LONGEUEIL, Que. – Two Canadian astronauts made history Sunday, appearing together for the first time in space while flying aboard the International Space Station.
Julie Payette and Robert Thirsk, the first two Canadians to be together in space, appeared on a live video feed with a Canadian flag as a backdrop, taking questions from Gary Goodyear, Canada’s minister of state for science and technology.
Payette arrived at the station Friday as a crew member of the space shuttle Endeavour.
Her most recent trip to the space station was 10 years ago, when it was still being built, and the progress made since then is very impressive, she said.
“It’s a habitat now,” she said. “There are people living here for a long period of time and you can see it’s a home not just an empty laboratory like I saw 10 years ago.”
Thirsk arrived at the station last month aboard a Soyuz spacecraft launched from Russia. He is on an extended, six-month mission.
Adjusting to life on the space station is far different than his previous, short visit to space on a shuttle, said Thirsk.
“Learning to be productive, learning to be efficient, learning not to lose my things, which is a daily event for me, is something that takes a long time,” he said.
“There certainly is a certain rhythm to life aboard a space station, which is different than a shuttle flight, and it takes a little bit of learning.”
