The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE’s) first astronaut to spend an extended time in space says it’s quite possible his country will fly humans farther from Earth.
Sultan Al Neyadi spoke Tuesday (Sept. 12) about his record-breaking six-month flight to the International Space Station. He told Space.com he hopes the UAE Space Agency can even get to the moon with NASA’s Artemis program.
“The UAE has signed the Artemis Accords, and hopefully will probably be a part of it in the longer term,” Al Neyadi told Space.com of moon exploration during a press conference from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, livestreamed on NASA Television. (The accords each include countries aspiring to fly to the moon with NASA, and countries pledging peaceful space exploration norms aligned with the agency.)
Also on the SpaceX Crew-6 flight with Al Neyadi was a global crew: NASA astronauts Warren “Woody” Hoburg and Stephen Bowen, and Andrey Fedyaev of Russian space agency Roscosmos. The crew safely returned to Earth on Sept. 6, splashing down within the Atlantic Ocean aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon.
Al Neyadi has been a pioneering UAE astronaut. His region just named the primary two astronauts in 2018, and just one other person from that area (Hazzaa Ali Almansoori) has flown to space before him, for a brief stay.
Al Neyadi set two key milestones on his own mission, becoming the primary person from the UAE to spend a long-duration mission in space, and performing the primary spacewalk. Amongst other memorable moments: Al Neyadi was the primary person to practice jiu jitsu in space — and the purple belt holder displayed his microgravity martial art prowess in a six-minute video on X, formerly Twitter.
While he noted he would love to fly to space again, Al Neyadi also pointed to the three other residents from the UAE who could go: Almansoori, and December 2021 astronaut candidate class members Mohammad Al Mulla and Nora Al Matrooshi.
“We have now astronauts under training that will probably be finished next 12 months,” he said. “It is a continuation of human spaceflight. I’m glad to be a part of it, and the UAE is committed to going further into space.”
Crew-6’s stay of 180 days is typical of space station crews, but commander Steve Bowen, who flew three flights throughout the space shuttle era, said that shorter-duration missions may change into more common because the space station evolves.
“You get really highly trained, and also you execute the choreography, and also you get it done,” he said about shorter missions throughout the same press conference, adding that longer duration spaceflights have their very own intensity. While tasks usually are not as tightly scheduled during these lengthier missions, the “changes you see in your body” create alterations along the best way, he said.
“I feel each of those models really has their place going forward,” Bowen said of long-duration and short-duration missions. He hinted that within the far future, space missions could last years.
“Aside from whaling ships back within the nineteenth century, we actually haven’t got a human model to emulate (long durations) with,” he added. “That is plenty of learning we now have to do before we get there.”