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station houston onto are you ready for

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international space station is

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definitely ready for the event

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copy that abc nightline this is mission

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control houston please call the station

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for a voice check

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station this is abc nightline how do you

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it's a pleasure to talk to you and i

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great thank you so much for uh giving us

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some time today to talk we really

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appreciate it um just wanted to start

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off with the space station itself is

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kind of like a living laboratory you

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know exploring the challenges of

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long-term uh space travel and what are

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some of the lessons that you have

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well i guess the first lesson that i've

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already learned for sure is it's pretty

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difficult to work when you take away the

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one constant you've had your whole life

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and that is gravity

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uh so just as a human being coming up

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here now you're you're working in this

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crazy three-dimensional environment

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where there are no ceilings floors or

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walls everything is a workspace as you

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can see in the video

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uh behind me and then the other thing

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that i i've really learned is uh

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we'll never make it to mars we'll never

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make it deep into space if we don't have

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a really robust life support system and

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that that's for the human body and also

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for the environment in the space station

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and i've gotten to see that first hand

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great and i mean what sort of things

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happen long term to the human body in

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well the biggest thing that the biggest

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challenge i guess i could say that we've

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had to overcome is what happens to our

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muscle and more importantly what happens

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to our bone since we're not walking

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around every day we're not putting any

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sort of impact loads onto our legs we're

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not compressing our spine our pelvis so

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these bones we really see a almost

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osteoporosis-like loss of bone density

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when we're on the space station so

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through some really great science great

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engineering we've developed two main

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countermeasures and that is a fantastic

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treadmill and the treadmill alone wasn't

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really enough so we've also got a

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resistance device called a red and on

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that we can do really heavyweight squats

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deadlifts

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bench press shoulder press and that

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gives us the kind of spinal compression

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full body loading that we need and

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astronauts are coming home now in as

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good a shape as when they left so that's

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a huge development for us

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and you guys are up there for a

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relatively short term are there any

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dangers of you know being up there in

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the long term like living up in space

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for the rest of your life if the you

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well

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six months six months a pretty long time

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and next year we'll have scott kelly who

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will live up here for an entire year and

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it'll be really interesting to see what

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we learn medically from him when he

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comes back uh how's his body adapt over

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an entire year i would say uh to live up

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here for the rest of my life that would

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be pretty excessive uh there's there's

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changes in the heart changes in the

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blood i can feel changes in my head

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eyesight uh so there's a lot of

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unanswered questions and i don't think

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we're anywhere near sending someone up

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part of our story also focuses on some

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experiments that are going on here on

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earth where people are simulating living

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on mars

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how can those experiments kind of

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well i have a few friends that have

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participated in some of these a few

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europeans a few american and a couple

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russian friends of mine and i think one

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of the most commonly known was a 500-day

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earth-based mission which simulated

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going to mars and on that

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well there's a lot you can learn on

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earth

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first of all how how does a small group

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of people get along in a really confined

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environment for 500 days

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what gets to you over a long term like

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food how's the food how's your

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relationship how's your medical

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do you have the

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the maintainability of your hardware to

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keep you going for 500 days so i think

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all these basic questions can start to

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be investigated on earth and then you

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take the lessons learned there and apply

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them on the space station which we're

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doing right now and hopefully we can

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answer these these riddles before we set

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off on a 500 plus day mission out to

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mars

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and how does everyone manage in your

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tiny uh compact environment you know to

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well without going stir crazy it's

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pretty easy because we have uh we have

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windows that look back on our earth and

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it's the most amazing view you could

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ever imagine and so any chance we get we

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run down there and take a glimpse back

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at our home planet and that solves most

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of your problems i would also say i'm

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one of the luckiest astronauts to have

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flown because our six-person crew we

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have a german another american and three

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russians and we're all super good

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friends

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every friday night we gather around the

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dinner table

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we talk about what's going on in our

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lives how our families are doing and i

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think because of that we have an amazing

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cohesion and i would i would go anywhere

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so what would you say are you know some

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of the things that you miss most and

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some of the things you appreciate most

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well the things i miss most first of all

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definitely family my wife kids my

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parents my brother i miss all those

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earthly treasures that are human beings

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i was thinking the other day i

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definitely missed pizza i i really right

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now after two months in space i miss

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this simple act of just sitting down on

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a couch and that relaxing feeling you

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get when you sit down

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i look around the space station there's

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not a chair up here because we just

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don't need it you just lift your legs up

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and you're sitting

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so i missed some of those little things

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but there are so many ways to compensate

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for that up here in space i just living

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without gravity the things you can do

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floating around

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moving 500 pound objects with your

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fingertips and like i already said just

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take one glimpse of the earth and uh and

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your heart runs kind of crazy it's

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great

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are there any other moments of

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yeah that's a really good question

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i have a navy background and i spent

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many many well two and a half years of

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my life at sea

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and i would say there were moments of

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loneliness there but up here this is a

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pretty small area and although you can

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be alone in your little bedroom which is

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about the size of a telephone booth

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overall i'd say uh we almost seek out

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socializing up here so lonely time

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really uh doesn't happen

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much

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what would you think would surprise most

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everyone would definitely be surprised

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at how crazy it is when you remove

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gravity from everyday life it becomes

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hard to eat peanuts it's tough to go to

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the bathroom

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your head fills up with fluid as there's

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no gravity to pull it down so your first

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week or two on the space station

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it's like just running straight into a

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brick wall at high speed everything is

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is out of sorts you lose tools you lose

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food

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you go into one module you end up on the

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ceiling when you think you're on the

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floor and you get lost

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it's just simple things when you take

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away gravity it changes the way the

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human mind works and it took me a good

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month to adapt but now i'm there

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can you walk me through a typical day on

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sure a typical day we work on england

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time greenwich mean time and it looks a

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lot like a regular earth day i wake up

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at around six o'clock brush my teeth

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take a quick simulated shower which is

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just a wet wet towel but it's good

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enough and then we eat we eat breakfast

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and then we all gather around for a

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meeting with the control centers

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throughout the world and that's about a

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20-minute evolution and then we jump

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right into the workday

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it's a mixture between physical activity

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to keep our body strong and then science

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and you can see around me there's we're

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in the u.s laboratory here and we do

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about eight hours of science a day

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you have a short lunch break

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do some more work in the afternoon and

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then we all tag you up again at the end

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of the day with the control centers and

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then they give us about an hour and a

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half to two hours before bedtime where

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we can just hang out be ourselves talk

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to our buddies watch tv if we want and

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then it's off to sleep and start up

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again the next day

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great and one final question you

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mentioned that view can you tell me

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about that view of looking back on earth

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well the first time i got to see it was

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about an hour after i launched the sun

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came up and the earth came into view

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over on my my buddy's side first and i

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couldn't see it but all i could

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experience was his reaction and i wanted

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to unstrap and just climb over there and

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look out the window but

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about five minutes later our spacecraft

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rotated and i was able to look down the

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left side back at the planet and the

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first thing you see is just all this

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blackness of space just black as black

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could be and then there's this tiny tiny

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band of this crazy light blue and it

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runs into our earth and it's the deepest

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blue it's so crisp and clear when you

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look back on no picture could ever do it

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justice and you can't help but just go

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it's just amazing to look down on the

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earth

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commander weissman we really appreciate

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your time today thank you so much for

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you know giving us all this great

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information for our story this great

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information for our story absolutely my

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pleasure to talk to nightline and uh