From 250 miles in space, NC astronaut craves what earthlings take for granted
It was the most unusual of interviews, the subject orbiting Earth 250 miles high as he replied to terrestrial-based reporters’ questions. Yet the line was as clear as calling your next-door neighbor.
From the International Space Station, astronaut Dr. Tom Marshburn, who was born in Statesville, took 10-minute calls from reporters at The Charlotte Observer and Raleigh TV station WRAL on Dec. 17.
The 61-year-old Davidson College graduate is on a six-month NASA-SpaceX commercial mission, his third trip to the station. His last stay ended in 2013, and he’s scheduled to return to Earth at the end of April, he said.
Marshburn had been in space for five weeks when he answered the following questions during a live interview with the Observer. His responses have been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q. What types of experiments have you been working on during the mission?
A. So far, I’ve been deeply involved as the subject of experiments. We’ve been looking at muscle atrophy, ways of measuring the muscle that we can do here at zero G that will possibly benefit people who need to have their muscles evaluated. Instead of having to have a muscle biopsy, we can use some of the instrumentation that’s been developed for our work up here.
But in particular what interests me as a physician is, our bodies in space age at a very rapid pace, bone atrophy, osteoporosis. Our eyes change, our eyesight changes, the radiation can age our blood vessels as well.
So we are perfect little test subjects for evaluating ways to combat that, and looking at what exactly is the process that causes these things so that we can develop ways of treating it and preventing it. And it’s not only for people as they age, but for people in ICUs and undergoing rehabilitation.
Many other categories of science are constantly going on around us that we are helping maintain: fluid physics, astronomy, Earth observations, all happening in the racks around me but also outside the station.
Q. Why is it critical that we continue to be in space, on the space station with other countries?
A. We’re not only finding out things about human beings, basic physics, more engineering-type of solutions to problems, we’re also developing new devices that are going to help us go to the moon and stay at the moon, and to go on to Mars.
These are advancements in materials, propulsion, engineering power, water reclamation, all things that have a huge impact to people on Earth.
Beyond that though, we’re up here with our Russian cosmonauts, we’re getting along just fantastic because we are all out here for each other. We rely on each other for our safety and to survive. And our goal is to explore space. ... All of our cooperation together speaks very well for what humans can do when we explore together.
I, for one, love living in a country that is a leading space-faring nation. One day, we will need to take care of and perhaps leave this planet, and we are just taking the very first steps for being able to accomplish that.
Q. What do you miss about Earth?
A. I would say, in order, of course my wife and my daughter, and friends and family. Then, a hot shower. And then, a club sandwich, something that is fresh and crunchy, something that I can’t eat up here, with ingredients that come out of a refrigerator. That would be wonderful. After that, I’d probably get involved with water somehow, I want to be standing out under the rain, or go swimming.
Q. What do you think about when you look at Earth, and about space?
A. At first, you’re stunned when you see the Earth. It’s so beautiful, and it’s so hard for your brain to take it in. It doesn’t look like an atlas. You see clouds and water, and eventually you start to see land forms.
And you get a feeling, once you get over the beauty of it, that the human species is a very fragile, very tiny entity living on the surface of the planet. It almost seems like the Earth could shrug us off at any moment, particularly when you look at the blackness of space. It is a deep, palpable blackness. It’s not like something that’s just painted on.
So its sends a chill through you in a way, just how vast it is. And in some ways, we seem very alone, but in the same way, it makes us as humans seem incredibly precious.
Q. So you see blackness. Do you think that there has to be life out there, maybe superior, maybe inferior to us?
A. We think about that a lot at NASA, I think a lot of people think about that. There’s nothing that I see that would inform me one way or the other. When our eyes adapt, and we can see stars ... and get a glimpse at just how large this universe is, I would say statistically, there probably is life outside our solar system. Every time we look at another star, it seems we are finding other planets around it. So just looking at the math, I’d say there is a good chance.
Q. You mentioned that you walked in space two weeks ago. What is it like?
A. The view you get out the window of the space station, you multiply that by about a hundred, because you have just your helmet and your visor on. You can feel the heat of the sun a lot more, and how frigid objects are on the dark side of the Earth. It’s about negative-200 degrees on the dark side and plus-200 — surfaces are — on the sunny side.
Trying to get the work done with that kind of view and all of those environmental factors coming in is tough. But probably the best training we have is getting ready for space walks ... But we’re pretty tired afterwards.
Q. What do you do for relaxation?
A. Communicate with family is probably the No. 1 thing. Might do some email, but a quick second after that is going to the window and looking out at the Earth and trying to see yet more on the surface that we haven’t seen before.
The Observer also interviewed Marshburn by phone in December 2020 and last January. He spoke both times from Johnson Space Center in Houston. Here are a couple of the questions and his replies:
Q. What’s the most spectacular phenomenon you’ve seen in space?
A. A giant electrical storm (in 2013) with bands and sinews of lightning stretching thousands of miles across the top of the cloud. It went on and on for about five minutes. We were breathless watching this thing. Couldn’t take our eyes away. Don’t know if I could have taken a picture, because it was happening all around below us so fast.
Most of the time though, you’re looking out at the Earth, and it’s serene and crystalline and just gorgeous.
Q. For kids interested in becoming an astronaut, what does it take?
A. If they’re fascinated with it, don’t wait until you get older. Start today becoming an astronaut. And what that means is: Do the best you can in school. If you fall in love with something, go after it.
If you haven’t fallen in love with something — it took me awhile, I was an engineer, first, and became a doctor — you never know what path is going to happen.
Remember that every astronaut did not know when they were a teenager that they were going to be an astronaut, even if they wanted to be one.
And, I think, very importantly, taking caring of yourself. Both your mind and your body need to be healthy.
And then, finally, put yourself in a position where you have to make decisions that have consequences. Get used to that.
And I’d recommend reading NASA biographies of astronauts, and follow in their footsteps.
About Tom Marshburn
Marshburn graduated from Davidson in 1982 with a degree in physics. He earned a master’s degree in engineering physics from the University of Virginia and a doctorate of medicine from Wake Forest University.
He joined NASA in 1994 as a flight surgeon at Johnson Space Center in Houston and later became medical operations lead for the International Space Station. He served on the space shuttle Endeavour crew in July 2009 and performed an unplanned 5 1/2-hour spacewalk to fix an ammonia leak outside the space station.
Before becoming an astronaut in 2004, he served as a physician in Toledo, Ohio, Seattle, Houston and Boston, according to a NASA news release. He is based at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
In his Dec. 17 interview with WRAL, Marshburn said he was living on Davie Avenue in Statesville when his family took him to see “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
“That somewhat terrified me as a young child, but it certainly engendered a lot of interest in space,” he said.
“And it wasn’t until after we moved away, and I was in high school and I began to read about the Apollo program, what astronauts, flight controllers, engineers had done to put us on the moon, and then seeing Neil Armstrong walk on the moon, I was hooked at that point. I wanted to have something to do with space. Hopefully, I could work for NASA someday, and that was my goal.”
This story was originally published December 27, 2021 at 6:35 AM with the headline "From 250 miles in space, NC astronaut craves what earthlings take for granted."