He made three flights on the Space Shuttle, joined the Mir Station and stayed on the International Space Station. William (Bill) S. MacArthur is now retired from NASA. Exclusive interview on the occasion of ESA’s visit to the Netherlands.
William (Bill) S. MacArthur was recruited by NASA in 1990 after an early career as a test pilot for the agency and the Navy. Fitura met him on the occasion of that day. PortsPorts is open to the technical center ofEuropean Space AgencyEuropean Space Agency In the Netherlands, which closed a week of congresses of the Association of Astronauts ASE, MacArthur met several fellow astronauts.
Futura: You flew your first STS-58 mission aboard the Spacelab module (Space Shuttle Extension) in 1993, during which mice were separated in orbit, causing a scandal at the time. Tell us!
Bill McArthur: We had 48 white rats on the shuttle. ColombiaColombia. It was for a biomedical research mission. We wanted to better understand the effects of microgravity on people and living things. We had a moral responsibility not to mistreat these animals, to treat them humanely. But dissection is the way to get information about them. Before the mission, organizations like PETA had concerns.People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) which was contrary to experiment. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has very strict regulations that require us to check the rats every 24 hours before takeoff. [dans la navette, sur le pas de tir, NDLRNDLR]. This also delayed our flight. It had already been delayed twice because of this. Weather reportWeather report And there was a technical problem and it had to be postponed a third time to exchange mice with others whose health monitoring was more regular during the previous postponement.
Futura: During your second flight with space shuttle STS-74 in 1995, you approached the former Russian space station Mir. How do you see the development of relations with Russia?
Bill McArthur: I was a young lieutenant in the US Army. Our biggest concern at that time was the Soviet Union. But when I began training for this joint mission with Russia in 1994, I thought it was the beginning of a glorious era in international relations where two Cold War adversaries were becoming friends and partners. For more than 10 years, I went to Russia for training several times. I lived there for a while and thought it was a golden age of international cooperation in space. What is happening today saddens me for many reasons, firstly the people of Ukraine are suffering, the loss of many lives in Russia, and also the fact that the future now requires us to do more than any international cooperation. Taking away. It’s unfortunate, but I hope it’s temporary.
Futura: In the 1970s, astronaut Tom Stafford and cosmonaut Alexei Leonov inspired the joint Apollo-Soyuz space mission (1975) between NASA and the Soviet Union, and inhabited space well before the end of the Cold War. Can we hope to reap the peace-making role of astronauts today?
Bill McArthur: I came to Estec for the ASE Annual Congress. [Association of Space Explorers, qui réunit tous les astronautes du monde, NDLR]It was founded in part by Tom Stafford and Alexey Leonov. We continue to promote peaceful cooperation in space and ensure that everyone who has experienced human spaceflight can join us.
Futura: During your third STS-92 flight in 2000, you flew with Pamela Melroy, now NASA’s deputy director, whose director, Bill Nelson, also flew in space. Should NASA be headed by astronauts?
Bill McArthur: Having an astronaut at the head of NASA is nice, but not necessarily engineers. It has happened many times before. It is important to have astronauts in areas where they can influence important decisions, because our approach is slightly different. This is important for safety issues for astronauts, which may be in the hands of very intelligent people, but who have not flown. It is important that we are there to help assess safety.
Futura: What are you doing these days?
Bill McArthur: Now that I am retired from the NASA Astronaut Corps, I do a lot of public speaking and consulting with companies in the aerospace industry in areas where I have experience.
Otherwise… I take care of my grandkids and ride my bike as often as possible!
