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Each time we go out into space on a spacewalk,
it's a little bit dangerous
and it's definitely really difficult.
It's also a lot of fun,
especially when you've trained really well for it
and you know what you're doing,
so, it's not that scary.
You open up the door,
and you see beautiful planet Earth floating below.
You float outside.
You make sure you have your safety tethers connected
so you won't float away.
You don't learn that just by studying it in a book;
we actually practice it a lot here on planet Earth.
The best place, the only other place
that you can kind of simulate being in space
is inside of a big swimming pool.
Here at the Johnson Space Center,
we call it the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, or the NBL.
I've spent a lot of time
getting ready for my spacewalks --
both the American spacewalks and the Russian spacewalks --
by spending time here at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.
And we have a full mock-up of the International Space Station,
especially the airlock.
We practice opening the hatch.
Of course when we open the hatch,
we see a scuba diver's face there;
we don't really see planet Earth.
It's just like being in space.
We practice setting our safety tethers.
We practice turning the bolts
and putting out the scientific experiments
and bringing them back in,
and doing it safely and efficiently.
And, sometimes, you don't even know
what you're gonna do on your mission
because the unknown things happen.
Something breaks that we weren't expecting.
So we get a good set of skills here.
And to build up (a) good set of skills,
we need to practice things over and over
inside the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.
So we wear a real spacesuit,
and we stay inside the water for six hours
practicing all the necessary skills to have a safe spacewalk,
and it paid off on one of my missions.
We had an unexpected spacewalk
because a part of the space station broke.
We just put on our suits and went outside,
moved things around, turned a few bolts,
replaced the power module,
and we were back in business.
And nobody was worried about it at all
because we had really good training.