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station this is danielle from the royal

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i hear loud and clear

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excellent

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hi samantha it's great to be talking to

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you from the royal institution christmas

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hello hello everybody great talking to

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you

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now

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one of the most fascinating things about

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this for me is i'm actually talking to

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you on my mobile phone

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but i'm guessing that your mobile phone

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doesn't work up there so how do you

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it's funny that you mentioned that

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because i've been up here for about

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three weeks and i have never thought

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about my mobile phone once while when

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i'm on earth i'm constantly checking my

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mobile phone so i guess i am getting

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over my mobile phone addiction

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but we are not disconnected from our

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family and friends up here we have uh

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access to the internet it's uh

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somewhat slow but we do have it and then

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we have the possibility of giving them a

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call over an ip a voiceover ip phone

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and once a week typically on the weekend

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we can even see them we have a two-way

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video conference where we can see them

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that's amazing and is it a weird feeling

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for you to be to be very distant to be

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literally the most distant woman

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from earth at the moment but actually

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i i guess you know i've come to expect

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it to be this way because

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the the iss the space station has been

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very well connected for for years now

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so sometimes i find it

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even paradoxical when people

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think about my job as being an astronaut

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on the space station as being very

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isolated and it's true that physically

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of course i am very far away but

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compared to many other jobs i actually

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have really good possibilities of

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connections uh you know i'm thinking

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about people who i don't know are

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deployed on submarines or

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doing winter overs in antarctica i think

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we on the space station are way more

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connected uh with earth and with our

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fellow human beings and friends and

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family than those folks are

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yes i think you're right

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um so in in these lectures

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we are talking about communication and

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and the limitations of communication

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and

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it's really wonderful that we can hear

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and see you from space

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but that's just using two of our senses

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and so what we're trying to explore in

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the lectures is can we go to the next

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level and use our other senses to

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communicate so

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would it wouldn't it be great to be able

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to reach out and touch somebody who

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wasn't there

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um and share share an experience of all

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of the rest of their senses

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uh for you in in space what is the next

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big

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goal or challenge in terms of

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communication

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well i can think of simple things like

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for example right now we we don't have

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continuous coverage on board in terms of

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satellites sometimes our antennas are

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just not be able are not able uh to pick

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up a satellite for a few minutes

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sometimes even 10 15 minutes and so we

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for that period of time we say we are in

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lots of signals so we lose communication

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so one next step could be to have

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continuous coverage um another next step

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could be to to make it easier on board

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for example having uh wireless headsets

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uh well now most of the time we use

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headsets that are or microphones that

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are connected via a long cable

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but then of course what you say is

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interesting to be able to see uh the

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world through somebody else's eyes or

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or even being able to touch them

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i think there is an interesting

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technology demonstration which

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is

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fly with a fellow european astronaut of

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mine under morgansen next year so i'm

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not

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seeing

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anything misleading but i think the

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point is is really that to try and

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demonstrate a technology um sort of an

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augmented reality technology where

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people on the ground can see what the

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astronaut sees and um and the astronaut

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can have um

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overlays um that augment reality with

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with information that can be sent from

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well that all sounds absolutely

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fantastic and very very fascinating and

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i'm i'm sure it would inspire

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the next generation of scientists and

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engineers um to get into that work which

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is what we want to do in in the

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christmas lectures

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uh so

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from your point of view what should the

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next generation of engineers and

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scientists be working on to help achieve

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those communication goals that you need

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well i think the next generation of

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engineers and scientists should be

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working on stuff that i cannot even

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imagine right now because uh that's

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really the cool thing about being the

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next generation you know i i think you

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should uh um

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you know if try find your own path and

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especially at the beginning of your

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career when you're not

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into the

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um that professional environment for for

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that long you can really think out of

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the box and come up with new solutions

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so um i don't wanna um

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you know shed any light on any

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preconceived path but on the contrary i

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would encourage people to really think

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out of the box and maybe come up with

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some revolutionary ideas

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that's brilliant i'm sure that'll be

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very very inspiring for them as well

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thank you so um

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you've only been in space for for a few

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weeks now what have you found most

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i guess i'm surprised but how much i

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have enjoyed it i am enjoying it

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i thought you know it would be something

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that uh would be fun for a few days and

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then i would just get used to it and get

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over it but um you know it's just i keep

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enjoying it so much this this feeling of

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floating it's something so new and and

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different from what we're used to um and

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you know

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sometimes i find myself thinking that it

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had never been different that i've been

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floating all my life but of course

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that's not the case

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and

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i find myself exploring new ways of

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you know

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controlling my body and and my attitude

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and my orientation and flying through

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the station so it's been a lot of fun

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i'm not very good at it yet so that

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that's fun too that i'm

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that's good so can you do some practice

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now because i'm sure all of the audience

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would like to know have you perfected

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well to be honest i've done only one

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somersault the other day and that was by

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mistake i didn't intend to so

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i will uh i will hold off from that um

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it was wonderful it was really great i

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mean everybody was impressed except that

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i didn't intend to do it but

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so i will hold up from that um for now

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and

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it'll be for a later call

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so yeah you can keep perfecting it and

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then we'll we'll um keep tracking you on

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twitter and you can tell us when you

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yes definitely i will

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okay now obviously these are the

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christmas lectures so we're very close

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to christmas so

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how do you celebrate christmas on the on

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the international space station it must

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well of course it's definitely a day in

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which we have time set aside to um to

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talk to our family and friends um as

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i've mentioned before we have this

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opportunities of um video conferences

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and on special holidays like christmas

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uh of course uh there's time set aside

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for that and then of course we'll spend

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a time together we have a little

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christmas tree here which is uh planted

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so to speak upside down in the in our

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main lab

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and um our commander butch wilmer has

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some um

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i guess i'm missing the words but uh um

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you know things for us to gather gifts

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for each other so that on on christmas

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day hopefully um all of us will have

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gifts from our crewmates and it can be

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something simple like somebody's

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favorite drink that you come across and

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and you put it aside for them so that uh

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it's gonna be a fun

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experience on christmas day to to see

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what your crewmates have set aside for

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you

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oh that's fantastic and it'd be

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interesting to see what sort of gifts

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that you give each other if they're sort

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of the normal gifts that you would give

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each other on on earth or

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they have a sort of a

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space

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well you know some of us might have

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thought um ahead um i have for example

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and uh and sent up some little things to

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as christmas gifts for for uh for the

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crewmates but as i said it might just be

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that uh you know of the supplies that

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are on board you know that one of your

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crewmates really enjoys for example a

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special dessert

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that you normally would only come across

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maybe once a month and then you you set

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that aside when you find it and then

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that person is gonna be able to enjoy

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their favorite dessert for christmas

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yeah that's really nice

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so um in the in the lectures that we've

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already filmed so far we've been looking

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at some wonderful pieces of technology

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and one of them is haptic technology

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and we have seen how it can be used for

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training vets for example and it was

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just amazing i i was using this piece of

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haptic technology and it was fantastic

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and i'm guessing that haptic plays quite

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a lot of quite a big role

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in the technology for the iss is that

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uh not quite but definitely something

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for the future and uh i'm not directly

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involved with it but i know that uh

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there is an experiment that um

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specifically um

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studies the this or aims at developing

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haptic technology so definitely

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something for the future

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that's great and i think that will also

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inspire the next generation of engineers

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and scientists as well

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so it's been absolutely wonderful

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talking to you samantha thank you so

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much for all your time i think you're

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you're truly inspiring all of the next

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generation of engineers and scientists

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well thank you so much i really enjoyed

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this conversation and

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well happy christmas

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and happy christmas to you too samantha

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thank you

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station this is houston acr that

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thank you isaan the royal institution