British astronaut reluctant to go back to space

Anglo-American astronaut Michael Foal, just back from a six-month stint aboard the international space station, said today it would take a new challenge to get him back into orbit.

He hinted that his repeated stints in space had left him slightly jaded.

“There must be a new aim, a new challenge,” said Dr Foale, from Cambridge, who has been in space six times.

He also reacted cautiously to calls for doubling the length of space flights.

At a news conference at Russia’s space training facility outside Moscow five days after returning to Earth, Dr Foale, who became an American so he could be a spaceman, said that to simply stay in orbit for a long time is not worth it in itself.

He suggested that a rigorous programme including spacewalks and experiments could justify extending the time limit in orbit.

“If there is a strong orbital programme that utilises the fact that you are spending a year in space then there is value in it,” he said.

Russia is pressing Nasa to agree to extend crew stints on the space station from the current six months to one year, which would free up places on its Soyuz crew capsules for paying space tourists.

Russia’s Soyuz and Progress cargo ships have been the only link to the space station since the US shuttle fleet was grounded following the loss of the shuttle Columbia in 2003.

Facing the need to mobilise its already scarce resources to keep the station supplied and manned, Russia has had to freeze the construction of its own segment on the station and some commercial projects, including selling space trips to rich tourists.