"The body has changed, and suddenly one is subjected to gravity, one has the impression of being attracted by an electromagnet, crushed by its weight ..." Two years after his return from the International Space Station (ISS ), where he completed a six-month mission in 2017, Thomas Pesquet remembers a difficult rehabilitation. But it takes more to discourage the astronaut of 41 years, tenth French to have gone into space. Invited to an exceptional episode of In the heart of history , he entrusts to the microphone of Fabrice d'Almeida his plans for the future ... and his dreams of red planet.
Go to the "hidden face" of the moon
The near future is first the moon, neglected since the 1970s and on which only twelve men have set foot ... all American. "There are plans" to get there again, begins Thomas Pesquet. "We should go back with the agencies [space, ed ], to have a presence a little more durable than at the time," he continues, referring to the Cold War. "It was the ideological competition, we wanted to be the first to go and plant a flag, we did some scientific experiments but that was not really the goal ..."
Today, the different agencies are aiming to set up a cooperative program. "We know that there are many interesting things to do on the moon," enthuses Thomas Pesquet. "We would like to go on the hidden side, be protected from electromagnetic radiation and disturbances, observe the bottom of space and go back in time by doing that ... We have a whole program, we want to put in place. realize that it is difficult, we knew it but it is by confronting this task that we measure the feat they did in the 1960s! "
VIDEO: 21:30 to 22:39
"Put your foot where no one has ever put it"
And after ? "By 2030, there should be regular flights to the Space Station, which look a little like what I did the first time, with a lot of research," predicts Thomas Pesquet. The astronaut, he should leave in 2021. Direction the ISS, first ... Before a destination - much - more distant? When asked about the planet Mars, where NASA talks about sending humans in the 2030s, the French does not say no. "We are all a little explorers, we want to set foot where no one has ever put ..."
VIDEO: 24:05 to 25:05
"The space station is 400 km, it's not even a Paris-Lyon," illustrates Thomas Pesquet. "The moon is 400 km ... Mars, between 40 and 400 million km ... Each time, there is a factor of one thousand, we go a thousand times further!", Dreams the astronaut. "Imagine the live footage of someone landing on Mars, and all you can do next, it would be a crazy adventure - the most phenomenal adventure of all time."