Live: Russian-Japan spacecraft lands after mission on the International Space Station

you are looking at live video from the international space station where russian rose cosmos cosmonaut alexander misurkin along with space flight participants and private citizens usaku mezawa and jose hirano are prepping to wrap up 11 days at the space station and return home aboard their soyuz ms-20 spacecraft good afternoon and happy holidays and welcome to mission control houston where the team is preparing now for the soyuz undocking from the international space station that's coming up at 5 50 p.m central but the departing crew members have actually already said their farewells and well ahead of schedule have already closed the hatches between the two vehicles that was scheduled to take place just after 2 30 pm central time but instead took place with little fanfare around 1 20 p.m central we'll have some video of that to replay for you in just a moment but first we thought we would recap the journey so far for you the s20 soyuz crew arrived at the space station on december 8th after launching from the baikonur cosmodrome in kazakhstan at 1 38 a.m central time that set off misurkin's third trip to space and the first for the spaceflight participants mizawa and hirano following that picture-perfect launch the crew arrived at the international space station about six hours later and got to work on their 11 day stay now here in the international space station flight control room the team of the orbit 2 shift is still on console and will finish up and hand over to the orbit three shift right around undocking time tonight for now the team is led tonight by flight director paul kanya and in kazakhstan a number of officials and vehicles are standing by in preparation for the landing misurkin mizawa and toronto expect to touch down southeast of jessica's gone in kazakhstan at 9 55 pm central uh excuse me 9 13 p.m central uh 9 13 a.m local time several of the 12 mi 8 helicopters have already been deployed to various areas to a weight landing eight are at the expected landing site already and two more will be ready about 250 miles away in the area where touchdown would occur if a ballistic entry occurred a final two helicopters will loiter midway between the two sites we're of course not expecting a ballistic entry but as always are prepared for one again here on the ground everyone is getting into place for that upcoming 9 13 p.m central time landing and as we said on orbit the crew has actually already gotten into their vehicles and closed hatches between themselves and the rest of the space station that took place just around 1 20 pm central time and we have some video briefly to play for you of that now ah that again was a recorded video of the crew getting into place in their soyuz ms-20 earlier this afternoon that took place just a little more than an hour ahead of time at around 120 p.m central time i think we saw there uh usaku mazewa getting in first followed by uh his uh space flight participant crewmate jose hirano and of course we did also see the soyuz commander there alexander misurkin waving goodbye along with his crewmates before the hatch was closed by the uh expedition 66 commander anton shkaplerov mr mizawa and hirano will be leaving behind their crewmates of the past 11 days expedition 66 commander anton shkaplerov and flight engineer piotr dubrov both the first cosmos nasa astronauts mark vanda high rajashari tom marshburn and caleb barron as well as european space agency astronaut matteus maurer they are all preparing for the space station version of the holidays and hoping for a pre-christmas delivery aboard the spacex 24 cargo dragon that's scheduled to launch on tuesday and arrive on wednesday assuming everything goes according to schedule tonight ms zerkin arkanwal has spent a total of 346 days in space over the course of his three trips to space space flight participants flying alongside him are both on their first trips to space and so should end their journey with a little less than 12 full days in space since the schedule uh for today was a bit out of order and not what we were expecting we're going to show that hatch closure video for you one more time before we wrap up our show for the day this again is uh the two space flight participants closing hatches along with the soyuz commander alexander misurkin that there yozo hirano saying goodbye to anton shkaplerov the expedition 66 commander and all three crew members there waving goodbye to their short-term crewmates and final thumbs up there from uh shkaplerov that again took place we'll had a schedule around uh just after 1 20 p.m central time and since we do have those hatches closed we will be taking a break now while the leaked checks are performed until closer to the time for the soyuz undocking from the space station's poisk module that's scheduled for 5 50 pm central time and i would not expect that to happen nearly as ahead of schedule as the hatch closure did that time is a little bit more set i think it's pretty dependable so we'll be back for undocking coverage around at 5 30 pm central time after the soyuz performed a couple of systems tests and fired its thrusters to move away from the station and out of view we'll take another break and then come back at 8 pm central for the 4 minute and 39 second deorbit burn at 8 18 pm central and from that point we'll stay on until the crew has landed and is out of the vehicle landing is scheduled for 9 13 pm and this is mission control houston hmm bye foreign foreign so thank you so so so so so do um so so do do bye boys mmm my oh so you me foreign so so mr marshburn kenton smith at wrel in raleigh can you hear me ken i've got you loud and clear can you read me i'm reading you loud clear stand by we're getting ready to go nasa astronaut tom marshburn is a north carolina native just launching last month to the mission to the international space station he'll be there for about six months conducting research mr marshburn joins us now from the international space station good afternoon sir first of all give us a sense of what that view is like from the international space station when you look out the window well ken it's i have to describe it in stages the first time you look out the window you see blue and white you're a bit stunned you don't know quite what you're looking at it's so beautiful you would think you know exactly where you are in the world but you usually don't the first time you look out the window you're over an ocean typically but when your brain begins to process the beautiful sights you're seeing you begin to pick up land masses and such and then you begin to appreciate just the fact that you are actually traveling over this planet hundreds of miles up inside of this space station that is not tethered to anything it is just floating and traveling at five miles a second over the earth and uh it's it's there quite a lot to take that in and over time you begin to fall in love with your planet you see the beauty you begin to recognize continents and land forms right away and you begin to appreciate a bit of our place on the planet as we mentioned you're a north carolina native what sparked your interest in space well i was living on davey avenue there in statesville and we took a family trip to the movie theater and saw 2001 a space odyssey right when it came out that somewhat terrified me as a young child but it certainly engendered a lot of interest in space and it wasn't until after we moved away and i was in high school that i began to read about the apollo program what astronauts flight controllers engineers had done to put us on the moon and then seeing neil armstrong walk on the moon i was hooked at that point i wanted to have something to do with space hopefully i could work for nasa someday and that was my goal so we mentioned that this is your third space flight have you noticed any advancements this time around compared to your first two missions oh absolutely the space station is larger we've got a whole new science module on the russian side and a docking port added on over there what has struck me from the moment i arrived on this trip was the added complexity uh to all of the laboratories all the modules just about our our labs there are so many more experiments the uh the scope of the experiments is so much more broad and the uh the the depth of the the science that we're doing what we're learning about physiology and basic physics up here uh as well as uh more um uh practical uh things in the sense of the things that that could be uh uh used uh right away from the space station those are uh so much more than the last time i was up here we are working really hard to get it all done is very exciting all right we've got about 20 seconds how long does it take your body to adjust to zero gravity i would say it takes the body itself and the the plumbing and everything about two weeks takes the brain four to six weeks to kind of catch up and get used to the pace used to being able to control your your body movements as well as to do the work and then you'd be really become a master of working up here working in three dimensions all the time after a couple of months i'd say mr marshburn thank you for your time today all the best on the international space station hey ken so good to talk to you thank you tom marshburn as we mentioned he's a north carolina native he launched last month in november station this is houston acr that concludes the wral tv portion of the event please stand by for a voice check from the charlotte observer hello space station can you hear me hello this is tom marshman on the space station i read you loud and clear how me hi tom how are you i'm doing great this friday how are you doing wonderful um tom i was hoping uh what types of experiments have you been working on and and the crew on this particular mission that you might want to let let the america know about and everyone else well so far i've been deeply involved as the subject of experiments we've been looking at uh muscle atrophy ways of measuring the muscle that we can do here in zero g that will possibly benefit people who need to have their muscles evaluated instead of having to have a muscle biopsy we can use some of the instrument instrumentation that's been developed for our work up here but in particular what interests me as a physician is our bodies in space age at a very rapid pace there's some aspects of aging that curve very quickly up here in space atrophy i mentioned bone atrophy osteoporosis our eyes change our eyesight changes the radiation can age our vessels our blood vessels as well so we are perfect little uh test subjects for evaluating ways to combat that and looking at what exactly is the uh the process that causes these things so that we can develop ways of treating and preventing it and it's not only for people as they age it's also for people in icus or undergoing rehabilitation these are all all things that we've been looking at i've been using ultrasound and using the uh some muscle about new muscle evaluation devices i've talked about we've only been up here five weeks so we're looking forward to all the other things there's many more categories of science that are constantly going on around us that we are helping maintain fluid physics astronomy earth observations all happening in the racks around me but also on the outside of the space station tom what would you like people to know about why it is critical that we continue to be in space on the space station with other countries but why is it critical that we be there well the immediate answer is what we are finding out while we're here we're not only finding out uh things about human beings basic physics more engineering type of solutions to problems we're also developing new devices that are going to help us go to the moon and stay at the moon and to go on to mars these are advancements in materials and advancements in propulsion engineering power a water reclamation all things that have a huge impact to people on earth beyond that though we're up here with our russian cosmonauts we're getting along just fantastic because we are all out here for each other we rely on each other for our safety and to survive and our goal is to explore space i believe the international cop cooperation one of my crewmates is a esa astronaut from germany all of our cooperation together i think speaks very well for what humans can do when we explore it together i for one love living in a country that is a leading space faring nation one day we will need to take care of and perhaps leave this planet and we are just taking the very first steps for being able to accomplish that and what what do you miss about earth why can't you wait to get back to i would say in order of course my wife and my daughter and friends and family then a hot shower and then a club sandwich something that is fresh and crunchy that i can't eat up here and uh with ingredients that come out of a refrigerator that would be wonderful then after that i'd probably get involved with water somehow i want to be standing out under the rain or go swimming something like that what what do you think about when you look out at earth what do you think about as far as earth and about space well that's a great question because yeah we are spending a lot of time looking at the earth but the blackness of space is right there uh on the other side all you have to do is turn around so the at first you're stunned when you see the earth is so beautiful and it's so hard for your brain to take it in it doesn't look like an atlas you see clouds and water and then eventually you start to see landforms and you get a feeling i want you to just get over the beauty of it that the human human species is a very fragile very tiny uh entity living on the surface of the planet it almost seems like the earth could shrug us off at any moment particularly when you look at the blackness of space it is a deep palpable blackness it's not like something that's just painted on for instance so it sends a chill through you in a way just how vast it is and in some ways we seem very alone but in the same way it makes us us humans seem incredibly precious so you see blackness do you see do you think that there has to be life out there other life may be superior to us maybe inferior to us to us well i'll tell you it's we think about that a lot at nasa i think a lot of people think about that there's nothing that i see that would inform me one way or one way or the other when our eyes adapt and we can see stars much like on a crystal clear night on the earth on a mountaintop at night and you can see just get a glimpse of how large this universe is i would say that statistically there probably is the more life outside our solar system even this is we every time we look at another star it seems that we're finding planets around it so just looking at the math let's say there's a good chance final question if i still have time what has been your favorite part of this mission and past missions and has there been any particular challenge this time the favorite part is the people i get a chance to fly with even though looking at the earth and living in zero g is special when you share it with crewmates and i've been blessed with some wonderful crewmates especially from all from germany and from russia that is by far the most memorable and favorite part of it the challenges are day-to-day work trying to be as efficient as we can it's complex work the ground control puts together an incredible plan they have a complex job to do and communicating with them trying to make sure we implement their plan that is a big challenge we just completed a spacewalk about two weeks ago getting ready for that was a huge challenge it was a little bit unexpected so we didn't have a lot of time to get ready for it so every day is different that makes it incredibly interesting but also hugely challenging uh just a real quick follow-up to that what is it like walking in space well the view you get out the window in the space station you multiply that by about 100 because you have just your helmet your visor on you can feel the um the heat of the sun a lot more and the how frigid objects are on the dark side of the earth there's about negative 200 degrees on the dark side about plus 200 on the surfaces are on the sunny side mr marshburn ken smith at wrel in raleigh can you hear me ken i've got you loud and clear can you read me i'm reading you loud and clear stand by we're getting ready to go nasa astronaut tom marshburn is a north carolina native just launching last month to the mission to the international space station he'll be there for about six months conducting research mr marshburn joins us now from the international space station good afternoon sir first of all give us a sense of what that view is like from the international space station when you look out the window well i ken it's i have to describe it in stages the first time you look out the window you see blue and white you're a bit stunned you don't know quite what you're looking at it's so beautiful you would think you know exactly where you are in the world but you usually don't the first time you look out the window you're over an ocean typically but when your brain begins to process the beautiful sights you're seeing you begin to pick up land masses and such and then you begin to appreciate just the fact that you are actually traveling over this planet hundreds of miles up inside of this space station that is not tethered to anything it is just floating and traveling at five miles a second over the earth and uh it's it's there quite a lot to take that in and over time you begin to fall in love with your planet you see the beauty you begin to recognize continents and land forms right away and to begin to appreciate a bit of our place on the planet as we mentioned you're a north carolina native what sparked your interest in space well i was living on davey avenue there in statesville and uh we took a family trip to the movie theater and saw 2001 a space odyssey right when it came out that somewhat terrified me as a young child but it certainly engendered a lot of interest in space and it wasn't until after we moved away and i was in high school that i began to read about the apollo program what astronauts flight controllers engineers had done to put us on the moon and then seeing neil armstrong walk on the moon i was hooked at that point i wanted to have something to do with space hopefully i could work for nasa someday and that was my goal so we mentioned that this is your third space flight have you noticed any advancements this time around compared to your first two missions oh absolutely the space station is larger we've got a whole new science module on the russian side and a docking port added on over there what has struck me from the moment i arrived on this trip was the added complexity to all of the laboratories all the modules just about our labs there are so many more experiments the uh the scope of the experiments is so much more broad and the the the depth of the the science that we're doing what we're learning about physiology and basic physics up here as well as more practical things in the sense of the things that that could be used right away from the space station those are so much more than the last time i was up here we are working really hard to get it all done it's very exciting all right we've got about 20 seconds how long does it take your body to adjust to zero gravity i would say it takes the body itself and the the plumbing and everything about two weeks takes the brain four to six weeks to kind of catch up and get used to the pace used to being able to control your your body movements as well as to do the work and then you be really become a master of working up here working in three dimensions all the time after a couple of months i'd say mr marshburn thank you for your time today all the best on the international space station hey ken so good to talk to you thank you tom marshburn as we mentioned he's a north carolina native he launched last month in november station this is houston acr that concludes the wral tv portion of the event please stand by for a voice check from the charlotte observer hello space station can you hear me hello this is tom marshman on the space station i read you loud and clear how me hi tom how are you i'm doing great this friday how are you doing wonderful tom um tom i was hoping uh what types of experiments have you been working on and and the crew on this particular mission that you might want to let let the america know about and everyone else well so far i've been deeply involved as the subject of experiments we've been looking at muscle atrophy ways of measuring the muscle that we can do here in zero g that will possibly benefit people who need to have their muscles evaluated instead of having to have a muscle biopsy we can use some of the instrument instrumentation that's been developed for our work up here but in particular what interests me as a physician is our bodies in space age at a very rapid pace there's some aspects of aging that curve very quickly up here in space atrophy i mentioned bone atrophy osteoporosis our eyes change our eyesight changes the radiation can age our vessels our blood vessels as well so we are perfect little test subjects for evaluating ways to combat that and looking at what exactly is the the process that causes these things so that we can develop ways of treating and preventing it and it's not only for people as they age it's also for people in icus or undergoing rehabilitation these are all all things that we've been looking at i've been using ultrasound and using the um some muscle of new muscle evaluation devices i've talked about we've only been up here five weeks so we're looking forward to all the other things there's uh many more categories of science that are constantly going on around us that we're helping maintain fluid physics astronomy earth observations all happening in the racks around me but also on the outside of the space station tom what would you like people to know about why it is critical that we continue to be in space on the space station with other countries but why is it critical that we be there well the immediate answer is what we are finding out while we're here we're not only finding out things about human beings uh basic physics uh more engineering uh type of solutions to problems we're also developing new devices that are gonna help us go to the moon and stay at the moon and to go on to mars these are advancements in materials and advancements in propulsion engineering power water reclamation all things that have a huge impact to people on earth beyond that though we're up here with our russian cosmonauts we're getting along just fantastic because we are all out here for each other we rely on each other for our safety and to survive and our goal is to explore space i believe the international copper cooperation one of my crewmates is a issa astronaut from germany all of our cooperation together i think speaks very well for what humans can do when we explore it together i for one love living in a country that is a leading space-faring nation one day we will need to take care of and perhaps leave this planet and we are just taking the very first steps for being able to accomplish and that what do you miss about earth what can't you wait to get back to i would say in order of course my wife and my daughter and friends and family then a hot shower and then a club sandwich something that is fresh and crunchy that i can't eat up here and with ingredients that come out of a refrigerator that would be wonderful then after that i'd probably get involved with water somehow i want to be standing out under the rain or go swimming something like that what what do you think about when you look out at earth what do you think about as far as earth and about space well that's a great question because yeah we are spending a lot of time looking at the earth but the blackness of space is right there on the other side all you have to do is turn around so the at first you're stunned when you see the earth is so beautiful and it's so hard for your brain to take it in it doesn't look like an atlas you see clouds and water and then eventually you start to see landforms and you get a feeling i want you to just get over the beauty of it that the human human species is a very fragile very tiny entity living on the surface of the planet it almost seems like the earth could shrug us off at at any moment particularly when you look at the blackness of space it is a deep palpable blackness it's not like something that's just painted on for instance so um it sends a chill through you in a way just how vast it is and in some ways we seem very alone but in the same way it makes us us human seem incredibly precious so you see blackness do you see do you think that there has to be life out there other life may be superior to us maybe inferior to us to us maybe inferior to us well i'll tell you it's we think about that a lot at nasa i think a lot of people think about that there's nothing that i see that would inform me one way or one way or the other when our eyes adapt and we can see stars much like on a on a crystal clear night on the earth on a mountaintop at night and you can see just get a glimpse of how large this universe is i would say that statistically there probably is the more life outside our solar system even this is we every time we look at another star it seems that we're finding planets around it so uh just looking at the map that say there's a good chance final question if i still have time um what has been your favorite part of this mission and past missions and has there been any particular challenge this time the favorite part is the people i get a chance to fly with even though looking at the earth and living in zero g is special when you share it with crewmates and i've been blessed with some wonderful crewmates especially from all from germany and from russia that is by far the most memorable and favorite part of it um the challenges are day-to-day work trying to be as efficient as we can it's complex work the ground control puts together an incredible plan they have a complex job to do in communicating with them trying to make sure we implement their plan that is a big challenge we just completed a spacewalk about two weeks ago getting ready for that was a huge challenge it was a little bit unexpected so we didn't have a lot of time to get ready for it so every day is different that makes it incredibly interesting but also hugely challenging uh just a real quick follow-up to that what is it like walking in space well the view you get out the window in the space station you multiply that by about 100 because you have just your helmet your visor on you can feel the um the heat of the sun a lot more and the how frigid uh objects are on the dark side of the earth there's about negative 200 degrees on the dark side about plus 200 on the surfaces are on the sunny side so trying to get the work done with that kind of view with all of those environmental factors coming in is tough but the probably the best training we have is getting ready for spacewalks and you thinking about your training you can focus in on it and you can get the work done but we're pretty tired afterwards what do you do for relaxation there i communicate with family is probably the number one thing we do have the opportunity to talk to to make a phone call if the satellite alignment is just right might do some email but a quick second after that is going to the window and looking out at the earth and trying to to see yet more on the surface that we haven't seen before thank you tom and when do you return i'm going to be coming back at the end of april next year with my crewmates and some of my other crewmates are going to come back a little bit earlier than that but fortunately we'll be able to invite a new crew and hand over to them hopefully at the end of april and that's why i'll be coming home so i'll miss winter but i'm going to come back late spring and i'll enjoy the summer thank you again tom i really appreciate it um and thank you so much for talking with us thank you joe it's really good to talk to you say hi to everyone for me thank you tom station this is houston acr thank you that concludes our event thank you to our participants from wral tv and the charlotte observer station we are now resuming operational audio communications so so so so so so so well in my left hand i have a feather and my right hand a hammer and i guess one of the reasons uh we got here today was because of a gentleman named galileo a long time ago who made a rather significant discovery about falling objects in gravity fields and we thought that where would be a better place to confirm his findings than on the moon and so we thought we'd try it here for you the feather happens to be appropriately a falcon feather mr marshburn kenton smith at wrel in raleigh can you hear me ken i've got you loud and clear can you read me i'm reading you loud and clear stand by we're getting ready to go stand by the gateway nasa astronaut tom marshburn is a north carolina native just launching last month to the mission to the international space station he'll be there for about six months conducting research mr marshburn joins us now from the international space station good afternoon sir and first of all give us a sense of what that view is like from the international space station when you look out the window well i ken it's i have to describe it in stages the first time you look out the window you see blue and white you're a bit stunned you don't know quite what you're looking at it's so beautiful you would think you know exactly where you are in the world but you usually don't the first time you look out the window you're over an ocean typically but when your brain begins to process the beautiful sights you're seeing you begin to pick up land masses and such and then you begin to appreciate just the fact that you are actually traveling over this planet hundreds of miles up inside of this space station that is not tethered to anything it is just floating and traveling at five miles a second over the earth and uh it's it's there quite a lot to take that in and over time you begin to fall in love with your planet you see the beauty you begin to recognize continents and land forms right away and you begin to appreciate a bit of our place on the planet as we mentioned you're a north carolina native what sparked your interest in space well i was uh living on davey avenue there in statesville and uh we took a family trip to the movie theater and saw 2001 a space odyssey right when it came out that somewhat terrified me as a young child but it certainly engendered a lot of interest in space and it wasn't until after we moved away and i was in high school that i began to read about the apollo program what astronauts flight controllers engineers had done to put us on the moon and then seeing neil armstrong walk on the moon i was hooked at that point i wanted to have something to do with space hopefully i could work for nasa someday and that was my goal so we mentioned that uh this is your third space flight have you noticed any advancements this time around compared to your first two missions oh absolutely the space station is larger we've got a whole new science module on the russian side and a docking port added on over there what has struck me from the moment i arrived on this trip was the added complexity to all of the laboratories all the modules just about our our labs there are so many more experiments the uh uh the scope of the experiments is so much more broad and the uh the the depth of the the science that we're doing what we're learning about physiology and basic physics up here as well as more practical things in the sense of the things that could be used right away from the space station those are so much more than the last time i was up here we are working really hard to get it all done it's very exciting all right we've got about 20 seconds how long does it take your body to adjust to zero gravity i would say it takes the body itself and the the plumbing and everything about two weeks takes the brain four to six weeks to kind of catch up and get used to the pace used to being able to control your your body movements as well as to do the work and then you'd be really become a master of working up here working in three dimensions all the time after a couple of months i'd say mr marshburn thank you for your time today all the best on the international space station hey ken so good to talk to you thank you all right tom marshburn as we mentioned he's a north carolina native he launched last month in november station this is houston acr that concludes the wral tv portion of the event please stand by for a voice check from the charlotte observer hello space station can you hear me hello this is tom marshman on the space station i read you loud and clear how me hi tom how are you i'm doing great this friday how are you doing wonderful tom um tom i was hoping uh what types of experiments have you been working on and and the crew on this particular mission that you might want to let let the america know about and everyone else well so far i've been deeply involved as the subject of experiments we've been looking at uh muscle atrophy ways of measuring the muscle that we can do here in zero g that will possibly benefit people who need to have their muscles evaluated instead of having to have a muscle biopsy we can use some of the instrument instrumentation that's been developed for our work up here but in particular what interests me as a physician is our bodies in space age at a very rapid pace there's some aspects of aging that curve very quickly up here in space atrophy i mentioned bone atrophy osteoporosis our eyes change our eyesight changes the radiation can age our vessels our blood vessels as well so we are perfect little test subjects for evaluating ways to combat that and looking at what exactly is the uh the process that causes these things so that we can develop ways of treating and preventing it it's not only for people as they age it's also for people in icus or undergoing rehabilitation these are all all things that we've been looking at i've been using ultrasound and using the some muscle of new muscle evaluation devices i've talked about we've only been up here five weeks so we're looking forward to all the other things there's uh many more categories of science that are constantly going on around us that we are helping maintain fluid physics astronomy earth observations all happening in the racks around me but also on the outside of the space station tom what would you like people to know about why it is critical that we continue to be in space on the space station with other countries but why is it critical that we be there well the immediate answer is what we are finding out while we're here we're not only finding out things about human beings basic physics more engineering type of solutions to problems we're also developing new devices that are going to help us go to the moon and stay at the moon and to go on to mars these are advancements in materials and advancements in propulsion engineering power water reclamation all things that have a huge impact people on earth beyond that though we're up here with our russian cosmonauts we're getting along just fantastic because we are all out here for each other we are rely on each other for our safety and to survive and our goal is to explore space i believe the international copper cooperation one of my crewmates is a issa astronaut from germany all of our cooperation together i think speaks very well for what humans can do when we explore it together i for one love living in a country that is a leading space-faring nation one day we will need to take care of and perhaps leave this planet and we are just taking the very first steps for being able to accomplish that and what do you miss about earth what can't you wait to get back to i would say in order of course my wife and my daughter and friends and family then a hot shower and then a club sandwich something that is fresh and crunchy that i can't eat up here and with ingredients that come out of a refrigerator that would be wonderful then after that i'd probably get involved with water somehow i want to be standing out under the rain or go swimming something like that what what do you think about when you look out at earth what do you think about as far as earth and about space well that's a great question because yeah we are spending a lot of time looking at the earth but the blackness of space is right there uh on the other side all you have to do is turn around so the at first you're stunned when you see the earth is so beautiful and it's so hard for your brain to take it in it doesn't look like an atlas you see clouds and water and then eventually you start to see landforms and you get a feeling i want you to just get over the beauty of it that the human human species is a very fragile very tiny entity living on the surface of the planet it almost seems like the earth could shrug us off at at any moment particularly when you look at the blackness of space it is a deep palpable blackness it's not like something that's just painted on for instance so it extends a chill through you in a way just how vast it is and in some ways we seem very alone but in the same way it makes us us humans seem incredibly precious so you see blackness do you see do you think that there has to be life out there other life maybe superior to us maybe inferior to us maybe inferior to us well i'll tell you it's we think about that a lot at nasa i think a lot of people think about that there's nothing that i see that would inform me one way or one way or the other when our eyes adapt and we can see stars much like on a on a crystal clear night on the earth on a mountaintop at night and you can see just get a glimpse of how large this universe is i would say that statistically there probably is the more life outside our solar system even this is we every time we look at another star it seems that we're finding planets around it so just looking at the math let's say there's a good chance final question if i still have time what has been your favorite part of this mission and past missions and has there been any particular challenge this time the favorite part is the people i get a chance to fly with even though looking at the earth and living in zero g is special when you share it with crewmates and i've been blessed with some wonderful crewmates especially from all from germany and from russia that is by far the most memorable and favorite part of it the challenges are day-to-day work trying to be as efficient as we can it's complex work the ground control puts together an incredible plan they have a complex job to do and communicating with them trying to make sure we implement their plan that is a big challenge we just completed a spacewalk about two weeks ago getting ready for that was a huge challenge it was a little bit unexpected so we didn't have a lot of time to get ready for it so every day is different that makes it incredibly interesting but also hugely challenging uh just a real quick follow-up to that what is it like walking in space well the view you get out the window in the space station you multiply that by about 100 because you have just your helmet your visor on you can feel the um the heat of the sun a lot more and the how frigid objects are on the dark side of the earth there's about negative 200 degrees on the dark side about plus 200 on the surfaces are on the sunny side so uh trying to get the work done with that kind of view with all of those environmental factors coming in is tough but the probably the best training we have is getting ready for spacewalks and you're thinking about your training you can focus in on it and you can get the work done but we're pretty tired afterwards what do you do for relaxation there i communicate with family is probably the number one thing we do have the opportunity to talk to to make a phone call if the satellite alignment is just right might do some email but a quick second after that is going to the window and looking out at the earth and trying to to see yet more on the surface that we haven't seen before thank you tom and when do you return i'm going to be coming back at the end of april next year with my crewmates and some of my other crewmates are going to come back a little bit earlier than that but fortunately we'll be able to invite a new crew and hand over to them hopefully at the end of april and that's why i'll be coming home so i'll miss winter but i'm going to come back late spring and i'll enjoy the summer thank you again tom i really appreciate it and thank you so much for talking with us thank you joe it's really good to talk to you say hi to everyone for me thank you tom station this is houston acr thank you that concludes our event thank you to our participants from wral tv and the charlotte observer station we are now resuming operational audio communications so so so so so so so so so so foreign okay uh good evening um mr marshburn ken smith at wrel in raleigh can you hear me ken i've got you loud and clear can you read me i'm reading you loud and clear stand by we're getting ready to go stand by the gateway nasa astronaut tom marshburn is a north carolina native just launching last month to the mission to the international space station he'll be there for about six months conducting research mr marshburn joins us now from the international space station good afternoon sir first of all give us a sense of what that view is like from the international space station when you look out the window well i ken it's i have to describe it in stages the first time you look out the window you see blue and white you're a bit stunned you don't know uh quite what you're looking at it's so beautiful you would think you know exactly where you are in the world but you usually don't the first time you look out the window you're over an ocean typically but when your brain begins to process the beautiful sights you're seeing you begin to pick up land masses and such and then you begin to appreciate just the fact that you are actually traveling over this planet hundreds of miles up inside of this space station that is not tethered to anything it is just floating and traveling at five miles a second over the earth and uh it's it's there quite a lot to take that in and over time you begin to fall in love with your planet you see the beauty you begin to recognize continents and land forms right away and you begin to appreciate a bit of our place on the planet as you mentioned you're a north carolina native what sparked your interest in space well i was living on davey avenue there in statesville and we took a family trip to the movie theater and saw 2001 a space odyssey right when it came out that somewhat terrified me as a young child but it certainly engendered a lot of interest in space and it wasn't until after we moved away and i was in high school that i began to read about the apollo program what astronauts flight controllers engineers had done to put us on the moon and then seeing neil armstrong walk on the moon i was hooked at that point i wanted to have something to do with space hopefully i could work for nasa someday and that was my goal so we mentioned that this is your third space flight have you noticed any advancements this time around compared to your first two missions oh absolutely the space station is larger we've got a whole new science module on the russian side and a docking port added on over there what has struck me from the moment i arrived on this trip was the added complexity uh to all of the laboratories all the modules just about our labs there are so many more experiments the uh the scope of the experiments is so much more broad and the uh the the depth of the the science that we're doing what we're learning about physiology and basic physics up here uh as well as uh more um practical things in the sense of the things that could be used right away from the space station those are so much more than the last time i was up here we are working really hard to get it all done is very exciting all right we've got about 20 seconds how long does it take your body to adjust to zero gravity i would say it takes the body itself and the the plumbing and everything about two weeks takes the brain four to six weeks to kind of catch up and get used to the pace used to being able to control your your body movements as well as to do the work and then you'd be really become a master of working up here working in three dimensions all the time after a couple of months i'd say mr marshburn thank you for your time today all the best on the international space station hey ken so good to talk to you thank you tom marshburn as we mentioned he's a north carolina native he launched last month in november station this is houston acr that concludes the wral tv portion of the event please stand by for a voice check from the charlotte observer hello space station can you hear me hello this is tom marshman on the space station i read you loud and clear how me hi tom how are you i'm doing great this friday how are you doing wonderful tom um tom i was hoping uh what types of experiments have you been working on and and the crew on this particular mission that you might want to let let the america know about and everyone else well so far i've been deeply involved as the subject of experiments we've been looking at uh muscle atrophy ways of measuring the muscle that we can do here in zero g that will possibly benefit people who need to have their muscles evaluated instead of having to have a muscle biopsy we can use some of the instrument instrumentation that's been developed for our work up here but in particular what interests me as a physician is our bodies in space age at a very rapid pace there's some aspects of aging that curve very quickly up here in space atrophy i mentioned bone atrophy osteoporosis our eyes change our eyesight changes the radiation can age our vessels our blood vessels as well so we are perfect little uh test subjects for evaluating ways to combat that and looking at what exactly is the the process that causes these things so that we can develop ways of treating and preventing it it's not only for people as they age it's also for people in icus or undergoing rehabilitation these are all all things that we've been looking at i've been using ultrasound and using the um some muscle about new muscle evaluation devices i've talked about we've only been up here five weeks so we're looking forward to all the other things there's many more categories of science that are constantly going on around us that we're helping maintain fluid physics astronomy earth observations all happening in the racks around me but also on the outside of the space station what would you like people to know about why it is critical that we continue to be in space on the space station with other countries but why is it critical that we be there well the immediate answer is what we are finding out while we're here we're not only finding out uh things about human beings basic physics more engineering type of solutions to problems we're also developing new devices that are going to help us go to the moon and stay at the moon and to go on to mars these are advancements in materials and advancements in propulsion engineering power water reclamation all things that have a huge impact people on earth beyond that though we're up here with our russian cosmonauts we're getting along just fantastic because we are all out here for each other we are rely on each other for our safety and to survive and our goal is to explore space i believe the international copper cooperation one of my crewmates is a issa astronaut from germany all of our cooperation together i think speaks very well for what humans can do when we explore it together i for one love living in a country that is a leading space faring nation one day we will need to take care of and perhaps leave this planet and we are just taking the very first steps for being able to accomplish that and what what do you miss about earth why can't you wait to get back to i would say in order of course my wife and my daughter and friends and family then a hot shower and then a club sandwich something that is fresh and crunchy that i can't eat up here and with ingredients that come out of a refrigerator that would be wonderful then after that i'd probably get involved with water somehow i want to be standing out under the rain or go swimming something like that what what do you think about when you look out at earth what do you think about as far as earth and about space well that's a great question because yeah we are spending a lot of time looking at the earth but the blackness of space is right there uh on the other side all you have to do is turn around so the at first you're stunned when you see the earth is so beautiful and it's so hard for your brain to take it in it doesn't look like an atlas you see clouds and water and then eventually you start to see landforms and you get a feeling i want you to just get over the beauty of it that the human human species is a very fragile very tiny uh entity living on the surface of the planet it almost seems like the earth could shrug us off at any moment particularly when you look at the blackness of space it is a deep palpable blackness it's not like something that's just painted on for instance so it sends a chill through you in a way just how vast it is and in some ways we seem very alone but in the same way it makes us us humans seem incredibly precious so you see blackness do you see do you think that there has to be life out there other life may be superior to us maybe inferior to us to us is inferior to us well i'll tell you it's we think about that a lot at nasa i think a lot of people think about that there's nothing that i see that would inform me one way or one way or the other when our eyes adapt and we can see stars much like on a on a crystal clear night on the earth on a mountaintop at night and you can see just get a glimpse of how large this universe is i would say that statistically there probably is the more life outside our solar system even this is we every time we look at another star it seems that we're finding planets around it so just looking at the math i'd say there's a good chance final question if i still have time um what has been your favorite part of this mission and past missions and has there been any particular challenge this time the favorite part is the people i get a chance to fly with even though looking at the earth and living in zero g is special when you share it with uh crewmates and i've been blessed with some wonderful crewmates especially from all from germany and from russia that is by far the most memorable and favorite part of it the challenges are day-to-day work trying to be as efficient as we can it's complex work the ground control puts together an incredible plan they have a complex job to do and communicating with them trying to make sure we implement their plan that is a big challenge we just completed a spacewalk about two weeks ago getting ready for that was a huge challenge it was a little bit unexpected so we didn't have a lot of time to get ready for it so every day is different that makes it incredibly interesting but also hugely challenging uh just a real quick follow-up to that what is it like walking in space well the view you get out the window in the space station you multiply that by about 100 because you have just your helmet your visor on you can feel the um the heat of the sun a lot more and the how frigid uh objects are on the dark side of the earth there's about negative 200 degrees on the dark side about plus 200 on the surfaces are on the sunny side so trying to get the work done with that kind of view with all of those environmental factors coming in is tough but probably the best training we have is getting ready for spacewalks and you thinking about your training you can focus in on it and you can get the work done but we're pretty tired afterwards what do you do for relaxation there uh communicate with family is probably the number one thing we do have the opportunity to talk to uh to make a phone call if the satellite alignment is just right might do some email but a quick second after that is going to the window and looking out at the earth and trying to to see yet more on the surface that we haven't seen before thank you tom and when do you return i'm going to be coming back at the end of april next year with my crewmates and some of my other crewmates are going to come back a little bit earlier than that but fortunately we'll be able to invite a new crew and hand over to them hopefully at the end of april and that's why i'll be coming home so i'll miss winter but i'm going to come back late spring and i'll enjoy the summer thank you again tom i really appreciate it and thank you so much for talking with us thank you joe it's really good to talk to you say hi to everyone for me thank you tom station this is houston acr thank you that concludes our event thank you to our participants from wral tv and the charlotte observer station we are now resuming operational audio communications so so so so so so hey okay so everybody uh hello station houston on space to ground two for mark and tom are you ready for the event we are ready for the event minnesota public radio this is mission control houston please call station for a voice check station this is kathy werzer with minnesota public radio how do you hear me hello kathy we read you four by five we're going to turn up a volume but i can hear you clearly how are you doing so far so good thank you so much it's a real pleasure to to be able to talk to you both i'd wait for your partner to get back here hello from earth astronauts mark vande high and tom marshburn are with us right now for the international space station gentlemen uh i'm not sure if it's good afternoon good evening or good morning for you right now this is a midday we go by gmt which is kind of split between houston and moscow and that's what we the type the clock that we work by well thank you so much for joining us we appreciate it uh we are real curious to know more about the story that happened the situation in november when you had to uh evacuate the iss because of russian space debris now i know you both have trained for emergencies but mark is based debris in the mix so uh just to make sure we're clear we didn't really evacuate the space station we certainly prepared just in case we had to and thankfully nasa does a really good job of looking out for us so uh honestly i'm kind of glad i was up here for that moment because it was kind of an adventure i don't normally get to close so many hatches and we got lots of uh experience closing and opening hatches as part of the process and since i happened to be isolated on the russian segment with my russian crewmates because that's who i flew up here with or i'll depart here with i got treated to a russian breakfast so it kind of turned out to be a good deal for me tom what was it like for you well for us we had just been in uh aboard the station for a few days and for us we kept thinking boy this is a really nice simulation in case we ever have to do this but we were very calm and actually as mark said sort of enjoying the experience working hatches that we've never had otherwise may not never have a chance to work and then we found ourselves in the dragon capsule hatch closed and we said wow i hope we don't need to go home now fortunately we passed by it was no problem and were able to continue the mission but overall it was not an unpleasant experience mark when we heard this story we then learned that you have minnesota ties that you have a degree from st john's university physics from st john's and your sister still lives in wilmer when you were young did you know you wanted to be an astronaut way back then you know i always thought the poss being an astronaut i always thought was cool but i never ever envisioned myself becoming an astronaut and uh for me that was like if i ever told someone that i wanted to be an astronaut someday it was like to me it would be like saying i want to be spider-man someday it just was seemed like it had that much of a possibility so i'm still a little puzzled that i'm up here and i have this job i'm pleasantly surprised and hopefully i can maintain that that uh sense of humility about it the uh yeah certainly as a child i just didn't see it as a real enough possibility to invest a lot of emotional energy in ever being able to do it and yet now you're scheduled to have the longest stay on the international space station in history wow what does that mean to you uh yeah it's that if it happens will be quite an honor i certainly don't want to i think to do something this long we really got to stay focused on the moment at any given moment because just like life on the on the planet it just makes life more enjoyable and it can feel a little overwhelming if you think if you're especially if you're having a tough day and you think wow i'm gonna how am i gonna keep doing this for hundreds more days but really i'm up here with wonderful people and uh the work is very valuable as we're doing science for all of humanity and i'm really proud that i got the opportunity that people are willing to entrust me with the work we're doing up here so uh yeah it's it's it feels good i certainly uh i'm happy to have the opportunity by the way tom tell us about the science that you are working on what sorts of projects are really interesting to you well we just completed today we had a full day of looking at our muscles in a very unique way myself and my crewmates are guinea pigs in experiments and this is one of those looking at a way to measure muscles not invasively so we don't have to do muscle biopsy someday in the hospitals and icus and looking at astronauts because we go through an atrophy process that's equivalent to for our bones we'll get in six months bone loss that may occur over a decade for someone with osteoporosis so if we don't exercise and exercise the bones and keep the muscles going so we're finding out things about how muscles react to atrophy which we experience and then when we exercise in the middle of that so from a medical standpoint i'm a medical doctor i really enjoyed that experiment some great investigators we've been doing things that have never been done in space except recently here and seeing things that have never been seen before it's very exciting from an exploration standpoint but at any given time we could be working on colloids in the glove box you might see there to your left we could be working on uh fluid physics other medical experiments there's just an enormous amount going on our days are packed full you mentioned exploration i'm curious and both of you are so highly trained what do you think of folks like elon musk and richard branson and just basically those flying folks into space do you welcome this new age of space tourism mark i think i'm gonna throw that question to you first yeah i think it's exciting i think the more people that get up to see the earth from space the better off the earth will be because people will really have an understanding a better understanding of how thin the atmosphere is that essential layer for us is for our human existence and all of all of the life we're really familiar with on the earth and also uh people that can afford to do it right now tend to have a lot of influence so if if that causes attitude shifts that help us out on the ground i'll and it comes from the observations we make from space i think it'll be a wonderful thing tom what do you think and i'll just say that in a lot of ways they're doing uh future generations a favor i'm sorry doing future generations a favor by setting it up this is how every mode major mode of change in major mode of transportation has occurred where people who can afford it do it and then it makes it affordable for others in the future by the way i love the way you two passed the mic you just kind of literally have it float between the two of you as i'm watching you on screen i'm curious i know you both have families and children how do you uh how do you keep in touch mark oh we have uh we get i talk to my wife every day and i talk to my wife and children um every weekend so it's been really nice in fact the weekend calls are typically a video teleconference we use an internet protocol phone via the satellites we're connected to to talk so that makes it much easier and for me we've got holidays coming up obviously we miss our families quite a bit while we're away but we do have a good contact with them either through email or or phone calls and so uh just looking forward to seeing them again in a few months it's been a pleasure talking to you both it's really quite interesting to watch what you're doing up there the science experiments sound fantastic i'm watching tom by the way i wish viewers could see this you're doing a really great job juggling the mic in space and uh mark you look great as you're doing tumbling and somersaults for us there in space i appreciate your time gentlemen do stay safe thank you so much thank you great talking to you station this is houston acr that concludes the minnesota public radio portion of the event please stand by for a voice check of npr's here and now station this is peter o'dowd with npr's here and now how do you hear me we read you loud and clear how else great all right mark tom good to speak with you happy holidays happy holidays to you as well well thanks for being here you know i was thinking about this uh no human beings in the universe are celebrating the holidays further away from home than you are how do you feel up there this time of year oh it's um we're very busy with work so the holiday season i think is passing me by at least christmas day will have a chance to have a video conference with their families so we're missing the holiday season but we're communicating with their families we won't miss the holidays themselves when they come up we're continuing to to work just straight on through as we normally do tell me what that will be like on christmas day will you i don't know be on a video connection with the family or something how will you spend the morning oh i i suspect because we'll have a cargo vehicle we're working with that even though ideally it would be a day off that we will probably be working that day just um and we have the ability to communicate with our families via a video teleconference system maybe a fun anecdote to share with you is this same thing happened to me on my last flight we worked really hard uh christmas day and our russian counterparts they went ahead they had the day off and they went ahead and decorated their end of the space station with christmas decorations and told us to come over for dinner and we were very pleasantly surprised that they had a nice spread for us so it's fun to be up here with wonderful people you know i was just going to ask you that mark and sometimes you've got to understand sometimes santa does come to visit so we'll see what happens from yeah sorry i think we're having some connection here you're in space after all you do have fellow astronauts up there from europe from russia from from japan do you feel an extra sense of i don't know international camaraderie on the space station this time of year oh i would say it's not just this time of year it's all the time that's one of the wonderful things about being on an international space station is that we get to train together all over the world and learn about different cultures part of our job is even learning other languages so it's a very eye-opening experience and the space station is really supporting all of humanity so it gives us a very good sense of purpose we've we feel really good about our work tom we've seen some pictures from 2012 of you and a christmas tree on the space station is that tree still up there and if it is whose job is it to pack it on the spacecraft oh now that you asked that question i'm not quite sure we'll have to go into our database and see if it's still here a little tiny christmas tree about a foot and a half tall and you could put it on the ceiling or the wall either way yeah yeah how else are you decorating do you decorate on the space station i believe we might have some stockings not the simple cloth kind that we'll put out i think we have some santa hats we might be wearing so it'll be a festive atmosphere during the day to a certain extent for sure i know there's a lot of kids who are wondering if santa claus comes to space yeah we're certainly hoping that he uh finds a way to get in through the airlock and come and visit us as well look you've said this several times you're gonna have a busy day working on christmas day and i know it's not easy uh the job that you have up there you had to shelter in a spacecraft recently when satellite debris threatened to crash into the space station i understand you also had to deal with an ammonia leak earlier this year um mark is is this mission felt a little bit more stressful to you than most uh apps it actually has not felt any more stressful i think we're so well trained that we get simulations where everything goes wrong so when we have something that goes wrong and it's not the full complement of wrongness it feels like it's an easy simulation so the ground most of the time in the simulations on the ground the ground control team is not available to help us and of course they want to do everything they can to help us out so that makes everything seem easier than our training and it actually adds to the sense of adventure up here that's been my feeling so far hopefully it'll stay that way tom what was it like when there was a risk that the satellite debris might hit you up there i agree with mark completely it was um we were up early of course but we were moving uh slowly and calmly and thinking yep this is like a sort of an easy simulation we got to work hatches that normally we can't work in simulations on the ground so it's nice to get to know our space station that way we did find ourselves in our return vehicle our dragon capsule with the hatch closed that was a surprise but we had some food and water with us and we just waited it out and didn't have any concerns if we needed to we knew that we could just depart the space station but glad that it all worked out we could stay on board tom i see that you've been going up to the space station since 2009 and then when this rotation is done you'll be staying on for the 67th expedition why do you want to stay longer in space than you have to there are certain aspects of living up here that you begin to miss over time living in zero g the view of the earth of course but the as prospect of having a chance to work with scientists engineers and centers all around the world it's an incredible international endeavor something i was very proud to be a part of uh when i left the space station i talked to my family they said they were okay with me coming back and so then i just began making preparations to come back again if i could yeah how are your bodies holding up so far so good we've got three different types of exercise devices up here we've got a resistive exercise device that uses vacuum cylinders instead of weight to uh let us exercise our muscles then we've got off to tom's left there's an exercise bike but it doesn't have a seat and we've got a treadmill up here as well so we can go for runs but you need to be strapped down to that treadmill with bungee cords you actually run on the wall so it looks kind of funny if you're used to being one orientation you see someone running with their head off to the side yeah by the way um if you're near a window can you tell us what you see outside it's interesting that when especially when i first got here i looked outside i had no idea where i was it wasn't like looking at pictures in an atlas see a lot of clouds you usually see a lot of blue and right now we see a lot of blue and it's sunset so what's interesting yeah it's interesting right now too we are our orbit is running along the terminator that is the night uh dark line so we often feel like we're in sunset and sunrise that's a unique uh thing about our orbit this time of year right well considering that vantage point i wonder if the two of you could just tell us what your hopes are for the world as we turn the page on 2021 and we start a new year wow that's a great question um i think my hopes are that with with covid and just international affairs that we have as human beings have a strong sense of unity and also with climate change that we recognize that we really are all in this together and this very thin atmosphere which is essential to our existence most of us were always inside that atmosphere that's a very finite resource that we need to protect and it has a huge impact on us i think the earth is going to be around for a long time whether or not we are is really up to us two astronauts aboard the international space station mark vandehein tom marshburn thank you so much uh for taking some time high above us to talk to us happy holidays to both of you happy holidays too thanks for the talk station this is houston acr that concludes the event thank you to all participants from minnesota public radio and npr's here and now station we are now resuming operational audio communications so so so so so so so so so it's a very unique challenge to go and build something with you've never been before my name is jose ortiz and i'm helping to return humans to the moon safely the spatial launch system is a big rocket that carries the orion spacecraft with astronauts on board to space if something goes wrong during that initial phase of the launch then the launch of our system is activated so it carries a crew module with the astronauts to safety it's a big challenge and it's just fascinating to me to be able to design and build those components and then see them work i like to repair things so that's kind of a hobby i have to go repair things in my garage they would find out about it and they come in hey i was like can you fix this for me i have to thank nasa for that and because nasa have enabled me to to be able to learn and figure out how things work i enjoy coming in and being part of a team and have a goal and make it happen mr marshburn ken smith at wrel in raleigh can you hear me ken i've got you loud and clear can you read me i'm reading you loud and clear stand by we're getting ready to go nasa astronaut tom marshburn is a north carolina native just launching last month to the mission to the international space station he'll be there for about six months conducting research mr marshburn joins us now from the international space station good afternoon sir first of all give us a sense of what that view is like from the international space station when you look out the window well i ken it's i have to describe it in stages the first time you look out the window you see blue and white you're a bit stunned you don't know quite what you're looking at it's so beautiful you would think you know exactly where you are in the world but you usually don't the first time you look out the window you're over an ocean typically but when your brain begins to process the beautiful sights you're seeing you begin to pick up land masses and such and then you begin to appreciate just the fact that you are actually traveling over this planet hundreds of miles up inside of this space station that is not tethered to anything it is just floating and traveling at five miles a second over the earth and uh it's it's there quite a lot to take that in and over time you begin to fall in love with your planet you see the beauty you begin to recognize continents and land forms right away and you begin to appreciate a bit of our place on the planet as you mentioned you're a north carolina native what sparked your interest in space well i was living on davey avenue there in statesville and uh we took a family trip to the movie theater and saw 2001 a space odyssey right when it came out that somewhat terrified me as a young child but it certainly engendered a lot of interest in space and it wasn't until after we moved away and i was in high school that i began to read about the apollo program what astronauts flight controllers engineers had done to put us on the moon and then seeing neil armstrong walk on the moon i was hooked at that point i wanted to have something to do with space hopefully i could work for nasa someday and that was my goal so we mentioned that this is your third space flight have you noticed any advancements this time around compared to your first two missions oh absolutely the space station is larger we've got a whole new science module on the russian side and a docking port added on over there what has struck me from the moment i arrived on this trip was the added complexity to all of the laboratories all the modules just about our labs there are so many more experiments the uh the scope of the experiments is so much more broad and the uh the depth of the the science that we're doing what we're learning about physiology and basic physics up here as well as more practical things in the sense of the things that that could be used right away from the space station those are so much more than the last time i was up here we are working really hard to get it all done it's very exciting all right we've got about 20 seconds how long does it take your body to adjust to zero gravity i would say it takes the body itself and the the plumbing and everything about two weeks takes the brain four to six weeks to kind of catch up and get used to the pace used to being able to control your your body movements as well as to do the work and then you'll be really become a master of working up here working in three dimensions all the time after a couple of months i'd say mr marshburn thank you for your time today all the best on the international space station hey ken so good to talk to you thank you tom marshburn as we mentioned he's a north carolina native he launched last month in november station this is houston acr that concludes the wral tv portion of the event please stand by for a voice check from the charlotte observer hello space station can you hear me hello this is tom marshman on the space station i read you loud and clear how me hi tom how are you i'm doing great this friday how are you doing wonderful tom um tom i was hoping uh what types of experiments have you been working on and and the crew on this particular mission that you might want to let let the america know about and everyone else well so far i've been deeply involved as the subject of experiments we've been looking at muscle atrophy ways of measuring the muscle that we can do here in zero g that will possibly benefit people who need to have their muscles evaluated instead of having to have a muscle biopsy we can use some of the instrument instrumentation that's been developed for our work up here but in particular what interests me as a physician is our bodies in space age at a very rapid pace there's some aspects of aging that curve very quickly up here in space atrophy i mentioned bone atrophy osteoporosis our eyes change our eyesight changes the radiation can age our vessels our blood vessels as well so we are perfect little test subjects for evaluating ways to combat that and looking at what exactly is the uh the process that causes these things so that we can develop ways of treating and preventing it and it's not only for people as they age it's also for people in icus or undergoing rehabilitation these are all all things that we've been looking at i've been using ultrasound and using the um some muscle of new muscle evaluation devices i've talked about we've only been up here five weeks so we're looking forward to all the other things there's many more categories of science that are constantly going on around us that we're helping maintain fluid physics astronomy earth observations all happening in the racks around me but also on the outside of the space station tom what would you like people to know about why it is critical that we continue to be in space on the space station with other countries but why is it critical that we be there well the immediate answer is what we are finding out while we're here we're not only finding out things about human beings based

Channel: The Independent

Views: 2,909

Keywords: Soyuz capsule, international space station, crew, usaku Maezawa, Yozo Hirano

Id: JI4ojKFIb-Y

Length: 185min 47sec (11147 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 19 2021