Malaysia's first space traveler recalls his rough ride back to Earth

Malaysia's first space traveler said Tuesday that his return from orbit "felt like an elephant pressing on my chest," but that he and his two Russian crew mates did not black out or panic during a steeper-than-usual descent caused by a technical glitch.

"I was not really scared, it happened so fast," Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor said about Sunday's ride back to Earth when the trio endured more than eight times the force of gravity. Soyuz crews typically must bear four times the force of gravity when the spacecraft returns to Earth.

"It felt like an elephant pressing on my chest, but the Russians trained us very well" to handle a rough descent, Sheikh Muszaphar said.

A technical glitch sent the Soyuz with Sheikh Muszaphar and Russia's Fyodor Yurchikhin and Oleg Kotov on a steep and off-course descent path, and their capsule landed short of the designated landing site near the town of Arkalyk in north-central Kazakhstan.

"The overload was really powerful, but nobody fainted or lost eyesight," Yurchikhin said. "I remember the overload going to 8.5 or 8.6 G."

Medical tests showed the three cosmonauts were not injured during the descent. In line with normal procedure, they were flown quickly after the landing to the Star City cosmonaut preparation center outside Moscow for a regular post-flight rehabilitation course.

The cause of the glitch wasn't immediately clear, and space officials have launched a probe. The landing capsule will be transported to Moscow for a detailed examination.

Sheikh Muszaphar, who spent 11 days in space and conducted scientific experiments with cancer cells, proteins and microbes of tropical diseases, looked jubilant and said he was ready to go back into orbit.

"I was living the dream of all Malaysian people," the 35-year old former doctor said. "I hope to go back and inspire a generation of Malaysian youth."

Sheikh Muszaphar, who is Muslim, also said that during the flight he prayed five times a day and fasted, as his mission coincided with the last days of Ramadan, the holy month when Muslims refrain from eating and drinking from dawn until sundown.

He said he hoped that his flight would send a message of peace to Muslims worldwide. "I hope other Muslims would be united, stay away from war and be peaceful," he said.

Yurchikhin, who returned to earth after six months at the international space station, said the most difficult part of his stint was fixing computers on the Russian side of the station which crashed in June, limiting the spacecraft's ability to maneuver and produce oxygen.

The U.S. space program has depended on Russia for cargo and astronaut delivery to the space station since the 2003 explosion of the shuttle Columbia.

The Souyz spacecraft, designed in the mid-1960s, has been a reliable but plodding workhorse for the Russian space program that is still reeling from the impact of the post-Soviet economic meltdown.

The remaining crew of the station — U.S. astronauts Peggy Whitson and Clayton Anderson, and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko — are getting ready for the docking with the Discovery space shuttle that is slated to launch later Tuesday with a crew of seven.

Whitson, the station's first female commander, arrived along with Malenchenko and Sheikh Muszaphar on another Soyuz that lifted off from the Russian-leased launch facility in Kazakhstan Oct. 10.

She and Malenchenko are to spend six months in orbit, while Anderson — aboard since June — is to be replaced by U.S. astronaut Daniel Tani, who is to arrive on Discovery.

Discovery is expected to embark on a two-week mission that is considered the most challenging and complex in the nine years of orbital assembly of the international space station.

It will carry up an Italian-built living compartment, about the size of a small bus, that the astronauts will attach to the space station.