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Station, this is Headquarters. How do you hear me?

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Hello Headquarters. The International Space Station has you loud and clear.

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Awesome. Well, this is such a pleasure. My name is Cheryl Warner in the Office of Communications.

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However, today I'm calling you on behalf of the Internet.

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We asked our followers on Twitter using the hashtag #AskNASA and our friends on Facebook

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What do they want to ask you? So, they did not disappoint.

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They asked thousands of questions, and I know we don't have time for all of them. But since you're ready, I'm gonna jump right in.

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Our first question comes from Chris on Facebook. He asks, what age did you realize you were interested in space?

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Chris, that's a great question. I know for me, I actually don't even remember a time when I didn't want to be an astronaut.

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I think like a lot of little kids,

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It sounds like a great thing that you want to do. And in my case, I just never grew out of it.

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So from the time I was young, probably even before kindergarten, I was dreaming of space and being a space explorer.

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And the answer is actually pretty similar for me.

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My mom tells me that I was five years old when I started saying I wanted to be an astronaut and

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my first memory of it was in the first grade. And our teacher asked us to draw a picture of what we wanted to

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be when we grew up and I drew a picture of an astronaut in a spacesuit on the surface of the Moon, next to the

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flag. Kind of that iconic image that people have and just like Christina, I never stopped saying it my whole life either.

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Well, our next question comes from Mary on Twitter.

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She wants to know and maybe Jessica you can answer this, since you just got on station.

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Does the air feel or smell different when you're moving from the Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station?

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You know, there's this smell that we call the smell of space, which is really just

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more of the smell of the metals in their interaction with the space environment.

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So all the metals of the spacecraft and the space station and especially those involved with the docking compartments.

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So I think it was actually a pretty similar smell, with the Soyuz coming on station. And then just the other day

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Christina captured the HTV cargo vehicle, so it was again that same similar kind of smell that we had.

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I think though also I was so

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Overwhelmed with everything that was going on, from that whole flight and my arrival into weightlessness. And the transition into the space station.

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Usually my nose is very sensitive and I'm always thinking about smells. But in that first moment

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I actually wasn't thinking about it that much.

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Just getting — get docking and then coming on the space station for the first time was an absolutely incredible experience.

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Thank you. So Gary from Facebook asks, does the Moon look farther away from the International Space Station than it does from Earth?

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We are not that much closer to the Moon than you all are on the surface of the Earth, when you think about the relative

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distances. But the difference is that we aren't looking through the Earth's atmosphere when we look at the Moon.

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So the size looks about the same, but the clarity is really enhanced here and because of that,

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Sometimes it feels like it's closer.

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It definitely makes me think about the Artemis mission and looking forward to going back to the Moon in 2024.

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Manish from Twitter asks a great question, to follow up about the Artemis program. If you had the opportunity to go to the Moon,

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What would you be most interested in seeing or doing?

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I would love the opportunity to go back to the Moon.

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I think that's something that everybody in our office has been thinking about, as we start planning and moving toward these Artemis missions.

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I think for me just going out there

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exploring and adding to the scientific data set that we already have.

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There are so many questions that are still left unanswered from the Apollo missions.

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So it would be amazing to be able to contribute to those.

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Especially looking at the planetary geology and especially for me looking at the

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astrobiology type experiments. And that kind of looking for — any

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Any evidence looking — any of those types of experiments. I think looking at the planetary geology, especially.

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Awesome. So Peter from Facebook asks, which aspect of the research that you're doing aboard station today excites you most and why?

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I think the research onboard space station that excites me

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the most is twofold. One is the research that we're doing that's going to inform our future

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exploration deeper into space, going back to the moon and eventually on to Mars. We're studying the long duration of of spaceflight on humans and

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on the life-support systems that are required to support our life working and living in space.

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And secondly the type of research is that that goes back to benefit life on Earth. And one of the most

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exciting ones of that type for me, is that of pharmaceuticals in microgravity.

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We have the opportunity to grow crystals that may eventually be used to make better medicines for some very very

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important diseases on Earth. And all that is enabled by the microgravity research lab that we have around us in the International Space Station.

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Sounds exciting.

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So Jean from Facebook asks, what's your advice for young girls interested in space in science and NASA?

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I think the advice that I often give most young people is really to make sure that you identify what it is

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you're passionate about. That sounds kind of trite we say it all the time, but it really is true.

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I really don't think that you can really excel at something and more importantly be happy doing it

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if it's not something that you're really passionate about. Of course,

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It also takes a lot of hard work and there's some luck involved, too.

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I know for both Christina, and I we could have never

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imagined that our childhood dream would come true and the two of us would be here together,

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doing this event and talking to everybody else.

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So I think it is proof that dreams really can come true if you can identify that passion and then, of course,

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really work hard toward it and have things line up correctly.

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I think we only have time for one more question. So let's make it a fun one.

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Clayton from Facebook asks, how often do you take a break to stop and admire the view?

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Well, we do have very long workdays, 12-hour days from start to finish. Those are days that consist mostly of doing science and doing maintenance

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and upgrades on the space station systems.

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So when we do catch a break in between those activities,

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we may go to what I call the bay window of the space station, or what we call the cupola module.

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Basically, it's a series of seven windows that look down on Earth and they are amazing after work.

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We also can enjoy the cupola and on

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particularly exciting passes like when we're going over a site on the Earth that everyone's interested in, either because of a weather phenomenon

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or it's a place that we all know and love from home,

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you can often find all six or in this case nine astronauts packed into the cupola to take a peek.