International Space Station Expedition 9 crew member Mike Fincke, KE5AIT, told a US Senate subcommittee last week that two-person ISS crews such as his have been able to accomplish a lot. NASA cut back the ISS crew complement from three to two after it was forced to ground the space shuttle fleet following the 2003 Columbia disaster. Testifying April 20 before the US Senate Commerce Committee’s Science and Space Subcommittee hearing on International Space Station research benefits, Fincke recounted his more than six months in space with Russian cosmonaut and crew commander Gennady Padalka, RN3DT.
“With only two people, it was kinda tough,” Fincke told the panel, chaired by Texas Sen Kay Bailey Hutchison. “We had to maintain the space station, they threw in a couple of extra spacewalks for us and, even so, we were able–with ingenuity, with working together–to get a lot of work done.” That included maintaining a strong science program aboard the space station, he added, despite being one person short. Fincke, who served as NASA ISS Science Officer while in space, said the experience made the Expedition 9 team more self-sufficient.
“We learned how to fix things–like our spacesuits, our oxygen generator,” explained Fincke, who wore a NASA flight suit for his Senate appearance. “We need to know how to do those things for the moon.” Many of the questions subcommittee members put to Fincke and others in the NASA delegation dealt with the Bush administration’s stated goal of reaching the moon, Mars and beyond in the coming decades.
Responding to another line of questioning, Fincke credited the Expedition 9 crew’s rigorous and regular exercise program onboard the ISS for his minimal bone loss and generally good physical shape at the end of his mission.
“Because I exercised, I came back strong, I came back feeling healthy and with minimum–but still some–bone loss,” he remarked. Fincke said he and Padalka worked out for two and a half hours a day using resistive and cardiovascular exercise. Determining the physiological mechanisms for bone loss in space, Fincke said, is critical to the success of long-term space ventures such as to the moon and Mars.
“I felt, even though we were in space for more than 187 days, that I could have walked off the Soyuz spacecraft,” Fincke said referring to his return to Earth last fall. “I was feeling very good, very strong.” The only problem he experienced was a slight loss of balance, he said. Since NASA grounded the shuttle fleet, ISS crews have been relying on the Russian Soyuz vehicle to transport crews to and from the ISS, and on Russian Progress rockets to supply food, supplies, oxygen and water.
During his duty tour, Fincke conducted 14 Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) school group contacts from NA1SS and also achieved Worked All Continents.
Presiding over her first subcommittee hearing as chair, Hutchison expressed her view that “this important, impressive facility”–the ISS–“cannot be allowed to be used simply as a tool for moon and Mars exploration-related research.” She is promoting the idea to pursue a national laboratory designation for the ISS.