“Banya and massage revived me back on Earth”

19 Oct, 2009 11:47 / Updated 15 years ago

Guy Laliberte, the man dubbed “the first clown in space”, described for RT his recipe for recovering after spending several days in zero-gravity and shared his feelings about his orbital trip.

Speaking in Star City near Moscow, where members of the ISS expedition celebrated on Monday their safe return to Earth, Laliberte said it didn’t take him much time to recover, unlike fellow space explorers, who spent much more time in low-gravity environment.

“I was in good physical condition. I actually had my moments of adaptation for sure after I came out of the space capsule. Then we came here and the day after I did some swimming for a couple of kilometers, took a banya, had a massage, and went from 20% to 80%,” he said.

The Canadian billionaire said the orbital journey was not a groundbreaking expedience for his personality after 50 years of life, but it certainly was something to cherish deep inside.

The Soyuz spacecraft has returned from space on October 11. In addition to Laliberte, it carried Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and NASA astronaut Michael Barratt.