LIVE: Astronauts on Space Station Speak With NASA Administrator

Station, this is Houston. Are you ready for the event? We are ready. NASA HQ, this is Mission Control Houston. Please call station for a voice check. Station, this is Bill Nelson and Pam Melroy. How do you hear me? Hey Bill. Hi Pam. Expedition 72 has got you loud and clear from the ISS. Welcome aboard. Well, Happy New Year. What are you guys looking forward to up there in the new year? Well, there's a lot to look forward to and I think we could each add to the list, but the nearest thing that we're looking forward to is doing a couple spacewalks over the next couple weeks. It's a single thing to focus on and we all come together as a team and pull off something that's really hard to do. And that's with the team down on the ground because there's hundreds of people down there that are making all of it happen. Well, Pam's here with me. She wants to greet you as well. What a joy it is to see you guys, Butch, Sonny, Don, and Nick, all back in one of the most fabulous places in the entire universe, our gorgeous International Space Station. So, Happy New Year and I'm excited about your spacewalk too. That's you and Sonny, right? Is that right, Nick? Yeah, that's the first one and hopefully all goes well with some radiator refills. That's sort of going to dictate our future. And if that all goes well, the team has a lot to do on the ground there. Then Nick and I will do the first one next week and then Butch and I will do the one on the following week. Hey guys, are you going to be pulling any other special videos such as you did for the Olympics, where you all had your own Olympics on the International Station? Well, doing a spacewalk, if you look at the training that everybody goes through, it's almost like it's an Olympic-level event, only it's in space. You know, but we try to find ways to have fun and I think I wasn't here when they made that first video. I'd look forward to doing something like that. Just before we got on here, we were all practicing doing a group forward flip, trying to perfect it. Maybe we should show that off. Absolutely. So we've got some work to go. We'll practice some more and when we're ready, we'll make sure we record it. Yeah, it was really beautiful, but you are going to have to practice a little to stick the landing, it looks like. That's right. You need your feet together when you come down in the landing to get a perfect score. Yeah, we agree. And we're going to work and work hard. Good. Hey, Don, it's really great to see you in space again. How's your photography going? Photography is going well. We have a new generation of cameras on station, Pam, and it's really amazing what these cameras can record and we've got some special lenses, particularly optimized for nighttime imagery. And I really appreciate the folks at JSC and the folks at Huntsville that make sure we have all this equipment on orbit that allows us to collect the imagery that is so publicly available and tells the story of what it's like to be in space. I'm just going to add one thing. These guys are being really humble. Don has taken some incredible photographs, Bush has done some incredible time lapses, as well as Matt Dominick beforehand, and those things go viral. I think you guys know that too, but all my friends and family are just loving the work that these guys have done. It's just awesome. Yeah, I've seen some of those. You're absolutely right. They're amazing. I want to ask Butch and Sonny if you will put to rest what reporters still keep asking me about how you're stranded, that they're concerned that you don't have any clothes, that you don't have any food. Would you put to rest for the final time, and I hope you never have to answer it again, just how you all are doing? Yeah, I think when we first launched, I think it was well known that we came up here. We swapped out a couple of components we needed on space station for some of our clothes. We wore some clothes for a while, but that doesn't bother us because clothes fit loosely up here. It's not like on Earth where you sweat and it gets bad. They fit loosely, so you can wear things, honestly, for weeks at a time, and it doesn't bother you at all. We never had any issue with wearing clothes for an extended amount of time. Now we have plenty of clothes. We are well fed. I've never seen anyone ever, ever eat as much as Don Pettit can eat. It is amazing to watch this man eat, as skinny as he is. So that's just been a joy within itself. Every meal time, actually I get up at morning. I get up early. Don gets up early. We get up at like four, and he's already in there eating before I even get up. I mean, it's just amazing. Amazing. So what you're telling us is you're not channeling cast away, and you don't have a volleyball with a handprint on it that you call Wilson. No, we've got a whole team up here, so we're not worried about that. There's a lot to do as well with the team on the ground. We had tons of science experiments with SpaceX 31. We got spacewalks coming up. It was really busy when we were waiting for Nick to get up here. It's just been a joy to be working up here, particularly with our counterparts on the other end of the space station. It's just a great team, and no, it doesn't feel like we're cast away. Yeah, eventually we want to go home because we left our families a little while ago, but we have a lot to do while we're up here. We've got to get all that stuff done before we go home. Hey, Nick, it took you a couple of times on Soyuz to get to the station. Now you're back on the station. What's it like? Yeah, you know, I may not be the quickest study, but I eventually get it right. Coming through the hatch this time was like I hadn't left. I spent a little over 200 days the first time up here, and coming back through, it was like it was day 201. The body just is so miraculous in how it adapts, and it has a memory, and it just kind of snaps back. And so within a couple days, it felt like it was just business as usual. Life on the station really hasn't changed much. The feel of life on station hasn't changed. A lot of the experiments have changed, and that's been impressive to see this time around because the science continues to get more and more complex and more and more consequential, and the things that we're trying to answer are more and more important for all of humanity. And that's fun to see that evolution. So Nick, what's your favorite experiment? Maybe that's for the whole crew. The experiment that I've spent a lot of time on, a little over 60 days, I've been growing algae. And it's been fun for a couple reasons. One, it's really important. We're trying to figure out how do we create life support systems that are sustainable beyond Earth orbit, that we don't have to continually resupply because they're not closed-loop systems. And so algae is a potential source for that so that they can consume our carbon dioxide and produce oxygen for us. And oh, by the way, if we produce a little bit more, we can also consume it as food. And so it's a really neat idea that's been—there's a lot of research going into it. But it's also been fun because as part of this experiment, every couple weeks I get into new equipment, and there's notes from the research team in there. They didn't know who was going to be working on it, but they passed up notes. And those have been so special to kind of unopen as I go along. And it makes you feel connected to just the teams of people on the ground that have been doing this research for years and years. And you get to be part of that, even if it's only for a couple weeks up here. It's really special. From the early days of the space shuttle program, we were working on experiments like the protein crystal growth. Is any of that going on? How about other medical experiments that might be going on? There have been protein crystal growth experiments that JAXA have been doing right behind us in these containers that are called frosty, and they can also be used as an incubator at elevated temperatures. And that's what they've been doing with the protein crystal growth. JAXA also has another apparatus just about three racks in front of us on the aft side that is also used for protein crystal growth. So it is still a viable topic. People are still working on it. All these years since you flew on the shuttle and were working on it then. Well, that's fantastic. In fact, I think, haven't we learned that some of the protein crystal growth experiments have resulted in medical treatments here on Earth, which is just amazing to think about the basic research that you do that is going on to benefit life on Earth. Yeah, and Pam, to be honest, I've lost track of the extension of the protein crystal growth experiments to application in human testing. I have not been up with it. Because, you know, the past two years I've been studying these things called EMER procedures with a fire and depressant. And we actually had a fire warning go off this morning. Got everybody out of the sack. And it was a false indication. But we jumped into the procedures just like we did trade. We fire up our analyzers to make sure there aren't any combustion products. And we just charged off. Speaking of fires, there is a raging fire that is starting to really seriously damage Southern California. Have you all been able to see that out the window of the space station? Our orbit is not cooperated yet. We've been able to observe the fires in the Congo region, their annual slash and burn that they do for taking care of their agriculture. And they're visible both during the day and at night. You can see the flame fronts at nighttime. And as soon as we get either day pass or night pass over Southern California, we're going to be using the photo equipment that I talked about earlier to record that and share it with everybody on Earth. We really appreciate that, Don. I think being able to see wildfires from space is just one way that NASA, both from the space station but also from our other Earth-observing satellites, is trying to help in this terrible wildfire situation. So just keep everybody there in your thoughts and prayers. And we're kind of worried about the Jet Propulsion Lab and our staff there. So I know that they would appreciate your thoughts. And speaking of the Jet Propulsion Lab, we just have done an extensive amount of testing and decision-making and just announced that we have a viable plan for return of the samples from Mars. So everything that you all are doing on the station is going to get us ready to go to the Moon and then eventually to Mars. And in the meantime, we've got a viable plan. We're bringing back 30 titanium tube-filled cores from the surface of Mars. Is there any thought about bringing them to space station first before we bring them to Mother Earth and do the initial stage of analysis on space station? Our preference is that we are going direct back to Earth. And it would be a landing like the Bennu asteroid sample. It would land with parachutes in the Utah desert. That's the preferred return on the European return vehicle. Yeah, and I think it's going to take a little while, Don. But Bill is absolutely right that what you are doing right now is helping us get not just to the Moon but on to Mars. If I squint just a little bit, I could imagine that you're on a Mars transport vehicle in microgravity on the way as the first crew to land on Mars. So it's nice to see you there. It's a special and amazing place. But what you're doing is actually pushing humanity out into the solar system. So thank you for that. And, Pam, we're ready to go on that mission. Hey, guys, we just want you to know how much we appreciate what you do, that you represent not only America, you represent all of humanity. If ever there has been an example of international cooperation, you all are setting the gold standard because of how you get along with everybody on the International Space Station. You are, in fact, a model of what we can do as Earthlings if we put our minds to it. So thank you, God bless you, and Happy New Year. Well, thank you very much, Bill and Pam. Thanks so much for taking the time. You know, we're just part of a big team that's getting this all done. So honored to be part of it, honored to be living here on the International Space Station. And when we get home, we'll have lots of stories to tell, and we'll see you all there. Can't wait to see you. Station, this is Houston ACR. Thank you. That concludes the event. Thank you to all participants. Station, we're now resuming operational audio communications.