Expedition 68 Space Station Crew Talks with Consumer Electronics Show - Jan. 6, 2023

Astronauts on the International Space Station talk with participants at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Friday, Jan. 6, 2023, using ultra-high definition television. The live interaction was sponsored by the non-profit Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, which coordinates International Space Station National Laboratory research for NASA. The conversation with astronauts Nicole Mann and Frank Rubio focused on how a variety of users are leveraging the space station to further technological advancements that can bring value to humanity, improve the quality of life for those living and working in space, and enable a sustainable market in low Earth orbit. The orbiting laboratory continues to maintain an uninterrupted human presence after more than 22 years. Get the latest from NASA weekly: www.nasa.gov/subscribe

What is said in the film

Station. This is Houston. Are you ready for the event? Houston, this is Station. We are ready for the event.

Consumer Electronics Show. This is Mission Control. Houston, Please call station for a voice check. Station, this is Jackie at CES, How do you hear me? Jackie we hear you loud and clear.

And on behalf of Expedition 68, the national team and our international partners, we welcome you to the International Space Station. All right, guys, we're getting some applause here. Nicole and Frank, thank you so, so much for taking the time out to join us. Greetings from all of us in Las Vegas. I know we're working with this delay, so I will jump right into the questions.

You both have been in space about three months now and you're both first time astronauts. How are you feeling and what has the experience been like so far? I think we're feeling pretty great. This is an amazing experience getting to float around in space and, you know, every day is different. That's what makes working up here so special.

Sometimes you'll be working on maintenance on the space station. Sometimes you'll be conducting world class science. Some days you get to do a spacewalk or like I'll be doing in two weeks, helping your crewmate get out the door so that Nicole can go out and do a spacewalk. But every day you get to work with a world class team. We have amazing support personnel on the ground, both NASA and internationally, and that makes it pretty special to work up here.

All right. And then I wanted to check in with you guys. We've been talking about various research projects that are assigned to station by different organizations, private companies, academic institutions. Can you tell us a little bit about what research project you've both been working on in recent days? There is a ton, and I'm not even sure where to start.

We've been very busy conducting a lot of experiments on board. Our most recently we've been working with two experiments that are looking at growing tomatoes, veggie five, were growing dwarf tomatoes in space, and this is to better find a way that we can sustain the human diet on a long duration mission to Mars, perhaps. And looking at different light sources and different fertilizers to help those tomatoes grow. We also have another experiment called plant Hab, and this is looking at if the adaptive behavior of the plants can be passed on to the next generation of plants. So the current plants that were growing in space, those seeds will be returned to Earth and then they'll be repackaged and flown again.

And the next mission will be able to compare those second generation plants to seeds that came from Earth and to see if we're able to transition some of those adaptive qualities to plants. We're also science subjects while we're in space. And recently I did Cardio Breath, which is from the Canadian Space Agency and is looking at how your cardiovascular system changes due to microgravity. So you wear a suite of sensors while you exercise that look at heart rate, respiratory rate and your pulse. And we can compare that data preflight during flight and then post-flight.

All right. And I know that you guys have your hands in hundreds of experiments, but we are at the Consumer Electronics Show here. What opportunities do you guys see for tech companies to get involved in research or demonstration projects in space and do any that have passed through the station before stick out to you as exciting examples? Yeah, Jackie, as we transition to exploring deeper and deeper into space, one of the things that we hope to do is transition low-Earth orbit to commercial entities. And so absolutely, for instance, one of the, I think, coolest things we have is right next to me here, it's called Astrobee.

And these are autonomous little self-propelled robots that we are currently working with, and we'll hopefully be able to help us in the future. They can do things like take pictures for us or do stowage tracking. And the more that we can offload to them, the more we're available to do research and other types of science. One of the things that you're familiar with, of course, is the bio fabrication facility. This is a really exciting thing for me as a doctor especially.

We're looking at how we can replicate human tissues up here in space and in the microgravity environment. We're finding that the cellular replication tends to be different and better in a lot of ways. And in the future, there's hope that we can maybe fabricate entire human organs up here. And what a world changing event that would be. And one thing that I also asked the panelists here was in four future space stations, we know private companies are working to bring extra modules to the ISS as well as potentially developing their own platforms for low-Earth orbit.

On these future stations, what amenities would you like to see? You know, what changes could these platforms have that might help aid, research or make your life more comfortable? Well, you're right. This is a very exciting time, especially for the commercial industry. We're just seeing an explosion of activity in low-Earth orbit.

And hopefully soon we'll see more people in low-Earth orbit as well. As these platforms mature and other opportunities to travel to space and to have your science or experiment be in space. And, you know, as far as a laboratory goes, I think we're really finding that the future is going to be a combination of automation, computer systems, potentially robots. Like Frank spoke about and then humans on board as well. There are some things that humans just need to interact with the experiment, but it's really how we integrate those efficiently along with support from the ground so that the principal investigator can be involved in the experiment to make sure everything is conducted appropriately.

So I think that will be really key to efficient and success for science in the future of low-Earth orbit. As far as humans living and working in space, it's it's pretty awesome here on the International Space Station. You know, we've been yeah, a shower would be nice, but we have plenty of hot water, so that's good. But I think we've learned a lot over, you know, this is the third decade that we're going to have humans on the International Space Station. So I think taking that information and learning from what we've done over and over the years as far as adapting to accommodate humans on space station and then applying that to these other orbiting laboratories or modules that fly will definitely be key to success in the future.

So and a question here for Frank. We have red wire on our panel here, which was a contractor on the AI process, solar arrays that you recently conducted your first spacewalk to help install. Can you tell us a little bit about your personal experience conducting a spacewalk? It sounds like an incredible experience. And also, tell us a little bit about what these new solar arrays are bringing to the station.

Sure. I'll tell you, a spacewalk is really pretty special. It's right up there between a launch and a spacewalk. As far as what my favorite thing has been out of this entire experience. The views are, of course, fantastic.

But, you know, there's something also that's really rewarding about going out there and doing something really hard and and then working with an incredible team to make that hard thing seem pretty straightforward and simple in some ways that I Rosa it's just an incredible design. We essentially got it out there, got it set up, and then just turned one last screw and it deployed itself. And what it brings is a lot of efficiency, right? For a much smaller size, we gain a lot more power for the station. And so we hope to use similar, if not the same technology to power our outpost on the moon.

And so, yeah, it was a pretty pretty darn special to be a part of that. And and I know that you're both in low-Earth orbit right now on your first mission, but you're both part of NASA's Artemis team of astronauts, which means that you could be selected for a future moon mission. And we saw the Artemis I mission launch in November, which was the first Uncrewed mission around the moon. Did you guys follow along with that launch? And what are your thoughts about the future and eventually, you know, traveling deeper into space?

We absolutely followed along on the Artemis mission. We were so excited. Unfortunately, we were not able to see the launch from the Cupola, but the ground kept us informed of the exciting progress throughout the mission. They uplink to photos of the moon and photos of the moon and earth, which was just an incredible sight. I think everybody around the world was really excited for Artemis.

We've had a huge international team that is working towards this next step in human exploration for a very long time. And so it was great to see the results of all that effort and a successful Artemis mission and really it's just opening the door, opening the door to this exploration beyond low earth orbit. And when we go to the moon this time, this will be sustained human performance or human presence on the moon. Frank spoke about the habitat that will be on the lunar surface. We're also looking at a gateway, a habitat that will be in Cislunar space.

And again, this will be a launching point from where we can then travel to the moon to set up a long term habitat and potentially a launching point for future deep space exploration to Mars. So I think it's a very exciting time for NASA, a very exciting time for the world. Frank and I are excited just to be a part of that mission and support in any way that we can. But I think we're going to see a lot of changes and a lot of advance science and technology in the next decade. All right, if you guys can walk us through, obviously an Artemis mission is very different than a stay on the International Space Station.

But can you walk us through a little bit how your experience on the station now and some of the research you're doing might benefit some of those deep space missions? And, you know, this pathway to the moon and eventually Mars? Yeah, for sure. So, you know, the the International Space Station provides a really unique platform. Obviously, it's the only permanent microgravity platform that we have where we can study kind of the hardest part of space exploration, which is human presence.

Unfortunately, we are pretty complicated to keep alive in outer space. And so this allows us to, you know, study that in depth for a long period of time. We've been living here for over 20 years. And as we transition further and further away, we're going to need to be a lot more autonomous. The benefit of being on station is that we can relatively quickly get home.

But as we transition to the moon and even further, we're going to need all those 20 years of experience to make sure that we set ourselves up for as much success as possible for, you know, being three days or five days or three months away from the earth. So it's pretty exciting times. You know, I think at heart, all of us as astronauts are explorers and scientists. And so being a part of this incredible team that gets to make this happen is going to be a pretty special. All right.

And since you guys have been on the station, you've also worked through challenges. Unexpected things are always coming up. Can you tell us a little bit about how when you're in the space environment, you work through unexpected things and and how you get back on track, back on schedule? You nailed it. And unexpected definitely happens quite often.

You know, the good thing is that we prepare for that on earth. We have a team of folks that train us to really be prepared to execute whatever procedure, whatever, call up that the ground has us needing to execute. And so we have a general knowledge of operating the space station of these emergency in-depth knowledge of the emergency procedures. But there's always a situation that will arise that perhaps we weren't able to predict on the ground. And fortunately, we have teams on the ground that can work through these issues and then send recommendations up to the space station.

We all have our roles and responsibilities and we've worked well together as a team. So I think that is a very important part of the teamwork of living in space. A crew really needs to work together. You need to know when it's time to lead and when it's time to follow. When we work together to execute.

Some of these off nominal procedures were definitely focused on on mission accomplishment and getting that procedure done. Then at the end of that, we'll take some time to regroup, perhaps debrief things that we had learned, things that we can do better next time. And then you need to really be able to compartmentalize and shift your focus back to whatever the schedule is for the day and the other events that need to get done. So it's a it's very exciting. Sometimes it can be very stressful, but we are fortunate to have great training and great support from the ground to be able to deal with any situation that will arise in space.

Okay. And I know that everyone in the audience here will be curious. Just to hear a little bit about what your day to day lives are like on the station and what you're most looking forward to when you come back home. Yeah, Jackie that's one of the fun parts. Again, like I said, every every day is different, but there are some similarities between every day.

So we do work out about 2 hours every day, right? So the fact that you're not walking and standing doesn't put the necessary stress on your bones that you need for actually to maintain not just bone density, but as you know, our bones produce most of our blood. And so keeping that machinery going really requires that stress. And so we do resistance training on a machine called ARED which uses air pistons to provide resistance. And we spent about an hour on that.

And then another 45 minutes to an hour doing cardiovascular fitness stuff. And you can run on a treadmill, which you use bungee cords, to essentially pull you down so that you're able to run in place or you are strapped into a ergometer in the form of a bicycle. And you can bike in place for 30 to 45 minutes. So that happens every day while we're up here. And it it's a kind of a refreshing start to your day or in the middle of your day every day.

Obviously, we have to eat and prepare our food. All of our food comes up here dehydrated. And so we hydrate it, heat it up and eat. And one of the neat things about space station is that we recycle all of our fluids. Right?

All of our sweat. All of everything else is filtered and then made into purified 100% pure water. And we drink that. And that cycle keeps going each and every day. But yeah, for me, I think I just love the fact that, you know, on some days I'll be doing maintenance and replacing some intricate part of the space station and another day as I get to grow tomatoes or do something neat like that, that seems pretty mundane.

But here on in space is actually pretty difficult. And it's our need to try to prove ways that we can maybe provide fresh food to to ourselves or to our teammates when we're on the moon. All right. And I know that everyone here is just coming off of the holidays season and we celebrate it in our earthly ways. How did you guys on station welcome in the New Year and celebrate the holidays while we are were in space?

We did get some time off though, which was very nice. So of course we were able to call home and talk to our families and friends and our loved ones. But just like I'm sure you did on Earth, we spent time together. So the crew came together. We had so much special food that the ground set up and we enjoyed a nice meal.

We have a video projector that we can project just from the laptop, a Yule log on the fire. So we put that on the fire. We had some good holiday music and we kind of got dressed up with, you know, hats and funny sweaters. So we were able to relax and have a good time over a really nice meal. Additionally, I think each of us probably spent our own personal time in the Cupola and the cupola, I'm sure you know, is the module on the bottom side of the space station that faces Planet Earth and it's covered in windows and that's just a beautiful area where we can observe Earth and capture some photographs of Earth and conduct some Earth observations.

But it's also a time to kind of sit and personally reflect a little bit on your mission in space, on really the the planet and everything that we're doing as a human species and just be grateful for the opportunity to be in space. And so that's an incredible view. I know that we we cherish that and certainly welcomed in 2023 with beautiful views of our planet Earth. Well, thank you so, so, so much to you both. I know we're running out of time here and Mission Control will surely kick me off soon.

So I just wanted to send an extra special thank you and a big hello from everyone here in Las Vegas. We wish you the best. And a safe return home. Well, thank you guys so much. It was awesome to spend a little bit of time with you guys.

We can't wait to see the tech that you guys have in store for us when we get back to Earth. So thank you for spending this time with us. Station, this is Houston ACR. Thank you. That concludes our event.

Thank you to all the participants from the Consumer Electronics Show Station. We are now resuming operational audio communications.

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