German Astronaut Reiter Completes Repair Mission in Space

Thomas Reiter on Thursday became the first European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut to conduct a space walk from the International Space Station. He and his American colleague Jeff Williams spent six hours making repairs on the space station.

"It's an indescribable feeling to be working between earth and the heavens," said Reiter, who spent 179 days in the now defunct Mir space station a decade ago and has performed two other space walks.

There were some initial concerns Thursday at NASA when the door to the space station jammed. But after some pushing and pulling, the hatch released and Reiter and Williams floated out, as if in slow motion.

Reiter was wearing a white space suite with a German flag. Williams' suit had red stripes so that the two could be easily identified by observers inside the space station.

A hard day's work

"It's really exhausting because they have to fight against the resistance in their suits and move heavy objects back and forth," said Volker Damann, an ESA doctor. "That's why we see their heart rates peak, like with cyclists or people doing sports."

"You have to imagine that there's a vacuum outside," said Reiter, who had spent countless hours underwater to simulate the experience. "You're in a pressurized suit and every tiny movement you make with each finger…is very physically demanding."

Like mountain climbers, Reiter and Williams used karabiners, metal rings with clips, to hook themselves to the space station as they moved along its outer shell. Not only were the astronauts themselves secured, but each one of their tools as well.

"We don't want to lose them, for one thing, but the next crew to go out doesn't want to run into the tools again," Damann said. "It's very important for us not to lose anything."

A new day every 90 minutes

The International Space Station races around the earth at 28,000 kilometers per hour (17,400 miles per hour) and circles it once every 90 minutes. Damann said the human body can only recognize acceleration and deceleration, not speed itself. The astronauts don't notice the space station's quick pace, just the shortened days and nights.

"It's gravity that affects the astronauts," said Reinhold Ewald, an ESA astronaut who observed the space walk operation from the German control center in Oberpfaffenhofen. The astronaut's orbit compensates for gravity, he explained, and "the end result is that you float weightlessly but are pulled here and there by these forces. You just don't notice it."

After repairing two GPS antennas, installing a gauge to measure the space station's electric field, screwing on replacement parts and installing various devices, Reiter and Williams returned ahead of schedule.