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[ Music ]

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>> [Background Music] My name is
Steve Swanson, NASA astronaut.

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I'll be on a International
Space Station

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for Expedition 39 and 40.

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I'll be Flight Engineer for
39 and Commander for 40.

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[ Music ]

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That's where I spent
my most time then

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as a child growing
up was in Steamboat.

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I love the area tremendously.

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The Rocky Mountains
are a beautiful area.

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I just enjoy being
there, being outside.

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Even it's the atmosphere
of the location.

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It had a lot of agricultural
ranching

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but then also a resort
town at the same time,

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so it had many different
aspects to the town itself.

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It was a great place to grow up.

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I still love the mountains.

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I still love being in the woods.

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I still love doing all
that kind of outdoor stuff

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and I think that's what the
area taught or brought to me.

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I feel the most comfortable
in the outdoors.

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I love camping.

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I can relax tremendously.

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No pressure's on you.

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All you have to do is
eat, sleep when you want

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to if you can, you know.

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There's nothing really else

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to do beside survive
and just have fun.

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And so there's no other
requirements on your life then,

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and I really enjoy that.

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I enjoy being with my family.

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I also deal with my brother
and his family and the nephews

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and all sorts of people.

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We go and make a big
trip out of it together

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so it definitely
is a family event.

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But we'll start off, usually
we do a backpacking trip

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at least once during the
summertime, and the idea going

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in is we're going to go on a
hard hike on the first day.

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We'll carry everything we need

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and then we'll set
up a base camp.

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From there we'll do day hikes.

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On the day hikes we
can go climb a peak.

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We'll go off to the
lakes to check

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out the fishing in
different spots.

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Just explore the area.

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And we do a lot of research
actually where we go, too,

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just because we like to find
places that are new to us

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and also everything not
anybody else is going to be.

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Not many people go to
those kind of areas.

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And so it's a fun, a
actual adventure just

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in planning the whole
thing out and executing it

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and then coming back and
telling all the stories.

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I think it's innate
in most people

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to explore and find new spots.

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That's, again, why one
reason I became an astronaut.

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I do like to explore and find
new areas and try adventure.

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So you have to make
sure that you

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and your stuff are
well taken care of.

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That's the same thing
with camping.

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You can't help everybody
else out.

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You can't get the
[inaudible] going.

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You can't do all that stuff
unless something's wrong

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with you.

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So to be a good expedition
member you have

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to be able to do that.

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And that's the same with camping

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as with any kind
of space flight.

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[ Music ]

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My first mission was STS-117,
went to the Space Station.

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It also as in the second one.

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It was STS-119 and also
went to the Space Station.

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And I was fortunate on both
those missions to do space walks

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which is really a
wonderful event,

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to get to another good
exploration adventure type

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of a thing which was
really fun to do,

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and I'm glad I had
that experience.

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And then you also then you get
the, I guess, the wonder and awe

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of that view of looking
down on Earth.

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It's a couple of
different things.

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One, it is very beautiful.

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Two is I see places I want to
go like there's another spot

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like there's many mountain
ranges all across the world

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and you see ones like
oh, I'd love to go

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in that mountain range and
try that and, you know,

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see if I can climb some of
those peaks or go over there

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and these woods over
here are like beautiful.

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I'd like to go explore those.

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So it's really about that's
what I see when I look down.

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There's all these places I'd
really like to go and explore.

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I think, you know,
find out what is

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on the other side
of that mountain.

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What is on the other side
of this area over here?

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What's it like to be over there?

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It's just part of our, you
know, innate being that you need