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Vol. LXI, No. 44
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Wednesday, October 31, 2007
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Vol. LXI, No. 44
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Wednesday, October 31, 2007
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Charles Simonyi was 17 when he left Hungary for work as a computer programmer in Denmark. The young emigré went on to join the start-up Microsoft, helping to catapult the company to worldwide prominence by leading teams that developed MS Word, Excel, and other successful software applications.
But it was the realization of his boyhood dreams of space that provided the topic for Mr. Simonyi’s presentation at the Institute for Advanced Study, last Thursday, October 25.
“I’ve been in this auditorium many times as an audience member listening to erudite lectures and now I’m here to tell you about a trip I took in the spring,” quipped the Institute Trustee whose “trip” was to the International Space Station (ISS).
The fifth non-astronaut to travel to the ISS, he was the 450th person in space when he was launched on April 7 in a Soyuz TMA-10 rocketship alongside Expedition 15 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and flight engineer Oleg Kotov.
Mr. Simonyi shared glimpses of his 14 day flight and the six month training period that led up to it in a three-minute video, Charles in Space: A Journey to Remember.
When the video showed him slightly stooped forward in his close-fitting space suit holding an air conditioning unit, he described feeling “like a penguin wearing a diaper.”
“Space tourism increases the diversity of people in space, ordinary people who don’t have the ‘right stuff’ like you and me,” he said. “With this privilege comes the obligation to share the experience.”
Mr. Simonyi gave a brief history of space flight from the days of Gagarin in 1961 and the Armstrong et al moon landing in 1969, until the permanent human presence on the ISS this century. The idea of space tourism wasn’t long in becoming a reality, he said, as individuals took advantage of what is essentially a hotel in space, and of an extra seat on the supply vehicle servicing the station.
His own reasons for traveling stem from a fascination with space since the day in 1963 when he was picked to be Hungary’s Jr. Astronaut at age 13. He won a trip to Moscow to meet one of the first cosmonauts, Pavel Popovich.
Since then, Mr. Simonyi has trained as a pilot in multi-engine aircraft with current licenses in jets and helicopters and more than 2,000 hours of flying time.
Simple curiosity was another factor: to answer the questions you don’t find in books, such a what do they do all day up there?
But the idea didn’t really take hold until he had visited the launch site and witnessed a Russian space shot. Standing close to the fully-fueled rocket gave him the impression that it couldn’t be all that dangerous.
Meeting Princeton resident Greg Olsen, the third space tourist, moved Mr. Simonyi further along the path to space.
“The launch was a little like taking off in a fast elevator; it wasn’t as violent as you might imagine, or as noisy,” he said. As for his reaction to seeing the earth from space, he was surprised by how huge it looks, he said.
Mr. Simonyi peppered his account with facts and figures. He spent 14 days and 13 nights in space. He traveled 5.5 million miles and observed 214 sunrises. He orbited the earth 16 times a day. It took 8 minutes to go into orbit and 2 days to reach the 140 feet by 150 feet space station.
In general, he found the training was much more difficult than the flight itself. He had to prepare for space sickness nausea, and practice passing massive but weightless objects in space — more difficult than you would imagine.
He was quarantined for a time in order to protect the people already on the space station and had emergency landing training just in case they put down in a remote spot and it took up to two days to find them.
On board, the daily routine consisted of 2 hours per day of exercise, 8 for sleep (a pleasant experience like being on a bed with lots of pillows), and the rest for simple housekeeping which takes a lot of time, and the experimental work of the astronauts.
The experience or re-entering the earth’s atmosphere was a little like a bumpy ski ride whooshing from side to side with everything turning pink and then black as the exterior burns up and then three jerks as the parachutes open.
“I got used to space and was sad to leave,” he said, adding that he would like to do it again. With this “trip” under his belt, he is considered an experienced space traveler.
At the end of his space trip experience, he was delighted to meet again with his hero Popovich.
Philanthropist
A trustee of the Institute for Advanced Study since 1997, Mr. Simonyi is also one of its biggest benefactors, with gifts, according to the director Peter Goddard, unparalleled since its founding.
In 2005, he gave an unrestricted cash gift of $25 million for the Karoly Simonyi Memorial Endowment Fund, in honor of his late father, a professor of electrical engineering.
A United States citizen since 1982, Mr. Simonyi is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. In 2006, he was decorated with the Order of Merit by the President of Hungary.
The software pioneer and aviator, believes that one day, the cumbersome space suit will be as redundant as the parachute is now for those traveling by airplane. Then people will be able to travel more easily into space.
For more information, visit: www.charlesinspace.com.