Micheal Foale
This series has looked at the lives of a number of remarkable people who have gone from living by the Dart to exploring the world. But this month we go a step further, in fact a giant leap – into space!
Astronaut Dr Michael Foale spent a large part of his childhood messing about in boats on the Dart. Born in January 1957 in Louth, Lincolnshine, the young Michael spent most of his school holidays at the home of his grandparents in Galmpton.
He was a regular visitor to Dartmouth, and loved the freedom of exploration he could enjoy along the Dart riverbanks. Even as a young boy he was always interested in space travel, and would often sit gazing at the starry skies above his grandparents’ house, inventing games where he was a space explorer.
Michael attended King’s School in Canterbury, securing a place at Queen’s College, Cambridge, in 1975, and graduating with 1st class honours in 1978, having studied for a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics and natural sciences. He stayed at Queen’s College and completed his doctorate in laboratory astrophysics in 1982.
Michael Foale returned to the University of Cambridge in 1998 to be made an Honourary Fellow of the University, and told assembled guests of his boyhood fascination with space, adding that his ambitions to become an astronaut almost fell at the first hurdle because Cambridge was not an ‘accredited’ university in the eyes of the USA. Questions, he said, were asked for fear he might be a fraud or an imposter. Fortunately some very senior figures in the USA and UK establishments were fully behind his application and, unbeknown to Michael (at least until much later), had written strong references and testimonials.
Michaal moved to Houston, Texas, to work on Space Shuttle navigation problems at McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Corporation. In June 1983, he joined NASA Johnson Space Centre in the payload operations area of the Mission Operations Directorate, and was responsible for payload operations on Space Shuttle missions STS-51G, 51-I, 61-B and 61-C. Selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in June 1987, he flew the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory simulator before his first flight, to provide verification and testing of the Shuttle flight software. Michael also flew and developed crew rescue and integrated operations for the International Space Station.
But Michael Foale is probably best known for his time with the Russian Space Station, Mir. In preparation for this long-duration mission, he travelled to the Cosmonaut Training Centre in Star City, Russia. Michael spent three months of his life totally immersed in learning Russian, and has spoken of having been sad at having to give up his reading, but total dedication to learning the new language was required and it consumed his life at that time. Because it was technical Russian that he had to learn, he found himself at a disadvantage when talking about football or social events, but said he picked all this up during his time on the Mir Space Station and in the Russian Cosmonaut Village at Houston. Michael speaks Russian so well now that he has since been in great demand in collaborative work with the Russians.
On his missions with the Mir Space Station, Michael made space walks, sometimes for several hours, evaluating extremely cold spacesuit conditions and conducting work, assessments and science experiments. He helped re-establish the Mir after it was degraded by a collision and depressurised, and told colleagues at Cambridge that his University education came into play during the crisis. Mir started spinning out of control and air was leaking so that part of the space craft had to be sealed off immediately. The Russian astronauts had been trained to carry out commands sent from the ground. However the spinning of the station meant that the solar cells could not be stabilised to point to the sun long enough for the batteries to be recharged. The batteries drained and communication with the ground ceased, apart from a hand held telephone set that linked Michael with Houston, but the power on this set was so low that the signal recovery techniques meant that messages could only be sent and received extremely slowly - typically only one a day.
The Russians, without their commands from the ground, were relatively helpless. Michael, having been trained differently, immediately set about trying to calculate what forces they should exert to stabilise the station. He asked ground control for the principal
axes and moments of inertia of the space craft. These are key parameters in stabilising an object. At the Cavendish Laboratory in the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, a famous lecturer of middle-European origin would throw up a block of wood, spinning this block about the different axes. When the block was spun about the middle axes of inertia, the lecturer would call out, “See, it vobbles”. Armed with his knowledge of physics, Michael helped avert the crisis so that repairs could be carried out.
Michael famously conducted a six-hour space walk with Anatoli Soloviev to inspect the collision damage. He returned to Earth on October 6th 1997, having spent 145 days in space.
In 1999 he flew on STS-103, an eight-day mission, to repair and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope. During an eight hours and ten minute space walk, Michael Foale and Claude Nicollier replaced the telescope’s main computer and fine guidance sensor.
The famous astronaut has also served as Chief of the Astronaut Office Expedition Corps, Assistant Director (Technical) of the Johnson Space Centre, and Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration Operations, NASA Headquarters. He supported Soyuz and ISS operations, as well as space suit development. Michael Foale has logged over 374 days in space including four space walks totalling 22 hours and 44 minutes.
In 2002, Michael Foale predicted that humans could land on Mars within 20 years. He said: “I think humans landing on Mars should certainly happen in the next few decades. Technologically it could be done in 15 years, but it may take much longer because there has to be international political interest.”
Michael’s parents still live in Cambridge, but the astronaut now has dual UK and USA nationality. He lives in America with his wife, Rhonda, and they have two children. When he’s not in space, the astronaut enjoys private flying, soaring, hiking, and project scuba diving, along with exploring physics and writing software.
First Published October 2010 By The Dart
