VIDEO: Emirati astronaut Neyadi says his favourite food at ISS was mango salad

Syed Shayaan Bakht, Gulf Today

Emirati astronaut Sultan Al Neyadi and his Crew 6 members held their first press conference after returning safely to Earth.

Neyadi said, “It's nice to be back on Earth. The UAE National Space Programme is sustainable, and my mission is a continuation of the mission conducted by my colleague Hazzaa Al Mansoori.

Al Neyadi said, “Currently we have astronauts training for the upcoming missions after I completed the second mission of the UAE Astronaut Programme.”

Neyadi said that throughout his mission he tried different kind of food. But his favourite one was mango salad.

Neyadi said, “I totally agree. We have a big menu honestly. We bring food from JAXA for example from ESA. We have the standard menu from NASA and we got to try some Emirati food as well. We did an Emirati night actually when we tried some Emirati food.

“But honestly, six months is a long duration when you start to feel bored from a specific food. But again, I have a specific food that I really liked right until the end of the mission which was a mango salad.

It was my favorite throughout the mission.”

On being asked how does it feel in microgravity, Neyadi said, “Yeah, I totally agree. I think I was the first one to get out of the seat and I remember Steve telling me you know what to do? I was I was asked to bring a cabin mic So I was the first out to get out of the suit and thanks to the advice that we always get just to take it nice and easy which I did and because again, it's subjective.

“You don't know what's going to happen how your body will react to microgravity. You could definitely be sick if you start moving really quickly and a lot of head movements. So I think I took it nice and easy the first few days and it worked really well and yeah six months of weightlessness.

“It was amazing. It was really really cool just trying all aspects of physics and trying to just use minimal force to go from one place to another and we had some competitions! I mean going from right from a station forward trying to float without touching any cables or hitting any walls or anything so it was really fun just trying weightlessness for the period of the mission.”

The Neyadi’s mission is the longest mission for an Arab astronaut on board the International Space Station.