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station this is houston are you ready

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houston

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space station here

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and houston chronicle this is mission

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control houston please go ahead and call

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okay this is eric berger

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eric berger mike fossum with you loud

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and clear hey mike good morning how are

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hey i'm living the dream how about you

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well i'm not quite that high but i in

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space but i appreciate that so i want to

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start with an important question mike

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your twitter your twitter handle is

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aggie or astro aggie and so i know

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you're a big fan

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but your aggies have blown three second

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half double digit leads this year

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absolutely not he's doing a great job

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when you're when you're just a handful

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of points away from

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from uh you know three wins you know a

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lot of things are going right

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talk about the technology that you have

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in space uh to be able to watch football

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games is it something that has to be

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uploaded to you or are you able to watch

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the games when you have some time off

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there's several different ways of doing

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it one is they can send it up live if

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it's on television and readily available

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they can ship it up uh when we have the

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right kind of satellite coverage up here

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and we've watched a little bit that way

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we've catch some news sometimes

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certainly the big events we watched the

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progress launch live a few days ago and

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we look forward to watching a soyuz

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launch live

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in another week and a half

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for games and special things like that

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of interest for us they they turn those

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into video files and uplink them for us

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so we can watch those uh later at our

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own time i i for me i get some

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television shows set up as well as aggie

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aggie games and uh

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church sermons from my church in houston

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okay

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uh

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you've been up in space for a while now

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what what what do you miss most about

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well gee i really missed not being home

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for the summer this year

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sorry

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uh one of the benefits of this

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particular uh

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schedule has been missing out on an

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entire summer we went over to uh to

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russia while it was still a little bit

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cool in houston area late last or last

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spring

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to go through the final preparations

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what i miss the most of course is my

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family my wife and my kids and my

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granddaughter who i can't wait to see in

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a few weeks

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yeah you missed the hottest and driest

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summer on record here in the state so i

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don't think you have a lawn anymore i'm

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i'm i'm sure that's true my family has

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intentionally not sent any pictures to

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me

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so you've had an interesting rotation

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with the the progress launch problems

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has it been challenging going back to a

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three person crew on the station after

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there's pluses and minuses associated

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with it uh certainly it's uh it's very

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busy uh because the station requires a

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certain amount of care and feeding uh

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once you take care of the care and

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feeding which is mandatory then you get

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the science and i know that's not our

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priority but the fact is you have to

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clean the things replace things uh stuff

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like that and so we've had our hands

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full uh keeping the science load moving

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forward and we've done a good job of

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that i'm i'm proud of that uh so they're

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in ways it's you know there's a little

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uh you don't have to wait for the right

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piece of equipment when you go to the

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gym because there's you know no lines

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for the treadmill or for the the

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resistive exercise machine

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and so there's a little some benefits

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from having fewer people some things

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take a little less time because we just

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have three it's been an enjoyable time

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for us we're

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close friends from three corners of the

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world

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and we've had the chance to spend more

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time together

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and

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you know but we definitely look forward

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to the new guys showing up soon

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yeah at the same time you mentioned you

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guys spend time together but it's a big

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place so you can go you can go quite a

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while without seeing someone right when

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we work often we'll work in different

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corners or different areas uh there's

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two of us down here on the u.s end of

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the station if we you will satoshi

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furukawa and myself and we're helping

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each other a little bit more uh sergey

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volkov spends a good bit of his time

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down in the russian segment which is

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down back this way behind me we're in

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the u.s lab today uh and so we make a

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point of going down there uh you know

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and and having a just having a quick

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coffee with sergey and we get together

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for lunch and dinner so we may be

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working in different areas but we keep

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touch with each other so we all in in

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case of an emergency it's important to

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know where people are working especially

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if you're not going to be in one of the

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prime work areas and right now sergey is

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working down in the progress ship that

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docked yesterday so he's uh he let me

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know that hey i'm going to be down in

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the progress so if anything's if you

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plan on going anywhere come get me

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yeah

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speaking of the progress cargo ships you

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took an amazing photo

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i think it was last week of a cargo ship

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burning up in the earth's atmosphere

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did you think about what was burning up

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oh you bet i helped pack it and so it

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was kind of funny i i got a series of

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photos there uh and so it was

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interesting to see as as uh for a short

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amount of time you could really see some

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details the lighting and everything

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worked out great and you could see i

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mean big pieces that were

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glowing as their own

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you know their own bright spark as as

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the ship was coming apart so that was uh

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quite interesting

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yeah you've uh

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tell me about your uh photography

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background are you an amateur

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photographer or you just you just have

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such a great vantage point up there it's

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it's easy to get these shots you do a

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well thanks eric no i'm a hack i i like

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photography but i've never had

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much training outside of what nasa

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provides to us but i have a lot of

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interest in it particularly the low

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light

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photography because it it it brings out

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things that you can see once you get in

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the the cupola and and really light

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adjust or light adapt

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to the darkness just as you can when you

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get away from the city lights and and

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get away from uh you know lights even

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even in texas even in the area around

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houston and adjust and you see a lot

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more stars after you after you're

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looking for 20 minutes or so to adjust

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to the light so up here the cameras can

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do that same thing for us and and

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capture that view so that we can share

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it because it's it's really

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amazing particularly i mean the city

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lights uh and the i mean the earth lit

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by moonlight is is uh very interesting

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too as well as of course the aurora is

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which was not a real significant feature

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on my previous two space flights a

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little green glow on the horizon was

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about all we got but man we have flown

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through it this time and have been able

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to capture some of that it's great

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yeah those have been some pretty amazing

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shots as well uh you were on the station

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before the cupola and after the cupola

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what kind of a difference does that make

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in terms of being able to look back at

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it really the the cupola is i mean it's

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such a window and it's it's

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to me it's it's an amazing thing i have

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a history with it i was working on the

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space station redesign back in the early

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90s and the cupola came perilously close

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to being eliminated from the program and

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there was a a

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an astronaut now deceased named charles

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lacy veach who really gave it everything

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he had to uh to fighting the fight to

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make sure everybody understood the value

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of the cupola not just for watching the

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earth but to support robotic operations

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and i can't imagine reaching out and

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grabbing the free flyer htv

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cargo ship and the future ones that are

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coming without that direct eyeball view

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so it has a very definite operational

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need but the the value to the just the

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human to to to see the earth go by and

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because of the angles we can see the

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stars too

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and that's something that you can't see

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the the lab has a window right

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underneath me it's primarily dedicated

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to

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scientific instruments right now that

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even if it wasn't clustered with other

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cameras it's you can't really see the

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hor you can you can't really see the

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horizon and certainly can't see the

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stars so that's the cupola's really huge

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benefit

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so there have been a couple successful

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progress launches since the the problems

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do you feel confident that the russians

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have ironed out the issues that with the

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i believe so eric the the with as many

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successful launches as they've had uh

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for many years it's clearly not a design

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problem so it goes back to some kind of

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a process problem

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and they they went all the way through

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those they tore them apart they rebuilt

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the engines to make sure there were no

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questions no lingering concerns and

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and you know it's a great successful

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launch and i think these launches are

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going to be some of the you know the

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highest probability success launches

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ever because every you know all

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attention is on every detail and maybe a

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renewed emphasis on on some of the

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details something escaped us somewhere

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uh that's pretty clear when when a ship

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goes down like that but i think i think

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we're in really great shape the the

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launches have been flawless and i look

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forward to another one in a week and a

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half hey what have you learned about

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yourself after after nearly six months

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you know i i really thought six months

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half a year that is that's you know a

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huge chunk out of your life and i

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thought this would just go on forever

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but uh there there must be something to

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einstein's uh you know theories of

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relativity uh uh speed and time because

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this has gone by in a flash i can't

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believe we've been up here five months

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there's no way uh and it it surprises me

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just how quick the days go by and and

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the weeks and months tick by so you know

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and i've enjoyed the opportunity to

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really dig in and and live what

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literally was a childhood dream of

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living and working on a space station as

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some people were dreaming about going to

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the moon i really did dream about living

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on a space station

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and so this has been just a great thing

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for me

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well mike have a safe trip home later

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thanks eric great talking to you i look

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station this is houston acr that

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to you eric berger from houston

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chronicle we appreciate your time today