Off Duty, travel - Marine Corps Times

Head above the clouds

As deployments go, Army Col. Timothy Kopra’s recent stint was a bit farther from his home base than most.

Kopra, a West Point graduate and veteran of Operation Desert Storm, recently returned to Earth from the International Space Station, where he served as the flight engineer. He left July 15 aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour and returned Sept. 11 on the shuttle Discovery, for a total of 58 days in space.

Now back in Houston and training for the last scheduled mission of the space shuttle program, Kopra spoke with Military Times about the experience.

Q: How was life aboard the International Space Station?

A: Life on the space station could not have been better. It was just a real joy to be able to float around and do your work every day.

Q: So which is better: space station food or MREs?

A: You know, MREs have gotten quite a bit better over the years. Some of our [space] food is pretty similar to MREs. They come in the same sort of foil packaging. The main thing about the food in space or even on the battlefield is the variety — and we had plenty.

Q: Have you sampled the water from the recycling system? What’s it like — drinking from the toilet?

A: Sampled? That’s what we lived off of. Every day we’d fill up our drink bags from the place where they dispense the water. Essentially, the recycled water is condensate — it’s urine, it’s everything else that’s collected into that system. And it works great; the water is clean and fresh, and we use it every day.

Q: I hear that you’re headed back to space on the last shuttle mission.

A: Yeah, I’m very fortunate to be going back to the Space Station on STS-133. One, it will be nice to get back and return to my temporary home. But also, when we go back we’ll have a couple of new modules on board. We’ll have Node Three and its very large cupola, which is a window that looks out onto Earth. And then we’ll be bringing up a permanent logistics module that we will leave on board. Essentially we’ll have a really big closet on board, which is really needed.

Q: What was your role on the space station?

A: I was a flight engineer. ... We [maintain] the systems on board. Sometimes things break, and we have to replace units or find ways to repair them. And then we participate in a wide variety of science experiments from a very international community.

Q: If NASA decides to go with private-industry launches, would you be looking to fly with them?

A: The interesting thing about the commercial aspect of spaceflight is we’re really in the very beginning stages. The first thing we need to do is demonstrate that there is a commercial capability to resupply the space station. And then the next step is being able to fly people to the space station. That’s a pretty big hurdle. I think we’re going to get there, but time will tell. And I think when we do that, it will be manned with NASA crews and it may have a very international component to it.

Q: So which was scarier: your first shuttle launch or plebe week at West Point?

A: In both cases there’s the unknown. As a young 18-year-old going into a military environment, people bark at you. I think you prepare your mind for what is really unexpected and you make the best of it.

But plebe week was a lot longer than the 8½ minutes to space. And frankly, the only portion of the mission [in] which there is a heightened sense of fear is during those 8½ minutes. Once you’re in space, you just get to work.

We have a tremendous amount of confidence in not only the people who build the hardware but also operate the hardware. That confidence helps us to mitigate any sort of fear we might have heading into space.

Q: How does heading into space benefit the U.S. military in its mission?

A: Our role at NASA is not as a war fighter but as an astronaut in this civil organization. I think that one of the main aspects of our contribution is really the inspiration of young people.

But it was really that excitement to be part of the space program that led to my military career. And I think that is a good message for the military — that it can be an inspiration for young people to go into some very technical fields.

Q: Did you get to do a spacewalk?

A: I had one spacewalk. It was unbelievable. There are so many sensations and new sights and sounds and smells when you first get to space.

One of the things that was most striking: Going outside was not just how beautiful the Earth was but how black space is and how isolated the planet felt looking out into that black void.

Actually seeing the [space station] was just an amazing sight. It’s almost hard to believe that humans have built this huge and complex structure in space.

Going out the [airlock] door is scary, quite frankly. I was thinking about this the other day — it’s not dissimilar to parachuting. Jumping out of a plane, that first step is pretty darn scary. But then once you get out, you start focusing on the mission. In our case, we get outside, get our safety tethers hooked up and focus on getting our job done.