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Station, this is Houston. Are you ready
for the event? Houston this is station. I am

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ready for the event. Brad Pitt, this is
Mission Control Houston. Please call

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station for a voice check. Station, this
is Brad. How do you hear me?

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Hey Brad, this is Nick. I've got you loud
and clear.

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Welcome to the International Space
Station. Thank you very much. I got to

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tell you this is a real treat, a real
pleasure to be talking to you up there.

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Likewise. A treat for us. Actually, we
got a chance to sneak preview the

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movie a few weeks back. And I just want to start off by saying thank you for what

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you're doing to contribute to the
mission of awareness and to set that, you

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know, that fire in the imaginations
of the next generation of explorers.

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Thank you Nick. Thank you very much and
now that I have you all the way up at

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the space station, let's talk about me.
How did we do? How was our zero-g?

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I gotta tell you, it was really good.
And the depictions, the

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settings, all as you can tell, look very
similar to the type of setting

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you've got. You know I've got around me - I got to imagine it was a lot easier for

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for me to kind of enjoy the
zero-g than it was you,

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whether it was CGI or hooked to strings.
I'll tell you what our ship was a bit

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cleaner. Can you - do you know what
everything is on the walls there behind

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you? You know, when I first got up here it
looked similar but very

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different if you can imagine that, to
what we trained on the ground. We had

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lots of photos on the ground but up here
everything hangs off the walls. And

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there's cables everywhere. But yeah, you
know you get very familiar with it and

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you know exactly what's going on. A lot
of it is storage of equipment and

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then we've got different facilities. For
instance, this one right here, this wall

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helps us research how flames burn in
space. Which is very different than on

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the ground and by removing the effect of
gravity, forcing a certain shape to a

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flame we can study exactly what goes on to -inside a

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flame to a greater detail. It helps us
figure out how to make cleaner burning

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engines and get more
out of the energy that we do consume.

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You know, I was curious what are the
certainty - what are the

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repercussions on your body in zero-g? What - first of all, is it, would it be

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morning for you there? Would it be night
for you there? How do you gauge your

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waking hours if you see 16 sunrises and
sunsets a day. So we do a lot to try to

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manage that circadian rhythm one thing
we do is we use different hues of the

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the color spectrum, so that we have
morning very bright blue light that we

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switch and then later in the day it goes
to a more normal more balanced spectrum.

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And then at night we get rid of that
blue light and we all follow the

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Greenwich Mean Time. And that's to help
synchronize the international

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aspect of this. We've got a control
station in Houston, in Huntsville, Alabama

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Then we've got control centers and in
Japan and in Germany and in Russia and

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up in Montreal. And all of them need to
operate on the same time, so we picked

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Greenwich Mean Time. But you know really,  if you're not smart and

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you're new to the station you run to
the windows and you want to check things

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out right after you get done with your
workday. You get a face full of sun -

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it gets very difficult to go to sleep
for a couple hours with all that blue

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light. Wow I would think so. So is anyone,
is there a night shift or is everyone on

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that - on those hours? Yes, we try to
stay - the crew stays on the same work day

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hours and so we work a 12-hour workday.
Starts at about 7:30 in the morning and

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finishes at about 7:30 in the evening.
But there is a night shift, there's

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actually a massive team on the ground
that is that is controlling about 95% of

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what happens on the space station 24
hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a

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year. It is
an amazing orchestration of an

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international program that comes
together to truly achieve something that

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that we can't do alone. And it's through
that strength and diversity and strength

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through diversity that we're able to
have successfully operated this

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station for two decades. It's incredible
I got to go to JPL last week and it

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was on the day when India was landing on
the moon, and the United States were

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assisting them in that effort. Could you
see that from where you are?

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No, unfortunately so I, along with
the rest of the crew just had to follow

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along with the news reports and  it's one of those things

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where international cooperation is so
important. Because a saying we've got up

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here is, space is hard.
Things that should be easy, when you

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try to do them in space, they just get
harder. And the things that we're

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trying to do everyday, the
team on the ground, NASA and its

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international partners, do a great job of
making really hard, almost impossible

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things look routine. And it's it's one of
those things where you can get some

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complacency. But the things that
we're able to achieve together -

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it's something special. For me,
that is the biggest thing that

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I've pulled from this mission, is that
idea of cooperation at a global scale is

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what's going to propel humanity into the
future. I got to see a little of that.

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They were working on the new rover
that's going to go to Mars. And it was an

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international effort, which was really
impressive to see everyone working

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together to build different components
to this rover. What is your - what are your

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current missions at this point? So
I'm actually on the tail end of my time

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up here. I've got a 200 day mission
onboard the space station and I'm north

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of 180 days now. Only a few weeks left
before I return early in October and on

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a routine week it's a lot of
difference

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science experiments. We do maintenance to maintain the station. I was fortunate

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enough a few weeks back to be able to do
my third spacewalk. And those are all

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just amazing experiences. And
you know every day is full of something

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new and exciting. If you look
at the spectrum of experiments that

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you get to do over the course of the
mission, I've gotten to be involved

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with looking at different ways to
develop new types of rubber that will

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change the way potentially we make tires,
and make cars more fuel efficient.

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Or how we extrude fiber optics to help
improve communications technology on the

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ground and make it more cost-effective.
All the way to the other end of the

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spectrum where we've done gene editing
and we're looking at things

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that are gonna help us push for cures
for Alzheimer's and cancer. And so it just

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spans this whole spectrum. And growing up on a farm I never would have

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thought that I'd be able to be involved
with things like that.

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It really is extraordinary. By the way,
you're from Kansas I'm from Missouri so

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we're neighbors. It's a good part of the
country. I've taken lots of photos of it

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over the the past six months. I bet.
Congratulations on 200 days. And what is

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that like on the psyche what is that -
I'm sure you're always busy, but at the

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same time, missing family and loved ones
at home. How how do you keep your mental

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state at peace? Yeah absolutely. You know, being apart from your family, your

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friends, your loved ones is a
challenge. And one of

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the luxuries I think we have of working
in low Earth orbit close to the Earth is

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the amount of connectivity that we have.
The ability to make phone calls and

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check in on a routine basis - every
weekend being able to do a video

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conference with my kids and share a
little bit of the experience up here

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with them. But also be a part of their
life and understand what they're going

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through on the ground. So that we have shared experience and at

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the end of 200 days, you can come home
and return to being a normal family.

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Those are the challenges. It's
easier here in low Earth orbit, because

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communications is almost without delay.
As we as we push further and deeper into

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space those challenges will become more
difficult, with communications delays and

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just being able to stay in
contact with those friends and loved

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ones. Yeah, to me it sounds harrowing and really challenging. I've read astronauts

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speak about looking back on the Earth
and really being aware how

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insignificant we are in the grand scheme
of things. Did you have a similar

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experience or something different? You
know that's one of the special things

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about being up here, is being able to
float over to the window and see the

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Earth below. To look down 250 miles and
and with your naked eye you can

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see the crop circles in Kansas, in
Missouri and you can see

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humanity below you and you can see it
glide by as we go screaming through the

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sky at five miles a second. And
just take in - you get a

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perspective that you're away from the

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Earth and the same view you
can see the Moon rising over the horizon

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and you get this idea that, I'm
not on the Earth and I'm not

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at the Moon, but I'm just kind of in
the cosmos. And then that perspective

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really challenges you because now you're
looking down at everything that you've

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ever known. All of humanity right there.
And you have this deep appreciation for

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how big the universe really is. And for
me it's just made me cherish and

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appreciate how delicate and how precious
the little island we live on really is.

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I think that's really beautiful to hear.
Okay most important question. Who

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controls the jam box? So we have a a rotating playlist. We take turns

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and it's nice because
we have the international flair as well.

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So we have an Italian astronaut on board
along with the US astronauts and then

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two cosmonauts. And so getting to hear
some traditional music from

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Russia over dinner is a nice
change, exposure and helps us really

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appreciate that international feel that
the crew has. Yes, but every now and then

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I'm sure someone's going I wish Nick
wouldn't play that country-and-western

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anymore. There's that and to have me
stop telling my bad dad jokes.

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Now how are you able to stay in a single space this way? I see you tapping your feet

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every now and then. Are you in a foothold?
Yeah I've got a foothold and I

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can change that up, but basically there's
handrails everywhere and I can just hook

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my foot underneath there. And it's one of
the unique you talked about challenges

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for the body being up here. This is
one of those unique adaptations. The

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calluses on my feet basically have
gone away because I don't walk on the

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bottoms of my feet. But now I have
calluses across the top of my foot

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around my big toe because I'm constantly hanging on things with my big

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toe to hold me in place. One of those
strange things that you don't really

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think about on the ground. And then you
get up here and it's like wow the body

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is this amazing constantly evolving
thing. And space changes everything.

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That's incredible to see and I imagine
when you're upside down for us it feels

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exactly the same as the other way. You
know, one of the things we were playing

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with in the film which we really
didn't get to was this idea of 3D

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printing. We were going to this idea that
everything would be 3D printed on

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location. And I understand you all have
already adopted some of that. Yes,

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absolutely we've had several experiments
up here. So some of the experiments we're

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doing here are technology demonstrations
to prove out a concept that we hope to

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apply, as we go back to - back
to the Moon, and as part of the

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Artemis program. And so things like tools
and simple things that that might be

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easy to print on demand when you need
them, so that you don't have to launch

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every conceivable object with you when
you're going on that long trip to the

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Moon, or that extremely long trip to Mars.
You can just take some some stock with

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you, some feedstock and then
just throw that in the printer and then

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print out what you need. So we've done
those things and we continue to

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experiment with those. One of the more
interesting ideas behind 3D printing

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that we just wrapped up an experiment
session with was 3D printing organs. And

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so we had cardiac muscle and veins and
there was a ink printer that we loaded

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in the inks, if you wil,l into the printer
and watched it try to print out samples

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of tissue. it's just incredible to
think what the future is going to bring.

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I got to ask you, they tell me my times
almost up this is such a pleasure, I

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could talk - I could ask questions for
hours. Please tell me what's a spacewalk

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like? What do you feel?

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You see - you really are, when you get
in your spacesuit, you're putting on your

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own spacecraft. And so as you embark out through the hatchway, the first

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thing you see is the Earth, 250 miles
below. And different than the

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perspective you get inside the the space
station. The helmet really

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provides almost this 180 panoramic view
that's unobstructed and you very quickly

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forget that there's anything between you
and the vacuum of space. Really the only

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noise you hear is the the quiet hum of
the ventilation system blowing fresh air

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behind your head to support - that's your
life support system. And then you

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find yourself going to work, working with
the team on the ground and being focused

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on the task. But there are these special
moments. I can remember one from my last

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EVA where I was out on the very front of
the space station and I was

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getting ready to pack up a bag and come
back inside. And I looked up and and

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there was just the Earth. The curve of
the Earth and terrain coming

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underneath me and I could feel the speed
of the station. We're going

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17,000 miles per hour through space and
I could feel the speed of that as

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I'm riding on the front just looking
out over everything in front of us and

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it's just - the emotions that just wash
over you, it's hard to describe.

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Amazing.
Nick, last question, and I call on your

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expertise. Who was more believable,
Clooney or Pitt? You were absolutely. Nick

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thank you so much. It's been an absolute
pleasure, a real dream of mine. I can't

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wait to brag to my kids and thank you
for taking time out of your busy

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schedule to to speak with me and to watch our film. And all my respect to what you

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guys are doing up there.
Well thank you. Thank you again for

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what you do, and what you're able to do
through storytelling to inspire the next

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generation, is so critical to the success
of our programs in the future.

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You know, my generation, I am not going to be the person that steps foot on Mars

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but the children that are
watching your movies, those young adults

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that are watching your movies are the
ones that are going to be inspired to

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achieve great things. And it's the power
of those dreams that you inspire that is

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going to propel us successfully into the
future, so thank you very much.

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Thank you Nick, all the best and all the best to everyone up there. Station this is

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Houston ACR that concludes the event.

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We'd like to thank Brad Pitt for
participating today. Station, we are now