When Major Tim Peake landed in the Kazakhastan desert on Saturday, he was too fragile to talk to the media properly.

The Briton’s return to Earth after a six-month stint in the International Space Station means a long, hard road of readjustment to gravity’s pull – an effect he said felt like the world’s worst hangover.

On Tuesday, however, after he had had his fill of earthly beer and pizza, Major Tim chatted to the media about what it’s like to be back home:

Using the loo, gravity is your friend. That’s one of the things we do look forward to.

[On the ISS, where relieving oneself involves the use of suction hoses to separate waste from the body.]

The rain, it’s something that you don’t feel up there… any weather down here whatsoever feels unique and it feels very special.

The first thing you do onboard the space station is you make it normal. Because if you realised where you were and what you were doing with this huge wow factor, you simply couldn’t function on a day-to-day basis.

Towards the end of his stay, he said his dreams started becoming a bit “weird”.

You’re on Earth but you’re floating around in buildings and you’re clearly in zero gravity… it gets a bit messed up.

According to sbs, Tim’s highlights included:

Favourite moments included witnessing the Milky Way from an unbeatable vantage point, photographing Egypt’s pyramids, and observing the spectacle of an Earthly thunderstorm from an altitude of some 400 kilometres (250 miles).

Saturday’s three-hour descent in a Russian Soyuz capsule was another highlight.

You have two minds really, one is as a professional… but at the same time you can’t help the sort of boy inside you that is enjoying this fantastic ride back from space.

The clock was running, and I was very aware of exactly what should happen at exactly what time, and the time had gone beyond the point at which the main ‘chute had opened.

So for a second, I was concerned.

I looked across to Yuri and he just sat there so relaxed and cool as he always is. I thought, well if we didn’t have a main parachute opening, he wouldn’t be looking as cool as that.

Welcome home Tim, here’s hoping those dreams stop being quite as zany.

[source: sbs]