Astronaut Nick Hague said that there was no time to panic

US astronaut Nick Hague – a few days after being forced to make an emergency ballistic descent, said on Tuesday that he had no time to panic, his trip having a hard time shot and that it could have ended in tragedy.

Hague told NBC News that as soon as alerters had alerted him, as well as Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, had canceled it on Thursday, their minds had automatically turned to a checklist of tasks vital or life-threatening.

"Training really takes over … training for every scenario that they can think of, and that's one of those," Hague said. "And you realize that the best thing to do to help yourself is to stay calm and execute the team procedures."

It was supposed to be the first trip to the Hague space as he and Ovchinin tried to reach the International Space Station at the top of a Soyuz booster rocket.

"I imagined that my first trip to space was going to be memorable," he said. "I did not expect it to be so memorable."

He gave full credit to his flight partner, who led the way once they learned the failure of the recall and guided them to the forced landing in the city. Kazakh countryside.

"I must congratulate my commander, Alexey Ovchinin. He's an experienced and seasoned cosmonaut, Hague said. Over the course of all this, he was able to tell me what is normal, which is not normal. "

While navigating in his capsule, Hague kept his eyes riveted on the window, hoping for a safe landing.

"Are we landing on the water? Were we going to be in the Steppes of Kazakhstan? "Fortunately for us, it was a flat and smooth terrain. It worked like a nice soft landing. "

Once back on Earth, Hague was the victim of a last technological failure: voicemail.

The 43-year-old veteran of the Air Force used his satellite phone to call his wife, but she did not drop out.

"She was sent to voicemail, she now has a voice message to keep as a souvenir for the rest of her life," he laughed. "I told him I was fine and that it was a crazy race."

Despite the failure of his trip, Hague said he was eager to take off again: "Absolutely, I'm ready to fly."