'I was seeing God's view,' former NASA astronaut says in Barcelona after 200 days in space

Exploring the red planet or continuing to explore the Moon. Mars is still one of the "infinite number of unsolved mysteries" of space, former NASA astronaut and commander of the International Space Station, Terry Virts, told Catalan News during a visit to Barcelona. 

Virts, who spent 213 days, 10 hours, and 48 minutes in space, came to the Catalan capital for a talk on human exploration in space in the CosmoCaixa science museum, and especially regarding NASA's current Artemis program, which is planning to send astronauts to the moon. 

"I think the biggest impact that space exploration has for average citizens is that it is exciting and inspirational," he said to this media outlet. He was inspired by seeing Apollo's astronauts out there. 

During his time on the International Space Station, Virts took over 300,000 pictures, becoming one of the astronauts that took more photos from space. 

"The Earth is so beautiful. The universe is so incredible. I felt at times like I was seeing God's view of the universe, like human beings are not meant to see this. This is creation," he told Catalan News. 

In the future, this experience will also be allowed to some people, as he believes that "there will be many more people flying in space, but it will never be hundreds of millions of people as it is too expensive to go from zero to thousands of kilometers an hour," he added. 

However, he is not a fan of the high dollar tourism. 

"People are not that excited about billionaires doing adventures. I get that. But what I'm excited about is NASA astronauts going places and European astronauts going places and Japanese astronauts exploring," he said.