NASA Astronaut Details Fall To Earth After Failed Soyuz Launch

After surviving an aborted launch to the ISS, NASA astronaut Nick Hague details his fall to Earth and shares what it was like inside the capsule. CNET reports: In his first interviews since surviving the largely uncontrolled 'ballistic descent' back to Earth that followed, Hague told reporters on Tuesday that the launch felt normal for the first two minutes but that it became clear 'something was wrong pretty quick.' 'Your training really takes over,' Hague said, adding that he and [Russian Cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin] had practiced what to do in case of just such a launch-abort scenario. Hague also credited years of flight training, going back to his days as a U.S. Air Force pilot.

The escape procedure has been compared to being launched sideways out of a shotgun -- but while the shotgun is rocketing upward. Hague described the side-to-side shaking inside the capsule as 'fairly aggressive but fleeting.' 'I expected my first trip to space to be memorable,' he said. 'I didn't expect it to be quite this memorable.' Because of the combination of rocket-fueled ascent and the sudden sideways escape maneuver, the crew experienced a higher level of g-forces than during a normal flight. Once the Soyuz reached the top of its arc and began to descend, Hague said, what followed was really the same as a normal Soyuz landing, but with one major difference: The pair couldn't be certain where they were. 'My eyes were looking out the window trying to gauge where we were going to land.' Luckily, the capsule deployed its parachutes and landed on smooth, flat terrain where Hague and Ovchinin were met by rescue helicopters and whisked off for medical evaluations.

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