Leroy Chiao, an American astronaut who has spent 229 days in space on four separate missions, presented his newly-published book, Make the Most of Your OneOrbit, to a packed audience at NYU Prague in October. The book, published by Zdeněk Sklenář Gallery, with the cooperation of NASA and the Chinese Authority of Flights of People into Space, is a collection of photos taken by Mr. Chiao, selected from the more than 16,000 images he shot from the space station between 1994 and 2005.
Chiao first decided he wanted to become an astronaut at the age of eight, when he saw Apollo 11 land on the moon, and he wondered whether it was possible to capture an image of the Great Wall of China from space.
“One of the great myths is that the Great Wall of China is the only man made object that is visible from space; I spent a lot of time with my telephoto lens trying to take a photo of it,” he said. “I didn’t see the wall myself – I saw many lines in the mountains, but I couldn’t tell which was a wall, a road or a riverbed. I think I can say that no astronaut has identified the wall with his or her bare eye.”
Audience questions, not surprisingly, focused on what it was like to be in space. “The first time I flew into space, I thought I knew what to expect – I had seen movies, talked to astronauts- but the first time I looked at the earth from space was very emotional,” said Chiao. “The colors were much brighter than I expected – It made me feel wonderful, joyful. It also made me feel small.”
What about his thoughts on science fiction flicks? “I check my engineering hat at the door when I watch films about space,” he said. “There are a lot of technical errors, but some films do capture the visceral fear that all astronauts have – whether we admit it or not.”
Future of the space program
Mr. Chiao, who was on a White House committee to review NASA policy, also discussed his belief that international cooperation is crucial to further development of the space program with the international space station as a symbol of how countries can work together. “Whenever we have new astronauts come onto the space station, we greet them using a Russian tradition – giving them bread and salt,” he said. “But we use salt water so crystals floating around don’t get in our eyes.”
OneOrbit was first published in Czech and will soon come out in English and Chinese. The book was the brainchild of Czech gallery owner Zdenek Sklenar who befriended Mr. Chiao in 2009. The astronaut – who says he is an engineer, artist second – said that this book “brings together the universal values of art and rationality.”