ESA astronauts joined Chinese colleagues to take part in a sea survival training in August 2017. /Photo from ESA
In an interview on the future of human spaceflight, European Space Agency (ESA) astronauts Matthias Maurer claimed that he and his colleague started learning Chinese in 2012 for a potential trip to the future Chinese Space Station and might eat Chinese food in the space.
For ESA, the lack of launch capability means that to send its astronauts to space; the agency has to make its spaceflight to the ISS or take a ride with other space-faring nations which might include China in the future.
“ESA has started cooperation between 23 member states, so we know what it takes to bring partners together,” says Maurer, “We speak many languages, we have this intercultural awareness, and we are the perfect glue to bring China into this big international space family.”
“Currently, we fly on a Soyuz rocket, so everyone who flies on a Soyuz rocket needs to learn Russian,” Maurer said in an interview at the Berlin Air and Space Show.
“Language and cultural differences are obviously a challenge, but also add value, as we are focused on the common goal of space exploration,” Samantha Cristoforetti, also an ESA’s astronaut, told BBC after finishing a nine-day training program in China with Maurer and other 16 Chinese astronauts in August, 2017 for a sea survival training in China’s coastal city, Yantai.
"The goal of the training is to ‘establish a long-term cooperation with China and ESA astronauts to fly on China’s space station,” according to ESA.
“Language was, as expected, the single most challenging obstacle, which we overcame with great enthusiasm and team spirit, speaking a mixture of Chinese and English,” said Maurer.
Besides the language, Maurer also found many other differences between China and the West.
For Maurer, it looks like that the team-building exercise in China is a more fundamental approach.
“The Chinese astronauts even spend their vacations together, they know each other perfectly well, so they are like brothers and sisters,” says Maurer, “When we lived there we felt so warm-heartedly accepted into their family.”
“In the Soyuz, the left seat is the co-pilot, and so we went to China and said we need to negotiate hard to make sure we get that left-hand seat,” Maurer said to BBC, “ And they said ‘oh, okay, no problem.’ And we thought that was too easy until we realized the right-hand seat (in Shenzhou) is the co-pilot’s.”
An agreement signed in 2015 between ESA and the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) has helped to grow collaboration between the two agencies and was aimed at flying European astronauts on the Chinese space station from 2022.
For ESA, when it comes to getting its astronauts into the orbit, it will keep options, according to BBC.
Similar to the Soviet Intercosmos programs of the 1970s and 80s which enabled astronauts from allied nations like Mongolia, Cuba, Afghanistan and Syria to fly to Russian space stations, China has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) in 2016.
“My impression is that any country in the world that wants to fly an astronaut can contact the Chinese through the UN and potentially get into space,” said Maurer.
Once people are looking beyond Earth orbit to the Moon, they need to more partners with the best technology, said Maurer.
“We are aiming to bring the Chinese into the family and a future lunar research station. The more we have in the family, the better we will become.”
The space station of China is expected to be in operation by 2022.