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>> Amiko Kauderer: Good morning.
Welcome to the International Space Station Flight
Control Room.
It's a busy day aboard the International Space
Station today.
I have a very special guest, who knows all about that kind
of work that takes place.
>> Mike Fossum: They're all busy days [laughter].
>> Amiko Kauderer: [Laughter] They're all busy days.
I feel like I'm doing a sportscast here.
So, as I said, we have a very special guest with --
here with us today, who knows all
about those busy days aboard the International Space Station.
Three time space flier, most recently, Expedition 28 and 29,
where he served as Commander of the Space Station.
>> Mike Fossum: Yeah.
>> Amiko Kauderer: And here he is, NASA astronaut, Mike Fossum.
Welcome.
>> Mike Fossum: Hey, Amiko, it's great to be with you,
back on NASA TV today.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Yes, welcome, as always,
and we always love to have you here.
So, as I mentioned, let's just get right into it...
>> Mike Fossum: Sure.
>> Amiko Kauderer: ...because there's a lot
of work that's going on aboard the International Space Station.
Some activity took place on -- yesterday.
>> Mike Fossum: Right.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Yesterday, early morning we had a Progress,
Progress 49, that departed the Space Station.
I know you guys received and saw...
>> Mike Fossum: Oh, you bet.
>> Amiko Kauderer: ...the cargo vehicles coming and going.
So, talk to me a little about what your role is
on these vehicles, when -- [inaudible].
>> Mike Fossum: Well, the Progress is a cargo ship
that the Russians launch from Kazakhstan,
from their launch facility there.
The rocket itself is very much like the Soyuz rocket
that we fly, and -- but instead of the people on top,
you have the cargo ship on top, called Progress.
And it's loaded with, you know, 1,000 pounds or so of equipment,
supplies; everything from clothes, running shoes, to food,
to new pieces of equipment,
either to install new experiments onboard
or just replacement parts for the, kind of care and feeding
and maintaining of the Space Station.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Okay.
>> Mike Fossum: Get all that good stuff off over the course
of a few weeks, as you kind of go [inaudible], and of course,
the best thing's right on top;
they always put some fresh fruit.
So you open the hatch, and right -- you know, very quickly,
you get to the fresh oranges, bananas, apples.
Actually, not bananas.
No, I have seen bananas.
Those are a little harder...
>> Amiko Kauderer: Those are the first, I bet, to...
[laughter]
>> Mike Fossum: Yeah, they eat those first,
and even some onions and garlic...
>> Amiko Kauderer: Wow.
>> Mike Fossum: ...to have a little bit
of fresh stuff onboard.
Once you get it emptied out, then it's time
to start filling it back up, and, so that's how we take
out the trash, is to fill these kind of cargo ships with all
of the things you need to get rid of.
We can't just -- we can't just open a hatch and throw it out;
we use these cargo ships.
And the Progress cargo ship burns up on its way back
into the atmosphere, and so you pretty much
incinerate everything.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Okay, great.
And I think we're looking at video now from this morning --
I mean, not this morning, but yesterday morning's...
>> Mike Fossum: Right.
>> Amiko Kauderer: ...departure
from the International Space Station.
The Progress backs away, fires its thruster,
and backed away to a safe distance.
It actually has not de-orbited yet.
I understand Progress 49 is --
they're going to be doing some radar system testing...
>> Mike Fossum: Right.
>> Amiko Kauderer: ...for -- over the next few days,
I believe, on the 21st, [inaudible] on the 21st,
and then on the 26th will de-orbit and it'll...
>> Mike Fossum: You bet.
>> Amiko Kauderer: ...be gone...
>> Mike Fossum: The view...
>> Amiko Kauderer: ...will take out the trash.
>> Mike Fossum: ...we have right now is a little confusing,
because that's actually the view from the Progress, as --
it has a camera that looks at the station,
and that's used particularly for the docking,
but also for the undocking, and so the view
that we had there was of the Space Station
as the Progress is backing away.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Okay.
>> Mike Fossum: So, it's kind of cool.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Yeah.
I think even from that camera view sometimes
when we're seeing the docking or the undocking,
you can actually see the crosshairs of...
>> Mike Fossum: You bet.
>> Amiko Kauderer: ...where they line
up on the docking mechanism.
>> Mike Fossum: Oh, yeah.
When you get in close, you can see that, too.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Okay, great.
And, so, let's talk about a few other of the cargo ships,
and also just the importance of those cargo supply ships.
>> Mike Fossum: Right.
>> Amiko Kauderer: So,
what other cargo supply ships do we have?
>> Mike Fossum: For the ATV, it's a Russian cargo --
or, I'm sorry, it's a European-built cargo ship
that we've had several onboard.
There -- I've -- the next one's due in a month or so;
I've actually lost track of exactly when that's due.
It's a very large ship that comes up, again,
with a large amount of supplies and a large capacity
for hauling things away.
And we have the SpaceX Dragon.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Yeah.
>> Mike Fossum: We've had several of those dock,
and what makes the Dragon unique,
is that the Dragon spaceship actually re-enters using a heat
shield and is recovered.
And, so that's our way right now of getting the largest amount
of things back to the Earth, and so we're returning --
some of the scientific experiments
that we're doing onboard require us to prepare samples,
whether it's biologic samples from humans or material samples
from things we've processed in furnaces and stuff like that.
So now with the SpaceX Dragon,
we can get those samples back to Earth.
The other cargo ship is the HTV,
which is a Japanese-built cargo ship
and works pretty much the same as the Progress and the ATV.
I know the acronyms get confusing.
>> Amiko Kauderer: [Laughter].
>> Mike Fossum: So, it burns up on the way in.
And we're very close.
Orbital Sciences Corporation is very close
to launching their first rocket tomorrow afternoon
at about 4 o'clock Central Time.
We're all waiting with great anticipation for that event,
and they're close to launching their next --
their first Cygnus resupply ship to the station, also.
So there's quite a number of different ships
and options that we have.
>> Amiko Kauderer: And, so -- and very important, obviously,
to talk about those -- the capabilities of those vehicles
and the cargo craft that's coming.
Let's talk a little about the capability
of the Space Station itself.
>> Mike Fossum: Sure.
>> Amiko Kauderer: I think the number one is science
on the Space Station, and today there has been a lot of --
actually, all week there's been a lot of activity
on science experiments,
one of which Tom Marshburn has been working on with most
of the day, and one that you are familiar with.
These are those bowling ball size [laughter] satellites,
they're three different color orbs.
>> Mike Fossum: SPHERES.
>> Amiko Kauderer: SPHERES.
>> Mike Fossum: And I apologize, I don't remember the acronym.
We just know it as SPHERES, and they are large.
>> Amiko Kauderer: It's a long one,
Synchronized Position Hold...
>> Mike Fossum: There you go.
>> Amiko Kauderer: ...Engage, Reorient...
>> Mike Fossum: Oh, very good.
>> Amiko Kauderer: ...right?
>> Mike Fossum: [Laughter] They're large;
they're about the size --
actually, a little bigger than a bowling ball,
they're about the size of a basketball.
It's a cooperative effort.
And these SPHERES, they're actually --
we call them satellites,
and they can maneuver inside the station.
Not throughout the whole station; they require kind
of a positioning system, and we have to set these sensors
up inside the module,
and we usually use the Japanese laboratory.
And then, the individual satellites -- this --
can determine their location.
They can determine the location
of the other free-flying satellites,
and they can do things like maneuver around each other.
It's actually kind of strange,
once you get these things set up, and there's a lot
of work to get them set up.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Sure.
>> Mike Fossum: They use just CO2,
carbon dioxide, little thrusters...
>> Amiko Kauderer: Okay.
>> Mike Fossum: ...just compressed gas,
to maneuver around.
But as you turn them loose, get them activated,
and they come up, and they go through different kinds
of maneuvers, and they're for -- we're --
we use it as a tool for -- I mean, it's hardcore science,
but it's also -- it's also used by students,
and they have student competitions
where they program them to do certain maneuvers,
and then they're evaluated based on how precise they were able
to -- the students were able
to direct the satellites to do the maneuvers.
What a cool project for students to work on.
>> Amiko Kauderer: It -- it looks --
it looks cool; it sounds cool.
It would be great as a person here on Earth,
being able see my project up there on Space Station,
and you guys working with it.
>> Mike Fossum: Absolutely.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Moving right along,
because we have a lot to talk about here.
>> Mike Fossum: You bet.
>> Amiko Kauderer: So, Cassidy was working earlier
with the Combustion Integrated Rack.
And, just explain what that facility is and what it serves.
>> Mike Fossum: Well, there's --
we have several different combustion facilities onboard.
The Combustion Integrated Rack has a burn chamber,
a combustion chamber, down inside the rack,
where we use different fuels
and we can actually control the atmosphere that's
in the combustion chamber.
We're looking very detailed physics of the flame,
of combustion, with a lot of sensors peering
through these special quartz glass windows
to gather information about that,
because things burn differently in zero-G.
And without the effects of gravity, the hot air rising,
and we can study what's called the boundary --
the boundary equations for flame, and it's really getting
into the chemistry and the physics
as they all come together to try to understand the borders,
they're right there at the edge of combustibility.
Will it burn?
Will it not burn?
What are the physics?
What are the optics?
What are the signatures that it gives off when it's burning?
>> Amiko Kauderer: Okay.
>> Mike Fossum: That's in the Combustion Integrated Rack.
They're also working in the Microgravity Science Glovebox.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Yeah.
I was going to ask.
This is a thing that you actually see them put their
hands in.
>> Mike Fossum: Right.
You...
>> Amiko Kauderer: And I think Cassidy was working
with that one on a -- yet another --
speaking of playing with fire, we're actually looking
at a live view here...
>> Mike Fossum: We're looking at live video right now.
>> Amiko Kauderer: ...of another experiment, known as the BASS,
the Burning and Suppression Experiment.
So can you talk to me a little about this?
>> Mike Fossum: Well, this is looking at more --
instead of the exotic fuels, this is looking
at more common things, including things
that we have onboard this spacecraft: things that we used
to build the panels out of, the clothing, and other equipment.
And, what we're looking at is the --
is, again, we're looking at the details of the combustion,
because we find in the zero gravity environment,
things burn differently.
Now, one of the applications of this is --
actually goes into smoke detectors' design,
because the smoke detectors that we have
in our homes have all been optimized based
on certain assumptions for combustion products.
What does a fire give off?
Because the smoke sensors don't measure the fire;
they're measuring the smoke and the gases that come off
of that fire and find their way
to the smoke sensor, our smoke detector.
And, so, we're -- and, so, the ones on the Space Station,
the ones we've used in space historically have been based
on [ringing] Earth type of measurements
for combustion products [ringing],
and so we're now looking to see what the differences might be
in the different [ringing] kind of combustion situations,
very controlled, in a glove box,
where you can control it very carefully...
>> Amiko Kauderer: Yeah.
>> Mike Fossum: ...to understand that better.
>> Amiko Kauderer: And, obviously, for safety reasons,
that has some applications not only there in space
but also here on Earth, so perhaps we can have some --
find some advancements in detection
and suppression of fires.
>> Mike Fossum: Absolutely.
>> Amiko Kauderer: [Inaudible].
>> Mike Fossum: Absolutely.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Very good.
Well, leading into -- fires is a topic of Earth Day,
but this has some -- we have some --
several other little things that we can talk about as far
as Earth, and how the Space Station relates to Earth Day.
Earth Day is a very important day for us here
on Earth [laughter], obviously.
And as well as aboard the International Space Station.
Earth Day is coming up on the 26th -- 22nd, and we --
although here, I think we tend
to take the whole month as Earth Day.
So, first of all, talk to me a little about Earth ops,
because everybody wants to know about the photos
and the pictures that you take, and they're lovely,
and beautiful, but why do we --
why are we so interested in seeing our Earth
from the International Space Station?
>> Mike Fossum: Well, the value is getting the --
getting humans up there to look back at the Earth
from a different point of view,
because you can see things differently.
You can see things in perspective that you can't see,
necessarily, when you're up close on the ground.
And a good example is, a couple of years ago I was on orbit
when we had a lot of fires across the United States,
particularly in the state of Texas,
and we could see these individual fires,
and you could even name some of them, you know,
by just knowing the geography, and I --
you know, and knowing that that's Bastrop,
and I recognized the Bastrop area,
and the fire that was there.
But, you also see -- I mean, the plumes from these fires
that are all joining together and actually flowing
out across the Gulf of Mexico,
and so you could see the smoke haze
that was actually influencing other people,
and they had no idea where this haze was coming from.
We could see that that's happening.
You can see that very frequently in other areas, too.
In the -- on the continent of Africa, and even in Australia,
where some of these wildfires are pretty extensive,
and you can see where the effects
of those go a thousand miles downwind, as you can see that.
Same for dust storms.
Gives you the appreciation of seeing the Earth from above
and how fragile it really is.
And to look at the horizon, and we think atmosphere, you know,
a little bit of stuff in the air, it's not a big deal.
When you get up there, and you realize you can put your arm
out, and the atmosphere is about half the thickness
of your little finger, because you can see it, and that's,
you know, when you realize that's a pretty small shell.
We think of the atmosphere as being
so extensive, and it's not.
It's really not.
There's a -- it's a thin layer around this planet, and so,
you know, these things always come back, and there's --
you can't just do something here and make a big difference.
We all need to do it together.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Right, right.
So, this leads me to --
we had asked some folks out on social media
to send us your questions, and so,
they have a few questions for you.
>> Mike Fossum: Good.
>> Amiko Kauderer: And one of them relates much
of what you were just talking about.
This one comes on a -- to us on Facebook from Kirk.
"Using the ECLSS, this is the Environmental Control Life
Support System, to sustain life, and looking at the Earth
from aboard ISS, I would be interested
to hear your personal opinion about your --
our planet's environment."
>> Mike Fossum: Okay Well -- and Kirk, that's a great question.
Onboard the station -- well,
on the planet we have natural systems that, you know,
take care of us in so many different ways.
We have plants that give off the oxygen that we need,
and at the same time they absorb the carbon dioxide that's one
of our waste products.
Our water is purified, and wastes find their way in.
We try to purify them,
but eventually they really get purified by evaporating,
collecting in clouds, coming down in rain,
and then we have fresh water that gathers in rivers and lakes
that we draw from for our drinking water.
So in two real simple things, those kind of systems --
you know, those processes don't work on board the Space Station;
we'd need huge modules full of plants
to absorb enough carbon dioxide and give us enough oxygen,
and so we have to come up with systems
that can replicate the Earth's natural systems to do it
in a much more -- and take up a lot less space,
and do it in a controlled way, in a reliable way.
And, so we're learning, you know, how to do those kind
of things, you know, onboard the station with systems that do all
of the above, including purifying the water to a --
because we can't afford to drink water one time...
>> Amiko Kauderer: Right.
>> Mike Fossum: ...and then throw it away.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Right.
>> Mike Fossum: We have to get it -- you know, purify,
separate it out, and recover as much as we can.
>> Amiko Kauderer: So,
living aboard the International Space Station is teaching a lot
of these -- is teaching us a lot of these things that we may need
to use here on Earth to help [inaudible].
>> Mike Fossum: It does give us the --
we're learning a lot in how to --
particularly the water purification area...
>> Amiko Kauderer: Sure.
>> Mike Fossum: ...that we can use, and it's starting to show
up in disaster relief in Third World countries,
and things like that.
And, you really -- when we talk about space ships,
Space Station being a space ship, and we need to do this,
we're on spaceship Earth, too [laughter].
>> Amiko Kauderer: Right.
Well, so, like I said, tons of activity happening.
This Friday, we have an EVA; this is a spacewalk.
It's going to be a Russian spacewalk with Vinogradov
and Romanenko, and do you -- can you tell...
>> Mike Fossum: Sure.
>> Amiko Kauderer: ...
[inaudible] a little about that?
>> Mike Fossum: Sure.
Yeah, we're -- it's -- the crew looks forward
to doing the spacewalks, because it's a chance
to do something very challenging,
and step outside and do some work.
There -- for this particular one --
the biggest one is installing a new experiment,
or aspects of a new experiment on the outside
of the Russian part of the Space Station.
They're going to do a little maintenance, and they're going
to remove a few things that are no longer needed and,
quite literally, throw them away, literally,
by throwing them, and in a controlled way throw them
so they're going a little slower than the Space Station,
and they'll drop out of orbit in -- within a few weeks.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Wow.
>> Mike Fossum: And this --
I've lost track now of how many spacewalks Pavel Vinogradov has.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Right.
He's...
>> Mike Fossum: He's a very experienced --
a very experienced space flier and spacewalker.
It's going to be fun to watch him
as he teaches the new guy, the rookie.
>> Amiko Kauderer: As are you.
I think you know something about that.
You've done seven spacewalks...
>> Mike Fossum: Right.
>> Amiko Kauderer: So...
>> Mike Fossum: You bet.
>> Amiko Kauderer: ...with three spaceflights under the belt.
I have a question here that came to us from Twitter.
It comes from Irish Space Blog.
He says, "Mike, does the view of Earth from Cupola differ greatly
from the view during an EVA?"
>> Mike Fossum: Wow.
You know, I think the biggest difference is, even when you're
in the Cupola, you know, you're up against windows.
It's really cool, you know, to be able to do that,
to see the Earth, to see the horizons, because most
of the windows on the Space Station look straight down,
and as you're passing over things at five miles a second,
as you're trying to get a photo or just appreciate the view,
it's kind of coming, and then it's gone, and, so, it's --
it happens fairly quickly.
In the Cupola, you can see that horizon and stuff.
Outside, it's -- it can be almost overwhelming at times,
because, instead of looking through, you know,
panes of glass -- multiple panes of glass that are inches thick,
you're looking through a fishbowl, you know,
that's on your head...
>> Amiko Kauderer: Right.
>> Mike Fossum: ...and you're out there, and you can see
around and really see the entire Space Station,
which you don't get the chance to see
through the other windows, and see the Earth
in its magnificence, as it's kind
of rolling by underneath you.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Well,
I'm sure it's a true honor to be able to be...
>> Mike Fossum: Oh, it is.
>> Amiko Kauderer: ...one of the people who actually get to go
and venture outside the Space Station, so.
>> Mike Fossum: It -- yes, it is -- I mean, it is an honor.
It is -- it's not all fun.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Right.
>> Mike Fossum: It's a lot of work,
and it's a little bit scary out there, even after, you know,
seven spacewalks, about 48 hours working outside.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Right.
Well, this just brings me
to one other question we received on Twitter.
This one comes from Amanda Hannah.
She wanted to know, "Is it fun to do a spacewalk?"
And, "What did you do on your EVA?"
Knowing that you did seven, maybe...
>> Mike Fossum: Okay.
>> Amiko Kauderer: ...you can talk
about the last one [inaudible].
>> Mike Fossum: Okay.
Well, Amanda, it's fun, but it's not all fun,
and I think that that's really important to understand.
It's serious work; it's dangerous work.
It's probably the most dangerous thing we do besides launch
and landing, because there's risks associated
with being outside in your own spaceship.
In this case, a spacesuit has to collect that carbon dioxide,
provide your oxygen, provide your cooling,
and all those kind of things.
It's mentally challenging; it's physically challenging.
You train a lot for it.
And, so, it's very personally rewarding to go out
and to be able to do that, but there's --
it's also a little scary out there, so you need to hang on;
you need to double, triple check the safety tethers and make sure
that you're following the procedures,
and you're not getting careless or too comfortable.
So, I say you're always a little scared;
I think that's a good thing.
My last spacewalk was during STS-135,
the last space shuttle mission, and our job there was
to take a pump module that had failed on the Space Station,
and this is a 1400-pound pump module.
It didn't weigh that, but it still has that mass.
>> Amiko Kauderer: This is the --
this was the last space shuttle...
>> Mike Fossum: Last space shuttle mission, right.
>> Amiko Kauderer: [Inaudible] space shuttle mission.
And, so, were you with the...
>> Mike Fossum: I was living onboard the station,
and when the space shuttle Atlantis came up with her crew,
and then Ron Garan and I were the expedition crewmembers
that did the spacewalk...
>> Amiko Kauderer: Right.
>> Mike Fossum: ...we moved the pump module.
It was an ammonia pump, part
of the Space Station's cooling system
that had failed a couple of years before that.
We moved that and put it in the payload bay of the --
of the space shuttle Atlantis, so they could bring it back
for analysis, and we moved a new experiment,
the Remote Refueling Mission, it wasa Goddard experiment
that was brought up in the space shuttle, and we moved that,
placed it on the outside of the station,
and then robotically it was moved to its position
on the truss of the station,
where they've been doing ongoing experiments with that --
with that Goddard payload, and it's very exciting
to see them doing that.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Okay.
And also, real quick, this one's going to be a Russian spacewalk,
and so I know that at times we use some
of our U.S. equipment...
>> Mike Fossum: Sure.
>> Amiko Kauderer: ...on their spacesuits
for their [inaudible], Hadfield was installing the lights
on their Orlan suits,
and Cassidy was configuring the cameras.
Can you talk to me about some of what your role is,
if you were not on a...
>> Mike Fossum: Sure.
>> Amiko Kauderer: ...spacewalk,
and it was the Russian [inaudible].
>> Mike Fossum: Well, just supporting the other --
the other crewmembers,
and I supported a Russian spacewalk while I was
up there, too.
We set them up, and in this case Roman Romanenko will be wearing
a helmet camera that's a U.S. helmet camera will be mounted
on his suit, so we'll be able to watch him as he's working.
There's several different tools that we -- that we share, and,
so kind of set him up.
I helped the crew some with some of their fit checks
and had some ideas for -- you know, for helping them out.
The U.S. crewmembers will also be kind of assisting
as they close the hatches,
and their airlock system works just a little differently
than ours, and our guys will be supporting some
of the pressure checks to make sure that the hatches --
none of the hatches associated with that are leaking.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Okay.
>> Mike Fossum: So...
>> Amiko Kauderer: Very good.
Well, thank...
>> Mike Fossum: It'll be -- it'll be an exciting thing.
>> Amiko Kauderer: It will be exciting.
I think it always is.
I think that's about all the time that we have.
>> Mike Fossum: [Chuckles] Okay.
>> Amiko Kauderer: I really appreciate you coming out,
as always.
It's always a pleasure.
And, again, that spacewalk will be happening on Friday.
You can watch it here on NASA Television beginning
at 8:30 a.m. Central Time.
>> Mike Fossum: Very good.
>> Amiko Kauderer: Thanks so much for coming out.
>> Mike Fossum: Thanks, Amiko...
>> Amiko Kauderer: Thank you.
>> Mike Fossum: ...always great to be here.
Thanks, everybody.
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