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Matthias Maurer on the International Space Station ISS
Photo: NASA / dpa
A few days after returning to Earth from his first space mission, German astronaut Matthias Maurer has expressed mixed feelings about tourist visits to the International Space Station.
The space tourists launched in the United States needed a lot of help, Maurer said at a press conference in Cologne on Wednesday.
It got tight with eight people on the ISS.
On the other hand, the stay of the Japanese space tourist Yusaku Maezawa in December went "excellent".
"In the end we had to support them very strongly, which of course meant for us that our work was left undone," said Maurer.
There were not enough research opportunities for eight people, and sufficient support from Earth was also not possible.
Overall, tourists need a “simpler infrastructure that is less error-prone”.
At the same time, the space visit of the three entrepreneurs, led by a former astronaut, also had a positive side: "Of course, these space tourists have a completely different network because they belong to a different social class," said Maurer.
The entrepreneurs would also donate a lot of money for research privately.
On the ISS, the astronauts suddenly had access to scientists and experiments "that would not have reached the top so quickly via the classic route of space travel".
He is certain that future space travel will be commercial.
The group of tourists - consisting of the Spanish-American astronaut Michael López-Alegría, the US entrepreneur Larry Connor, the Israeli entrepreneur Eytan Stibbe and the Canadian investor Mark Pathy - was in April with a "Crew Dragon" space capsule from the Cape Canaveral Cosmodrome in the US State of Florida started.
The trip to the ISS was organized by the private space company Axiom Space in cooperation with NASA and Elon Musk's company SpaceX.
Climax of the mission: finally out there
Maurer described his spacewalk as the absolute highlight of his "Cosmic Kiss" mission.
"I felt like Alice in Wonderland - suddenly I get out, fall down this fountain and discover a new, very unique world," he said.
The space walk was the "greatest" day in space for him.
He and his fellow astronauts followed news about the escalation of violence in Ukraine and the beginning of the Russian war of aggression on a daily basis.
The Russian crew members "raised the issue directly."
All the astronauts were "horrified and concerned" about the developments on Earth.
“I had the luxury of being able to live in a little bubble up there,” said Maurer.
The astronauts lived on the ISS “like brothers and sisters”.
Maurer returned to earth on Friday after six months on the ISS.
The 52-year-old landed with three US colleagues on board a Dragon capsule from the private space company SpaceX off the coast of Florida and then flew to Germany on board an Air Force aircraft.
Maurer was the 600th person and the twelfth German in space.
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