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joining me here in Mission Control

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Houston a man who knows a thing or two

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about spending a lot of time in space

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out of the current US record holder for

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most time ever NASA astronaut Mike Fink

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and Mike first all thanks so much for

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joining me it's always a pleasure to

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talk to you and Dan it's always great to

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be here

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it's always great to be a Mission

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Control Center and it's always great to

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get a chance to share some of our

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real-time story with our great NASA TV

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watchers absolutely now so the first

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time you flew on station back in 2004

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you actually got to fly with gennady

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padalka now first off how do you think

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he's feeling right now you spent a lot

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of time with him how do you think he's

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feeling about breaking this milestone

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yeah that was that was awesome Gennady

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and I were a backup crew on expedition 4

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and then with the Challenger disaster we

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reshuffled crews several times and we

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ended up being exactly where we were

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supposed to we flew on expedition 9

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launching in 2004 and it was just

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gennady's feeling right now he's feeling

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like he always does when he's up in

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space he's where he's supposed to be you

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know it's an awesome feeling where you

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just wake up in the morning say I'm

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supposed to be here this was supposed to

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be doing with my life and I know Gennady

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is really happy but I do remember I do

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remember we're on the rocket were or we

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just got into space and myself and Andre

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CalPERS we we flew together on this

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mission up here and then we can I the

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United State on expedition 9 and Gennady

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Andre and I already we're in space when

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I saw what happened this is a fear a

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visceral joy I mean yes and gennady's

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there ha man I'm doing this again this

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is a second this is second mission and I

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and I feel when I launched on my second

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mission in the Soyuz once we got into

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space I knew exactly how I felt so car

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now I know what cannot eat oh man we're

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doing this again but Gennady is up there

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I spent a lot of time he's where he's

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supposed to be he's an awesome space

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station commander now padalka not only a

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veteran on the international space

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station he actually flew on mir too so

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when he was there for your first flight

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water was was he a good mentor was he

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you know showing showing the ropes to

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the newbies was he great to have you

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know on that first he's the best to have

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he's the best newbie

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trainer Wrangler in the whole world he

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he had a lot of experience on Space

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Station Mir which was different than

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Space Station so we both learned station

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together but the whole business of

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living in space how to eat how to shave

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how to do all these things he showed me

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and then I tried to show it on to then

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my next cruise but the best if you're a

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new guy or gal gonna go fly in space the

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guy you want to fly with is gennady

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padalka he's the greatest obi-wan over

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so you went on to command expedition 18

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did you take any of those lessons with

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you

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absolutely I watched how Gennady shared

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a new flight with us me and CalPERS when

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we flew on the Soyuz how we adapted to

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flying in space and how to be efficient

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during during a mission

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so when gennady so when we got aboard

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for expedition 18 i tried to do what we

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you know what we can how'd he do that

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case and a little bracelet how do you go

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WW GD something like that I should have

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but all in Cyrillic of course so but no

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Gennady Gennady had a lot of patience

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and anytime I would mess up he just say

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don't do that again or something like

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that and it was it was great we shared a

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lot of experience space walking and

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Russian space suits so on expedition 18

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when we went out I went out with the or

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Elon checkoff who this was his first

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spacewalk and so I kind of tried to take

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the same role very respectfully because

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he was the lead spacewalker but I kind

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of showed him a few of the tricks that

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cannot he showed me so that's the nice

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thing is that you know gennady's legacy

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is spread out throughout the cosmonaut

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Corps and the astronaut corps and we

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actually have a really cool moment so

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you guys were back-to-back Space Station

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commanders you commanded 18 and then he

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came out and commanded 19 well what was

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that like for you oh man that was like

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the one of the deepest coolest moments

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of my space life yeah because it meant a

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lot to me I mean I was hoping that

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Gennady was proud of me I was hoping you

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know I show that I learned from him on

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expedition 9 how to be a good commander

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so that when we passed it on you know

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from expedition 18 to 19 I gave him a

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ship that was better than then we

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started with it was in shipshape it was

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clean everything was organized and

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and I knew that he and expedition 19 and

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then expedition 20 would be able to get

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their mission done a little bit better

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for the hard work that the expedition 18

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crew did and so padalka went on to

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command expedition 32 is commander right

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now on expedition 44 he's commended for

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Space Station expedition so he has more

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commands of the space station he now has

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more days in space all time than anybody

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what do you think his legacy is gonna be

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you know for the space station program

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and for human spaceflight in general

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that's a that's a great question I think

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on so many different levels so on one

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level on the personal level gennady has

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shown us that he can be a commander that

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brings out the best in people and how

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he's done that he's shared that now with

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four space station crews not to mention

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is his mere crew and I think that's

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that's helped us as Americans and his

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fellow professionals to you know to take

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notes from the gennady's playbook so

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that that's one legacy Gennady is also

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very good about understanding the

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importance of the International part of

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the International Space Station

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he he's definitely a man of planet Earth

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not just Russia Russian for Russia he's

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and he's taught us how to be thinking in

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literally the global big picture right

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so gennady's been very good about that

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and he represents I think some of the

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you know best of our our planet Earth

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and then finally I mean just being up

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there that long his medical data the the

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things that we're learning from him

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they're gonna help us you know on our

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journey to Mars right as as NASA as we

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as internationals partnerships go to

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Mars gennady's data will help us

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understand the effects of spaceflight

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for 800 and something days and everyday

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gennady's up there he's making a new

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record getting more data

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all right well again NASA astronaut Mike

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Fink our most veteran astronaut big

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congratulations to gennady padalka and

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breaking the record many assumed this

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might be his last flight you never know

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with him we'll see we have big

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congratulations and Mike thank you so

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much for joining me today I really