Astronaut Tim Peake opens up about the secrets ‘every astronaut’ keeps

Apparently, astronaut Tim Peake is hiding secrets about his time in space aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Few of us know what goes on 250 miles above the planet – but the first British astronaut to walk in space in 2016 has given us a few teasers.

“If I have a secret, I’m not going to share it,” he told Metro.

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“It’s probably something that doesn’t need to be written down in print or advertised anywhere.”

He continued: “Every astronaut has secrets, but they really are secrets.

“Secrets as to some of the things we get up to, some of the jokes, some of the pranks – and maybe some of the mistakes we make.”

But he has spoken about one gaffe he made during a Japanese experiment.

The pressure comes from the fact that “everything you touch on the space station is the culmination of years of people’s work, so you need it to be perfect.

“And then I mixed up an experiment. Thankfully it didn’t have a huge impact.”

Take the toolkit that was dropped during a space walk last month by two astronauts working on the ISS.

The tool bag is now orbiting Earth at 17,000 mph, which amateur astronomers were able to spot the bag using binoculars or a telescope.

Or even the tomato that was lost and then, a long time later, found aboard ISS.

Tim focussed on this human side of being an astronaut in his latest book: Space: The Human Story.

His ninth book tells the very human story of those living in space and the astronauts’ journey to get there.

He talks about a training accident that almost killed Neil Armstrong.

He also revealed there was one time when an Apollo crew almost mutinied.

And, as Peake admits, 2024 looks set to mark the start of a space renaissance.

An unmanned US spacecraft is set to return to the moon for first time in 50 years.

That’s ahead of future human-led missions aboard Artemis III scheduled for 2025.

However, Peake believes the human mission will actually happen “no earlier than 2026”.

Of Elon Musks’ moves to launch the most powerful rocket in the world via SpaceX, Peake is skeptical.

While he thinks the company’s take-off and landing suits designed by renowned Hollywood costume designer Jose Fernandez look “fantastic”, he doubts their practicality.

“From an astronaut’s point of view we don’t really care what they look like, they’ve just got to be comfortable,” he said.

Rumor has it that Tim could be coming out of retirement to captain a UK Space Agency mission, blasting off in a SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicle.

So now the secret we all want the truth to: do aliens exist?

Tim is remarkably receptive to the idea.

“I think there will be intelligent life out there,” he said.

“We know the building blocks for life are floating around our solar system, and we’ve already found 5,000 exoplanets just in our local vicinity – and there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe.

“The question is, how far away are they, and will we ever make contact? Do we ever want to make contact?”

The closest he claims to have come to experiencing it: seeing three unidentified lights aboard ISS.

Spoiler alert: it was urine.

A leak in a neighbouring probe was ejecting waste into space, which promptly crystallised, sparkling as it passed the window.

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