British ESA astronaut Tim Peake will become the first man to run a marathon in space when he runs the Digital Virgin Money London Marathon on the International Space Station (ISS) in April 2016.
Peake will be running the marathon while on his six-month mission at the ISS which launches from Baikonur, Kazakhstan on 15 December.
So how does it work? The British astronaut will run on a treadmill as the ISS orbits Earth, while a HD screen powered by the app RunSocial will show the London Marathon route. Peake will be digitally placed on the route, and as he runs on the treadmill, his digital self with move at the same pace.
In order to overcome the slight issue that he’s weightless, Peake will wear a harness which tethers him to the treadmill.
“As soon as I got assigned to my mission to the International Space Station, I thought wouldn’t it be great to run the Digital Virgin Money London Marathon from onboard the ISS,” said Peake. “The London Marathon is a worldwide event. Let’s take it out of this world.
“The thing I’m most looking forward to is that I can still interact with everybody down on Earth. I’ll be running it with the iPad and watching myself running through the streets of London whilst orbiting the Earth at 400km above the surface and going 27,000km per hour.
“One of the biggest challenges I’ll be facing is the harness system. In microgravity I would float if I didn’t strap myself down to the treadmill so I have to wear a harness system that’s a bit similar to a rucksack. It has a waistbelt and shoulder straps. That has to provide quite a bit of downforce to get my body onto the treadmill so after about 40 minutes, that gets very uncomfortable. I don’t think I’ll be setting any personal bests. I’ve set myself a goal of anywhere between 3:30 to 4 hours.”
Watch the video below as the Tim Peake goes into further detail about his training and the challenge that lies ahead:
