Scott Tingle recalled looking down at Earth during his spacewalk outside the International Space Station, his view framed by nothing more than his space visor. “It’s pretty surreal,” the 52-year-old NASA astronaut said by telephone recently.
In many ways, Tingle, who grew up in Randolph, had worked for years for that vista. There were two years in what he referred to as “astronaut boot camp” and another two in training for this specific mission. As part of the training, he would spend more than 6 hours at a time toiling underwater, which was intended to approximate zero-gravity conditions. He practiced procedures riding a robotic arm, how to fly a NASA craft, how to spacewalk, and how to speak Russian, among other things.
When he got to the hatch opening at the space station, on the cusp of his spacewalk, he took a moment to allow what he was about to do sink in.
“It was wonderful; there was a little bit of exhilaration because it’s one of the hardest things we do in this community,” said Tingle, who is a captain in the US Navy.
Tingle, along with Japanese astronaut Norishige Kanai, embarked on separate spacewalks at the station to perform works on parts of a robotic arm. Tingle, Kanai, and Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov lived in low-Earth orbit for 168 days, returning to Earth on June 3, when they landed in Kazakhstan.
It was Tingle’s first space mission. He was part of a crew that completed hundreds of experiments, including a study of the effect of microgravity on bone marrow and research into plant growth in space. The trio also welcomed four cargo spacecraft that delivered tons of supplies.
Asked what the biggest challenge of living in space for five-plus months was, Tingle talked about the work. “We just wanted to keep the momentum going,” he said. “It’s a very busy job. Space is a very unique opportunity and we want to make the most of it from a science perspective.”
Tingle, who graduated from Blue Hills Regional Technical School in Canton before earning a mechanical engineering degree from Southeastern Massachusetts University, which is now UMass Dartmouth, lives in Lake City, Texas. He said the first thing he did when he got home was hug his wife.
Now, he is focused on reconditioning his body to Earth’s gravity. In space, your back tends to elongate and certain muscles become weak, despite the exercise that astronauts do while in orbit, he said.
“That’s going to take a few months,” he said, of life back on the ground.
Danny McDonald can be reached at daniel.mcdonald@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Danny__McDonald.