‘The station turned red’: Australia seen from space stuns astronaut

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]What is it actually like being up in space? Being up there and seeing Earth from that perspective?

[00:00:06]It's amazing. Well, first of all, floating is incredible. It feels like you're falling cuz that's actually what's happening. You're falling, but you're moving really fast, so you never hit the Earth. The view of the Earth is amazing. I installed a module called the cupola. I have this It's kind of like a cupola behind me. That's my logo. It's a hexagon. There's six windows around you and one big window above you. And we installed it um and I was actually the first person to to open the window cover. So, we opened it up. It was amazing. We left all the covers open and I got back to work. And all of a sudden, the inside of the space station turned red. And I was like, this is kind of weird. So, I went out and we were over Australia. It was the Outback. Right.

[00:00:45]>> know, every desert is a different color.

[00:00:46]Australia is red and it literally turns if somebody has the window covers open in the cupola, the space station turns red when we're flying over Australia during the day. Wow, that is incredible.

[00:00:58]On a spiritual level, how was it for you?

[00:01:02]So, I'm a Christian. I was before I launched. I I still am. I came away, I think, with my faith strengthened. Like, there In my mind, from a scientific point of view, not a religious point of view, somebody had to have created this amazing universe. Just life is so amazing.

[00:01:18]Um but I'm also probably less of a black and white guy. You know, religion, organized religion, is used so often to for political power and to kill people and jihad and all that stuff. So, that's obviously wrong.

[00:01:32]Um so, I'm probably a lot more tolerant than I used to be. But when you see Earth, it's this beautiful planet. I I remember thinking, one day, it hit me.

[00:01:40]Like, that's my planet over there and I'm not on it. I'm on this, you know, the space station. So, we're all on spaceship Earth and we need to figure out how to uh how to work together. How to be crewmates on spaceship Earth and not be at each other's throats all the time. So, my my faith was strengthened.

[00:01:56]I felt like I was seeing creation from God's point of view. Like, humans are not meant to see this. Uh but we got to do a better job of living together down here.

[00:02:04]Yeah, I can imagine it would put quite a bit in perspective. What was it like coming back to Earth and then flicking on the news?

[00:02:13]So, funny story. My first flight was on the space shuttle. I was there I installed the cupola, saw Australia from space. It was very red. Uh we landed it late. I went to my saw my family. I had little kids at the time. I go back to the crew quarters and I turned on the news. And I literally I could barely move. Like, I had to crawl across the bed cuz I felt like gravity was going to crush me. And I had to turn it off because it was just noise. There's so much dumb things happening down here on Earth. I was just out there seeing the planet and the galaxy and seeing these amazing things.

[00:02:47]And then to turn on the news was like, oh my god. Now, so look, sometimes there's important things going on. But, you know, so much of what we what fills our brains, especially now that we have these uh these phones, you know, our brains are just constantly bombarded with mostly useless stuff. So, it's important to like turn that stuff off, go smell the you know, smell the air, um enjoy enjoy the view cuz we live on a great planet.

[00:03:14]It's amazing to hear you say that because it is so true. Of course, we we do cover important things on the news, but there is so much noise. And even hearing about your perspective being up in space and looking down at Earth and you can say there's a a lot of conflicts going on, sometimes unnecessary.

[00:03:32]Um so, you mentioned a bit about what it was physically like. What did you have to do for for health and fitness up there?

[00:03:40]Well, that's a big thing cuz right now on Earth, you and I are both exercising.

[00:03:43]We're fight In order to sit up, your spine has to fight gravity. You have muscles that are keep Both of us are keeping our heads upright. Like, we're both getting a little bit exercise just sitting up. You never get that at all in space. And so, NASA gave us 2 and 1/2 hours a day of exercise. We had a a treadmill, a bike, and a weightlifting machine. And that was very important after 7 months in space and I took a vitamin D tablet every day.

[00:04:10]And with that exercise, I ended up losing 0.0% of my bone density. So, it's very important. A lot of that was because of the weightlifting that I was doing. So, down here on Earth, especially for women, there's a disease called osteoporosis. Um a little bit of weightlifting. Take a little 2 kilo or 5 kilo dumbbell and just push against something and that can keep your bones healthy. It It kept my bones healthy after 7 months in space.