The final frontier– Julie Payette interview
The first IB alumnus in space, Julie Payette, returned to earth in August 2009 after her second mission outside the Earth’s atmosphere, visiting the International Space Station as chief engineer. Julie studied the IB Diploma Programme at the United World College (UWC) of the Atlantic in Wales, UK and now lives in Texas, USA. She spoke to IB World about her experiences…
How does it feel to be back down on Earth again?
It’s good. It takes a few days to adjust to gravity, though. Going into space is a complete transformation for the human body.
What are the main effects of that?
Your vestibular system – which is what we use on Earth to figure out how to stand – doesn’t work in space, so at first you can’t figure out where vertical is when you’re back on Earth. You rely almost solely on your vision to orient yourself and you collide with things. I ask people not to touch me when I’m back, but of course the first thing they want to do is hug you!
How did the experience this time round compare with your first space mission?
I was chief engineer this time, so I got a fantastic view of the entire cockpit and out of the windows. On my first mission, I remember thinking that riding the rocket was astonishing – the sheer force lifting you up, and all the noise, is tremendous – but being in the cockpit was even better. The view is incredible. You’re accelerating at 25 times the speed of sound, so you very quickly see the blue skies disappearing as you pass out of the layer of the earth that makes you see the sky blue, and soon it’s dark. Space is true black.
I took 8,000 photographs up there – thank God for digital! For the second time, I think I managed to get a picture of Atlantic College. It’s quite easy to figure out where the Bristol Channel [in the UK] is and find the Welsh coastline. We went around the planet every hour and a half, 55 minutes in orbital day and 35 minutes in orbital night, but you see a lot even in the dark. We saw cities and coast lines, as well as the Aurora Australis and the Aurora Borealis, which very few people have ever seen from space.
There must have been some hard work too…
We had a very complex mission, even in the world of space shuttle missions, which are always complex. We had five space walks and three different robotic arms. We had to be very focused and work very hard, but every now and then we had these blissful moments when we looked at the planet. It makes you appreciate Earth and want to take care of it. It’s a tremendous privilege to see it in that way. One thing you notice in particular is that you don’t see any borders. There’s very few manmade borders up there that you can see from space. I think that’s a bit of a lesson for all of us. Being in space reinforces the fact that there is only one planet. We all share it and it isn’t self-sustaining. We have to work at it.
What do you remember of your time in the IB?
I was given a tremendous opportunity to leave Canada at 16. I wanted to see the world, and living in a country I’d never even been to before was a great place to start. The IB wasn’t as well-known then as it is today, but its structure and breadth meant the student wasn’t confined to one or two things and you learned to get yourself organised. That’s been a really useful skill for me.
Did you want to be an astronaut at that point?
I wanted to be an astronaut at nine years old, but it didn’t make any sense. I grew up watching the Apollo 13 astronauts go to the Moon and I wanted to do that so badly. At that time there was no such thing as a Canadian astronaut – the first one flew in 1984, when I was at university. But just because something isn’t possible today doesn’t mean it’s not possible tomorrow. You’ve got to try, because if you don’t there’s 100% chance of not getting what you want. I made career choices based on my professional interests, and that’s what we tell people to do when they ask us how to become astronauts. One day, the opportunity came by. I was 28 years old and the Canadian Space Agency went on a recruitment drive. Out of 5,300 applicants they picked four of us.
What does your job entail when you’re not in space?
A space mission is planned and executed on the ground. We support the missions we’re not flying, and other astronauts support us when we do fly. We always know we’re working towards the goal of being in space. It’s a high-performance environment. You have to do your job well and demonstrate what you can do every day.
Is space travel anything like it’s depicted in movies?
Apollo 13 is a good movie. I recognise things in that. Other ones you can discard to the realm of fiction, like Space Cowboys or Armageddon. They’re nothing like our world.
Has being an astronaut changed your views on the possibility of extra-terrestrial life?
It’s not changed it, but it’s filled in some detail. We know we’re far from being alone. There are trillions of objects in the universe and we can’t be that important. It’s ludicrous to think that we’re the only form of life that has happened, or will happen, in 11 billion years. It’s equally pompous to imagine that if there were intelligent forms of life elsewhere, they would come and visit the third planet in a very small and insignificant solar system. And it’s even more unlikely still that they would appear in front of two guys in a forest somewhere.
But wasn’t part of you looking out for aliens up there?
I never thought I’d see one. It doesn’t make sense that the people on my crew would see them and nobody else would. It’s statistically unlikely, but not impossible. It’s far more likely I would be struck by lightning. Which I have been, by the way, when I was flying an aeroplane once…
