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station houston on space for ground two

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we're ready for the event houston

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bbc in the live stargazing series this

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is houston please call station for a

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station this is bbc live stargazing

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and bbc we've got you loud and clear

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welcome aboard the international space

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well thank you commander the wheelock

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flight engineer scott kelly and flight

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engineer dr shannon walker thank you for

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speaking to us today um where are you

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flying over right now and how is the

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well the views are always spectacular

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and we're just coming down on a

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descending node right around vancouver

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and how long does it take you to

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we're traveling at 17 500 miles per hour

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about 28 000 kilometers

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per hour

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and so we orbit the earth once every 90

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and uh colonel willock you're commanding

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iss expedition 25 what will be the

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well probably the biggest highlight is

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uh our crew is finally here that to

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compliment us and complete our crew

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for our uh the rest of our journey here

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and um our highlight is really full

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utilization of the space station as an

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orbiting laboratory

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we've got uh several laboratories on

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board over 130 science experiments going

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on and we're very excited about getting

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yes uh dr walker i heard you actually

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talking down to houston before we we

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linked up and you were talking about um

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where to put sample bottles i think it

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was could you tell me a little bit about

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what scientific experiments you plan to

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do when you're on board the space

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we've got a number of scientific

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experiments from just about every

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scientific field from material science

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to

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biology and human physiology and so a

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lot of what i'm doing actually is the

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human physiology size where i'm using

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myself as a i'm being used as a test

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subject to study some of the effects of

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yeah and uh scott kelly i know that one

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of the highlights when you're up there

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or i suppose it's i don't know what to

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call it a highlight would be the last

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visit of the space shuttle to the

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station i think your brother is flying

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the space shuttle endeavour up there

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yeah that's correct uh my brother will

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be the the commander of uh space shuttle

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mission that actually brings the alpha

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magnetic spectrometer

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to the international space station which

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is a very uh

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for the last time will you be sad to see

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well you know i think

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most astronauts feel a little bit uh

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you know nostalgic when we think about

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these uh space shuttles that have been

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really um

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significant part of our space program

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but you know if we're going to move on

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uh beyond low earth orbit uh we need to

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build another vehicle because the space

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shuttle can't go there so it's you know

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something that

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that we might feel a little bit sad

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about but at the same time we understand

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yeah how is it i think

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have you all flown on the soyuz and the

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shuttle i wondered how those vehicles

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felt you know how different they are to

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to get into space and come back to earth

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you know um

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both uh doug and i have flown on both

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the the shuttle and the soyuz and this

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is shannon's first flight and she's

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flown up on the on the soyuz neither of

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nor doug or i have flown down so

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um

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you know the the space shuttle is a uh

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you know multi-mission spacecraft that

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can do a lot of things um

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a lot of different types of missions

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it's very complicated

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uh the soyuz is uh you know much simpler

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and it does

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a few things very very well one of which

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is getting people to and from space

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um

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it's uh

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you know much different in how it flies

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how it launches it's more you know it's

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a rocket that's uh or a capsule that's

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on the top of a rocket versus on the

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side

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the shuttle reenters and lands

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in a gliding fashion whereas the soyuz

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lands on land under parachutes so it's a

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much

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their uh advantages and both also have

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some uh small disadvantages

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yeah

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you know you know i am envy you all uh a

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lot i mean i remember the the first

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shuttle flight back in 81 and i remember

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i actually read recently that john young

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when he landed uh columbia turned to bob

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crippen and said you know bob

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we're really not that far away from the

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stars and i thought that reflected

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beautifully that the optimism in the in

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the 80s you know 20 years after gagarin

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first launched into space and here is

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this beautiful aircraft flying into

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space and back again do you think that

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we are closer to the stars now than we

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were in the in the early 80s when the

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um yes i believe that we are in uh and

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actually that's that's part of the the

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next the next uh

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chapter in this in this story that nasa

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is writing uh just being able to look

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forward now

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uh using what research we're doing doing

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here on the space station uh to project

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ourselves further out into our solar

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system uh to try to discover new things

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about these materials about new vehicles

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uh propulsion systems

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uh life support systems and things like

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that and so and so we're looking beyond

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and

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yeah i i wonder if you know if we had a

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a kennedy today a kennedy-like speech

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that said you know we choose to go to

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mars before this decade is out uh do you

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think that we've been a position to do

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that do we know enough to to make that

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next great leap into the solar system

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you know i think there are certain

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things we're learning on the the

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space station here that particularly

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with regards to

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you know how humans

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react and how they can be protected

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against long-duration space flight so i

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think we do have a little bit more to

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learn we're also learning a lot about

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how to operate systems

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um

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life support systems other systems here

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that are required for long duration

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uh long distance space flight so you

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know this is a laboratory that does many

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things and that's one of them

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you know someday when we do go to mars

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the things we learn here on the

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international space station will be uh

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critical to that effort

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you know however

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you know if we had a lot of money to

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throw at it i i think

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and i'm somewhat of an optimist that uh

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you know anything is within our our

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grasp and i think we could

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um you know go to mars just like we went

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to the moon in a very short period of

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time

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in the 1960s so i think it is within our

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capability to do that if we if we chose

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and and what would you say to people who

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may not see that the value of of manned

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space flight of manned exploration now

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how would you uh from from that

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wonderful view up there i mean you're at

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the frontier at the moment of of our

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well you're at the human from sphere

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what about people who don't think that

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well i think

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one thing that's important to get across

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is how human exploration of space has

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touched everybody's live lives on the

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earth there are so many spin-offs and

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technological developments that have

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come out of the space program and the

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human space flight program in particular

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so even though they may not see a direct

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connection there are a lot of things

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that

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have made life on earth a whole lot

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better and we need to bring that out so

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they can understand that it is important

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it is a very important

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scientific endeavor it's a very

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important technological endeavor and

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it's a very important human endeavor

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because as humans we need to keep moving

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forward as a society and not stagnate so

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we need to uh keep pushing the

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yeah you know i couldn't agree with you

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more uh dr walker and i know that you

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managed to co-manage nasa's on orbit

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engineering office for for a while i

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mean i suppose those are the skills that

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we've developed in building the space

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station those are the skills we will

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need to fly beyond near earth orbit in

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exactly um one of the the key things is

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learning how to deal with problems

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because things always um

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well a lot of things go wrong things

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don't go as planned and you've got to be

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able to deal with them

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expeditiously and in whatever manner you

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have you don't always have all the tools

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on board that you need or would like to

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have to solve problems and so being able

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to

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yes because it's uh

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interesting that i'm really looking

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forward to the next miles mission which

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is the the curiosity rover which is

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going to go out there and search for

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life on mars

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do you see that program those robotic

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exploration programs hopefully as

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precursors for the manned landing and

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i think the robotic exploration that

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we're doing is very important and

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i think it's also

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important to not frame

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the exploration um

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i guess debate of whether or not we

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should do it is human exploration versus

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robotic exploration because

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both sides of the equation have

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definite advantages and yes we do need

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to send robotic explorers out there

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we've learned so much from all our

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rovers and all our probes that have gone

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to the other planets

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but we also need to send people there as

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well to look and see with our own eyes

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and could i ask you dr walker is this

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yes this is this is my first trip into

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and then i know that you worked um i was

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looking through your your biography you

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worked on an awful lot of space shuttle

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missions as a flight controller um

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how how does it feel to make that leap

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from being involved in the space program

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on the ground to actually

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getting into earth orbit and looking

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it was a very interesting transition

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going from operations and then into the

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engineering side the problem solving so

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i saw a completely different side of the

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hardware and then on

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being as an astronaut back on the

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operations side so i've

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done a lot of things but it's been

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absolutely fantastic to actually

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be up here and

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live and work on the laboratory that i

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spent so much of my life uh helping to

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and uh kind of wheeler i know that

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you're a very experienced aviator i

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think that i read you've flown almost 50

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different aircraft in in your time but i

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i have to ask you because my growing up

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my um view of the space program i was

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born in 1968 it was really the old right

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stuff days you know jaeger and the

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mercury seven astronauts i mean today is

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it becoming more routine or is this

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still that element of the right stuff

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well i think it's uh i think it's

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becoming more of an uh an attainable

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dream for young our young

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people and ours our young students

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uh when i was i was nine when we landed

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men on the moon

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and apollo 11 and uh and i remember

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those days and i was i felt like such an

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ordinary kid from such an ordinary

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little place that uh that that dream of

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being an astronaut was way too big for

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me

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and um

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and of course i i never you know

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projecting myself out 30 or 40 years i

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never dreamed that i would be here

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um and i think that's uh uh that over

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time that's a disservice we've done to

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uh some of our our our youth and i think

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we're getting better with that that it's

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uh it's uh people are realizing that it

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really is just taking ordinary people

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with the with an extraordinary dream

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that uh to come together to solve these

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problems uh to work together to move

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forward and

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and i think there are there's uh more of

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our society and more of our young people

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a larger segment that uh really is

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beginning to believe in themselves and

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believe in their in this program

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and in uh space exploration

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in that this type of dream is attainable

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for them so i think it's i think things

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yeah you know i couldn't agree more i do

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think the space program is the the

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the ultimate human achievement i i

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genuinely do because it is still

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difficult isn't it i mean

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i know that you guys with your

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professionalism are given the appearance

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of it being routine a routine thing to

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get into orbit and come back to earth

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again safely but it how difficult is it

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up there you know how difficult is it to

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deal with problems and

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and fly that

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beautiful aircraft back to earth which i

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well actually it's it's i'm smiling

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because it's it's a lot of fun and and

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uh

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always has a surprise waiting around

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every corner for us and um of course you

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may have followed the pump module uh

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um

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uh situation that we had back in the end

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of july when we had to do those three

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emergency uh our contingency spacewalks

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uh to get that pump module replaced and

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um it's just interesting um the the

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things that happened up here because of

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uh the exposure to radiation longer long

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term uh exposure to radiation uh the the

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heating and cooling of this vehicle and

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everything that's outside because we're

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orbiting the earth once every 90 minutes

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every every 45 minutes we're getting a

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sunrise or a sunset and then direct

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sunlight we're seeing temperatures

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anywhere between 250 and 300 degrees

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fahrenheit

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and then when we go into eclipse on the

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backside of the earth the temperatures

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can plummet to

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275 300 degrees below zero and so when

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you have mechanical systems and and

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pieces of hardware that are experiencing

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that type of heating and cooling uh

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things go wrong and things don't act as

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they should and

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and so it's it's very very interesting

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and it's it's a it's a wonderful

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wonderful place

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for a problem-solving mind and because

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it never ceases to uh to disappoint us

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with the uh with the situations that

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and if you refer to spacewalks there i

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mean are they genuinely a different

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feeling from being inside the shuttle or

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inside the space station do you really

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feel that

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you know a closer connection i suppose

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with the earth floating down there below

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you really do there's a

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the the gains get cranked up quite a bit

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when you open that hatch and the only

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thing uh between you and the vacuum of

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space is that thin visor

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uh it's a it's a real eye-opening

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experience and it takes a little bit of

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time to kind of get your mind around it

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and i don't know if i suppose that it

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you never really do

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quite

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how profound it is what you're doing

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so it takes a little bit more focus when

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you're outside and of course it uh

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it's the most encouraging part of doing

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a spacewalk is knowing

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uh that you've got a team of people

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behind you and you can hear them in your

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headset and that's very very comforting

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because

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well station we've run out of time but

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it was a real pleasure talking to you

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all thank you i think you are genuinely

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well thank you very much for joining us

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and uh it's a real pleasure for us to

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talk to you today

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perfect

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station this is houston acr that

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thank you bbc live stargazing series