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it's not a news you want to be loved by

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anyone

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it's not unused you want to be sad with

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anyone

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but if i ever find that you changed at

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good morning endeavor from the planning

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shift it's great to be with you

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we're also known now as the atlas flight

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as you know paul hill is our planning

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shift flight director and this is his

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first official mission and earlier today

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good morning houston and good morning

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dr thomas will you will be the seventh

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and final u.s astronaut to live on the

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russian space station in view of the

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well-publicized mishaps with the aging

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space station last year are you in any

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way apprehensive about the next four and

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uh no not really i don't think that

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there's

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safety issues that i need to be

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concerned about i think the russians

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have done a very good job of stabilizing

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the situation on mir following some very

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serious situations last year

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my concern more is just learning to live

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and function for a long time on a

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day-to-day basis in conditions which at

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times might be difficult it might be

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difficult temperatures and

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hard work and so on and i think those

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are the more realistic concerns that i

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have

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dr thomas we should point out is an

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australian native who has undergone

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training at the gagarin cosmonaut

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training center in russia how is your

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well it's better than i ever thought it

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would be then again i thought i would

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never need to learn russian

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i enjoy learning it i wish it was a

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little better i don't have the

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spontaneity of language that i have

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obviously with english but

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i think i can communicate and i can

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understand what's being said and that's

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the important thing

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you've also worked in in your career at

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the jet propulsion laboratory do you

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have any messages you want to say hello

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oh yeah i still have a lot of friends

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there it's a number of years since i

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worked there

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but i enjoyed the time i had there very

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much it was a fascinating place to work

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and a wonderful place to live and uh i

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hope the people there are watching this

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flight unfold

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very well sir commanding the mission is

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marine lieutenant colonel terence

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wilcott colonel this is your third

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shuttle mission you've already logged to

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more than 500 hours in space it's a

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little different than flying combat

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yes quite a bit as a matter of fact we

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don't have anything on here to do any

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combat with thank goodness

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and uh we'll hope that it continues that

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way is it still as thrilling as it must

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absolutely you can't i think story

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musgrave

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put it right when he said that he hated

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asset but he loved being in space it's

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it's definitely a thrill and i think we

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all

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view assen as

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something we have to go through to get

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into space where we do our work

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this is air force major michael

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anderson's first shuttle mission uh

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major describe the liftoff for us and

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tell us how it was to to lift off and

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well actually i was pretty surprised by

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the launch it was a lot smoother than i

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had expected there was a little bit of

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noise a little bit of vibration but not

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nearly as much as i had expected from

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watching launches from outside the space

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shuttle overall it went by pretty

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quickly and uh it was a real nice ride

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um getting up on space we had about five

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hours before we had to prepare to go to

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bed it was a real busy five hours and as

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you can imagine when it was time to go

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to bed it was very difficult to do

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but i grabbed myself a bite to eat and

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sat in the commander's chair and looked

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out the window and watched the world go

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by and eventually managed to catch a few

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hours of sleep

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also on board his cosmonaut salazan

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sharapov uh cosmetic is this your first

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trip into space and then what are your

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my presence is very great

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because

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it's very interesting work with

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my american colleagues and

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in every step every day every hour

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i see that american authors can work

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hard and they always

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show me that americans the best than

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i want to say that

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russians the same

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do you speak better english than dr

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i believe sir

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we'd like to go back to colonel wilcott

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now colonel you're 48 years old older

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than the others on the flight i believe

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but you were just a kid when john glenn

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made his first space flight how do you

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feel about having him back in the

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i think it's great that i would love to

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fly with him

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he was at the uh the launch last night

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no i have met senator glenn before uh

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when he came to houston and received a

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lot of briefs on the science that we do

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on the shuttle that he and he took that

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information back to washington to share

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with the other senators

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so i've met him he's a very fine and

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distinguished gentleman

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although it's been said that sending

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john glenn back into space is not an

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effort to give the u.s space program a

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i think so uh

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literally 100 of the people i've talked

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to think it's a good idea so i think

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that but you know nasa we're on sort of

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a role anyway we've had with the mars

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exploration the shuttle science the mir

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program the international space station

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uh getting ready to crank up so i don't

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think that we really needed the boost

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but uh flying serger glenn if that gave

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us one then i'm glad to get that one too

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briefly can you give us an idea of what

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some of the supplies are that you have

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on board that you'll be taking to the

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well i'm one of them actually i'm one of

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the main things that they're going to

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transfer to mia and i'll be on mir for

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uh four months so to support me in that

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period

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uh they're taking obviously a lot of

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food a lot of water clothing some

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equipment that i'll need uh on mir uh to

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operate

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with the russian systems but also uh a

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suite of experiments that i'll be

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operating during my time on mir since

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that's one of the main functions that

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i'll have while i'm up there

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the sight of earth from from space uh

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we've seen pictures and we know

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something of what it looks like but

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still nothing of what it feels what did

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well it's breathtaking uh pitchers don't

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do justice to lay the earth looks uh

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with your own eyes from this vantage

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point you know it's just a beautiful

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place it's just a wonderful creation and

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that when i first got my glimpse of

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earth from up here it is just

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impossible to describe it's a fantastic

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view

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not i imagine not many um

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african-american youngsters when you

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were a child actually aspired to

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to space travel or space work um how did

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you come upon this desire this

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well you know i think for me it was a

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combination of a number of things my

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father was in the air force so my

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exposure was to a lot of

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high-tech things a lot of airplanes and

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a lot of the gadgetry that the air force

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had at the time

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and also just a uh an interest in

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science fiction i was a big science

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fiction fan as a kid i watched all kind

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of television shows like lost in space

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and star trek and i think just from

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watching those shows and seeing what

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those people are doing and from going to

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work with my dad and seeing what he did

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just kind of developed a natural

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interest in me to want to do something

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like that

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wonderful commander wilcott this is of

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course the third space mission for you

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does it get

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repetitive for you or does the

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we only get to do this about every

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year and a half

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if you're lucky enough to do that and so

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it certainly never gets repetitive it's

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exciting every single time

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and how did you come to the space

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well uh

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sort of the same way i also i guess was

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always interested in uh in space just

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from the uh the science fiction the

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movies whatever but i was nearing my the

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end of my tour as a test pilot and i was

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thinking about what i wanted to do next

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a good friend of mine that was already

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in the astronaut program

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asked me if i would be interested in

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that and it seemed like a way to

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continue

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uh really the work that you do as a test

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pilot and you get to work with a lot of

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very very bright young engineers and

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scientists and and so it seemed like

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something i'd be interested in

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dr andy thomas you're uh

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as i understand it the last person the

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shuttle will deliver to the space

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station mirror before the construction

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begins on the on the new international

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space station what exactly will you do

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or will be doing between now and then to

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prepare for the construction uh of uh

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well you're correct i will be the last

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u.s representative on the mere space

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station following six predecessors who

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have

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all done very good jobs under some

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sometimes very trying circumstances i'll

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be spending my time on the mere space

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station

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uh

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running a suite of experiments that are

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from u.s sponsorship uh looking at the

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effect mostly of long-duration space

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flight on

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the behavior of the human body

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and i'll also be supporting the

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cosmonauts in operating and maintaining

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the space station and

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keeping it flying so i expected to be uh

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pretty busy during my time there and

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that kind of experience obviously is

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going to feed directly into the

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international space station because it's

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going to give us guidance on how you

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should operate one of these large

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orbiting vehicles

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major anderson back to you again if

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there is one space mission either

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conceived or yet not conceived that

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you'd like to be on

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and you'd like to be a part of what

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i think that's an easy question for me i

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always thought it'd be nice to uh to go

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to mars and that's something that i

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think the space program is going to be

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looking uh rather closely at very soon

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here and that's something that i think

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every astronaut in the program would

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really like to be a part of you know a

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trip to another planet to explore that

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planet and see what's out there is