'Concrete block on your chest': Russian cosmonaut recounts failed space launch

Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin on Tuesday said the G-force during last week's emergency landing of the Soyuz spacecraft felt like a concrete block on his chest but he and NASA astronaut Nick Hague are now in "great" health.

Ovchinin and Hague were forced to make an emergency landing after an accident on their rocket minutes after blast-off to the International Space Station, with the rapid deceleration subjecting them to a painful G-force overload.

In an interview with state Rossiya-24 television, Ovchinin said that "the direction of this (G-force) overload during the descent was from the chest to the back, so imagine that somebody put a big concrete block on your chest that is seven times your weight."
The 47-year-old cosmonaut who has already flown into space once before in 2016, nevertheless said that the G-force was "not that big, a bit less than 7G."
"The doctors concluded that our health is good, even great."
"We had to go through the steps that crew has to take and prepare for emergency landing... so that the crew is still functioning after landing."