How Tim Peake ran the London Marathon in space

Thomas McMullan Read more December 15, 2015

As good excuses for not running the London Marathon go, being 250 miles above Earth on the International Space Station is a positively golden one. Yet for some reason, British astronaut Tim Peake has chosen not to take it, and competed the London Marathon on a treadmill.

It’s not an ideal version of the race: a treadmill in a small cramped room, far from the cheering crowds and party atmosphere that’s synonymous with the London Marathon. Indeed, in a Q&A with journalists on Earth, Peake pointed out that the treadmill isn’t even located near a window, so he won’t be able to see his home planet as he puts in the miles.

Peake ran the marathon 17 years ago with an impressive time of 3hrs 18mins, but doing the same thing in space something different altogether, which is probably why he didn’t beat his own personal best. Instead, Peake ran the London Marathon in space in a time of three hours, 35 minutes, and 21 seconds – still not a bad time.

He’s been on the ISS for four months now, so will likely have lost muscle mass, and due to the differing gravity on the space station, treadmill runners have to be held down with bungee cords. “The toughest part has been getting used to a harness system. It’s like running with a clumsy rucksack on. You can get chafing around your hips and shoulders,” explained Peake.

But at least there’ll be no queues for the toilets, he pointed out.

It does have one possible advantage, though: injury recovery. Responding to a question from Channel 5 news, Peake explained: “In terms of recovery from race or running training, I think weightlessness is one of the perfect environments, because the moment you stop running and the moment you get off that bungee system your muscles are in a completely relaxed state, and I do think that we recover faster up here from any kind of aches or sprains or any muscular problems.”

Running a marathon in space may sound like something completely without precedent, but it actually isn’t. Back in 2007, Sunita Williams did the same thing with the Boston Marathon, managing to complete the 26.2 miles in 4hrs 24mins.

Generally speaking, supply teachers don’t have a great time of it. For some reason, though, when the teacher in question is British astronaut Tim Peake, answering questions live from the International Space Station, children end up listening with rapt attention.

The event was watched by 300,000 students around the UK, as a live link-up was held at the World Museum in Liverpool.

Peake’s 20-minute lesson, which you can watch in full below, features answering questions directly from students about life on the ISS, zero gravity and the likelihood of the space station being hit by a meteor.

Five-year-old Harry from Bedford opened the questioning, asking what Peake could see from the window. At that point, it turned out, it was the Atlantic ocean, and the coast of Africa. This was followed by questions about whether his heartbeat is faster in space (no, it’s slower), if the ISS gets hit by meteors (small particles sometimes, yes), which experiments he enjoyed the most (ones involving vegetation), and what his favourite ISS button does – one that Peake confessed he had never been asked before. It turns out it’s the button that opens the airlock into space.

Impressing the audience with some low-gravity acrobatics and water experiments, Peake’s classroom ended with rapturous applause from the audience. It’s safe to say he enjoyed the experience:

Tim Peake makes debut spacewalk on ISS repair mission

Tim Peake is performing his first – and Britain’s first – spacewalk.

Peake is joined by his NASA partner Tim Kopra, as the pair walk almost the entire length of the ISS to lay metres of new cable, install a new valve and fix a broken power source.

The operation is expected to last six-and-a-half hours. Peake and Kopra will have to work in 45-minute periods of sunlight, then complete darkness, as they orbit the earth every 90 minutes.

If you’ve got nothing to do for the next few hours, you can watch the spacewalk live via NASA’s Ustream channel below.

Prior to the mission, Peake had to beathe pure oxygen for two hours to rid his suit of nitrogen and lower its pressure to the level needed for the spacewalk.

NASA has released the animation below, detailing exactly what Peake has to do on his mission.

Godspeed, Tim.

There are some calls you ideally don’t want the answerphone picking up. One that most of us don’t need to worry about is missing a call from your son on the International Space Station. Unfortunately Tim Peake’s parents Nigel and Angela had “popped out”, so did just that.

“It was quite surreal. We’d popped out for about an hour to see our daughter who lives nearby, came home to an answerphone message, ‘Hello, this is your son from the International Space Station,'” Nigel Peake told ITV News.

Not to worry though, as Peake has no shortage of well-wishers, with the world of social media ensuring that everyone from Elton John to the Queen has wished him the best of luck in space.

The official Twitter account for the British Monarchy tweeted a printed letter from Queen Elizabeth II, along with a picture of Peake giving the thumbs up back on Earth.

“Prince Philip and I are pleased to transmit our best wishes,” the letter reads. “We hope that Major Peake’s work on the Space Station will serve as an inspiration to a new generation of scientists and engineers.

Peake then responded, thanking the Queen for her message.

Peake is becoming a rather adept space tweeter. Elton John sent a tweet to Peake around the time of his launch on Tuesday. Peake subsequently responded with what is probably the most casual astronaut-singer-earth-space communication imaginable.

“Sorry Elton, I just popped out of the office when you sent your message. What was I doing? Oh, I was being fired into orbit at 17,600 miles per hour. I’ll pick up some milk on the way home.”

Here’s Elton John’s original tweet:

Tim Peake: Six-month stay on the ISS

Moments before 8pm on Tuesday, a visibly elated Tim Peake emerged from the capsule of the Soyuz spacecraft and began his six-month stay aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

UK astronaut Peake arrived safely at the ISS following a last-minute setback when the Soyuz’s automatic docking system malfunctioned. Russian commander Yuri Malenchenko, travelling with Peake and US astronaut Tim Kopra, was forced to manually back up the capsule for docking.

Speaking from the space station, Peake described the blastoff from Kazakhstan as a “beautiful launch”.

“I think you’d call that a spectacular day at the office,” Peake’s mother, Angela, said to him via satellite.

While the rocket launched without a glitch, the breakdown of the automatic docking mechanism meant that capsule docked nine minutes later than scheduled, at 5.33 GMT.

Peake’s journey from earth took around six-and-a-half hours, and Peake is now due to spend a six-month duration on board the ISS, where he will conduct experiments.

Peake has been called the first official UK astronaut – which is slightly misleading. There have been a few Brits in space before, including Helen Sharman in 1991 and Michael Foale in 1992, but they’ve either had dual US-UK nationality or, in Sharman’s case, were part of a privately funded venture.

Tim Peake isn’t your traditional spaceman. He started his astronautical career at the late age of 37, when he beat more than 8,000 applicants to win a place on the ESA’s astronaut training course in September 2009.

Before he embarked on life as a spaceman, Peake was an officer in the British Army Air Corps, in a career that spanned 17 years. During his time with the military, Peake served as a Commander with the Royal Green Jackets (light infantry), before graduating as a helicopter pilot in 1994.

In 2005 he made the switch to teaching as he graduated from the Empire Test Pilots School, winning the award for best rotary wing student. Four years later, Peake added a BSc (Hons) degree in flight dynamics and evaluation to his list of honours, before leaving the military with over 3,000 flying hours under his belt.

Tim Peake launch: live blog

17.18

The Soyuz rocket is aligning itself for docking with the ISS

15.15

All four orbit burns have now been completed, and the ESA is saying that docking is due to occur with the ISS at 17.24 GMT.

12.25

Before the Soyuz docks with the ISS, it is due to pass over the UK and should be visible to the naked eye. The ESA has released a map with the flight path. If you’re in London you may be able to see Tim Peake’s spacecraft at 17.16. You probably won’t though, because it’ll be cloudy. Boooo.

12.15

While Peake is the first official ESA UK astronaut, the first Brit in space was the chemist Helen Sharman, who travelled to the space station Mir in 1991. Calling Peake the first British astronaut is therefore misleading. Sharman went to space as part of the privately funded venture Project Juno – but she still owns the title.

11.45

Nasa has tweeted some stunning pictures of the Soyuz launch.

11.22

David Cameron has tweeted a video wishing Tim Peake luck on his journey. “On behalf of everyone in Britain let me wish you the very best of luck. You are doing us all proud,” the prime minister said.

PM: Tim, on behalf of everyone in Britain, let me wish you the very best of luck. You are doing us proud #TimPeake https://t.co/JvCLSPZJUX

— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) December 15, 2015

More importantly, Dr Who has also tweeted his wishes.

11.18

The solar panels on the Soyuz have been deployed. The ESA say that “everything is going great”.

11.14 Soyuz reaches orbit

The third stage has been successfully completed. The Soyuz rocket has officially reached orbit, and will be coasting at a speed of 28,000km/h. Now Peake has a six-hour trip to the ISS.

11.09

Second stage is complete and third stage is underway, which will take the crew up to orbit. Tim Peake gives the thumbs-up – he’s officially an astronaut now.

11.07

The ESA has said that the rocket’s first booster stage is complete.

11.06

The rocket is blasting into space, and the ESA confirms that all systems are “nominal”.

11.03 ROCKET LAUNCHED

The Soyuz rocket has launched – the Principia Mission is underway.

10.57

Columbus Control Centre is preparing with less than ten minutes to go before launch.

10:51

The ISS will be lined up over Baikonur around three minutes before launch.

10.47

The rocket is still there, the music is still coming. Random fact time: the Principia gets its name from Isaac Newton’s Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which describes the laws of motion and gravity. It’s appropriate because the rocket will be sticking a middle finger up at gravity in a few minutes.

10:38

Freddie Mercury can be heard singing inside the capsule… Tim Peake is playing Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now. We’re singing it in the office. Here’s the video if you’d like to join in.

10.35

With less than half an hour to go, the Soyuz rocket stands prepared to launch.

10.29

The Soyuz rocket is now standing without the service structure. Not long now…

10.25

The service structure supporting the Soyuz TMA19M rocket has retracted.

10.10

One-hour countdown begins

ESA confirm that everything is going as expected with the Principa launch.

09.54

A bit of context on the time it’ll take for Peake to make his journey to the ISS:

09.40

The crew strapped inside the Soyuz rocket that will soon be launched into space:

09.30

Tim Peake has emerged from the Baikonur Cosmodrome building, and is on his way to board the Soyuz rocket that will send him to space in just over an hour.