The 67-year-old was at Tūhura Otago Museum yesterday, sharing stories about the past, present and the future of human space flight.
He is one of the United States’ most experienced astronauts, having completed six space missions, commanded three of them and spent 296 days in space — 215 of them as commander aboard the International Space Station.
He also holds Nasa records for the most spacewalks (10) and the longest cumulative time on spacewalks (67 hours, 40 minutes), and was inducted into the US Astronaut Hall of Fame in 2020.
He is one of very few astronauts to have had the privilege of flying on Nasa space shuttles, Russian Soyuz TMA-9 rockets, the International Space Station, and a SAFER untethered jet backpack.
Following his retirement from Nasa in March 2012, he served as president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation until the end of 2014 and continued as an independent consultant to traditional and commercial space companies, serving on several advisory boards and committees to public and private organisations.
But then in 2017, he joined privately funded commercial spaceflight company Axiom Space as director of business development, only to find himself in the astronaut’s seat again.
"That wasn’t the plan at all. I was asked to help them develop a new space station, which is something that I’d known a little bit about, and we started this idea of private astronaut missions, and then we realised that both potential customers and Nasa really wanted somebody experienced to go with them, and so I happened to be the person in the room with experience, and here I am."
In 2022, he flew in space again as commander of Axiom Mission 1 — the first Axiom SpaceX Dragon mission to the International Space Station — and again on Axiom Mission 3 in January last year.
The flights are part of Axiom’s contract with Nasa, to build a new space station to replace the International Space Station when it is decommissioned in 2030.
"We help the station team with development — so crew evaluations and recommendations.
"And then, of course, we are also the commanders of our private astronaut missions, which are really there to not only build up a market, but maybe more importantly, to develop the team and the organisation and the hardware procedures to be able to run a mission from a private company."
He said Axiom was on track to complete the new space station by 2030.
"We plan to have the first module ready for launch in 2027, so that should give us some buffer time."
At this stage, he was not booked for any more flights into space, but it was not out of the realms of possibility, he said.
"We are waiting to hear from Nasa about the next two private astronaut missions, and if we get one or both of them, then there’s a good chance I’ll be on one."
Asked if he was hoping to set a new record for the oldest man in space, he said there was plenty of competition for that.
"I don’t know about that. There are a lot of folks that are quite a bit older than I am — not necessarily as commanders, but as payload specialists.
"But I don’t mind it. I feel good about going, and I’m still fairly active."
