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the fairly veteran crew getting ready to

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lift off tomorrow among them nasa

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astronaut tim kopra who's going to be

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making his second trip into space i

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previously flew to the international

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space station on shuttle mission

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sts-127 back in july of 2009 and spent

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two months on board as a crew member of

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expedition 20.

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just before he left the gagarin

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cosmonaut training center in star city

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russia

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late last month uh headed down to

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baikonur in order to prepare for his

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first launch on a soyuz spacecraft he

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talked about the upcoming mission with

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my colleague pat ryan saying he was very

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confident and the crew is ready for its

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six-month mission

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we are a hundred percent ready we've

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spent a lot of time getting ready for

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this mission and uh and frankly there's

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the two two and a half years of training

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for this mission but uh there's lots of

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training that we do even before this in

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terms of space station systems learning

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how to do space walks and do the

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robotics operations so it's a

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culmination of a lot of hard work

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was it much different from the training

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it's quite a bit different you know

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in lots of respects one is that uh over

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time we've gotten much much better in uh

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training crew members for space station

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in every respect in terms of the systems

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on board and finding the right level of

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training that we need but also in terms

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of how efficient and how effective we

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are in training for the emergencies that

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could happen on board we've done a great

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job of that that's a big difference the

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second big difference is the fact that

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uh we're going up and down on soyuz now

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and last time i was a space station crew

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member while i was on board and was

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trained for uh emergency descent whereas

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this time we go up and down i have a

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very active role as a left-seeder in the

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soyuz and so i've spent probably half of

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my time here over the last couple years

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uh being able to to work closely with

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yuri malenchenko and tim peake as uh the

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left cedar and uh it's much different

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it's a much higher bar in terms of the

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expectations but uh but we're ready

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i was going to ask whether or not you're

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excited about having a different ride to

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the station this time

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i am really excited you know i i truly

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respect the soyuz space vehicle it's is

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a very safe vehicle it protects us

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through the entire flight envelope and

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it hasn't always been that way it's not

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the way the shuttle was you know we know

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that uh even if we have anomalies going

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uphill to space station that we'll be in

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a safe place and so uh yeah it's a

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pretty exciting thing

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talk me through what happens then on on

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soyuz launch day what is it like for you

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it's a very methodical approach and um

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the russian space agency has been doing

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this for a very long time and uh we

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experienced this as the backup crew

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watching the prime crew go through the

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flow all the way up and to get into the

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vehicle and then launching and so

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having watched that essentially it's

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like being a dress rehearsal for us

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having gone through the backup flow and

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what that entails is on the day of

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launch they wake us up you have a

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breakfast you go to a suit up room you

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make sure that your suit is pressure

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tight you get into the vehicle you do

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your preparational checks they close the

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hatch and then you launch and so

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it's nice having gone through that and

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it's very methodical and well thought

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out plenty of time

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and uh we'll be looking forward to that

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that uh ignition

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as you look ahead to to your time on

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orbit uh is there anything special

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you're looking forward to a space walks

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you know uh we may do some spacewalks on

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board you never 100 know until you get

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there because there's lots of dynamics

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with human spaceflight there's different

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cargo vehicles come up and uh equipment

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on board that's outside tends to break

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on occasion that needs to get repaired

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if we have the opportunity to do a

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spacewalk i think it's icing on the cake

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for a mission

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but you know our primary job in addition

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to that maintenance is to be the

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scientist on board we're a scientist

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we're a lab technician and sometimes

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we're the the experiment and uh i think

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all of us feel very honored to be able

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to participate in that

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are you planning to

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to to share the mission on social media

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channels that that some crewmates have

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been using

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absolutely i look forward to be able to

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send my best pictures down on twitter

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and uh i hope that i get better and

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better with my photography and so i can

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really send some great photos it's a

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it's not just a

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an honor but maybe even a responsibility

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i think to share our experience on board

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and i noticed last time

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i liked taking pictures before i like

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photography but i became quite the

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enthusiast because the subject matter is

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just tremendous both the internal

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portion of space station but also our

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beautiful planet so i look forward to

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taking those pictures and sending them

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down

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you're going to be seven months or more

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before you get back home here to houston

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by the time you finish this mission

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tell me why what we're doing on this

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space station is worth making that kind

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you know frankly i wouldn't consider our

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time on board a sacrifice i really

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consider it a privilege because all of

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us are very very passionate about human

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space flight and uh to be able to

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participate and actually be actively

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involved in it in this capacity is just

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a tremendous honor in terms of what

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we're benefiting from the space station

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the space station now is an orbiting

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laboratory and it is fully engaged and

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there are several different areas in

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which we're learning

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very very important things the one

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that's closest

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to my heart is learning what it takes

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for us to expand our ability to to be in

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space and so we're learning about what

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zero gravity does to the human body and

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it's very very important science also

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space station itself in my opinion is an

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experiment

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onto itself because we're learning about

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the systems that are on board

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that are required to both work and live

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in space and that's very very important

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and then lastly there's

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a tremendous level of

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benefit from the basic research that

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we're doing on board

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there's are certain areas especially in

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the area of biology that

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is different in zero gravity and we can

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learn a tremendous amount from this

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laboratory

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also there's combustion science and

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fluid flow these are basic science areas

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in which we're going to improve our

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knowledge base and they'll have benefits

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to us here on planet earth someday

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tim thanks for the talk

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have a safe trip and have a good time on