UAE’s First Astronaut Soars to ISS

Hello and welcome to the Daily Space for today October 1st 2019. I’m your host Annie Wilson. Most Mondays through Fridays either I or my co-host Dr. Pamela Gay will be here bringing you a quick rundown of all that is new in space and astronomy. For a slight change of pace, Annie chats with a live audience about UAE’s first astronaut Hazza Al Mansoori and his life aboard the ISS.

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UAE’s first astronaut, Hazza Al Mansoori, blasted into space September 26th and returns to Earth on October 3rd. In preparation for this mission, Hazzaa Al Mansoori and Sultan Al Neyadi spent between one and two hours daily for a week to evaluate about 200 different types of halal food. Hazzaa will be conducting experiments to study the autonomic regulation of cardiovascular system, central hymodynamics, influence of space flight factors on the spatial distribution of the energy of heart contractions. Here are a few of the questions that were answered by the press releases from UAE:

• Q) What do we call Hazza?  Is he an astronaut, cosmonaut, or a spaceflight participant?  
• A) He could be called any of these.  Hazza crossed the Karman line, so he’s an astronaut.  He’s completed cosmonaut training, so he could be called a cosmonaut — but UAE’s space program (Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre) uses “astronaut”.  NASA and Roscosmos both use “spaceflight participant”.

• Q) No, really, what do we call Hazza?
• A) Officially: a spaceflight participant.  Unofficially: an astronaut.

• Q) Why doesn’t NASA just call Hazza an astronaut like everyone else
• A) Because a “professional astronaut/cosmonaut” needs to be employed by an ISS partner.  UAE is not an ISS partner. (source: http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=4578)

• Q) What has Hazza done on the ISS?
• A) Hazza has done a lot of outreach activities, including recording an Arabic tour of the ISS and answering questions from students during live video chats.  He’s also done a few experiments involving microgravity — including a few noninvasive ones on himself, like the perception of time passing. Additionally, Hazza hosted an Emirati food night in space where he shared a few traditional Emirati foods: madrooba, saloona, and balaleet.

• Q) Did Hazza pray while on the ISS?
• A) Yes!  There is actually a guide for how to Al Mansoori has actually prayed while flying his aircraft at high speed. I repeat: Al Mansoori has prayed while flying his aircraft at high speed. Scholars at Dubai Islamic Affairs have taken care of a lot of the details for Hazza, such as what times to pray (follow timings at Mecca) and what direction to face (Earth).  A Quran was among the items he took with him to the Space Station.

• Q) How did Al Mansoori perform ablution (ritual cleansing before prayer)?
• A) Because running water on the ISS just isn’t a thing, he was instructed to perform ablution by using a rock, sand, or any clean *dry* surface on the ISS.  Because body wipes are damp they cannot be used for ablution.

Links

• https://gulfnews.com/uae/science/uae-astronaut-to-host-first-emirati-food-night-in-space-1.1565006412594
• https://gulfnews.com/uae/science/pictures-hazzaa-almansoori-uaes-first-man-in-space-1.1569998209073
• https://gulfnews.com/uae/revealed-what-emirati-astronaut-hazza-al-mansouri-will-take-to-space-1.1566802624216
• https://www.msn.com/en-ae/news/techandscience/hazza-al-mansoori-to-witness-16-sunset-and-rises-a-day-how-will-he-pray/ar-AAHP46x
• https://www.esquireme.com/content/39575-hazza-al-mansouri-becomes-first-person-to-wear-kandura-in-space
• https://twitter.com/MBRSpaceCentre/status/1179417945891627008

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