxygen or air overboard and so you can't hear each other very well you can't see very well your hypoxic gets super fun
Susanna Lewenhaupt
So then you had a lot of training, not everything was that fun, but was there parts of the training that you enjoyed more than you thought?
Alper Gezeravcı
The whole going to the bathroom thing is very emphasized at NASA, like this trained this really well because it's more difficult in space than on Earth, but it was not as difficult as they made it sound, so that was something that was... I don't know if I want to say funner, but it was less complicated.
Marcus Wandt
At the other point... When you are in training in Building 9 at the Johnson Space Center, you follow the procedure, but you of course have the gravity. Doing the same procedure and move yourself inside the station in microgravity, that really turns to be much funner than, I mean, the simple doing the procedure on the ground. So for the most everything you do for the first time in microgravity, floating and trying to adapt yourself, is definitely from one side more difficult than expected because it's the first time you experience such a condition. But at the same time, it's even much, much more fun.
Marcus Pettersson
Being there all by itself is already a good reason to be happy. Because you must have all been to playground. Do you call it Luna Park?
Alper Gezeravcı
Krona Lund, that's right.
Marcus Pettersson
Yeah, you are buying tokens. I'm telling to the children in my country and my friends in the country, think about yourself being in this...
Alper Gezeravcı
Krona Lund.
Marcus Pettersson
Yes, this place. And then being given an... unlimited token that you can use any moment so it's just like that amazing you are really busy doing a lot of things according to your schedule but even in between these activities which makes you keep which keeps you pretty busy you
Susanna Lewenhaupt
need to get something and you are flying from one point to the other what is more amazing than that is there something that you wished you had time for to do up there that you didn't do
Marcus Pettersson
EVA?
Alper Gezeravcı
EVA, yeah. That was not a time issue, but yes.
Marcus Pettersson
Another time issue.
Michael López-Alegría
You know, we had planned to be docked to the ISS for 14 days, and because the weather was not cooperating, we ended up having four more days. And I think that was a godsend because invariably, first of all, we had a very busy, what we call timeline. So, on daily activities are scheduled. And they all had experiments that their countries had provided, and they felt a certain responsibility to do them. And so you don't really have much, I'll say, free time. In fact, you have virtually no free time. On a long mission as an ISS crew member, I worked half a day Saturday, and I had the entire day Sunday off. But as a short-duration crew, we basically, I think we had half a day off. But you've got a lot of things that you're trying to keep up with your friends and family. by email or actually on the phone and especially taking pictures because you really want to get you know it's just like you all want to take a selfie or something when you're in this cool environment well imagine you're flying over here every 90 minutes in a different part and you want to get your hometown or where you went to school or whatever you did so all those things end up sort of stacking up and you don't quite get them all done by the time we were supposed to undock and I think we had four more days which was really nice to be able to catch up.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Yes and you had four more days and as we all know there are a couple of astronauts up there right now who will have a bit more than four days extra in space. How do you think they feel and what would you feel about have to stay in space for another half hour, half a year? Half an hour,
Michael López-Alegría
sorry.
Alper Gezeravcı
Exactly, more free tokens. I think I think one thing is very important that you mentioned earlier, Mike, the uncertainty of when you're going, because there's been the discussion, right? And now the decision is made. I think that makes a big difference for the astronauts up there to get the date, even though that date is far out, because now they can focus on that, be a part of the crew and continue. And I think I would probably enjoy it mostly. And of course, it would be... Depends a little bit on the family situation or the situation at home, because other people are affected as well, right? But if when you get that data and you know that you're going to be there for half a year more and work, I think that would be fine.
Marcus Pettersson
You are mentally and physically fit and ready for any kind of circumstances and contingencies that already comes as the nature of the job that you are doing. And you are getting prepared all the way from the beginning. So I don't think that's a huge problem for them, other than the people waiting on the ground for them.
Michael López-Alegría
Yeah, the only thing I would add is they knew this was a possibility, but they lost it. It's a test of life. NASA knew it ahead of time, so they gave them training to live and work on ISS for a long duration period of time. the ISS has enough provisions, you know, food, clothing, water, fuel, that kind of thing. And so I think once you get beyond the question of when, I think that becomes secondary and you just wake up every morning and do your thing and enjoy the view.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Michael, you have a long career in space. How would you describe that it has changed from what it was to the commercial side now?
Michael López-Alegría
I mean, in many ways, it's identical among, you know, the training and sort of what you do day to day when you're in space. But I will say I feel differently about it because these are my crewmates. They're also my customers. And so my mission is, you know, first and foremost, to go well and safely. But I want to support them however I can. Whereas when you're an individual crew member as part of a crew, I mean, but it kind of does their own thing. And you get to get at the end of the day, maybe you talk about it. But I think there's a different sense when you have not only the successful completion of the mission, but their joy. Turns out with these guys, they didn't have to worry about that too much because the smiles on their faces were pretty big the whole time. It's a very different approach to how I'm... doing my day-to-day work in terms of what I need to focus on. It's kind of like the difference between flying an airplane and teaching somebody to fly an airplane. You are really invested in their success as well. And I think that made a big difference. But again, with these guys, it was pretty easy.
Marcus Wandt
Think about the sequence of the mission, because the debate about what about the commercial space flight is commercial private entities versus the institutional one, the governmental. Look at the axioms one, two and three. For the first time, there were astronauts from Saudi Arabia, the first Turkish astronaut, the second Swedish astronaut. So the possibility, the flexibility to get a much larger set of countries involved in space, it's much more flexible and powerful than in the past, where the government, of course, focused on the next step of the frontier. In this case, we are talking about the moon. But this commercial space flight and what they are doing, it was amazing. I mean, even in terms of the Potentiality is to open up much more international cooperation. So it's a tremendous added value. And then of course, it's a matter of collaboration, it's a matter of cost. So we all hope to have the possibility, and this is a challenge for you guys, how much we can really reduce the cost to access to space. We need new technologies, new systems, different engineering processes. So there's a lot at stake, but if we can really overcome these kind of limits. then really as Mike was saying at the beginning the democratization space will come to be something real.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
And how is it to be on the customer side and how would it look in the future?
Alper Gezeravcı
I think in my case it was awesome in the way that I came from one of these agencies, traditional agencies, ESA, and was put on into a commercial more customer. side in this. So it was two worlds meeting each other in a way that we haven't seen before. And I think that was a very good flight test. We talked about envelope expansion, where you can operate your vehicle. And so this was a good envelope expansion for ESA, I believe, to where can we operate our space operation? How does that work? And it was a lot of interesting... challenges in the beginning actually coming from these two worlds and meeting them and which is something that I normally enjoy because there are opens up all these possibilities and I think the the the attitude that Axiom had and that ESA had made this a very fruitful collaboration which is still ongoing AX4 also has an ESA astronaut in there and and I just want to mention since we're in Sweden that this would not have happened without that decisive Sweden's extremely fast way of aligning and deciding and helping to push ESA over this, into this world. That was awesome.
Marcus Wandt
In our case, I'm not the first one, I'm the eighth Italian astronaut. So we've been a long history of people flying to space through the collaboration with ESA and the governmental. But for the first time, and I don't consider myself nor the Air Force a customer, but more a partner with Axiom. We had the opportunity to run for the first time a mission as Italian Air Force. And we did this taking aboard the Italian Space Agency, who took care about the experiments. And for the first time we had industries. developing their own payloads and experiments and asking the Air Force in collaboration to provide the support of the subject matter expert that is in this case was the astronaut flying to the ISS. So it's really a game changer in terms of mindset and perspectives and really it's opened up multiple opportunities even including for these young women and men in the room. For instance, for conceiving new experiments and making these experiments flying faster and hopefully cheaper in the future to space. So it's really a game changer.
Walter Villadei
I absolutely love this crew. They seem so close-knit and well-casted for their part.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Michael mentioned that the AX4 mission will probably be even more successful, but I wonder if that's even possible. But we will follow their and Axiom Space's journey for sure.
Walter Villadei
Anyway, it was so great for us who weren't able to attend to get to hear these conversations. So thank you so much for that, Marcus. And always nice to hear from that other Marcus again, of course.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Please check out our website havewegone2marsyet.com for more. I'm Marcus Pettersson.
Walter Villadei
I'm Susanna Levenhaupt.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
The music you hear in the background is written and performed by Armin Pendek.
Walter Villadei
Have we gone to Mars yet? is made at Beppo by Rundfunk Media in collaboration with Saab.

Chapters

Introduction and Overview of the Axiom AX-3 Mission
0sec
Axiom AX-3 Crew's Visit to Sweden
19sec
Exploring Swedish Aviation at Saab
1min
Differences Between Fighter Jets and Spacecraft
1min
Preparing for Space: Training Insights
3min
Changes in Space Travel Since the 90s
5min
Future of Space Stations and Technology Improvements
8min
Dream Missions: Moon vs. Mars
9min
Live Audience Q&A: Astronaut Experiences and Challenges
10min
Personal Journeys to Becoming Astronauts
11min
Reflections on Training and Team Dynamics
21min
Commercial Space Flight: A New Era of Exploration
37min

About Have we gone to Mars yet?

Produced and hosted by Marcus Pettersson & Susanna Lewenhaupt.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

About Have we gone to Mars yet?

Produced and hosted by Marcus Pettersson & Susanna Lewenhaupt.

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Embed

Introduction and Overview of the Axiom AX-3 Mission

0sec

Axiom AX-3 Crew's Visit to Sweden

19sec

Exploring Swedish Aviation at Saab

1min

Differences Between Fighter Jets and Spacecraft

1min

Preparing for Space: Training Insights

3min

Changes in Space Travel Since the 90s

5min

Future of Space Stations and Technology Improvements

8min

Dream Missions: Moon vs. Mars

9min

Live Audience Q&A: Astronaut Experiences and Challenges

10min

Personal Journeys to Becoming Astronauts

11min

Reflections on Training and Team Dynamics

21min

Commercial Space Flight: A New Era of Exploration

37min

Transcription

Marcus Wandt
Keep those dreams and just don't let them fade away, because that's super important. Otherwise, we would not have gone there if people would have let their dreams fade away.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Late this August, the Axiom Space Mission AX-3 crew visited Sweden. They had a busy schedule, of course, where they, apart from the mandatory meet and greet with the prime minister of Sweden, visited Saab, Linköping University, KTH and the Swedish Astronomical Youth Association here in Stockholm.
Marcus Pettersson
Right. And I had the great honor to conduct the conversation at Astronomical Youth. And in just a short while, we would love to share that with you. I am Marcus Pettersson.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
I am Susanna Levenhaupt.
Marcus Pettersson
And you're listening to Have We Gone to Mars Yet?
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Axiom Space AX3 is the mission our Swedish astronaut Markus Wundt went on together with his colleagues Michael Lopez-Alegria, Walter Villadé and Albert Ghezzarovci in January this year.
Marcus Pettersson
And one thing these four astronauts have in common is that they are all pilots. So when Marcus invited them to Sweden, a visit to Saab to check out our Gripen plane was a must. And when they were there, we took the opportunity to exchange a few words. So Marcus, what have you and the crew been up to since you arrived in Sweden?
Marcus Wandt
Yesterday, we got to see a bit of Swedish aviation history at the Air Force Museum here. And then today we've been at Saab looking at... how we do aerospace, how aerospace industry is working here and how we do innovation. And also we've been flying a little bit in the simulator, right?
Marcus Pettersson
Okay, and you've all flown planes before. So what's the difference between this and the kind of flying you've been doing earlier?
Michael López-Alegría
I have never been in a simulator, I'll say that modern, of a tactical airplane. That was pretty exciting for me. I liked watching Alper, he almost made me seasick a few times. But that's...
Alper Gezeravcı
typical developer well even though the platform is different aviation sold is universal so feeling yourself back in the in the air having the same freedom it's an amazing feeling but congratulations to south for this new platform that they came up with and i really enjoyed the feeling
Walter Villadei
Well, I would say comparing with the last simulations and simulators we used the Dragon, at least over here you can put the hands on the stick and doing something, while the Dragon is more like a system engineer. But definitely a nice experience to fly with Saab and the Gripen E. Yeah,
Marcus Pettersson
exactly. In the Dragon there are not a lot of hands-on things to do. So when you do a simulation for the Dragon, what do you do? Just sit and watch?
Walter Villadei
Well, actually, it's not just a sit and watch. You have a sit and watch and understand what's going on. And of course, be ready to engage with the systems if there's something which is not going as expected. And you have a lot of interaction with the ground. So it's more like being a part of a wider team. While when you fly fighter jets, you are more alone. Of course, you are in a mission. It's a kind of different approach, but I will lead the commander to expand on that.
Michael López-Alegría
You know, I noticed... There are some things that we do in the Dragon that are important and that are sometimes time critical, but the workload on a second-by-second basis flying an airplane, especially if you're trying to employ it tactically, is much higher. So I think maybe in some ways the consequences are greater in a spacecraft, but I think the pace of information flow to you is more manageable.
Marcus Pettersson
Except for being a fighter pilot, what is the best way to prepare for going to space?
Michael López-Alegría
Actually, flying is a pretty small piece of it, to be honest. This is a luxury on this crew because everybody was a military aviator, but on a prior mission that I had, none of them were at the time aviators. And I don't think, I think that it prepares you with a certain way of critical thinking and sort of prioritization of tasks. But in general, what we do on a space flight is very different from flying. It's much more about... following procedures, of course, being ready to react in an emergency situation, working well as a team, but it's not really comparable to an aviation environment. Marcus, would you agree?
Marcus Wandt
Yeah, I agree. I definitely agree. It's a lot about teamwork and the work allocation and also have a backup plan for that teamwork if things would be different. I guess that's where maybe the common ground with being a pilot is that you're used to following procedures maybe, and you're also used to thinking. What if, what if, what if? And I think those are common, but then there are so many differences as well.
Marcus Pettersson
Now, you are all part of the future of space, going on a private mission with Axiom. And Michael, you've been flying a lot, six times in space since 1995. What are the biggest changes since you started flying?
Michael López-Alegría
A lot has changed. I mean, I started flying in the space shuttle, which is a very manual spacecraft. Something like a thousand switches in the cockpit and everything we did, we did, you know. with our hands on our stick or switches or whatever happened to be. I think now things are more modern. For example, for the first time we used, for the first time in my career, we used iPads to run our procedures. I mean, obviously that was a twinkle in somebody's eye back in 1995 for my first mission. So I think the art of space flying has changed quite a bit. And more importantly, these astronauts represent a whole new universe. chapter in human space flight. So whereas before everybody was a national astronaut and that was their career, in most of these cases, even though Walter has spent quite a number of years training as a cosmonaut slash astronaut, they will go back to their so-called day jobs afterward. And this is a step toward the idea of making space accessible to more and more people.
Marcus Pettersson
And for the rest of you, what did Michael bring with him to to help you train for this mission?
Alper Gezeravcı
The knowledge doesn't always come from the written sources. Sometimes it comes, it stems from the experiences. And he has a great amount of experience coming out of different platforms and different shapes of space experience and space flight experience throughout the years. So he has been really generous to share not only the knowledge, that is already written on the documents to understand for us to digest but also the experience that he has accumulated all these years long so we are really grateful in that manner yeah and it's it's a real luxury to have some it's not uh maybe
Marcus Wandt
that's not obvious but to have someone that is so experienced like the one of the world's most experienced from space flight at this as at an arms range during a whole mission training spin up and during the whole mission and afterwards as well It's just a big source, a big wealth of knowledge that you can just ask and get answers from. It's great. And have good discussions with it as well, with new things. So that's great.
Walter Villadei
Well, I would just add that especially about living on the ISS, which is a completely different environment. We've been for quite an extensive long period of time during the Dragon, 37 hours in the uphill and 47 in downhill. But then 14 days. on the 18Ds actually on the ISS. So even get some tips and how to do easy things on the ISS that was very important for all of us.
Marcus Wandt
That is also important during the training, as you said, some things are written and some things are in the syllabus, but actually most of the training to go to space is being done by very knowledgeable, but still instructors that have not come to space. And then you need that little glue to glue all those pieces together and you can get that from Mike. So that's great.
Marcus Pettersson
Okay, so looking to the future, the ISS is getting quite old, and hopefully we're getting a new one soon with the help of Axiom. What improvements would you like to see in a new space station?
Marcus Wandt
A proper coffee machine.
Michael López-Alegría
It's a pretty long list. I think we've learned a lot with the ISS. It was built in the 90s, and really some of the design was in the 80s, and so it's fairly antiquated, and there are a lot of improvements that actually— This crew gave to Axiom for its design of its future space station. But there's a lot that we can learn about the man-machine interface and certainly the miniaturization of equipment to have a lot of the things that are today external on the truss. If something breaks, you have to go to a spacewalk to fix it. In the future, we'll open a closet and change a box out, and it'll be a lot simpler. So it's a long list of things, but that's the advance of technology. That's the normal process, I think.
Marcus Pettersson
Okay, and finally, if you got to choose your next mission, where would you go? The ISS, the Moon, or Mars?
Michael López-Alegría
Moon.
Marcus Wandt
Yeah, Moon first. Moon.
Walter Villadei
Well, if I have a choice, Mars. Why not?
Marcus Pettersson
Why the Moon?
Michael López-Alegría
Yeah, I mean, I think the practical considerations today is that a trip to Mars is a much heavier lift. And I'm just not as confident that we'll get there soon enough for me. That's who I picked. I think the moon is in reach. I think Mars is a little bit of a stretch.
Marcus Wandt
Also, if you go to the moon, you can go there to be for a mission, come back. If you go to Mars, I would like to bring my family along. They would love that. Yeah, they would love that.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Okay, so let's just clarify one thing here. Michael's not saying that we won't be going to Mars. He just doesn't think we'll go there soon enough for him to be on the flight.
Marcus Pettersson
But I say, why not? Is there anybody cooler than Michael Lopez Alegria?
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Nope.
Marcus Pettersson
I mean, he must be closer to the future than anybody else, flying rockets for a living. He's been to space six times. gone with the Space Shuttle, the Soyuz and the Falcon, done 10 EVAs and is now commander at Axiom Space.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
And you know, another cool thing is that in the future, that line of work will become more and more common. People flying on different missions on a regular basis, to and from moon bases and space stations and even asteroids. And
Marcus Pettersson
Mars. Anyway, this was quite a short interview during a busy day in Linköping. But luckily, I had the opportunity to catch up with the crew again the next day. When conducting the conversation at Astronomical Youth, I got a chance to elaborate some of the questions.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
This conversation is recorded in front of a live audience and the sound is accordingly, but the content is just as fascinating as always.
Marcus Pettersson
For sure. And similar as their piloting backgrounds might seem, there are of course differences. So why not let's get started. the astronauts start by introducing themselves one by one and move on to the questions after that.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Let's do that. And first out is our very own Markus Vant, who will tell us about his journey from the military service to space.
Marcus Wandt
I'll start from when I joined the forces, I guess, as a conscript, and then I'll go back further when we talk about space. So I did my conscription in the army as an airborne ranger. And when I did that, just before I went into that system, about half of everyone in Sweden or all males in Sweden at that time did the conscription and I was more I was leaning towards studying engineering and just skipped the whole thing but then I went to the Mönstringen and saw a picture and it just looked nice out in the woods so I figured okay let's let's do that so I did that it came out and out of that went to Chalmers to study to become an engineer and during that I had a I went back during winters and worked as a survival instructor because I liked the operational environment and the teamwork and a little bit of what you were saying, working as a team and having people to talk with. And that was great. So I applied for the Air Force because I figured I could get some tech, which I was interested in, and also the kind of community or operational environment as a fighter pilot. So I did that for 10 years and worked with some development and some... when deployed to Libya as well and came back home. And then Sweden decided to build a new jet, a new Gripen. And the engineering part of it, I had never left. I was super interested in engineering. I want to combine engineering and flying. So that's why I applied to test pilot school and went to US Navy test pilot school. Came back to Sweden and worked with developing the Gripen for 10 years and then ESA. looking for astronauts and then that space thing came back. So the space thing and I'm when I'm thinking back I get the question a lot did you always dream to be an astronaut? I dreamt about a lot of things probably astronaut, carpenter, truck driver, pilots probably I don't know and a lot of things but I remember clearly Looking up and seeing the sky and the stars and thinking about how big is space and asking my parents as well, where does it end? No, it's infinite. Oh, infinite. And that's kind of hard to grasp, right? So, no, it's got to end. But then my dad said, yeah, so what's behind the end then? And then that discussion started to grow, right? And I don't know. I don't think I had a lot of friends to discuss that with, actually. Maybe I did and maybe it stopped. No, let's just build a treehouse instead. It's okay. which is also fun right but still so i think that's a really nice thing that you have where you can go and have those discussions and have those thoughts and that keep those dreams and just and as you say don't let them fade away because that's super important otherwise we would not we would not have gone there if people would have let their dreams fade away hello again dear friends alper from turkey
Alper Gezeravcı
I'm really pleased and honored to be here in front of you. I grew up in a very small town in Turkey. And I joined the military high school when I was 14 years old. And then to the Air Force Academy when I was 18. I graduated from the Turkish Air Force Academy when I was 22, completed the flight school, and then I was selected to be an F-16 pilot serving in the Air Force for some years and then made it to the States for my master's degree program in 2006 in Air Force Institute of Technology. Returned back two years later, continued to fly in F-16, and then switched over to another military aircraft, which is... Sankara aircraft, KC-135, completed its training in the United States, returned back and started to serve in that aircraft. And then in 2013, I switched over to the airlines. And then in 2020, I returned back to the Air Force based on the need of the Air Force and started to fly in both aircrafts, KC-135 and F-16. And all of a sudden... In the middle of the night in 2022, May the 23rd, I returned back from an operational flight and I opened the TV and heard the news. The president was talking on the news and he was telling they decided to send the very first Turkish citizen into the space. I was very happy because ever since I was five years old, I had dreams as All of you have. But my dreams were always limited with the sky that I could see with my bare eyes and with the airplanes that flying. That was the limit of my dreams. Why? Because your fate is being shaped in where you were born. And at that time, our dreams were limited. with the sky. And in the morning when I heard the same news, I decided to go ahead and check for the criteria. It was about three and a half page long criteria list. I was expecting I was gonna lose one of the items while reading through and then say good luck to the, you know, citizens of Turkey. So at the end of like almost three weeks. After searching through all the open sources that you can also reach out, I was just determined and I found out that yes, I could really provide what is needed in the name of my country. And after applying for the program, that's another interesting criteria. Even though we have done it for the first time in our history, 36,000 Turkish people applied for the program in our history. And then it took about a year. At the end of the selection process, here we are.
Michael López-Alegría
Good afternoon,
Walter Villadei
everyone. My name is Walter Villadei, born and raised in Rome. As my colleagues at the end of the high school, I joined the Air Force. I studied as a space engineer. I mean, I had the opportunity to become the first space engineer. Back at the time in the Air Force, we didn't have a space program. And the university that I was attending just opened up the first course in Space Engineering. I applied and asked, can I do that? Of course, the answer was, no, you can't. Why? Because it's never done before. That's not a good answer. So I had to push a little bit the system, to stress a little bit the system, but then they realized and allowed me to do that. Again, there was no any space program, so I was assigned after the academy to my squadron. I flew with some airplanes back in some... operational theaters like Afghanistan and Iraq as flight engineers. And then around 2000 the Air Force started to get back to space program. In Italy we launched our first satellites in 1964. And it was thanks to a cooperation between the Italian Air Force and the University of Rome. So again, universities, armed forces, it's a good combination. So the Air Force came back to this stage of space and I was asked to come back to the Air Staff and to support the building up of the space program in the Air Force. I did it. And then around 2010, the Air Force and the Italian Space Agency, they signed an agreement to even allow some national astronauts to use some space flights. So we already had some colleagues, pilots, flown to space. So the Air Force was looking for different profiles. raised my hand. So I was selected for starting the training and I was sent to Star City, Russia. So my first approach with space was to go to Star City. I had my basic training course as a cosmonaut, maybe I'm one of the few Europeans qualified as a cosmonaut. And then I've been in training for many years. So another point is some of my colleagues were so lucky to move from the selection to the flight in less than two years. I've been waiting for more than 10 years. I've been back and forth from Star City for training and supporting the Italian space strategy. And then I was very close to be assigned to... flying with the Russians in the Soyuz, but then the geopolitical situation turned to be a little bit more tense. And so I was asked to come back and we turned to the US because SpaceX, as you know, in May 2020, came back to be fully autonomous and they provided the Dragon. So I went to Axiom and NASA in September 21 for starting my professional training as an astronaut. I had the opportunity to fly suborbitaly with Virgin Galactic in June 2023. So I was the commander of the Italian team with other colleagues from Virgin Galactic and we took a lot of pilots on board. And then over that time I was in training with this fine gentleman and we flew to the ISS in January this year. So that's my story.
Michael López-Alegría
My name is Michael Lopez Alegría. Maybe you can tell by my last name, I'm not American by birth. I was born in Spain, but we moved to the U.S. when I was quite young. And so I grew up between Boston and most of it in Southern California. I went to school not knowing exactly what I wanted to do. My father was a military officer in the Spanish Army. And I think it was because of him, but catalogs from the U.S. neighborhood shadowy started showing up in my mailbox. I applied them how I was accepted, and during the four years there, at the end, you have to pick, well, you give them the preference that you want, and then they pick for you your service selection. Generally, you can be a submarine officer, a surface warfare officer, an aviator, or a marine, Marine Corps. I was pretty sure I wanted to be a submariner, and then I spent three days on a submarine, and I wanted to be an aviator. I was very, very anxious. So I went to flight school, and a little bit like Marcus, I had studied engineering at the academy, and I wanted to combine that with aviation, and so I applied to the same Naval Test Pilot School. And after being a test pilot, I applied to NASA to become an astronaut. And then about three years after selection, I flew my first mission, which was on Columbia. It was a 14-day microgravity research mission. The next two missions were on Discovery and Endeavor, and they were both... assembly missions to the International Space Station. And then my fourth and final mission at NASA was also on the Soyuz. And it's a three-person vehicle, so there's a Russian commander, I was a flight engineer. And then the third person was a spaceflight participant. So this is somebody who is not a professional astronaut, who effectively paid money to go to space. So after that, that mission was seven months long. I came back, stayed at NASA for a few more years. But I left there after 20 years. pretty content with my my four mission career but the job i went to was to be an advocate for the commercial space industry because of this experience with the space flight participant so after that i i one of i started consulting in outside of that organization and one of my clients was a company called axiom space this was a job where i could help the company build a commercial space station because that's what we're about we thought of the idea of of organizing and conducting private astronaut missions and the space space x was uh already successful on the doorstep of being successful that's a four-person cockpit so we went out to try to talk to individuals governments research agencies but it was very expensive to fly because we because the cost of launch at fortune is still very high and we wanted to sell all four seats but we started talking to our customers and they really wanted somebody who had been there before and when we looked around the room to see if only space before it was just me so i i was fortunate enough to command the first all-private mission to the iss in 2022 that was ax1 we have since flown a second one in 2023 that was ax2 and and of course we flew ax3 just earlier this year and we have another mission that x4 scheduled for sometime in the first or second quarter of next year. And I think we did, as a crew, I would say much better than AX2, who did much better than AX1, and will probably be surpassed by AX4 if things are going in the right direction.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Now that we know a little bit about the crew, let's move on to the Q&A. These questions were collected from the audience at the Swedish Astronomical Youth Association. And the first one goes to Walter Villaday, who started his training at Roscosmos in Russia, which actually makes him a cosmonaut.
Marcus Pettersson
Walter, what's the difference between training to become a cosmonaut and training to become an astronaut?
Walter Villadei
Well, actually there are not such big differences because the community is pretty small. And to say that the International Space Station has been and still is a magnificent program of international cooperation. They put together two different worlds, the former Soviet Union with the United States and the Western countries. So over the time, I'm pretty sure that at the beginning, maybe the training was slightly different. Maybe a lot. Even during my training, I noticed after the training in NASA that the approach for some things is quite different, but nevertheless are much more the communalities. The needs, because we are flying all together in the same infrastructure, which is the space station, the need to fly together. So for the most, all the crews are mixed crews. So we have Americans and Russians and internationals. So you have to be able to speak the same operational language along with the normal same English-Russian language and then you are supposed to live for six months. In our case it was a short mission but for the most my training was started as being able to fly for long expeditions. That means you have to learn all of us.
Marcus Wandt
the same basics to then live and operate together safely and even to enjoy the time. Because if you stay six months in a place, as Mike was saying, with someone that you don't feel like belongs to you, it's going to be pretty difficult. So, of course, the environment is completely different. Star City is not Houston. And so, especially during the winter time, but I would say that even in the summer time, Houston is not Star City. So you have to be flexible. and adapt to both the situations. But nevertheless, I have to say that I guess I was pretty lucky to have the opportunity to have the exposure to both the training systems. So still there are some niche differences in terms of Russians that want to always know everything about the physics, I like very much. When you are in the US you have to understand very well the procedures. I guess they are very complementary. So I would say the possibility to be trained from both was definitely an added value. Okay,
Susanna Lewenhaupt
thank you. And then I got a question for all of you, but I will start with you Alper. What was it that you found the hardest thing during training before you went to space?
Marcus Pettersson
Mescosuit transition. There's a specific procedure when you have a fire emergency inside the capsule. You have to put on your mask immediately in order to be able to breath, keep breathing, and start some procedure steps. And at some point, if you based on the readings on your sensors and so on, you may need to switch over to your pressure suite. To me, it wasn't really pleasant, but after getting the command of our commander, based on his more than 20 years long experience, I could say that, yes, that was the unpleasant part of the whole training.
Michael López-Alegría
First of all, I agree wholeheartedly that that was the most difficult because, I mean, you're really physiologically stressed. So the assumption is a fire, you could took a fire out. In space, fire doesn't propagate very well because we have convection here where flames look that way because of the... the heat is rising and it's drawing in oxygen there we have to use um diffusion for the oxygen to get there so i've done some combustion experiments and the the flames grow spherically and they they go out pretty quickly so the assumption is we can put the fire out we have different ways of doing that but now you've got these combustion products in the atmosphere that are toxic and you don't want to expose your eyes or personal bones to them so That's why, as Alper said, mask on first thing. And then generally, we take readings of how those contaminants, how high they are. And we've got to do one of two things to get rid of them. One is to purge the toxic atmosphere by adding a lot of breathable gas. So it's basically air. And the second, more drastic, in case it's very high, is we have to evacuate the capsule. So we basically go to vacuum. Clearly, you need to be in your spacesuit for both of those things. So we practiced this mask to see transition. And, of course, you've got this mask on, and you have to, A, hold your breath, and, B, close your eyes. And, of course, we're helping each other. And that is probably where this crew really excelled because, you know, everybody here is a military aviator, and I think that implants a certain operational way of thinking. and we gel that would say very quickly in this thing i think even the spacex trainers who had trained many nasa pros before impressed with how quickly and how effective was we able to to do that exercise but i have to be as open that was the least favorite part also so
Alper Gezeravcı
one component also in that is when you have this mask on the oxygen flow is pretty low to that master order with the mask on And you're doing pretty hard work when you're doing this transition, or the other things we have to do to put out the fire. And then when you put your suit on, which is also physically demanding, the flow in the suit is also low. So not only are you working really hard and doing these transitions and closing your eyes and getting in there, but there's also very low in oxygen. So you're quite hypoxic actually. Yeah, that's a tough one.
Michael López-Alegría
And the other physiological thing is you're generally... filling up the heat load and so you get condensation on the inside of the mask they're not seeing very well and it's pretty loud and because these masks like uh you're basically blowing oxygen or air overboard and so you can't hear each other very well you can't see very well your hypoxic gets super fun
Susanna Lewenhaupt
So then you had a lot of training, not everything was that fun, but was there parts of the training that you enjoyed more than you thought?
Alper Gezeravcı
The whole going to the bathroom thing is very emphasized at NASA, like this trained this really well because it's more difficult in space than on Earth, but it was not as difficult as they made it sound, so that was something that was... I don't know if I want to say funner, but it was less complicated.
Marcus Wandt
At the other point... When you are in training in Building 9 at the Johnson Space Center, you follow the procedure, but you of course have the gravity. Doing the same procedure and move yourself inside the station in microgravity, that really turns to be much funner than, I mean, the simple doing the procedure on the ground. So for the most everything you do for the first time in microgravity, floating and trying to adapt yourself, is definitely from one side more difficult than expected because it's the first time you experience such a condition. But at the same time, it's even much, much more fun.
Marcus Pettersson
Being there all by itself is already a good reason to be happy. Because you must have all been to playground. Do you call it Luna Park?
Alper Gezeravcı
Krona Lund, that's right.
Marcus Pettersson
Yeah, you are buying tokens. I'm telling to the children in my country and my friends in the country, think about yourself being in this...
Alper Gezeravcı
Krona Lund.
Marcus Pettersson
Yes, this place. And then being given an... unlimited token that you can use any moment so it's just like that amazing you are really busy doing a lot of things according to your schedule but even in between these activities which makes you keep which keeps you pretty busy you
Susanna Lewenhaupt
need to get something and you are flying from one point to the other what is more amazing than that is there something that you wished you had time for to do up there that you didn't do
Marcus Pettersson
EVA?
Alper Gezeravcı
EVA, yeah. That was not a time issue, but yes.
Marcus Pettersson
Another time issue.
Michael López-Alegría
You know, we had planned to be docked to the ISS for 14 days, and because the weather was not cooperating, we ended up having four more days. And I think that was a godsend because invariably, first of all, we had a very busy, what we call timeline. So, on daily activities are scheduled. And they all had experiments that their countries had provided, and they felt a certain responsibility to do them. And so you don't really have much, I'll say, free time. In fact, you have virtually no free time. On a long mission as an ISS crew member, I worked half a day Saturday, and I had the entire day Sunday off. But as a short-duration crew, we basically, I think we had half a day off. But you've got a lot of things that you're trying to keep up with your friends and family. by email or actually on the phone and especially taking pictures because you really want to get you know it's just like you all want to take a selfie or something when you're in this cool environment well imagine you're flying over here every 90 minutes in a different part and you want to get your hometown or where you went to school or whatever you did so all those things end up sort of stacking up and you don't quite get them all done by the time we were supposed to undock and I think we had four more days which was really nice to be able to catch up.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Yes and you had four more days and as we all know there are a couple of astronauts up there right now who will have a bit more than four days extra in space. How do you think they feel and what would you feel about have to stay in space for another half hour, half a year? Half an hour,
Michael López-Alegría
sorry.
Alper Gezeravcı
Exactly, more free tokens. I think I think one thing is very important that you mentioned earlier, Mike, the uncertainty of when you're going, because there's been the discussion, right? And now the decision is made. I think that makes a big difference for the astronauts up there to get the date, even though that date is far out, because now they can focus on that, be a part of the crew and continue. And I think I would probably enjoy it mostly. And of course, it would be... Depends a little bit on the family situation or the situation at home, because other people are affected as well, right? But if when you get that data and you know that you're going to be there for half a year more and work, I think that would be fine.
Marcus Pettersson
You are mentally and physically fit and ready for any kind of circumstances and contingencies that already comes as the nature of the job that you are doing. And you are getting prepared all the way from the beginning. So I don't think that's a huge problem for them, other than the people waiting on the ground for them.
Michael López-Alegría
Yeah, the only thing I would add is they knew this was a possibility, but they lost it. It's a test of life. NASA knew it ahead of time, so they gave them training to live and work on ISS for a long duration period of time. the ISS has enough provisions, you know, food, clothing, water, fuel, that kind of thing. And so I think once you get beyond the question of when, I think that becomes secondary and you just wake up every morning and do your thing and enjoy the view.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Michael, you have a long career in space. How would you describe that it has changed from what it was to the commercial side now?
Michael López-Alegría
I mean, in many ways, it's identical among, you know, the training and sort of what you do day to day when you're in space. But I will say I feel differently about it because these are my crewmates. They're also my customers. And so my mission is, you know, first and foremost, to go well and safely. But I want to support them however I can. Whereas when you're an individual crew member as part of a crew, I mean, but it kind of does their own thing. And you get to get at the end of the day, maybe you talk about it. But I think there's a different sense when you have not only the successful completion of the mission, but their joy. Turns out with these guys, they didn't have to worry about that too much because the smiles on their faces were pretty big the whole time. It's a very different approach to how I'm... doing my day-to-day work in terms of what I need to focus on. It's kind of like the difference between flying an airplane and teaching somebody to fly an airplane. You are really invested in their success as well. And I think that made a big difference. But again, with these guys, it was pretty easy.
Marcus Wandt
Think about the sequence of the mission, because the debate about what about the commercial space flight is commercial private entities versus the institutional one, the governmental. Look at the axioms one, two and three. For the first time, there were astronauts from Saudi Arabia, the first Turkish astronaut, the second Swedish astronaut. So the possibility, the flexibility to get a much larger set of countries involved in space, it's much more flexible and powerful than in the past, where the government, of course, focused on the next step of the frontier. In this case, we are talking about the moon. But this commercial space flight and what they are doing, it was amazing. I mean, even in terms of the Potentiality is to open up much more international cooperation. So it's a tremendous added value. And then of course, it's a matter of collaboration, it's a matter of cost. So we all hope to have the possibility, and this is a challenge for you guys, how much we can really reduce the cost to access to space. We need new technologies, new systems, different engineering processes. So there's a lot at stake, but if we can really overcome these kind of limits. then really as Mike was saying at the beginning the democratization space will come to be something real.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
And how is it to be on the customer side and how would it look in the future?
Alper Gezeravcı
I think in my case it was awesome in the way that I came from one of these agencies, traditional agencies, ESA, and was put on into a commercial more customer. side in this. So it was two worlds meeting each other in a way that we haven't seen before. And I think that was a very good flight test. We talked about envelope expansion, where you can operate your vehicle. And so this was a good envelope expansion for ESA, I believe, to where can we operate our space operation? How does that work? And it was a lot of interesting... challenges in the beginning actually coming from these two worlds and meeting them and which is something that I normally enjoy because there are opens up all these possibilities and I think the the the attitude that Axiom had and that ESA had made this a very fruitful collaboration which is still ongoing AX4 also has an ESA astronaut in there and and I just want to mention since we're in Sweden that this would not have happened without that decisive Sweden's extremely fast way of aligning and deciding and helping to push ESA over this, into this world. That was awesome.
Marcus Wandt
In our case, I'm not the first one, I'm the eighth Italian astronaut. So we've been a long history of people flying to space through the collaboration with ESA and the governmental. But for the first time, and I don't consider myself nor the Air Force a customer, but more a partner with Axiom. We had the opportunity to run for the first time a mission as Italian Air Force. And we did this taking aboard the Italian Space Agency, who took care about the experiments. And for the first time we had industries. developing their own payloads and experiments and asking the Air Force in collaboration to provide the support of the subject matter expert that is in this case was the astronaut flying to the ISS. So it's really a game changer in terms of mindset and perspectives and really it's opened up multiple opportunities even including for these young women and men in the room. For instance, for conceiving new experiments and making these experiments flying faster and hopefully cheaper in the future to space. So it's really a game changer.
Walter Villadei
I absolutely love this crew. They seem so close-knit and well-casted for their part.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Michael mentioned that the AX4 mission will probably be even more successful, but I wonder if that's even possible. But we will follow their and Axiom Space's journey for sure.
Walter Villadei
Anyway, it was so great for us who weren't able to attend to get to hear these conversations. So thank you so much for that, Marcus. And always nice to hear from that other Marcus again, of course.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
Please check out our website havewegone2marsyet.com for more. I'm Marcus Pettersson.
Walter Villadei
I'm Susanna Levenhaupt.
Susanna Lewenhaupt
The music you hear in the background is written and performed by Armin Pendek.
Walter Villadei
Have we gone to Mars yet? is made at Beppo by Rundfunk Media in collaboration with Saab.

Chapters

Introduction and Overview of the Axiom AX-3 Mission

0sec

Axiom AX-3 Crew's Visit to Sweden

19sec

Exploring Swedish Aviation at Saab

1min

Differences Between Fighter Jets and Spacecraft

1min

Preparing for Space: Training Insights

3min

Changes in Space Travel Since the 90s

5min

Future of Space Stations and Technology Improvements

8min

Dream Missions: Moon vs. Mars

9min

Live Audience Q&A: Astronaut Experiences and Challenges

10min

Personal Journeys to Becoming Astronauts

11min

Reflections on Training and Team Dynamics

21min

Commercial Space Flight: A New Era of Exploration

37min