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one of the many things we've learned by

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living and working on the space station

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for months at a time is that more than

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half of the astronauts have returned to

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earth with vision changes a new

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investigation is learning how space

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flight and something called fluid shifts

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affects vision and eye shape lori meigs

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is at the payload operations integration

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center at nasa's marshall space flight

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have you ever had the blood rush to your

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head well crew members have that same

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feeling once they arrive at the space

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station much is the same for folks who

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are suffering from swelling in the brain

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or confined to bed rest that's because

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all of the fluid tends to shift up well

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now a new investigation is looking at at

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whether these fluid shifts are causing

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vision problems for astronauts when they

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return to earth results from this study

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could help them to develop

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countermeasures for folks here on earth

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as well as the astronauts with vision

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damage i had the opportunity to visit

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the lab where the crew members undergo

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testing for this investigation before

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we're talking fluid shifts mike stinger

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is here we're in the cardiovascular lab

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at johnson space center mike

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fluid shifts i mean is that what we

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really think it is how your fluids are

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moving around your body that's pretty

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much what it sounds like we're

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investigating the impact of the headword

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fluid that's caused by space flight on

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this ocular syndrome this visual

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impairment and intracranial pressure

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syndrome one of the primary hypotheses

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is that you get this headword fluid

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shift and that the subsequent results of

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that fluid shift are causing an

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elevation into intracranial pressure

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just causing swelling of the back of the

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eyeball which is affecting vision

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so when the crew members come back

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they've been having some vision problems

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and that's a really big thing for the

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space station program right now to

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figure out why this is happening right

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so one of the hypotheses is that it's

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entertaining our pressure no one's

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actually investigated this so this is

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the first experiment to look at

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the blood flow going up into the head

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where it's a very comprehensive

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experiment where we're looking at all

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the blood flow pathways into the brain

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what what fluid is doing in the brain

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how it's uh filtering out of the blood

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vessels going into cells into the

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interstitial spaces we're also

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investigating how the human body

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changes its venous drainage strategies

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because there's no gravity pulling the

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blood back to your heart

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one of the hypotheses is that venous

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congestion is causing this syndrome and

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so we're looking at the various drainage

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pathways out of the head as well all

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right can i see how it might all work

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here when you test the subjects

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absolutely all right

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so i feel like a test subject now i'm

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like now what's happening so right now

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you're getting a bilateral ultrasound

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scans david is scanning your carotid

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jugular vein and tim over here scanning

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your carotid artery so one side we're

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imaging the blood going into your head

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and the other side we're imaging the

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blood draining out of your head so right

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now you're laying flat on your back and

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so we want to investigate everyone's

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individual strategy for how they manage

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this blood flow so i'm gonna touch you

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so there that's 15 degrees head down and

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we would um

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measure blood going into your head at

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this angle and then definitely go in

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there it's definitely going there and

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and david will see the jugular vein in

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your neck and gorge

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as it starts to back up a little bit and

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during a natural experiment we'd have a

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third stenographer

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scanning your eyeball right now

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and looking at the blood flowing in and

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out of your eye as well as in your brain

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we would have you in this posture for

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about 30 minutes oh my yes so so we're

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getting a time course of changes as well

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um and we have other we have other

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modalities that we'd like to show you as

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well so we'd like we'd be taking

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pictures of the back of your eye right

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now to see how the choroid

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the vascular network in the back of your

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eye how it swells or how it doesn't

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swell

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changes in the nerve fiber layer in the

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back of your eye we also measure eye

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pressure using a rebound tenometer and

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we also have some non-invasive measures

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of intracranial pressure that we can

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show you as well that we would be

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measuring at this time

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we think that different astronauts

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respond differently to the headword

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fluid shift which is why some astronauts

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develop more severe symptoms of vip and

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others do not so how many are going

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through this

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process that i'm going through right now

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we're going to investigate 10 astronauts

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so far we've already done uh pre-flight

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data collection on three of them so our

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first two uh in flight estimates are the

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two one-year crew members

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so what's he doing now mike so this is a

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spectralis oct camera optical coherence

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tomography you probably had this done at

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your annual eye exam but you'd be

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sitting upright with your face and a

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chin rest and your forehead pressed

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against the forehead rest he's taking

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really detailed pictures of the back of

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your eye

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and this is a replica this is a camera

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that we have on station right now so

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they have it

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up on station now they have the chin

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rest um this this particular device is

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unique in that we have a um one of a

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kind boom arm that allows him to orient

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the camera

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um in such a position that he can get

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these images while you're laying on your

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back and you can also do it while you're

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laying head down so while your head down

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and when you have that rush of fluid to

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your head we can see how the fluid

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engorgement in the back of the eye is

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called the choroid how that how that's

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different in different astronauts so we

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think that the different response to

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that headword fluid shift may predict

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the severity of vip

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and who gets it who gets it who doesn't

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yes

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one of the interventions that we're

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interested in is lower body negative

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pressure to reverse the head where it

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affects these fluid shifts in space

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flight so we will move a lot of our

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hardware from the u.s segment over to

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the russian segment including the oct

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but the base is too big to transport so

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we're going to free float the camera you

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just the astronaut will just hold it in

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front of their face

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while another astronaut runs the

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computer to take pictures of the back of

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the eye while we're trying to pull the

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fluid back out of your head

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so we also think that some astronauts

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will respond better to the lbmp

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intervention than others uh-oh he has

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something else so he's got a rebound

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tonometer

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this measures the pressure in your eye

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so there's

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the the difference between the pressure

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in your brain and the pressure in your

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eyes across is called the trans laminar

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pressure gradient that that affects

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um the severity of the symptoms we think

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you get so he has to come in here to do

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this

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it doesn't hurt you won't feel a thing

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so i've heard that before this little

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probe right here is going to bounce off

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the front of your eye and it's going to

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measure the pressure okay okay so you

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can just stare straight at it

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go ahead and blink from it

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you just performed seven measures

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uh did you that was uncomfortable at all

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or no not really just you know when you

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have something pointing at your eyes

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it's a little so that's also we call

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that a non-invasive measure of

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intraocular pressure

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yeah and so we would do that three or

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four times at all with the different

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positions all right i'm good with one

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though that's good thank you

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thanks so so that's it as far as that's

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it but that's that's in a nutshell

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really all right

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i like it here on the stage check it out

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all right enjoy yourself

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well that was fun thanks to the team

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there for letting us on the inside here

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at the payload operations integration

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center they're assisting with that

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final uh

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fluid shifts experiment for the first

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round for the crew member the final crew

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member undergoing that this morning

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today jimmy whitaker is the payload

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operations director leading the team

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here assisted by stephanie dudley and

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then the paycoms are chrissy stinson

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crystal morgan and cody jones that team

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they're all working hard and working