How Not to Land on a Planet: A Space Study

What happens when the #SSP17 Human Performance in Space (HPS) spacecraft crash lands on a remote planet you’ve never been to?  You get rescued, of course!

This was the very first time I have ever been an Astronaut on another planet and to be fair, this was the very first time that I have ever been rescued by a team of Astronauts that I lovingly call Rescuenauts!  Tell you what, I have never been happier for an intergalactic rescue mission, but let’s put this in perspective:  This is only the first time I crash landed and was rescued on a new planet!  In theory, I don’t have much to compare it to!

Unfortunately, since we miscalculated the landing and kinda crashed, we didn’t get to spend much time to explore.  I sustained a compound fracture on my left arm.  My right arm had a 20cm gash from shoulder to elbow.  But, I was still able to maintain contact with Earth though the use of Twitter, live tweeting the event, using the less injured right arm. 

The ISU HPS Master Control team, based at the Cork Institute of Technology in Ireland, manned the control centre while astronauts on this new planet simulated an emergency rescue. Remote cameras were used to maintain contact with master control as the #SSP17 Rescuenauts learned the importance of triage whilst assessing casualties.  They were using all their previous HPS medical space training to assess the wounds and keep the patients stabilised.  Then, the rescue team created makeshift anti-radiation habitats at the crash site to keep the injured safe until all patients could be property transported back to Earth.

Overall, it was a good experience.  If I was going to do it all again, I’d make sure to have more qualified pilots and engineers so we could have a much softer landing.  But, over all, we were lucky enough to have a rescue team that was able to get us back to Ireland in time for lunch.

I was, then, able to continue the rest of my action-packed day starting with storytelling with the Space Management and Business department, get a few selfies with the #SSP17 participants and make sure the evening panel ran smoothly!

So, thanks to the Rescuenauts and the HPS Master Control for a rescue well done!