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station this is houston are you ready

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i'm ready for the event

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wtmj tv this is mission control houston

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station this is charles benson with wtmj

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tv

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hello charles jeff here and i have you

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well good morning jeff williams from

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milwaukee wisconsin how are we looking

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well it's been a few days since i've

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seen wisconsin since we've passed over

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in the daytime but the last pass you

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looked great it was a

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late spring

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morning and

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the weather was clear i don't know how

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it's actually a beautiful morning in

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wisconsin i want to ask you on monday

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you made history by going inside the

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world's first inflatable living room in

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space i think they officially call it

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the beam it looked like the ultimate

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tent

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what is it and why is it important to

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well it's new technology as you

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mentioned the inflatable module

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is something new to us

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it's something that brings a lot of

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efficiency with a lot of potential in

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the future because you can launch

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something with that's smaller in volume

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on perhaps a smaller rocket and then

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inflate it to get the volume that we

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need the space station is very big and

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we use the the entire volume it's the

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size of a 5 000 square foot house

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so it's it's and it took almost 40 space

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shuttle flights 37 i think and equal

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number of russian rocket launches to get

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it into orbit so to be able to have

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something volumetrically more efficient

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to get into space is very promising and

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that's the purpose of the international

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space station to

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one of the purposes anyway is to prove

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out new technologies for future

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i think you described it as being cold

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inside how could that be for a guy who

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well cold is always relative it was when

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i came in or went into the b module it

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was cooler than the station

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we are very much climate controlled here

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but it had no heaters on it and it had

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no climate control before i went into it

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so it was more of a comment actually it

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was a little refreshing it was like a

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nice fall

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give me a sense of where you are now

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well i'm in one of the laboratory

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modules on board this is the japanese

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module uh so i'm at the very forward end

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and if if we were we're heading in this

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direction so i'm kind of the left wing

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at the forward end of the space station

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uh and if i were to go behind the camera

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and take a right turn i could go uh

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almost 300 feet uh through the station

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down through different modules the us

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laboratory um a couple of other us

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modules

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and then get into the russian segment in

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the russian laboratory modules as well

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the space station has traveled roughly

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2.6 billion miles it's orbited the earth

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more than a hundred times

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what's the future for the space station

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what new things can we learn from the

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well i think we'll continue to learn the

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things that were that we've been

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endeavored to study here for already

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many years

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over 15 years

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the

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space station affords us a very unique

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laboratory environment in a weightless

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environment so

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we've got science experiments across the

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spectrum of the different science

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disciplines that have been going on for

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the life of the station and will

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continue to go on well into the 2020s

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according to the current plan

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also we have like we met we talked about

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the beam a couple minutes ago proven out

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technologies for future exploration this

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is a great platform to be able to do

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that and finally i would offer um

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that we don't understand completely the

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impacts in the human body uh in this

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weightless environment the environment

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of space

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so we are guinea pigs ourselves while

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we're up here so many of the experiments

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that we're conducting are on ourselves

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to try to understand the impacts in this

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environment on the human body and to

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mitigate those adverse impacts

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again to support future exploration out

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of low earth orbit whether whether it be

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what's it like to be weightless it's fun

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to watch you there as the microphone can

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be floating you're floating how long

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well you acclimate very quickly in a few

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days but i would say it takes most

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people on their first flight their first

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time here about six weeks to get very

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comfortable working in the environment

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where the logical up or down is no

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longer up or down you can turn sideways

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you can turn upside down and make

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anything illogical up and down

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the challenges of course

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come with losing things very easily like

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you said i can let go of this microphone

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and continue talking but it can drift

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away and it's soon out of sight and i

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can tell you

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over the the length of time that i've

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been here the multiple flights i've lost

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many things thankfully you eventually

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find them they usually drift into an

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inlet filter in the ventilation system

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and they're caught by a filter and

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that's where we usually go look for lost

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that sounds very cool give me a sense

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are you allowed to bring any personal

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items from home and if so did you bring

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we do bring some personal items i

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bring of course

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photographs

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of family

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and a few close friends

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little trinket kind of things i've

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brought jewelry up here for my wife and

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my daughters-in-law

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and other things like that

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i bought brought flags u.s flags

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wisconsin flags u.s army flags i spent

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my whole career in the army

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so things like that it's not a whole lot

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we're we're limited to

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1.5 kilograms on the soyuz soyuz as you

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probably know is very small

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so we don't have a lot of room to put

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things

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so logically it limits us

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jeff we have people on facebook

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listening to this right now we had a

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question from meredith who want to know

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well let's see we're not any closer to

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the moon than you are really where we

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orbit the earth and our altitude above

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the earth is a roughly 250 miles

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and as i recall the moon is something

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like 240 000 miles away i might have

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that number wrong but that's what my

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memory uh recalls at the moment uh so

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it's it's uh you know orders of

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magnitude beyond where we are right now

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we're very close to the earth we can go

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to the window we can see the entire

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globe but uh

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you uh you you very close you can see

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the details on the earth and of course

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i've sent down

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uh and we've all set down much

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photography showing the details of the

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earth so really not any closer than you

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we have about 30 seconds left give me a

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sense of that spectacular view of mother

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earth that you see every day and the

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sheer beauty must be amazing but is it

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oh it's uh incredibly moving to be able

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to view the part of god's creation we

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call earth which is our home and to see

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that it is habitable that it is

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inhabited you see all kinds of details

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like i said natural features as well as

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man-made features so i spent a lot of

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time in the window

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with

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things like this a camera

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trying to capture

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that view

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for the people on earth to be able to

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virtually bring everybody to this this

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orbital outpost we call the

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jeff williams i can't thank you enough

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for your time i really appreciate it

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safe travels and

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again thank you very much

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thank you it's great to be with you