[Mike Massimino] Hi I'm Mike Massimino
and this is Inside the International Space Station.
Intro clip: "100 camels running around.
Cosmodrome.
It's a Dream liner, a 787" [Massimino] We're going to talk
to Joe Acaba and Sunny Williams
about their upcoming space flight.
[Williams] It's a nice thing for people
to learn a little bit more about a different culture
and a different part of the planet.
Even Kazakhstan, even Baikonur itself was a secret
to the Russians for a long time, for most of the Russian public.
In the last couple of decades, it's sort of,
of course now everybody knows where Baikonur is.
It's an amazing history.
It's out in the middle of nowhere.
We launch in Florida of course so all
of the pieces can fall into the ocean.
They launch in Kazakhstan because East
of that is just a steppe.
But still the big pieces still fall in the steppe.
[Massimino] The steppe is?
I'm sorry.
[Williams] The steppe is this big desert type brush area
running East of where Baikonur is so the big Rocket pieces,
the first stage all falls back onto the land,
the second stage just all falls back onto the land.
And they did all of this
so nobody would actually really know,
of course the Soviet Union, so nobody would know
where the launch pad was or what that were doing
from the very beginning.
So it's cool now that the T.V. cameras are coming to this place
and they're seeing it.
When I was there last we saw a herd of camels
like 100 camels running around, wild horses.
It is in the middle of freakin nowhere.
They made it that way on purpose.
Actually the name Baikonur was spelled a little bit wrong
so people didn't know exactly where it was on the map
when they just settled it.
The history is pretty cool and it's neat for other folks
in the U.S. and I hope there's more news people who come
to Kazakhstan so they can understand the whole history
of the space program.
It wasn't just ours.
Ours was awesome; of course, going to the moon
and everything leading up to it but theirs is too.
The effort that the Soviet Union
and the Russians made is pretty historic.
It's nice to be able to share that.
It's another appreciation for different cultures, it's cool.
[Massimino] So Baikonur was that,
is that where Sputnik was launched from?
[Williams] Oh, now you're going to ask me stuff I don't know.
[Acaba] Yuri was.
[Williams] Yuri was for sure, but I don't know about Sputnik.
[Massimino] How do you get in there, on a C130 or something?
How do you get into this place?
[Williams] It's a Dream liner, a 787.
It's all luxury.
Far from it, my friend.
[Massimino] So when you go to Russia, you fly into Moscow,
when you guys go there?
Then you train in Star city, then you go out to Baikonur?
Now you fly to this place?
[Williams] Yeah.
[Massimino] Can you tell me, you can't tell me where it is?
[Williams] It's a secret.
I don't know where it is.
[Massimino] So you fly in there?
There's obviously a runway there in a small town?
[Williams] Yeah, actually Baikonur is a closed city.
It's a little interesting place cause we have to have,
of course your passport, when leaving to go
through Kazakhstan, Baikonur,
actually the airport may be in Kazakhstan.
The airports in Kazakhstan so you need your passport
and your papers to get into Kazakhstan
by landing at the airport.
..... I think it's called.
And then they drive you in to Baikonur, the town,
which is a closed town.
It's sort of like an Embassy.
[Massimino] Kind of like the Vatican or something?
[Williams] Yeah, exactly.
It's its own little thing, which is Russian, and then we stay
and live in this little town called Biakunor.
But actually I think I read it was home
to like 100 thousand people at one point,
at the height of the Space Program.
So it's not tiny.
It's a town.
[Massimino] It's a Space town?
[Williams] It's a Space town.
[Massimino] Rocket City?
[Williams] Rocket City, exactly.
[Massimino] Space ships and rockets are built other places
and then shipped there/ [Williams] Yeah.
[Massimino] and assembled and shot off?
[Williams] from the Cosmodrome.
It sounds so cool doesn't it?
The Cosmodrome.
[Massimino] The Cosmodrome, sounds like an Olympic Venue.
[Williams] Exactly.
[Massimino] and that's where the, the Progress launches
from the same place, and all their stuff.
[Williams] They have a couple of different places
but that's the main place from what I've heard.
They have a pretty big train station right
in the center of town.
I think it was built and again, don't quote me
on all the historic points here,
because I don't wanna screw it up too bad.
[Acaba] Please.
[Williams] I saw this movie, Belka and Strelka?
[Acaba] Suni said it.
[Williams] The cartoon about these dogs
and I believe everything that it said,
but there's a pretty big railway system, that went,
that goes to that town
and that's how these people originally got there.
They actually lived in tents remember from the,
we do this really cool, as a back- up crew member you get
to go to the museum there and you get to see a little bit
about the history of this town.
That's where I'm grabbin some of this stuff from.
But the folks who lived there originally,
when they built this town, they lived in tents and again,
like I'm saying, this is out in the middle of nowhere
and they created this whole Kosmodrone Space Port
and the town while they were out there so it's pretty neat.
But most of the pieces are made in different places.
Our Soyuz is made outside of Moscow
at a company called Energia, and the rocket parts are
from a company in Samara which I think is close to Moscow.
All of those pieces are trained down on the train.