A Peake into Space for UK Astronaut

By Jack/Edited by the ‘Newspaper in a Day’ team.

Major Tim Peake and two other commanders – a Russian and an American – Yuri Malenchenko and Tim Kopra have just headed off into space.

Tim Peake became the first UK astronaut in 20 years to go into space. The launch took place on the 15th December 2015 at 11.05am and the world was watching!

The mission will last more than 171 days and Peake will land back on Earth around May, 2016. “Major Tim” will officially become Britain’s first man in space which is exciting news because he is the first professional British astronaut to be employed by the European Space Agency.

The astronauts will be in the satellite for 6 – 8 months which sounds boring, but there are lots of resources for the astronauts: toilets, fire extinguishers, airlocks, seats and controls… OK so it doesn’t sound that fun!

The shuttle is around half the size of a football pitch, but it is also quite small and cramped to live in. Despite this, Peake is not worried about sickness. He says: “I’m expecting it – every astronaut has to expect it, because it’s a really unusual situation for your body to be in… As a last resort, you have a sick bag.”

In spite of these hardships, we still expect a lot from Peake; the reason for Tim Peake going is for school children. One primary school will send experiments for Tim Peake to do in space and they will also select what he will be eating whilst he is on the journey.

Researching Peake’s exploration, there was a lot of information about the dangers of crashing, explosions or something wrong with oxygen tanks, but most people would agree being in space will be worth it. Just imagine what it would be like being surrounded by a scene of golden, shiny, stars in a bed as black as coal!

Thinking of all the good and bad aspects of being in space – would you like to go into like Tim Peake?