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flight controllers here in the payload

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operations integration center work with

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crew members every day to make science

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happen now most of the time that's just

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for a six month mission and then a new

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crew arrives well we wondered what it's

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been like to work with a crew member for

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an entire year apparently communication

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is the key one of our payload

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communicators samantha harris joins me

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now samantha you're one of the handful

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of people in this room that actually

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gets to speak to the astronauts directly

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tell us about that yeah so i am a pacom

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or payload communications manager which

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means it's my job to manage all of the

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written and verbal communication between

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the payload operation integration center

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here in huntsville alabama and the

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astronaut crew onboard the space station

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i'm sure you build relationships with

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them even before they launch with

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training but i'm curious if this

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one-year mission has really been

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different for you guys

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uh yes it has been actually different in

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a lot of interesting ways so a lot of

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the time when we work with crew members

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for less periods of time

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sometimes we'll let things go things

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that normally

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for a shorter duration of time might not

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end up being issues because we know that

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we're not going to be working with that

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crew member for a prolonged period of

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time

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but with someone like scott kelly who we

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know is going to be up there for a year

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we want to correct these issues because

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we know that it's going to be a longer

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duration relationship

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and so scott wants these things

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corrected and we on the ground want

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these kinds of things corrected as well

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so that's been an interesting aspect of

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working with a crew member for a longer

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period of time pretty much like working

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here on the ground with everyone else

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i'm sure there's also a psychological

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aspect

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to to this as well and and you guys do

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become kind of like family i guess

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yes that's true so we get to interact

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with them a little bit while they're on

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the ground and then when they fly

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we know that scott's been going through

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some difficult things on orbit trying to

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live up there for a year

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apart from everybody on the ground and

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so trying to help him get through that

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to build that trust with him is one of

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the few voices that he hears on a

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regular basis i'm trying to build that

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trust and we're trying to get

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we're trying to learn more from this

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one-year mission to to get to somewhere

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like mars yes exactly so one of the

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biggest things we're trying to do is

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learn more about the psychological

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aspects of living in space for prolonged

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periods of time

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and so there are a lot of aspects to

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that so things like learning how perhaps

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having plants on board the space station

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with our veggie experiment

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being able to eat fresh food and have

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flowers growing in space can impact the

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psychological

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elements and the mood of our crew

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members

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also things like comfort food so we have

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an experiment called astro palette

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learning how crew members how their mood

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is impacted by having things like

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comfort food available on orbit

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and a lot more science to come even

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though he's coming home in two weeks

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we'll learn a lot more about what you

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guys have been working on for the past

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year probably in the next year or two

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yes that's true a lot about all kinds of

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different things and again also our

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habitability experiment so learning how

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to better design vehicles for the future

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that can help our crew members to be

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more effective and efficient as they

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live in space for longer periods of time

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and i'm sure you have plenty of stories