“Aboard the ISS, Thomas Pesquet was able to see how much the environment had deteriorated in five years”

After “Astronaut Profession” and “Objective Mars”, “Objective France” is the third film you have dedicated to Thomas Pesquet. Did you have the ambition of a trilogy from the start?

Vincent Perazio. No, each project was set up gradually and is not directly linked to the previous one. But it is true that it ends up drawing a collection… I started collaborating with Thomas in 2016. “Astronaut Profession” followed the intense year of physical, psychological and scientific preparation that preceded his mission in the International Space Station (ISS ) where it was to survive in orbit around the Earth for six months, as part of the Proxima mission. It was his first in space. With “Objective Mars” (2017), we focused specifically on the scientific experiments he carried out with the five other members of Expedition 50/51. Their goal was to push the limits imposed by human physiology, with a view to manned missions to Mars by 2040.

And this time, why did you offer him a film on… Earth?

Because his perception is necessarily singular: unlike the vast majority of us, he has concretely and directly observed it from space, without the bias of a screen or a photograph. In the history of humanity, he is part of a privileged circle of 500 people to have had such an experience. With my co-director Xavier Lefebvre, it seemed all the more relevant to collect his impressions since Thomas is not an astronaut like the others.

He was the only Frenchman to board the International Space Station twice, the first to command it. In Europe, his experience is unique: he is the one who has spent the longest time in space, almost four hundred days!

You send it to the four corners of France…

During his last mission, he entertained us by regularly publishing photos of France, which is not only this corner of the Earth that the station flies over in three minutes. It is also the only country present in three oceans and offers an exceptional range of biodiversity. We wanted him to feel in a more physical way what he was able to perceive from space: on a boat at sea, in the forests of the Jura, the canopy of the Guyanese forest or in the heart of the glaciers of the Alps. We also took him to Normandy, to his home. It touched him to see that the cliffs of Dieppe where he went when he was a high school student were collapsing due to changes in the climate.

How did you choose the different images for the film?

As for life on board the ISS, our sources are the space agencies, the ESA (the European Space Agency) or NASA. Of course, we favored the photos taken by Thomas from the famous Cupola of the ISS, this dome which has 6 windows on the sides and a large central window: he took more than 245,000! During filming in France, in order to be able to account for the various scales, we almost systematically used a drone and also played on microscopic images of the fauna and flora.

It was fundamental to transcribe this reality: on Earth, there is no look or angle more important than the other.

Did Thomas Pesquet feel what is called the “overview effect” or overhang effect, a cognitive shock that sharpens the feeling of immense feverishness of the Earth?

Without naming it as such, that is precisely what it bears witness to, yes. The concept was described in Frank White’s 1987 book, “The Overview Effect – Space Exploration and Human Evolution”. It is to observe the Earth in the immensity of space that provokes this impression both derisory and distressing: our planet is suddenly perceived as a fragile sphere, suspended in the void and enveloped in a thin layer of gas. . Some astronauts, like Rusty Schweickart, Edgar Mitchell or Michael J. Massimino have experienced this syndrome. Ditto for William Shatner, the actor of “Star Trek”, who traveled in 2021 aboard the New Shepard capsule designed by the company of Jeff Bezos. On his return to Earth, he delivered a story imbued with the impressions generated by the overview effect.

Does this mean that being at such a distance makes it possible to become aware of the state of the world?

Yes, because we also realize the unity of the world, its exceptional functioning, and our incredible opportunity to evolve at the heart of such an extraordinary system that allows life. This reinforces our desire to protect the Earth. This is the surprising and paradoxical side of the space adventure: it has always brought us closer to our planet. When in 1968, Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders took part in Apollo 8, the first manned mission around the Moon, what marked the spectators the most? It is to see the Earth from the orbit of the Moon. The so-called “Earthrise” photograph, released on December 30, 1968 by NASA, has become world famous. It has even upset our vision of the cosmos.

From there, is Thomas Pesquet the best ambassador to talk about the climate crisis?

He does not claim to be such because he does not consider himself an expert at all and wants to leave the scientists in the front line. But by flying more than 400 kilometers away, he saw things on a scale that we cannot understand: deforestation, hurricanes, coastlines impacted by rising waters, etc. The satellites proved it, the scientists knew it, but until then, the majority of us struggled to take concrete action. We are now feeling the effects of global warming on a local level and Thomas is seeing it with his own eyes on a global level.

During his second mission aboard the ISS, he was able to see how much the environment had deteriorated in five years. He noted glaring developments, particularly on the multiplicity of extreme climatic phenomena. He was very marked by the vision of giant fires, especially as the black smoke rose into the stratosphere. During his first mission, he had not seen any. In that sense, he is indeed an exceptional ambassador.

You draw a parallel between the ISS and our planet, which would be our vessel…

To enable astronauts to survive in space, the most hostile environment known, the ISS applies itself to implementing artificially what the Earth’s ecosystem naturally achieves, this large suspended vessel into nothingness. On a daily basis, we no longer realize the miracle that is happening every second.

But the men and women aboard the station experience this miracle intensely. It is also interesting to see to what extent they are under an absolute obligation to collaborate and show solidarity to make the machine work, despite different nationalities, cultures and objectives.

Tuesday April 25 at 9:10 p.m. on France 2. Documentary by Vincent Perazio and Xavier Lefebvre (2022), 96 min. (Available in replay on france.tv).