mercredi 25 mai 2011

Interview de Gerhard Thiele, astronaute allemand de l'ESA qui a volé à bord de la navette spatiale

Gerhard Thiele est un physicien allemand.

Il est sélectionné en 1987 par l'Agence Spatiale Allemande DLR et il sera doublure pour la mission STS-55.


Il est sélectionné dans le groupe des astronautes ESA en 1996. Et se prépare à sa future mission spatiale STS-99.


Il effectue une mission spatiale du 11 au 22 février 2000 à bord de la navette spatiale Endeavour pour la mission STS-99.


De 2002 à 2003, il le responsable des astronautes (chief-astronaut) de l'ESA.

En 2003-2004, il est la doublure d'André Kuipers pour la mission Soyouz TMA-4.




Interview réalisée en mai 2011





Q :  How many years were you connected to the space program prior to your flight ?
A: I joined the German Space Agency (DLR) in 1987 as science astronaut and flew into space in 2000. So overall I was for more than twelve years in the space programme before my first flight.


Q : How did you feel prior to the flight ?
A : From a professional point of view we were very well trained and prepared to discharge the mission. We were convinced that with some luck we could be highly successful and get the results, which the scientist worked for and hoped for.



On the personal side I sensed a certain anxiety, which was in my opinion the result of two major things: first, a dream was about to come true. And second, I have never flown into space before, you never know what is going to happen ! 


The good thing: As soon as you are strapped into your seat in the orbiter the concentration focuses on the work at hand. The anxiety seems to fade away and in the end disappears, which allows one to focus on what needs to be done at the moment.

Q : What kinds of sensations did you experienced during take-off ?
A : Lift-off feels extremely powerful!!



This is all the more astonishing as we have no sensors in our body, which measure acceleration or force.


And though the g-level at take-off is rather mild, one weighs only twice as much as normally, I felt an enormous pressure. I assume this has to do with the fact that we know that we are sitting in a rocket and that this knowledge affects our perception and feeling.


Q : What does weightlessness feel like, and what did you think about during the flight ?
A : Weightlessness feels like the jaunty lightness of being.

It is just the opposite as in Milan Kundera’s novel: The unbearable lightness of being.

Q : What were some of the problems you encountered and how did you fixed them ?
A : We encountered relatively little problems during our mission.



The first one was that one of the reaction control jets (RCS) failed. As these jets are also important for maintaining the proper attitude, this could have been potentially dangerous for the mission objective, which was to map the Earth’s landmass with high precision.


This of course requires that the various data are taken in the same (ideal) or at least similar attitude.


Luckily, the failure occurred while we were over the pacific ocean. Over water we didn’t take any data (only for reference close to the coast) and so we didn’t loose any data while dealing with the rcs failure.
Moreover, we were able to reconfigure the system just before Africa again, we had been really fortunate!


A second failure was that the container, into which the 60m long mast was retracted after the measurements, did not close.
It turned out that the cables which had been exposed to the chilly temperatures of space for about ten days became too stiff and prevented the lid from closing the container.
So we turned on the heater system, which was designed exactly for this case and moved the shuttle into a “baking attitude”.
This means, we allowed the sun to help heating the container as much as possible as well.
And it worked. After some hours (I forgot the exact number) the cables were warm enough, lost their stiffness and the mast could be fully retracted.


Q : What did you eat, and did it taste real ?
A : The food is actually quite good and tastes pretty well.

Generally the food is dehydrated, so you have to add a specified amount of water to the food container. Then the food is heated in the oven for some ten or twenty minutes and you are good to go, i.e. to eat.


My favorite food was shrimp in a horseradish sauce, which shows that the taste seems to shift towards more spicy food.


On Earth I love sweets. In space I avoided them for almost a full week.


Q : What was re-entry like ?
A : During re-entry I was seated in the middeck of the orbiter and therefore was not involved into any re-entry procedures flying the shuttle back home.



I was surprised to hear the noise as we entered the atmosphere and it became significantly warmer inside the cockpit.
Luckily, our suits had a cooling system integrated, which made the temperatures bearable.


Crossing the sound barrier was also very noticeable, below the speed of sound the shuttle just glides gently through the final miles towards the runway. Although this is a rather steep glide.


Most noticeable is of course “the return of gravity”. The initial weightlessness turns initially into a barely noticeable gravitational force, which increases steadily as the shuttle enters thicker and thicker layers of the atmosphere. Back on ground the “normal” weight feels actually quite heavy and not normal at all !

Q : Were you glad to be back on Earth, or did you feel you could have spent the rest of your life up there ?
A : Yes and No. I was glad to see my family again. And I would have loved to stay in space.

      Yes I could have envisioned living in space for a very prolonged period of time!

Q : Which memory(ies) have you of the spaceflight of Yuri Gagarin and about the Apollo 11 lunar landing ?
A : I have no memories of Yuri Gagarin’s flight, I assume for two reasons.
When Yuri Gagarin flew into space I was just seven years and at this age I certainly did not understand what it means to go to space.
To the best of my recollection I did not have any romantic approach to spaceflight, at least not at the age of seven.
The second reason is that the Soviet Union made a big secret out of this flight and the world learned that the flight has happened only after the fact.
This however means that people couldn’t participate in it “emotionally”, when it happened. Of course I realized that Gagarin became a big hero after his flight.

The situation was very different with Apollo.
The American space program was open and we were able to follow it in any detail we wanted to follow it.
And therefore memories of this historic moment are much more present and dominant for this historic achievement.

dimanche 22 mai 2011

Visite de l'Exposition Stanley Kubrick à la Cinémathèque Française

Depuis le 23 mars, et jusqu’au 31 juillet 2011, se tient une formidable exposition consacrée à Stanley Kubrick et son œuvre, à la Cinémathèque Française à Paris (rue de Bercy dans le 12ème).

Photos ICI : http://www.flickr.com/photos/famillesebile/sets/72157626768211092/with/5741753594/

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS /

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS /


Exposition itinérante, elle a déjà été présentée à Berlin, Zurich, Gand, Rome et Melbourne. Elle doit sa création à Hans-Peter Reichmann et au Deutsches Filmmuseum de Francfort, ainsi que l’étroite collaboration de Christiane Kubrick (sa femme, actrice), Jan Harlan et The Stanley Kubrick Archive de Londres.

De par sa taille imposante et du matériel présenté, l’exposition se répartie sur 2 étages (le 5ème et 7ème). Grâce au Fond d’Archives Kubrick, aux nombreux documents de travail, photos de tournages, scénarios, correspondances, recherches, maquettes, costumes, accessoires, etc…, nous plongeons dans le monde de Stanley Kubrick, nous permettant de mieux comprendre sa façon de travailler, au travers de ses films réalisés, en projet ou non réalisés (son Napoléon ou son projet sur les camps Aryan Papers).

L’exposition reprend donc l’itinéraire artistique de Stanley Kubrick depuis ses débuts de photographe pour le magazine Look.

''Kubrick s'est intéressé avant tout aux fractures de l'Histoire, à ces moments où tout bascule, où les bases d'un ordre établi cèdent le pas au surgissement de l'inconnu.'' (La Cinémathèque Française).

On peut y voir aussi, dans tous les films de Kubrick, un état d’affrontement entre ''2 mondes''.

Le Baiser du Tueur

Les Sentiers de la Gloire et la guerre qui voit naître le 20ème siècle.

Spartacus et la révolte des esclaves

Lolita et l’ordre moral établi

Docteur Folamour et la peur de la destruction nucléaire

2001 Odyssée de l’Espace, conquête du cosmos et avancée spectaculaire de la science et de la technologie

Barry Lyndon (fait ''à défaut'' de pouvoir réaliser son Napoléon) qui tourne autour de la période révolutionnaire française.

Orange Mécanique et sa vision ''décadente'' et policée d’une nouvelle société.

Shining et la plongée dans la folie et l’horreur

Full Metal Jacket et la première défaite des Etats-Unis de leur histoire

Eyes Wide Shut et aussi l’ordre moral. C’est aussi son seul film où une femme a autant de poids que l’homme (le duo/duel Nicole Kidman-Tom Cruise)

Musiques de film, Photos
Projets inaboutis : Napoléon, AI, Aryan Papers…


En plus de son talent de réalisateur, Stanley Kubrick, innova aussi, par la création de beaucoup de matériel de prises de vues uniques.

Photographe, il composa beaucoup de ses scènes de films comme une photo.


Petite visite de l’Exposition, avec bien sûr, une longue halte pour 2001 Odyssée de l’Espace…


Les Sentiers de la Gloire

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / LES SENTIERS DE LA GLOIRE


Spartacus

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / SPARTACUS


Lolita

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / LOLITA


Docteur Folamour avec plusieurs maquettes dont celle-ci, ainsi que de nombreux dessins ''Story Board''.

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / Dr FOLAMOUR

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / Dr FOLAMOUR

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / Dr FOLAMOUR


2001 ODYSSEE DE L’ESPACE

Enormément d’objets magnifiques et souvent inédits (parfait complément des costumes et maquettes de l’Exposition Science et Fiction à la Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie).

Un seul regret, MAIS UN ENORME REGRET… Aucun mot sur Robert T. McCall, l’artiste, créateur de l’affiche du film, des combinaisons spatiales, de nombreux décors du film… c’est VRAIMENT DOMMAGE… Il manque aussi HAL…

La partie des objets, maquettes, etc… consacrés à 2001 Odyssée de l’espace occupe le centre de l’exposition au 5ème étage et est celle où il y a le plus d’objets et documents.

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY


Le clap du film

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY



EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEYEXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY


La fameuse roue gravitationnelle

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEYEXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY


Une des fameuses combinaisons avec son fameux casque

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEYEXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEYEXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY


La fameuse montre spatiale Hamilton qui a fait rêver beaucoup de personnes à l’époque

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY


Les toilettes Zero Gravity de la navette spatiale

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEYEXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY


L’Oscar des Meilleurs Effets Spéciaux pour 2001 Odyssée de l’Espace

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / 2001 SPACE ODYSSEY



Orange Mécanique (Violence, Sexe et Beethoven)

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / ORANGE MECANIQUE



Barry Lyndon avec la présentation du fameux objectif que la NASA a utilisé pour les missions lunaires. Il s’agit d’un objectif 50mm f/0.7 Zeiss Planar, utilisé pour filmer les scènes à la bougie.

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / BARRY LYNDON

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / BARRY LYNDON


Shining

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / SHINNING



Full Metal Jacket

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / FULL METAL JACKET


Eyes Wide Shut

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS / EYES WIDE SHUT


Il y a également une exposition avec different matériels de prises de vues utilisés, inventés par Stanley Kubrick ainsi qu’une partie de tout son travail de recherche pour la préparation de son Napoléon, qu’il n’a pas pû tourner ou son travail sur les camps avec Aryans Papers ou de son AI (Intelligence Artificielle que reprendra Steven Spielberg).

La partie consacrée à la musique de films, partie intégrante de l'oeuvre de Kubrick, est très intéressante.

Il y aussi une boutique ''de souvenirs'' mais je vous conseille, plutôt d’aller, à celle de la Cinémathèque au 1er étage qui est beaucoup plus complète et achalandée.

Bonne visite…

EXPOSITION STANLEY KUBRICK / PARIS /

mardi 17 mai 2011

Interview de Bjarni Tryggvason, astronaute canadien qui a volé à bord de la navette lors de STS-85



Bjarni Tryggvason est pilote avec plus de 4500 heures de vol à son actif (Instructeur dans l'Armée de l'Air Canadienne, pilote de voltige et brevet de pilote de ligne) et scientifique avec une spécialisation en mathématiques appliqués et mécanique des fluides.
 
En décembre 1983, il est sélectionné comme astronaute dans le premier groupe d'astronautes canadiens.
 
Il est doublure de Steven MacLean pour la mission STS-52 en 1992.
 
Il est le responsable du programme LMIM, et s'occupe donc de la mise au point du grand support d'isolation contre les vibrations en microgravité (LMIM), qui volera à de nombreuses reprises à bord du KC-135 et du DC-9 de la NASA.
 
L'application de ce programme, qui est baptisée MIM (support d'isolation contre les vibrations en microgravité) volera entre avril 1996 et janvier 1998, et servira pour de nombreuses expériences en sciences des matériaux et des fluides.
 
Il élabore le MIM-2, et volera avec lui, lors de la mission STS-85 du 7 au 19 août 1997.
 
Il quitte l'Agence Spatiale Canadienne en 2008.
 
Interview réalisée en mai 2011.
How many years were you connected to the space program prior to your flight ?
I was with the Canadian Space Agency for 14 years before my first flight.
 
How did you feel prior to the flight ?
In the months, weeks, days prior to the flight I felt increasingly ready for the mission.
 
We trained hard for 10 months and I felt completely ready by the launch date.
 
I also felt very fortunate and grateful that I had the opportunity to fly in space.
 
 
What kinds of sensations did you experienced during lift off ?
During lift off, the first sensation is that of a great push against your back and tremendous vibrations.
 
This lasts for the first two minutes.
 
Once the solid boosters are dropped off the rest of the launch is very smooth but with increasing g-load.
 
When the shuttle main engines shut down at 8.5 minutes, your seat springs forward as the acceleration load is relieved and you get a sensation of tumbling forward.
 
This goes away quickly.
 
 
What does weightlessness feel like, and what did you think about during the flight ?
Once unstrapped from the seat and free to float the immediate reaction is to use the legs to move - but this does not work at all and one quickly gets on with using the hands to push off from walls, ceiling, etc., to move around within the spacecraft.
 
It is really easy to move around in the free fall environment, and it feels so gentle.
 
Not at all like Star Wars where the actors run along floors - that just does not work in space !
 
What were some of the problems you encountered and how did you fixed them ?
We had no technical issues with the space shuttle on our flight.
 
I did have an issue with the hard drive on the MIM (Micrgravity Vibration Isolation Mount) but had a spare.
 
We did discover that the cause was a software issue and were able to use alternate programs to avoid this recurring.
 
This was an unexpected type of failure, but the team on the ground supporting the flight did an excellant job of determining what the issue was and sending up a detailed procedure for correcting it.
 
It was a real team effort that resolved it and I was able to press on with the remaining experiments.
 
We lost only a half day of work.
 
 
What did you eat, and did it taste real ?
I had the normal NASA space fare : fresh food only for the first two or three days, canned food, freeze dried foods to which you add water, quite a bit of trail mix with nuts and dried fruit, and Kona coffee.
 
Drinks are all in powdered form to which we add either hot or cold water.
 
The water on the shuttle had iodine in it so that was not so pleasent after 12 days.
 
What was re-entry like ?
 
Rentry in the space shuttle is very smooth.
 
At Mach 25 winds do not bother one very much.
 
The rentry is a critical phase of the flight.
 
You slow the shuttle down over Australia, intersect the atmosphere over Hawai, and transition from orbital mechanics based flight to aerodynamic based flight as you slow from 7.8km/s to Mach 5.
 
Then continue slowing to achieve a final approach speed of 300kts to a smooth touchdown.
 
It was all quite impressive and our commander did a great job of the landing.
 
During the transion from orbital to arodynamic flight the g-load increases to about 1.8g and this is held for quite a long time.
 
I inflated my g-suit to counter the tendency of fluid pooling in the legs and gray-out.
 
 
Were you glad to be back on Earth, or did you feel you could have spent the rest of your life up there ?
I was glad to be back home.
 
My kids were there waiting for me and this was a special treat.
 
Having a good shower - there are none on the space shuttle - and fresh food was also a great treat.
 
At the same time I knew I would miss being in space with its fabulous view of the Earth and the ease of movement in the free-fall environment.
 
My flight in space was the highlight of my career, but I am now busy doing many other very interesting things.