Sometimes he was called to order from the ground: shouldn’t you even go to sleep? Astronaut André Kuipers, who spent a total of 204 days in space, couldn’t get enough of the view from the International Space Station. In the six-part documentary series ‘Spaceship Earth’ we see never before seen footage of his flights.
The magical feeling with which astronaut André Kuipers, who made space trips in 2004 and 2012, returned to earth, he wants to pass on to a large audience. He enters with narrator Kim van Kooten Spaceship Earth in search of the beauty and fragility of the Netherlands and our nature. In an emphatically positive tone, it points to ways to improve life on earth for everyone.
Kuipers (64) preferred to stare at our own planet. “On Venus, for example, it is very hot with a poisonous atmosphere and Mars, on the other hand, is an icy, hostile desert. Earth is simply the most beautiful planet in our solar system,” he explains. In the viewing dome it took some time to orientate: the earth hung above him. “Beautiful, all those bizarre colors. Turquoise waters, red deserts, ocher plateaus.”
Menacing universe
And then he liked to search for our own country. “You have to be fast, because you fly around the earth in an hour and a half. The advantage is that we have so much water here. Especially when the sun is low, you see a lot of rivers and lakes, then the shape of the Netherlands is easy to recognize. On board, the sun rose and set sixteen times a day. In the dark, the Netherlands stands out because it is so enormously lit. It is very densely populated and from Madrid I could already see the greenhouses of the Westland. In the nocturnal earth, imagine a black velvet carpet embroidered with gold.”
Kuipers returned with a special realization, the so-called overview effect that many astronauts experience. “When you look at the earth from space, you feel very strongly ‘so this is all’. The atmosphere is very thin, you have the feeling that you can blow it right off. That planet just hangs there, surrounded by a cold, menacing universe. It feels like a kind of baby: very beautiful, but very vulnerable. Actually, we are all astronauts, on this spaceship Earth.”
Don’t gloom
In the program, experts and nature lovers talk about themes such as light and water, how earthlings disrupt ecosystems, but are also able to deal with this better in special ways. It is shocking that eighty percent of children born today will never see the Milky Way in the sky due to light pollution. Nevertheless, Kuipers does not want to gloom too much.
He sees no point in drastic calls to have fewer children, for example. “I’m not into waving the finger. Then people just put their heels in the sand. It is better to come to your own conclusion based on scientific data. We cut our fingers when we empty all the oceans, cut down all the forests and when the air is so dirty that our children develop lung problems. The starting point of this series is to show how beautiful our planet is and also to look at the threats and what we can do about it in our own interest.”
Will we help the earth to the moon? “Ha, you could say that. I used to be very optimistic, but mostly naive. Later, when I delved more into the figures, I realized ‘oops, we’re going in the wrong direction’. Today I have great faith in the brilliant ideas of young people I meet. We may not always be wise, but we are very intelligent. That gives me confidence in the future.”
The series indirectly benefits from the unexpected extension of its last space journey. “After 5 months we were told that we had to stay 6 weeks longer. I found that annoying for a while, because I had promised my son that I would be back on his birthday and my daughter was taking her final exams. At the same time it was an opportunity. Most movie footage in Spaceship Earth I made it then, there was time for that.”
Space guide
Kuipers would get back in in no time. “It is such a special world. It is hard work, and you are constantly aware of how much everyone’s time, money and energy is put into it. But you have the evenings off and the Sundays. Then you can look outside and enjoy. At the European Space Agency, regardless of your position, you retire at the age of sixty. So it is unlikely that I will make a third space trip, but who knows, the private flights of commercial space companies of Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos may offer opportunities. Then I would like to go along as a guide.”
In Spaceship Earth tells the astronaut about the moment he thought he saw a UFO. It turned out to be a rotating satellite that reflected sunlight. He is certainly open to the idea of extraterrestrial life. “There are more stars than grains of sand on Earth and they all have planets orbiting them. Ingredients of life can be found everywhere. There is a very good chance that life also exists in other places in the universe, we just don’t have proof yet. I used to love science fiction. When I saw that blinking light on the satellite, I thought, what if this is an alien spaceship. I would have loved that, although I did wonder who they wanted to warn with that flashing light, ha! It was unfortunate. But I hope to get proof of extraterrestrial life in my life.”
Wednesday NPO 1, 8:33 p.m