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shortly before the soyuz crew members

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left star city for launch and for the

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launch site in kazakhstan earlier this

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month i had a chance to spend a few

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minutes talking with steve swanson

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we talked about his plans for this first

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long-duration mission of his career and

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the work that he and his crewmates have

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done to get ready for the flight why

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don't we start a little bit by talking

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about your your training i know that

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you've trained in the past for shuttle

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missions how is that different than

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you're training for a space station

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expedition

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well first of all the

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flow for this kind of expedition is much

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longer it's two and a half years long

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and you also aren't really training for

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many specific events like in a shuttle

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shuttle we knew what we were going to do

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every day and we would train for those

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specific tasks in a space station you

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don't know really what's going to break

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you don't know exactly what science

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you're going to do when you start the

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training flow so you have to be able to

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more be a jack of all trades and and get

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more skill-based training than you would

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on a shuttle mission so you've been

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training for for a good long time for

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this that is a true statement and i'm

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definitely glad to be almost over with

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the training part and head on to the

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actual doing a flight itself

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i don't know if it's considered part of

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your training for your expedition but i

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know you spent some time here in the

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flight control room as a capcom is that

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does that help you prepare how does it

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you know how does it build your

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relationship with the team here on the

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ground anything like that

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well i do think that's very important

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actually because i think it helps to

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really know what's going on in mission

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control when you come down with a

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question or a comment or any other kind

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of a communication with the ground if

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you've been a capcom you know what that

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means and how it processes through all

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of the mcc and so having that idea it

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can your expectations are i think

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realistic and you can really help the

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communication be much better if you have

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that knowledge do you have a lot of good

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relationships with the folks here on the

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ground who will be supporting you

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i believe i do i need to ask them to

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make sure it works on both sides but i

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believe i do all right well tell us a

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little bit about what launch day is

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going to be like for you

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well last day it's going to be actually

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quite a bit of a long day um we're going

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to launch three in the morning

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baikonur time and so we're getting up

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only around nine o'clock we're gonna

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have breakfast i'll probably get a

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workout in i know they wanted us to take

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a nap around maybe like one or two get

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up again around six or so and that's

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we're gonna start getting ready for the

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launch at that time and we're gonna

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start off by uh

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getting all cleaned up that's one thing

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they want to do here make sure you take

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a shower

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you're clean to go and then

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we head on out

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and do a few formal events

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with writing our names on the wall of

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the the rooms we stay in stuff like that

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a couple ceremonial deals and then we

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head on out to building 254 where we

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suit up and our circle suits do a

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pressure check to make sure the suits

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are working well

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at that point we head from there out to

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the launch pad uh climb on into the

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vehicle about two and a half hours prior

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to launch

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and then start doing all our checks with

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that again we do a vehicle uh

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seal or leak check on the vehicle we do

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one of our suits also again make sure

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everything is working fine the

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communication is good on the vehicle and

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on the ground and if everything's all

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ready to go and we get to launch

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does sound like a long day but uh a good

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one i think

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yes it is a good day just a long uh

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again then after lunch your day's not

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over of course you have

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in six hours you're going to be docking

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the station and you have to go through

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the uh

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leak checks uh board the station to make

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sure you've got a good leak

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or no leaks between the soyuz and the

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station itself and then you can go and

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open the hatch and and we'll have a

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little press conference for that time

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and so it's going to be a long day but

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i'm looking forward to it

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um we talk a whole lot about all the

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science that y'all do on board the

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station here um for space station live

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so can you tell us a little bit about

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anything that you're particularly

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looking forward to or anything that that

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we should be looking forward to anything

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that you think is really interesting

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uh there's many interesting parts our

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experience science experience i think

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we're doing but uh one thing like for me

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i'm definitely interested in is the

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eyesight issue we're having with

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astronauts and we're going to do a whole

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bunch of tests from ultrasounds to octs

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to fundoscopes to all sorts of things

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and really try to figure out why the

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eyesight is changing for astronauts and

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i think it's kind of important for as we

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continue on in our space exploration we

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need to figure this out so we don't have

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any issues later on uh for other

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astronauts coming who follow on behind

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us i should say uh so i think that's

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important so what will your part be in

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the eye experiments

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well i'll both be the guinea pig and

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also the test conductor so other

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astronauts up there will do the

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experiments on me and i'll turn around

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and do the experiments on them so we

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both get to do both ends of the deal

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all right well that does sound

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interesting thank you so much for

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talking with us we'll be watching from