What to know
- Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk spoke with reporters from the International Space Station on Tuesday about Canada’s role in NASA’s Crew-13 mission and his experience in space.
- Kutryk arrived at the ISS on Oct. 1 and is the first Canadian astronaut to participate in NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
- The mission involves research, laboratory maintenance and technology demonstrations to support future Moon and Mars missions and improve life on Earth.
- Kutryk described seeing Earth from space as a spectacular experience that reinforced the importance of protecting the planet.
- Research aboard the ISS includes studying the effects of microgravity on astronauts’ muscle and bone mass, balance, eyesight and psychological health. Crew-13 is scheduled to return to Earth around February or March 2027.
Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Joshua Kutryk has shared more about Canada’s role and his experience in the recently-launched Crew-13 mission during an interview from space.
Kutryk spoke with reporters from aboard the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday. The Canadian astronaut has been at the ISS since Oct. 1, as part of NASA’s Crew-13 mission, in which astronauts will be performing research, laboratory maintenance and technology demonstrations aimed at advancing technology to enable future Moon and Mars missions and improve life on Earth.
Kutryk is the first CSA astronaut to be a part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
“I hope people see it as a testament to what Canada can do when we do certain things, when we’re bold with vision, when we’re a little bit ready to take risks,” he told reporters.
“When we see Canada doing a long duration mission, sending a Canadian to space for six months, importantly participating with the United States and with NASA, committing, generating technology in Canada, giving that to the cause, and participating in that exchange, I hope that we see a recipe for the future.”
According to Kutryk, the importance of having a Canadian join the mission in space isn’t limited to Canada’s presence in space, as it also includes Canadian academia and commercial entities in innovations and technology development which could translate into future innovation on Earth.
Read More
What’s it like to see Earth from space?
Besides Canada’s involvement in the mission, Kutryk was also asked about his experience travelling and adapting to space.
“The first three minutes of flight are exhilarating, spectacular, powerful, violent. We accelerate so quickly,” he said, adding that the spacecraft reached the speed of sound (about 343 metres per second) in the first minute of travel, settling down to three to four times the normal force of Earth’s gravity for eight minutes and capping out at 8 km/s.
“[It’s] a lot of energy, and when you’re riding it, you feel all of that… Your mind is alive, trying to bring in all these new experiences and feelings and sensations, things you’ve trained for but never really felt for real until the first flight. But ultimately, it’s really fun and it’s very satisfying.”
The astronaut also spoke about what it felt like to see Earth from space, which he said was one of the first things he did after all required protocols had been performed.
The experience of seeing Earth from the outside, which he described as spectacular, also led to a reflection about the challenges faced on soil and how people should protect the planet.
“It’s hard to describe. It’s just an absolutely spectacular experience. It makes me feel very lucky again to be here. Very lucky to have Canada here to be involved in this partnership,” he said.
“It makes you look at the world differently. As has been said before, it’s just one world. It’s one thing hanging in the blackness of space, and you don’t see all the countries and all the problems and all the challenges. You just see this little bit of perfection that we should really, really be trying to protect.”
Microgravity’s effect part of missions’ experiments
During the interview, Kutryk was also asked about the effects of microgravity on the body.
As explained by the astronaut, transitioning between Earth’s gravity to space’s microgravity is one of the biggest challenges for deeper space travel, as these transitions significantly affect the human body in several ways, from balance to locomotion.
Being under microgravity for longer periods of time can lead astronauts to losing muscle and bone, making their transition back to Earth difficult, as they have to re-adapt to the planet’s gravity.
“I weighed myself after the first week here, and I was down about five pounds. Now, we’re expecting to make that back up through nutrition and the fitness regime here and all of that,” Kutryk told reporters.
“If you don’t do anything to fight against that, humans on a six-month mission lose a lot of bone, a lot of muscle, and come back to Earth, frankly, a lot older physiologically and not very healthy.”
According to the CSA astronaut, understanding how to mitigate muscle and bone loss during space exploration is an important part of the research and experiments being conducted at the ISS.
Other experiments cited by the astronaut include tracking astronaut’s overall health during long space missions through wearable technology, researching the psychological aspects of space travel, and the effects of microgravity on eyesight.
The Crew-13 mission is scheduled to return to Earth around February or March of 2027.
