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hi welcome to mission control houston

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i'm kelly humphries and with me today is

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sandy fletcher she's the lead spacewalk

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systems expert for expedition 34 and

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that's the international space station

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crew that's on orbit right now and we're

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really happy to be joining the students

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at north town elementary in columbus

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what is it like to live in space

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well i'm actually a flight controller

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and trainer so i get to talk to the

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astronauts and what they tell me is

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it's a lot of fun because they get to

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float around the space station and

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pretend to fly like superman

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and they also get to play with their

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food which is not encouraged when you're

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on the ground but it's okay when you're

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an astronaut on board the international

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space station

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but they do a lot of experiments and

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they also have to do exercise two hours

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a day

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to make sure that their bones and their

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muscle mass is

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is still strong when they come back to

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what is to live in space

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um are astronauts still going into space

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is her question

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oh yes they certainly are

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some people believe that because the

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space shuttle system was retired last

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year that we aren't flying astronauts

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anymore

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but we actually have two nasa astronauts

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on board right now that's kevin ford and

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tom marshburn

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and canadian astronaut chris hadfield

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who will be the commander of the

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international space station

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in

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three russian crew members on board

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and we've had people on board space

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station for about 11 years now

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continuously on orbit which is quite an

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how can i join the space program

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mute

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so well there's quite a number of

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different ways actually

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the civil servant jobs and astronauts

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jobs are actually posted online

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through the various websites

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i work for a small

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company actually i don't work for nasa

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directly and they post their jobs online

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as well

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so there are a lot of different avenues

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what does it take to be a mission

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control specialist

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well i'm fairly unique in that i

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actually have a physics background most

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of the colleagues that are flight

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controllers and trainers along with me

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have various engineering backgrounds

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whether that's

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aeronautical engineering

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or mechanical engineering

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but nasa also employs people who are of

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different backgrounds as well there's

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actually a legal department so we have

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lawyers we have flight surgeons who make

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sure the astronauts stay healthy

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and so those are medical doctors we have

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people who are professional scuba divers

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they work out at our neutral buoyancy

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lab for when our crew members practice

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their space walks we have scuba divers

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in the pool with them to make sure

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they're safe and you also have people

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who like kelly humphries here who's

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actually a journalist

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so you might not think that

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you know journalists would necessarily

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be employed by the space program but

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there are very many different

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what should i focus on in school in

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that's a really good question and i

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think

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whatever you focus on

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the best thing to do is to make sure

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that you really really love it

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if you love it then you're going to work

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hard at it and you'll do well

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so

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while i happen to choose physics and

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i'll be honest my interest in physics

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was peaked when i noticed that the

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astronauts that nasa was hiring

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there were a bunch of physicists in

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there

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they also hire military pilots

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so i would say

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find something that you really love

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doing and then focus on doing that very

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well

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but also

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you know take good care of yourself

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physically and

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be interested in other people one of the

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surprising aspects of this job is

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working with other people and if you

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can't work with other people very well

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you're going to have a hard time in life

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so i've been very fortunate that i've

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had very good co-workers and

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we actually have a lot of fun

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well you know and even not just studies

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but but teamwork is something you can

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learn doing a lot of extracurricular

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activities and doing sports and things

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like that and

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this whole center here works on teamwork

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as does the international partnership

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that makes the space station work so it

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really helps to get that kind of

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a background and but the majority of

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folks here are in the science technology

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engineering and math fields

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from what they study but as sandy says

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do something that you really love doing

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and that means that you're going to

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ensure you do it well and that's going

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to put you in the best position to get a

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job at nasa or for that matter anywhere

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why did you choose to work at nasa

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well i grew up in rural new england um

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which we didn't have a lot of exposure

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to the space program at that point

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this was actually

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skylab was really the the first thing i

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really remember on

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and

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but what really got me interested in

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space was actually a movie called star

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wars

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i was about nine years old and i went to

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see star wars and i'll be honest i went

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to see it because my older sister wanted

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to go see it

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but i just fell in love with the whole

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concept of living and working in space

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and

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you know i'm one of those very lucky

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kids who wanted to be involved with the

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space program and uh

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ended up actually being involved with

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the space program so it can happen

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and i ended up getting to stay home from

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kindergarten to watch alan shepard

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launch my mom was a big space fan way

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back i'm a little older than sandy

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when we first started flying humans in

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space and alan shepard was the first

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american to get launched into space

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and i got to stay here from kindergarten

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to watch that and i've been a space fan

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what fun and interesting parts are there

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i'll be honest

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it is really cool to be involved with

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the space program

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people

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know what you're what you talk about

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when you say you work at nasa or you

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work on the space program most people

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have a general idea what that means and

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they're very enthusiastic about it

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kelly had mentioned earlier that it's a

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lot of teamwork and i really enjoy

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working not only with the astronauts and

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training them but i also work

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really well with the colleagues

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we all have the same goal you know we're

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from all over the united states and

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actually from different countries

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but we all share the same goal that's

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the space program is really important

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exploring other worlds is something

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that's exciting to us

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and

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it's an amazing experience to be part of

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a large team that all believes the same

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thing

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well and we got to admit it's pretty

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cool working in mission control uh where

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everything comes together

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and it's also really neat to be able to

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go out and see launches and things like

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that

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and to get out with our colleagues at

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the laboratories that help develop these

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systems and technology that we do you

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know we were talking earlier about how

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astronauts get to the space station and

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and right now we're all the americans uh

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and everybody for that matter is flying

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up on russian soyuz spacecraft and it's

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kind of interesting because we used to

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be in a cold war with uh what was then

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the soviet union and now it's the

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russian federal space agency that we

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work with and so that's how we get folks

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up and down to space right now but nasa

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also is working on new spacecraft we're

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working on the orion spacecraft

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which is designed to take us farther

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than we've ever gone in space way past

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the moon out to asteroids and mars and

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elsewhere and

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people in marshall space flight center

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in huntsville alabama are developing a

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new space launch system rocket that'll

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carry

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tons and tons of cargo into space at

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once

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and working together here with johnson

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space center with the folks developing

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the orion capsule so there's all kinds

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of things coming up in addition to what

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we're doing now on the international

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space station but the space station is

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kind of like the the uh the learning

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place where we are learning what it

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takes to live for a long time

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in the microgravity environment it has

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all kinds of effects on our bodies and

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on how physics work on how different

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mechanisms work and so it's really

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important for us to learn what we're

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doing now but the real goal is to go

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even farther out there so that we can

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help spread humanity throughout the

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and that's actually where you guys come

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in because

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you know we're working on the space

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program right now

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we were handed off this space program by

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people who worked

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for mercury through gemini

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apollo and all these other programs that

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built the foundations of what we do not

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only in mission control but all of space

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exploration and so i feel like our

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generation right now is caretaking it

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for your generation

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and it's very important for you guys to

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be excited about space exploration too

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because someday you're going to be

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sitting up here and trying to encourage

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the next generation this is a very

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long-term project it's not going to be

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done by the time i retire you're still

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going to have plenty of opportunities

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and we know that ohio has a really rich

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space history with people like john

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glenn who made historic contributions to

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our space exploration effort and we're

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looking for you guys to be the next john

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glenn or the next gene kranz sitting

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here in mission control guiding the

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thank you that was our questions

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well thank you guys for being with us

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today we hope you learn a lot about

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space exploration your studies and that

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you go on to do great things whatever

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you choose to do