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it was eight weeks ago tomorrow the last

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time that a Soyuz spacecraft returned to

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earth bringing international space

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station crew members home in this

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particular case after 188 days in space

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more than 3,000 orbits of the earth

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totaling some 79 million miles it

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delivered cosmonaut Michael Turan jaksa

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astronaut Koichi Wakata and NASA's Rick

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Mastracchio who joins us here in the

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flight control room this morning Rick

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it's nice to see you back on earth good

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morning back happy to be here we spend

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an awful lot of time talking about how

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astronauts take care of themselves on

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orbit in fact I've done it already this

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morning to get repaired to return to a

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one gravity environment so first

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question is how you do it how you

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feeling oh I'm feeling great you know we

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exercise quite a bit on board space

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station a couple hours a day I pushed

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myself very hard in the hopes that it

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would make my life easier after i land

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it and i think i was pretty successful

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as i felt a lot better than i expected i

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thought it would take many many weeks to

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really to feel good but had some

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vestibular for a couple hours that went

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away pretty quickly and in terms of

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muscle strength on my strength never

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didn't change from pre flight so I'm

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feeling pretty good bets that is an

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improvement I think over much earlier in

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the station program where astronauts

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came home and felt pretty crummy for

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quite a long time do you think that the

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work that you're doing is what's made

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the difference yeah of course you know

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the the engineers the scientists the

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doctors they're getting much smarter

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they're figuring out the right exercises

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for us we got better equipment and so

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I'll call that comes together and if you

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work hard on orbit and do what the the

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exercise folks tell you you come back

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pretty good shape any thoughts about

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improvements that could be made in that

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area or things you might want to do you

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know there's always room for improvement

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one of the one of the things is that we

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actually have to spend two two and a

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half hours a day exercising so the goal

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now would be try to now figure out what

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exercise can we do but shorten that

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length of time so that the crew member

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can spend more time doing science and

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doing maintenance and not as much time

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exercising but still come back feeling

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as good and being as healthy as he is

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this mission was your first flight in a

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Soyuz space grant

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what was that like so uses I flew Space

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Shuttle three times so so he's is

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obviously a quite a different vehicle

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space shuttles much bigger much roomier

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has incredible capabilities whereas the

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Soyuz is a very small very compact

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vehicle but also very reliable very

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efficient so going up wasn't much

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different but coming back it was oh it

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was quite a bit of a kind of I call that

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the wild ride had come home and that was

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quite interesting and it was actually

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kind of fun a bumpy ride when you say a

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while yeah a lot of rotation a lot of

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spinning a lot of being tossed about hit

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hard when you when you land on the

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ground so nothing like a space shuttle

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which is basically like an airplane

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landing very comfortable those retro

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rockets they fire a few feet off the

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ground make all the difference I assume

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they do it's hard to tell India I only

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have one landing under my belt with the

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Rockets that I assume they helped 188

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days in space your first long-duration

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mission was it what you expected it to

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be going in you must have had some some

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preconceptions of what it's going to be

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like to have to spend that much time in

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that place yeah i think it is you know

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we do a lot of training we do a lot of

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preparing for the science we do a lot of

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training with the with the scientists

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and the investigators on their

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experiments so we kind of get a good

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feel for what it's going to be like of

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course i bend the space station several

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times so i knew what the living up there

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was going to be like so i think it was

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exactly what I expected did it feel

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longer or shorter than you were expected

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well you know people ask me that but the

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the days go by fast the work days go by

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very very fast but there's just a lot of

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those work days 188 days is a long time

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but it did of course you know time goes

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by fast the older you get it seems uh

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yeah it went by pretty quick did you get

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enough opportunity to to maintain

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contact with your family and friends so

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that you still feel connected oh yes

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yeah you know the space station we have

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quite a few tools to stay contact

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connected with our families we have we

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have the Internet of course with email

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we have telephone the IP phone and we

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have the video conferencing once a week

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so I felt very connected to my my wife

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and kids and my friends I've called

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friends that I haven't talked to in

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years usually I don't make many phone

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calls when I'm here

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but I took the opportunity to call a lot

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of friends and all my family members

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while I was up there Denver's made it

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quite a surprise somebody out of the

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blue calling from space yeah I think

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they I think folks enjoy it so it was it

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was fun to talk to folks get caught up

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do you get to feel like you live there

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instead of are just being visiting there

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oh yeah you out you act you absolutely

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feel like you live there i mean you

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sleep there you eat there you work there

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and on the weekends you're there so you

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are there twenty-four/seven so you

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absolutely feel like you're living there

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for a long time what were the most

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memorable events for you from this

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planet like any space mission the most

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memorable events are the dynamic events

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the things like asset and entry the

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things like the spacewalks we did

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several spacewalks and of course the

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visiting vehicles it was always a fun

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day when a visiting vehicle came it

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brought food it brought science abroad

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equipment so it was always a great day

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when a visiting vehicle came we got to

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open the hatch to a new shiny vehicle so

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all those events are obviously very

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memorable the spacewalks as you

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mentioned be that has to be something of

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a memory since they were not expected

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they were they were added after you

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arrived yeah absolutely they were not

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expected in any way but you know the

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space station is getting a little older

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and we have a lot of spare parts up

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there so the system is made to go out

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and repair these components as they fail

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that's how it was all designed and yeah

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we got to do a few of them and get the

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space station back up and running now

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those weren't your first spacewalks but

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another opportunity to go crawl around

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on that thing must be must be pretty

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excited yeah Spacely space walks are a

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lot of work they're very challenging

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mentally and physically but they're very

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rewarding it's it's great when you're

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out there you get great views of the

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earth it's just a it's enjoyable to be

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working on the hardware out there you

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mentioned visiting vehicles and the

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station right now is is got another

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visiting vehicle a Cygnus vehicle that

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should be arriving the next week that

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must be pretty interesting to to do that

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prep work that Steve Swanson and his

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crewmates are involved in right now to

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brush up on the skills that will be

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needed to go reach out and grab that

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thing yeah absolutely it's a we have a

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great trainer up there called robot

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where the crew members actually can

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practice capturing the visiting vehicles

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with the robotic arm it's a great tool

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it prepares the crew very well for the

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operations in the cupola and of course

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the actual day of the capture is a very

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exciting day it's a very busy day for

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the crew but it's also very rewarding at

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the end you have another module hooked

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up to the space station a visiting

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vehicle and you open the hatch and you

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got all this great equipment being

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delivered to you then with any luck a

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little fresh food yeah usually there's

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something a few surprises on board that

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everybody really enjoys you spent about

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seven months of your life off of the

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planet now which I guess is not

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something you expected that was going to

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happen when you were a young boy or

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maybe a college student looking forward

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what's next for you now yeah you were

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saying a moment ago that you got some

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unused vacation time oh yeah of course I

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have lots of you unused vacation time so

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I'm going to take some time off and

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enjoy myself and recharge my batteries

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but I think we're the United States

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space program is coming into a very

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exciting time we got Oh Ryan and we have

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the commercial vehicles being developed

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and we'll be launching soon in a few

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years so I hope to get involved in that

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and the design and development of those

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vehicles Rick I really appreciate you

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taking a couple of minutes to talk about

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and welcome back thank you that's ass