From Switzerland to the U.S., to Space and Back: Claude Nicollier, the First Swiss Astronaut, Shares His Incredible Experiences
The Embassy of Switzerland in Conversation with Claude Nicollier
During their U.S. tour, the Transport Museum received an invitation from Ambassador Dahinden to visit the Residence. Among the guests was Claude Nicollier, the first astronaut from Switzerland. He flew on four Space Shuttle missions from 1992 to 1999. Two of those missions were servicing missions to the Hubble Space Telescope. After his career as an astronaut, he was appointed full professor of Spatial Technology at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL).
You are the first Swiss astronaut in history. How did you get to have the most sought-after and adventurous profession? What led you to it?
Claude Nicollier: I think the key word is passion. I have passion for aviation, astronomy and space. I studied physics and astrophysics and, in parallel, I became an Air Force pilot. At some point in the mid-1970s, it became possible for Europeans to become astronauts. The United States extended an invitation to Europe to participate in the Shuttle program. Immediately, this became a new goal for me. Before that, it was an impossible goal because going to space was for the Soviets and for the Americans; not for the Swiss, Germans, Italians, or French. I really worked pretty hard to get there. Knowing that it likely wouldn’t work, but it worked. Eventually in 1978 I was selected with the German citizen Ulf Merbold and a Dutchman Wubbo Ockels in the first group of ESA astronauts, (European Space Agency astronauts)–so, mission accomplished for the first part at least!
We were sent to the NASA Johnson Space Center two years later in 1980 to train on the space shuttle. The shuttle had not flown yet. The first flight was in April 1981. I trained as an astronaut on the Space Shuttle, which was unique for a non-American. Already unique for Americans, but even more so for a European. It took quite a while because we had the Challenger accident in 1986. The first mission I was assigned to would have been at the end of ’86, but it was delayed quite a bit. Eventually, I was reassigned to another flight in 1992. That was my first space flight, followed by three more in the 1990s. Wonderful flights, including two missions to the Hubble Space Telescope. So, I had other missions accomplished!
Again, I think the main ingredient was passion, and still is passion. I’m teaching now what I learned for twenty-five years in Houston. I’m teaching at an engineering school in Switzerland–the EPFL–with great pleasure! I have the perception that what I did was not only to be part of the space program, but also to support the effort of maintaining the Hubble Space Telescope in a good condition to do the magnificent work it does in astrophysics. Now I can share with my fellow citizens the experience I had and help them also realize their dreams.
What has been your experience on the flights that you’ve done, and what were your main research goals on those flights?
CN: Well, I mentioned four missions, and two missions had the objective to do repair work on the Hubble Space Telescope. It’s easily said, but of course it’s a bit more difficult to do. I was part of the first servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope in December 1993. We were seven crew members, Dick Covey was the commander. In fact, they were all American, five American men, one American woman, and myself. We had one year of training to do various on-orbit repairs, mainly to install an optical device to correct for the faulty shape of the primary mirror.
It was important to make the Hubble Space Telescope productive as a scientific instrument for astrophysics and this was the goal of the first servicing mission of Hubble. I went back to Hubble in 1999. This time we had a problem with gyroscopes or fine guidance sensors, and with the telescope’s main computer. Hubble is very complex and contains much delicate equipment and many scientific instruments so the plan was to visit it on a periodic basis, every 3, 4 years to do repair work and improve or replace the scientific instruments.
My other two missions were more technology and science driven. We tested the ability to generate electricity in space without using solar rays, but using the induction effect on an electrically conductive cable. We did it twice. The first time it didn’t work well, in 1992. We did it again in 1996, it worked much better, but the cable linking us to the satellite broke. We lost the satellite and the cable. We still gathered a lot of interesting data, but it was not a total success. It was difficult . . . new technologies–sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t!
In summary, the two Hubble missions were a total success and I felt very privileged as a former astrophysicist who had become an astronaut to be part of the teams which contributed to keeping Hubble as a very successful scientific instrument for astrophysics. My two other missions were more technically driven, with some but not total success.
When in space, how is it living without gravity, and what is most challenging in everyday life?
CN: Well that’s a good question. Of course, living without gravity is very unusual. Imagine a room without gravity; you have the whole volume available, you can put your feet on the ceiling, or the side wall, but also it’s very difficult to keep things in order because things go in every direction. On Earth, if you have something on a table it stays there, or if you drop something toward the floor, it goes toward the floor and it stops there. But if you are in weightlessness, it goes in every direction. You often lose your notebook or your pencil if you don’t attach them, and that makes things difficult to work in weightlessness; you need to get adapted to it. Everything you want to keep control of you need to attach or put on a Velcro pad on the wall. If you want to do useful work with your tool or arms and hands, you need to have your feet attached somewhere. If not, you are not able to do anything. You have to learn the strategies to work in weightlessness.
You need about one day to adapt to this condition. After the second day, weightlessness is a lot of fun. What is interesting is that “down” is where your feet are. If you put your feet on the ceiling, you have the feeling that the ceiling has become the floor. It’s really unusual and a lot of fun. It’s a little harder to work, and you need to get adapted to it and you need to practice, and then you are more efficient, but it still is a challenge.
What was your daily routine in space? How does one eat and shower?
CN: There is no shower. You just use wet wipes and you put liquid soap on wet wipes and that way you wash yourself. The water is produced by fuel cells on board the shuttle. Around 100 liters are produced per day that are used for rehydration of food and to fill bags of coffee, tea and orange juice powder. You mix it with your fingers and you can drink with a straw. What is a lot of fun is to play with fluids in the cabin. You put the water in that container, you press it and at the end of the orifice you have a nearly perfect spherical ball of liquid whether it’s orange juice or water, it’s the same shape. It’s really a perfect sphere, except if you blow on it, then it creates waves on the surface. If you blow a little more it breaks into several little balls, and then you need to intervene with towels because it spreads in the cabin.
Eating was also always a source of fun. For example, you could put the meatball at the end of a fork, and you aim toward one of your colleagues and when you throw it, the meatball is going on a straight line through the cabin toward your colleague. You aim so that the ball gets to his or her mouth.
Switzerland has been a leading country in innovation. How do you see Switzerland as a leader in the future of space?
CN: Switzerland is a member of the European Space Agency. The ESA has 22 member states and Switzerland is one of them. Of course it’s not the biggest one. Switzerland has developed a special niche in technology. Based very much on the ability of the Swiss to make good watches. Whether it’s mechanical systems, or now more electronic systems for measuring time and keeping a good time base, these technologies are being used by the ESA.
Switzerland is definitely a space nation. It’s a nation where the interest in space is big and we’ve always been contributing to the ESA programs, but normally with relatively small components. We don’t build huge rockets or space ships, but we provide very valuable equipment, mainly in the area of mechanics and microelectronics.
What’s next?
CN: Space is a very active field, now there is the idea of leaving the lower orbit, going back to the Moon, and going to other celestial bodies in the Solar System like Mars or satellites at Jupiter or Saturn. We’ve already sent probes and robots, around, or on the surface of Mars, for instance. We even landed a small probe on one of the satellites of Saturn, Titan, in 2005. That was quite an achievement. We will continue doing this and soon we will have a human space flight to the Moon, but this time to stay. With the Apollo program they were going for a short time. It was a remarkable achievement, but the idea was to stay for a short time and come back with some samples. Now the idea is to go back to the moon and to stay there for a long time. Then, flights to Mars. The future is really going away from the low earth orbit, where we have been since the end of the Apollo program in 1972. It’s time to go to faraway places. For adventures and exploration, and for the benefit of humans. Someday I’m sure we will try to get material from asteroids, or other celestial bodies, for substances that will become difficult to find on the surface of the Earth. So, it may become a big business someday. Now it’s still exploration.
