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station this is houston are you ready

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yes i'm ready for the event

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cbs news this is mission control houston

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station this is elaine quijano with cbs

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i have you loud and clear

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excellent let's begin

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i'd like to start with your background

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peggy when you were growing up in iowa i

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understand you sold chickens to get your

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pilot's license and that a couple of

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people told you early on that you should

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not pursue a career in science but of

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course you went on any way to have a

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tremendously impressive career in

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well i think i was always lucky in

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knowing what i wanted

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i pursued my uh goal of becoming an

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astronaut in spite of the fact that it

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was not very likely to have happened

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but i the advice i give young people is

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that you have to pursue something

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and you have to have fun

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along the way and i was i was having a

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great time uh i've i've always worked at

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nasa

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i i

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have said i've never had a real job

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because i've always done what i really

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wanted to do and and that's been the

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looking back how have your age and

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well i think in preparation for this

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flight obviously the experience of

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having been a commander before and

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having flown for more than a year on

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orbit

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uh definitely makes the process of

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preparing for the space flight a lot

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simpler in knowing what items that i

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need to worry about versus

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you know the things that i'll get when i

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get on board or that's just not

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important for me to know so i think that

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at this age what would you say some of

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well i think living in space is uh not a

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trivial thing

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we've done a fantastic job up here we've

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had a human presence for uh 18 years now

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uh and which i think is uh somewhat

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miraculous that we've been able to keep

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humans up here that long

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but it

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you know every day there's always

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something that could go wrong that could

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change that whole situation and so we

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understand that and we work very very

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hard

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on the days that are not optimal to fix

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whatever it is that's broken and ensure

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and maintain the fact

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so everything so that we can stay up

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here and continue our research i think

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our research up here is very important

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it's going to

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really contribute to

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future exploration beyond low earth

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orbit when we go to other planets

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and so i i really feel that what we're

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learning you know from from a very basic

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engineering level to a very high level

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science level is going to be very

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over the course of your career you've

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broken a number of records is that your

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breaking records has never been my goal

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i think it's important that we are

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breaking records that you know we're

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continually

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pushing you know our limits and and

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showing that we can extend beyond uh

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what we have done before and so i think

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breaking records is important

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what's your view on age

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i wish i didn't have to think about it

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too much but space flight's good for age

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i have a lot less wrinkles up here

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things float it where it's a lot it's a

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how do you stay physically fit in space

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actually we spend a lot of time staying

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physically fit in space it's important

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for our bones and muscles without

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gravity affecting us we would lose

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muscle mass and bone density uh in fact

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we would lose bone density uh

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faster in a month than a a geriatric

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woman on earth would lose bone mass in a

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year and so

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it's very dramatic and we have to try

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very hard to specifically stimulate

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those areas

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of bone primarily the hips and the lower

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back

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to try and maintain our bone density

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while we're up here

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our exercise device it's an advanced

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resistive exercise device

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it

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we pull against resistance and

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it's isolated vibrations are isolated

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from the station so we don't impact the

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experiments on board the station and

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it's actually very sophisticated piece

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of hardware and it feels very much like

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you're on the ground lifting weights

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so it's great and then we also have a

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treadmill which of course we have to

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wear a harness and

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and uh

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have uh tethers to hold us down to the

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treadmill itself because obviously it

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would uh

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we would just push away and into the

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ceiling if we were running and we have a

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bike we clip onto the bike and

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and cycle much like you would on the

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you mentioned lifting weights i read

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your hobbies include weight lifting

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biking basketball and water skiing why

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water skiing and are there any

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water skiing is just fun i started doing

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it when i was a kid

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there was a lake a couple miles from our

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house and so it was kind of the

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summertime sport for my brother and i

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was to go water skiing all the time

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so i just i love doing it it's a lot of

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fun

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i don't get to do it as much these days

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what do you do on the space station when

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well we have a phenomenal window in the

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cupola it's a

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360 degree view of the earth it's on the

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bottom side of the station so it's

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looking down and and we fly pretty most

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of the time horizontally over the earth

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so that

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we're always looking down at the earth

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and it's just an incredible view there's

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always something new something

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even more beautiful than the last time

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you might have flown over the caribbean

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or

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the mediterranean there's always

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something incredible the light angle

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will be different

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and it's just an incredibly beautiful

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view

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we also have access to

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internet protocol phone so we can

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actually call home

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to friends and family and stay connected

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that way

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that's obviously something we're not

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going to have in future exploration

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missions but it makes us feel very

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connected here

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as well as being able to have uh video

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conferences with family and friends as

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well

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so you feel very connected here we have

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an incredible

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ground team actually we have ground team

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all over the world that keeps us very

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connected

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and stays help stays on top of us helps

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us

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keep our getting our job done

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as most efficiently and effectively as

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we can and given us all the pointers

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to help us understand when we don't when

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do you have any advice on living strong

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do i have any life i didn't hear the end

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do you have any advice on living strong

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i think it's very important to

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to

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pursue goals

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and in doing that i think you you are

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strong um

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if

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uh that inspire you

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all right and um

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do you feel as though you have more

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i don't know about that we've got a lot

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of folks who want to fly in space and i

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are you able in the last 30 seconds we

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have left to show us a spin my

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there's a vertical spoon

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and here comes horizon

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that's actually one of the most

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fun things to do when you're living up

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thank you

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station this is houston acr that

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concludes the cbs news portion of the

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event please stand by for a voice check

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station copies

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you've reached the wftv wrdq control

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[Music]

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you've reached the wft

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station this is vanessa echols from wftv

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i have you loud and clear vanessa i have

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your love

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excellent dr whitson thank you so much

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for joining us this afternoon i'm here

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in the channel 9 studios in orlando but

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i have some young girls here 8th and 9th

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graders and they are going to ask you

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the question so we are going to start

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with tanaya she has the first question

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for you

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you have been in space for a total of

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377 days during that time what was the

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um i think probably the hardest thing to

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overcome

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is uh

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the food

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a little boring after a while

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but really for the most part

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being able to live here and work here in

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such a different environment is very

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special because we

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have this unique experience that is so

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novel

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and the next question comes from alicia

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which stage in your education or career

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path did you have to persevere the most

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well i i think

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in in math i was i had a lot of

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challenges

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when i was in

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high school and especially in college

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but i think once i

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got into a field of science that i

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really really enjoyed everything became

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a lot easier for me

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and i even learned how to apply that

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math that was very difficult along the

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way

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i think

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in becoming an astronaut probably the

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most challenging part has actually been

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learning russian

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i i'm not very skilled at languages and

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so that's actually been i think the

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hardest thing for me everything else

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hasn't maybe not been easy but

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it's always been interesting to me

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and so i think learning new things has

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and the next question comes from hayla

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who's in the ninth grade hi i've seen

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that you majored in biochemistry and

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iowa wrestling in college

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what or who made you want to become an

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actually when i was nine years old i saw

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the first astronauts walk on the moon

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and i i thought wow cool job

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but i don't think it became a goal of

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mine until i graduated from high school

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and that was the year they picked the

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first female astronauts

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and from that point on uh i i pursued

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that goal and luckily i had no idea how

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hard it would be to become an astronaut

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and the next question is from sophia do

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you have any advice for young girls

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i'm sorry you'll have to repeat that

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do you have any advice for young girls

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absolutely i i definitely think you

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should pursue your goals in the space

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program there are tons of different

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fields

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uh of all the people that work at nasa

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any field in math science and

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engineering uh there's there are an

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incredible variety of jobs at nasa

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that uh can help you explore what you

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most uh want to do and how it applies uh

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to space exploration

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so i think if you go online you can look

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up uh in nasa educational opportunities

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there's uh grants for

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young people and

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also just lots of different ideas

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of the variety of jobs that are

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available out there that are related to

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and dr whitson i'll ask the next

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question and that is as adults what can

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we do to stimulate girls interest in

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this whole idea of stem science

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technology engineering and math what do

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i think

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that the goals that you can achieve

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are going to be

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even greater than what you might dream

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of

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so

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you you really should

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plan on exceeding even what your

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expectations might be but in order to do

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that you're going to have to push

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yourself very very hard

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and and actually try things that might

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be more difficult

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or beyond your reach

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um i never dreamed i would be a

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commander on the international space

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station and

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i made it but i did never dreamed of

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that initially i wanted to be an

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astronaut and i wanted to do these

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things and so

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don't underestimate

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yourself and what you can achieve

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just by pushing yourself

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beyond your comfort level so always

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and tanaya has the next question for you

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again what made you want to go into

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biochemistry

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i really uh

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in high school i really enjoyed biology

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and when i went to college i did

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started taking a lot of chemistry

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classes

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and i ended up double majoring in

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biology and chemistry and at the end of

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my college career i took my first class

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in biochemistry and i thought well

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that's the perfect melding of two things

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i really really like very much and so

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other than being an astronaut what job

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well before i became an astronaut i

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actually worked at the johnson space

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center for 10 years it took a lot of

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years of applying before i was lucky

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enough to be selected but during that

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time i held a lot of different positions

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at nasa and i found all of those very

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challenging

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from a scientific level

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to a leadership level and i learned a

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lot of new things there so

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i i think i would still work at nasa

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and hey

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for your first expedition which i

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believe is expedition five how much

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training did you go through and what did

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i'm sorry i'm going to have to ask you

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for your first expedition which i

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believe is expedition 5 how much

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training did you go through and what did

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well actually after i got selected to be

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an astronaut we did a couple of years of

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just general training and then later i

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was selected for a space flight and i

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did three years of training

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and we we train astronauts because the

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astronauts can come from any field in

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science math engineering aviation

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astronauts tend to have a lot of

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different backgrounds and what we try to

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do when we bring in the

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young astronauts is to give them the

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experience base that makes them good or

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have some knowledge in all as many of

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those areas as

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that we can that actually apply to doing

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scientific research up here living in an

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operationally

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um

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technical environment uh

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and so trying to integrate all those

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capabilities and skills together i think

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is very important

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probably the most fun part of the

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training uh with some of the training in

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the spacesuit

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some of the most challenging as well

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but

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it was good to

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to do that training because it made you

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feel like a real astronaut and for me uh

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flying in the t-38

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is also a very special experience uh and

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very unique to the astronaut training

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that i would never have had before in

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any other situation so

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dr whitson unfortunately we are out of

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time thank you so much and i know that

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you have a birthday this week so we want

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to wish you happy birthday as well thank

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thank you very much and all of you young

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ladies and young people out there i

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really encourage you to pursue your

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station this is houston acr that

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thank you all participants from cbs news

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and wf tv orlando station we are now