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“The heart has shrunk, the muscles are weakened, you feel heavy,” explains the former head of the European Astronaut Center.
Thomas Pesquet will have to observe a “rehabilitation period” of three weeks on his return to Earth, explained Monday, November 8 the former French astronaut Michel Tognini on franceinfo. This phase will begin with the arrival of Thomas Pesquet on Earth after six months spent in the International Space Station. The landing off Florida is scheduled for Tuesday, November 9.
“He is going to do this rehabilitation in Cologne, at the center of European astronauts”, explains Michel Tognini, to recover from the physical consequences of his trip in space. In the first place, “the heart must return to its earthly form”, he explains. “It has shrunk in space. The left side of the heart and the right side shrink in different ways. Since blood quickly reaches the brain through weightlessness, the body does not need to be this big shape. that he has on earth “.
Another consequence of the return to Earth, Thomas Pesquet will have to get used to gravity again: “We feel heavy, the arm weighs a ton”, remembers Michel Tognini, who spent more than two weeks cumulatively in space in the 1990s. “The muscles in the neck are weakened. There are a lot of little muscles that you don’t really know that well, but that are weakened because you were weightless for a long time.”
During these three weeks, the French astronaut will also have the opportunity to recover from the effort made during the mission: “On the way back, we are tired from the flight”, remembers Michel Tognini, who left for space in 1992 and in 1999. “Both times I was extremely tired, even though it was short flights. I imagine him, who didn’t take a vacation for six months and worked 60 to 70 hours a week, he must be quite tired “, he concludes.