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joining me right now is daniel burbank

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who's the commander of expedition 30

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aboard the international space station

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and commander thank you so much for

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joining us today what's the weather like

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actually the weather's beautiful it's

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always clear temperature's just great no

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humidity hardly ever any rain or any

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snow or anything like that it's actually

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wonderful and it's great to look at the

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earth

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now dan you've had the advantage of

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having gone up in the space shuttle a

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couple of times this last time you came

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up in the soyuz what's the difference

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between the two in terms of the way that

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well as far as the the sensations that

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you have the acceleration you feel the

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vibrations of the vehicle um it's very

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similar uh it takes about the same

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amount of time to go from zero miles an

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hour to seventeen thousand a space

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shuttle as it does in the soyuz the

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soyuz is quite a bit smaller so from the

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crew perspective inside it's um

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it's uh it's a little bit smaller it's a

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little bit it's a little bit cramped i

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guess you could say at least in the

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descent module the part of the the

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capsule that we ride in the way uphill

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after we get on orbit for an hour or two

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and we've had some time to check out the

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systems we can kind of stretch our legs

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a little bit in the the on orbit module

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the the round part of the soyuz vehicle

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that you've probably seen in in diagrams

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and pictures on board space station but

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on the way uphill you're snug you're

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very you're strapped in as tight as can

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be and uh and for a guy my size

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it's about as small as i could handle i

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think much smaller than that it would be

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wow okay let's talk about the projects

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you're working on right now obviously

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our sites are now set beyond the

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international space station potentially

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to the moon and then to mars and beyond

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what kind of projects are you working on

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right now that will help us in our

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yeah i think one of the most important

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things at least in the in the american

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science the u.s sponsored science on

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board space station is to to answer the

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questions that we need to answer to be

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able to safely send a crew to mars and

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it's how to keep humans healthy safe

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productive in space there's a lot of

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things that are an awful lot of fun

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about being in weightlessness but they

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also have some

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some physiological hazards to us we

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quickly adapt to the environments we're

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in and we quickly

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adapt to weightlessness and that means

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we don't our hearts don't have to be as

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strong our bones don't have to be as

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strong muscles all the rest and there's

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other changes as well

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those would all be fine if we were going

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to live in space forever in

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weightlessness but if we're going to go

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to mars we want to land and be

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functional if we're going to come back

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to earth as i hope i will shortly then

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i'd also like to be able to retain as

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much of the muscle mass and bone mass as

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possible so

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a lot of the experiments we're doing

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including one that i'm wearing right now

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are aimed to figure out all the

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different things that happen to for

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example the heart so from a from

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the electric signal standpoint from the

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muscle strength standpoint from the

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volume the cardiac the cardiovascular

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output the stroke volume that the heart

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pumps out all those kinds of things

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we're doing studies to to analyze that

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and we do it for a whole host of other

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things

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and

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hopefully we'll be able to apply those

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here and before too many more years and

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actually leave low earth orbit and go to

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some of these great destinations like

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now tell me how the space program has

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changed for you without the shuttle

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because i'm thinking from one

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perspective because i've covered so many

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of the space shuttle flights it's not in

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the news and unfortunately it's that out

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of sight out of mind and but we still

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have a lot of projects going on but i

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think a lot of people have kind of i

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don't want to say they backed off but

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but maybe they've lost a little their

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well launches i mean well for i would

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say one thing i think it's in the best

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interest of all of us as people that

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want to explore space to have as many

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ways to get to and from planet earth

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into space as possible it's just it's

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just smart from a redundancy standpoint

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the people afforded us the opportunity

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to to carry you know massive pieces of

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cargo up to space to be able to stage

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evas and do extensive and complicated

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robotics work from it the shuttle just

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finished up doing the most important job

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the thing that it was designed to do all

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along and that was to build this

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unbelievable laboratory in space million

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pounds of space station and the shuttle

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was uniquely suited to do that

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as we look at going beyond low earth

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orbit

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the shuttle is not the right kind of

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vehicle to do that you don't want a

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vehicle with wings that's a waste of of

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up mass it's a waste of energy and what

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you want to do is have a vehicle that's

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designed to take for us for example the

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next step beyond low earth orbit onto

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the moon and mars for the time being

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though between now and when we have

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those vehicles in hand the things we

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need to do on space station is to work

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hard to figure out to solve all the

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problems that that uh potentially could

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be major hazards for us down the road

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and the shuttle for all its elegance and

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capability isn't the vehicle for that

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now

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i've been there and i've watched

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launches and i've experienced a couple

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of them myself and it's a very moving

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thing and it's a very powerful thing and

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and the state of florida has contributed

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an awful lot in the and the workers at

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kennedy space center for example to make

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that possible

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i hope sooner than later that we're

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going to have a suite of other vehicles

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and many of them launched out of florida

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to continue

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american access to low earth orbit so

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i look at this as the next logical thing

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we only have a certain amount of money

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we're spending that right now in the

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things we need to do in the research

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onboard space station but we're also

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investing in new vehicles down the road

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right we're talking about the dragon

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capsule the falcon rockets the orion and

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some of the other projects now tell me

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about this automated transfer vehicle

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because i think a lot of people don't

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understand is if you don't occasionally

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boost the international space station to

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a higher orbit earth is constantly

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pulling it down and would love to drag

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yeah that's right in fact the space

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station is kind of in a sweet spot

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altitude wise right now it's at a place

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where we don't have to expend a lot of

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propellant to get to it don't have to

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expend a lot of propellant to get back

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down but it's also in a place although

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it's nearly a vacuum outside

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behind me here for example there's just

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enough air with the uh with the wide

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expanse of solar rays and the and just

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the the uh the surface area the space

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station to gradually slow it down and

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bring it down so the space station left

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to its own after a course of you know

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many months would re-enter the the

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earth's atmosphere but we periodically

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reduced it and we do that with

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visiting vehicles it could be the the

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automated transfer vehicle which is a

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european vehicle we have russian

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progress vehicles

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we had the shuttle doing those kinds of

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things as well we also have plenty of

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propellant onboard space station to do

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that we don't want to take it up really

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high where it would stay there for a

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long period of time because again it

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would take us an awful lot of propellant

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to get to it so it's it's in a good

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place but we do need to

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periodically

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yeah always trade-offs with weight when

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it comes to space daniel thank you so

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much for joining us and good luck to you

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folks up there and may you have a safe

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alex been a pleasure to be with you

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thanks for all your years of supporting

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us and supporting space flight and wish