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station this is houston are you ready

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on this session i'm ready for the event

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bbc world news this is mission control

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houston please call station for a voice

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hello sir can you hear us this is bbc

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world news

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hi it's ross atkins at the bbc can you

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yes i can hear you okay

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fantastic that's very exciting thank you

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very much indeed for

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joining us how long have you got left on

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first of all welcome onboard the

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space station and inside the columbus

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european module

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i've been here for about four months and

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well we appreciate your time we're going

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to start recording the interview now if

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it's okay could you start by showing us

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around the room that you're in at the

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that's a pleasure

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so right now here we are um in the

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columbus module columbus is the european

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lab

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uh which is the european contribution

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the european space agency contribution

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to the international space station we

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are at the very front of the space

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station that this is the direction of

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flight to my right

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and it's called forward this is ask and

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what you see around me uh we call this

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the deck

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and this is the overhead

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and

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around me are racks

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the rafts are

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are labs in india itself so

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to my right

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there is a european drawer rack uh this

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one is basically a modular

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rack where you can install different

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kind of experiments and the rack will

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provide energy and data to them

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kubernetes and a similar concept this is

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an american rack called the express

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this is the bio lab which is the

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european uh lab for biology experiments

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and then uh behind me other different

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kind of

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racks also for experiments uh this one

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is working right now is for uh

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fluid physics and also

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behind me a two racks or human

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well thank you very much indeed for the

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tour let me ask you about

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what happened

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with that space walk a few weeks ago

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because lots of our viewers were very

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concerned about you tell us the moment

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that you realized that there was a

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uh you know every every spacewalk is an

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adventure and uh mine ended up being a

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special adventurous and what happened is

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that um i was i was outside outside for

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about 40 minutes uh

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doing one of the tasks and i was about

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to complete my second task when i felt

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some cold water in the back of my head

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now since i don't have any hair uh that

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holes in concessional was very strong

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and i realized that something didn't

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feel right i contacted ground

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uh telling them that i felt this water i

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felt cold water behind my head and i

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didn't think he was either sweat i

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didn't think he came from my didv bag

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which is the bag that we use right in

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at that moment my

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my my colleague chris cassidy was

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already was outside with me he finished

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his task and came towards me to check my

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helmet and he noticed the water crawling

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towards the front of my on my visor

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he started covering my eyebrows and my

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ears and that's when ground very

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promptly called

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terminate which means we stop where we

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are

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and we go back inside and repress

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uh the the airlock so i did that i

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started walk i started moving towards

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the airlock in the meantime the water

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kept

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crawling through the front of the helmet

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the problem in in zero g is that the

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water uh just uh creates a glob and it

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doesn't flow so it just kept

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accumulating until it covered completely

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covered my ears and my eyes and then

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finally even my nose so i was only left

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with my mouth to breathe which luckily

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it never the water never reached my

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mouth i was always able to breathe

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through my mouth i just couldn't hear or

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couldn't see anything

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but thanks to the training and thanks to

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the support from the ground uh all the

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engineers and and the ground support

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people that helped me they guided me

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back they got me back inside the airlock

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pressurized very quickly the airlock uh

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the crew on board uh karen nyberg she

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was at she had the controls for the

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repository session she did an excellent

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job uh keeping keeping us updated on on

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the state of the uh the reverse

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transaction and in in few minutes really

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the emergency was solved

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now for me those were very long minutes

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but i was always confident the whole

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time

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that chris

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was there to help me and that the ground

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was there to help me and the crew board

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lucas thank goodness you're okay it

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sounds absolutely terrifying you sound

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far calmer uh when you talk about it

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than i think most of us would have felt

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now we've been telling uh the people who

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follow us on facebook that you were

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speaking to us here on global and

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they've been leaving lots of questions

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for you i wonder if i could ask you a

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couple um

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thomas would like to ask you how far do

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you go from the iss when you go on a

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space walk how's the what's the furthest

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so when we go outside we are never

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we never leave contact with the with the

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space station we're always in contact

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with the structure so we come out of the

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airlock and we have

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tables they're called

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safety headers they they kind of like

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the ones that you use with little dogs

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to let them move around and then and

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then get back they uh they you know you

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can get them long and they're 85 feet

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long

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and so technically we could only go

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about 185 feet away from the airlock

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which is where we position ourselves

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however we have picks that we do in

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order to go further away which is all

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the way if we want all the way to the to

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the end of the trucks which is about 100

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meters wide and in order to do that

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anchor different uh safety patterns we

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call them packs so that we always have a

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way back we always safely attach the

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session and uh and we can go all the way

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to the end of the truss all the way to

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the front of the of the station special

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coming out of the airlock

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in my first tva i was all the way to the

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front to the very tip of the space

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thank you very much for answering that

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question i must ask you can you give us

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a demonstration of zero gravity i'm sure

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lots of our viewers would like to see

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so i have here things that most people

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find important and it's it's a food and

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a drink so this is a special food that i

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will eat uh next week for an experiment

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and the demonstration on zero g is that

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food is very light on the space station

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it's

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actually so light that it floats and the

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this is some orange juice that i

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rehydrated and i better get it before it

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so that's uh one of the things that we

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can do he's practicing that luca that's

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fantastic well that leads me on to the

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next question

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facebook page uh we've a viewer in ghana

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a viewer in ghana would like to ask you

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oh that's a that's a great question

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actually the food on the space station

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is really good we have all different

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kinds of food some provided by the

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russians some provided by

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the europeans that are provided by

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uh by the americans and we all share

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this food but if i have if i have bread

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massa

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i had some bonus food that was created

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by

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for me uh and it was italian food and i

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say it was because it we we finished it

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all basically uh as soon as we found out

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we found it on the section we had one

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big italian dinner and i made lasagna

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risotto and all kinds of different

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specialty and it was delicious and

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it's not the same though as when you're

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back in italy i'm sure and i have to

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tell you the single question that people

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are asking the most for you is can you

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give an example of the most important

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discovery that's been made on the

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international space station how do you

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it's a very important question

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i would like to go on to go off and say

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that actually we the money that we spend

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on the station is not that much really

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if you put things in perspective a

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european citizen spent about 10 euros in

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a year for the for the space program

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which is all the space program not just

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a space station a human space flight but

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i'll tell you why the money is well

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spent on the space station we do we do

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three things that are very important

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one is of course the science and science

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speaks for itself it's it's what makes

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us different from all the other animals

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it's knowledge

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uh we are we we do uh at least 30 hours

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of science a week here on the space

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station which generates an incredible

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amount or more science on the ground

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we do technology where we uh we test and

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create a new technology that then is

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used uh on the ground then we do

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exploration what i mean is that in the

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future thanks to what we are learning

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today

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we will be able to go further away but

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to give you an example of something that

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we are doing now that is of uh immediate

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effect on the stone on the ground

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we are doing a study on on how our spine

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changes when we are 3g of to do this to

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do this science we are using a new

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new uh software in um

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for an ultrasound machine a very small

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ultrasound machine to make the diagnosis

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on our spine

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on the ground the same technology can be

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used to do diagnosis on the spine in

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areas that are not easily reachable by

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big machines like

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mris or or

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attack scan machines and those machines

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are usually expensive and if you want to

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go in a remote area and you can do a

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diagnosis an ultrasound machine is cheap

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and inexpensive and very portable

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another one that we're doing and another

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experiment that we're running

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that is osteoporosis here in orbit an

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astronaut loses bone mass but we are

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studying a diet

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that balances potassium and proteins to

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figure out what's the best combination

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to

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loss of calcium from the bones but

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imagine if all the millions of people

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that suffer from osteoporosis could

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benefit from just a diet rather than

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cures

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or medicines just to improve their their

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health i think these are these studies

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are of immediate impact and are just a

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luca we really do appreciate your time i

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wonder if you could do me a favor would

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you be able to say hello to all of our

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viewers who use the bbc world news

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absolutely i would like to

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to shout out to all the uh all the

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followers on facebook of the bbc world

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news i'm luca parmitano from the

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international space station and please

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continue following the news continue

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goodbye lucas thank you very much

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you're very welcome great talking to you

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station this is houston acr that

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thank you bbc world news station we are