1
00:00:00,500 --> 00:00:20,360
\h        Music

2
00:00:20,360 --> 00:00:23,460
\h        SLATE: What inspired you to become an astronaut?

3
00:00:23,460 --> 00:00:27,040
\h        I think that it's probably characteristic of all the people in our office is that everybody had

4
00:00:27,040 --> 00:00:32,640
\h        pretty broad interests, kind of a career anxiety if you will that could only be solved in a

5
00:00:32,640 --> 00:00:37,030
\h        place that puts so many incredible things together. I think at one time I wanted to be an

6
00:00:37,030 --> 00:00:43,880
\h        astronomer, at another time, an oceanographer, another time a paleontologist and human

7
00:00:43,880 --> 00:00:48,030
\h        medicine, obviously, is what took me to medical school and guess what?

8
00:00:48,030 --> 00:00:52,760
\h        The space program puts that all together. As an astronaut you do Earth observation,

9
00:00:52,760 --> 00:00:57,730
\h        we do ocean science. I lived on an underwater habitat in my astronaut career and that’s

10
00:00:57,730 --> 00:01:00,840
\h        along with what happens to the human body in spaceflight,

11
00:01:00,840 --> 00:01:04,390
\h        obviously very near and dear to my heart. And just doing your normal mission specialist

12
00:01:04,390 --> 00:01:08,690
\h        duties on the space station. So, there's nothing that puts all those things that we love

13
00:01:08,690 --> 00:01:10,890
\h        together better than spaceflight.

14
00:01:10,890 --> 00:01:14,030
\h        SLATE: What was it like to spend 199 days in space?

15
00:01:14,030 --> 00:01:17,370
\h        Well, I loved it. I could sum it up that way, but I can tell you,

16
00:01:17,370 --> 00:01:22,870
\h        that was my first spaceflight and flying out of Baikonur Cosmodrome was pretty special.

17
00:01:22,870 --> 00:01:26,740
\h        I mean, I launched off the same pad that launched Yuri Gagarin and that's pretty neat.

18
00:01:26,740 --> 00:01:31,380
\h        I had a terrific crew. We got up there and the first look at the station was just

19
00:01:31,380 --> 00:01:36,110
\h        unbelievable. When you open the hatch and see how big it is, that's going to be my home

20
00:01:36,110 --> 00:01:39,810
\h        for the next six-and-a-half months, that's pretty overwhelming and it did take me awhile

21
00:01:39,810 --> 00:01:44,450
\h        to get used to navigating around in zero gravity and doing my work and learning how to

22
00:01:44,450 --> 00:01:50,960
\h        work the timeline, work with the ground, find things, not lose things in zero gravity. I

23
00:01:50,960 --> 00:01:55,420
\h        think probably a few weeks into it, I really felt like I was hitting my stride and then I

24
00:01:55,420 --> 00:02:00,480
\h        really, really enjoyed it. I can tell you that as tightly attached as I am to my family,

25
00:02:00,480 --> 00:02:02,890
\h        at the end of six-and-a-half months, I didn't really want to leave,

26
00:02:02,890 --> 00:02:05,720
\h        so it was an incredible experience.

27
00:02:05,720 --> 00:02:08,800
\h        SLATE: What are the differences between launching on a shuttle and a Russian Soyuz?

28
00:02:08,800 --> 00:02:11,370
\h        Well the differences between the Soyuz and the shuttle are huge.

29
00:02:11,370 --> 00:02:15,940
\h        The mission statements of each vehicle are quite different. The Soyuz, I like to think of as

30
00:02:15,940 --> 00:02:19,860
\h        a commuter rocket that takes three people to work. And you park it.

31
00:02:19,860 --> 00:02:23,700
\h        Park it for six months. And then at the end of six months you turn the key and it goes and

32
00:02:23,700 --> 00:02:29,230
\h        you come home. Whereas the shuttle delivers a load, a big load, to the space station.

33
00:02:29,230 --> 00:02:35,050
\h        It's designed to carry those loads and up to seven people and, of course, bring back large

34
00:02:35,050 --> 00:02:39,510
\h        amounts of pressurized cargo as well. Both vehicles do their job very nicely,

35
00:02:39,510 --> 00:02:43,480
\h        but obviously you have very, very different launch profiles, very different launch

36
00:02:43,480 --> 00:02:45,150
\h        experience with each of them.

37
00:02:45,150 --> 00:02:49,240
\h        With the Soyuz, it's all-liquid boosters, it's a very gentle ascent.

38
00:02:49,240 --> 00:02:54,330
\h        It's hard almost to know that you've even left the pad because you have the shaking as the

39
00:02:54,330 --> 00:02:58,490
\h        engines spool up and you really don't feel a difference when you leave the pad.

40
00:02:58,490 --> 00:03:02,430
\h        You only know that from your clock that starts with your ascent indicators.

41
00:03:02,430 --> 00:03:07,350
\h        With the shuttle there is no doubt. The main engines start and in about five seconds those

42
00:03:07,350 --> 00:03:13,050
\h        things kind of spool up. You feel the orbiter shake and creak and groan and tilt a little bit

43
00:03:13,050 --> 00:03:15,710
\h        on the launch pad and you know it's getting ready to do something,

44
00:03:15,710 --> 00:03:20,020
\h        but when those solids light, there is no question, that is the moment you have left the

45
00:03:20,020 --> 00:03:25,880
\h        planet and you are starting to scream toward space. So, very exciting ascent on the shuttle

46
00:03:25,880 --> 00:03:27,190
\h        I would say.

47
00:03:27,190 --> 00:03:30,220
\h        Now landing, I would say, is much more exciting on the Soyuz.

48
00:03:30,220 --> 00:03:34,090
\h        The shuttle of course lands like an airplane, the Soyuz hits the ground with a parachute

49
00:03:34,090 --> 00:03:36,400
\h        descent.

50
00:03:36,400 --> 00:03:39,020
\h        SLATE: What happened during STS-133?

51
00:03:39,020 --> 00:03:43,440
\h        Well the time went by in the blink of an eye. What I can say, as an astronaut you look for

52
00:03:43,440 --> 00:03:48,090
\h        certain kinds of space activities that are just really exciting, I mean, everybody loves to

53
00:03:48,090 --> 00:03:52,340
\h        do robotics and spacewalks, the docking and rendezvous, the dynamics of flight,

54
00:03:52,340 --> 00:03:56,920
\h        if you will. And 133 put a lot of those in a very short timeline, so everything that really

55
00:03:56,920 --> 00:04:01,700
\h        makes spaceflight wonderful for an astronaut, we had compressed into this 13-day flight

56
00:04:01,700 --> 00:04:05,370
\h        for us. So, of course, we had Discovery with us for this final flight,

57
00:04:05,370 --> 00:04:10,630
\h        we did the docking, the rendezvous. Two spacewalks and a lot of outfitting of that new

58
00:04:10,630 --> 00:04:14,540
\h        module that we put up there and a lot of science. We transferred cargo back and forth.

59
00:04:14,540 --> 00:04:19,220
\h        So you're always busy doing something dynamic, something different every day so it was

60
00:04:19,220 --> 00:04:21,230
\h        really magnificent.

61
00:04:21,230 --> 00:04:24,310
\h        SLATE: What was spacewalking like?

62
00:04:24,310 --> 00:04:28,870
\h        I think a spacewalk is where the rubber meets the road for an astronaut.

63
00:04:28,870 --> 00:04:33,800
\h        It's the closest you can be to the space environment and it's just an amazing thing.

64
00:04:33,800 --> 00:04:39,590
\h        I think all of us are glued to the windows whenever we can. We look at the Earth,

65
00:04:39,590 --> 00:04:44,570
\h        we look at our station and we look at the stars and whatnot and that view is just

66
00:04:44,570 --> 00:04:50,540
\h        incredible. But when you get outside the ship, when you are just out there in your

67
00:04:50,540 --> 00:04:55,530
\h        spacesuit and you have a big, wide-view helmet, then it's almost overwhelming.

68
00:04:55,530 --> 00:04:58,830
\h        Seeing the Earth below you much more panoramically,

69
00:04:58,830 --> 00:05:03,120
\h        seeing the station around you is just amazing.

70
00:05:03,120 --> 00:05:06,340
\h        SLATE: What was it like to be part of Discovery's final mission?

71
00:05:06,340 --> 00:05:12,320
\h        Well it was an incredible honor. I was assigned to this flight while I was still flying my

72
00:05:12,320 --> 00:05:17,370
\h        long-duration flight, so that was a shock and a surprise.

73
00:05:17,370 --> 00:05:21,610
\h        I thought that the door to shuttle flights had slammed shut quite a bit before even I

74
00:05:21,610 --> 00:05:26,680
\h        launched. So out of the blue comes this opportunity to fly on one of the few shuttle

75
00:05:26,680 --> 00:05:31,610
\h        flights. I was incredibly honored for that. I landed and they said, OK,

76
00:05:31,610 --> 00:05:35,050
\h        you're behind in your training schedule already, you better get to work.

77
00:05:35,050 --> 00:05:39,660
\h         Fortunately the crew that I was training with, the 133 crew with Steve Lindsey as

78
00:05:39,660 --> 00:05:43,150
\h        commander and the rest, all my classmates from the class of 2000,

79
00:05:43,150 --> 00:05:48,120
\h        the crew was fantastic, and I think the training flow was just a lot of fun.

80
00:05:48,120 --> 00:05:51,930
\h        SLATE: What went through your mind when you landed at the end of Discovery's mission?

81
00:05:51,930 --> 00:05:54,840
\h        When we fly, even when we know it's the final mission of our orbiter,

82
00:05:54,840 --> 00:06:00,020
\h        in this case Discovery, overwhelmingly our thoughts are on our mission.

83
00:06:00,020 --> 00:06:05,390
\h        Our job is to execute our timeline, to do it as accurately and as on-time as possible

84
00:06:05,390 --> 00:06:08,740
\h        and that's pretty much where your head is. We definitely were asked a few times

85
00:06:08,740 --> 00:06:12,250
\h        on the flight about the legacy of Discovery and the shuttle program

86
00:06:12,250 --> 00:06:15,280
\h        and of course we would turn our thoughts to that for a moment,

87
00:06:15,280 --> 00:06:20,960
\h         but it's only when you successfully land, after wheels stop, that two things happen.

88
00:06:20,960 --> 00:06:25,190
\h        One, you can reflect back on your mission that was successful, safely done,

89
00:06:25,190 --> 00:06:28,060
\h         the vehicle was incredibly clean. But the other thing is that,

90
00:06:28,060 --> 00:06:31,970
\h        now you realize it's the last flight, and now you're turning the ship

91
00:06:31,970 --> 00:06:35,170
\h        back into the hands of the people who have cared for her for so many years

92
00:06:35,170 --> 00:06:38,400
\h        and back into this facility that's taken care of her and that's when it really hits you

93
00:06:38,400 --> 00:06:41,740
\h        that it's the final flight and you're taking this magnificent spaceship

94
00:06:41,740 --> 00:06:42,940
\h        and she's being retired.