Station, this is Houston. Are you ready for the event? Houston this is station. I am
ready for the event. Brad Pitt, this is Mission Control Houston. Please call
station for a voice check. Station, this is Brad. How do you hear me?
Hey Brad, this is Nick. I've got you loud and clear.
Welcome to the International Space Station. Thank you very much. I got to
tell you this is a real treat, a real pleasure to be talking to you up there.
Likewise. A treat for us. Actually, we got a chance to sneak preview the
movie a few weeks back. And I just want to start off by saying thank you for what
you're doing to contribute to the mission of awareness and to set that, you
know, that fire in the imaginations of the next generation of explorers.
Thank you Nick. Thank you very much and now that I have you all the way up at
the space station, let's talk about me. How did we do? How was our zero-g?
I gotta tell you, it was really good. And the depictions, the
settings, all as you can tell, look very similar to the type of setting
you've got. You know I've got around me - I got to imagine it was a lot easier for
for me to kind of enjoy the zero-g than it was you,
whether it was CGI or hooked to strings. I'll tell you what our ship was a bit
cleaner. Can you - do you know what everything is on the walls there behind
you? You know, when I first got up here it looked similar but very
different if you can imagine that, to what we trained on the ground. We had
lots of photos on the ground but up here everything hangs off the walls. And
there's cables everywhere. But yeah, you know you get very familiar with it and
you know exactly what's going on. A lot of it is storage of equipment and
then we've got different facilities. For instance, this one right here, this wall
helps us research how flames burn in space. Which is very different than on
the ground and by removing the effect of gravity, forcing a certain shape to a
flame we can study exactly what goes on to -inside a
flame to a greater detail. It helps us figure out how to make cleaner burning
engines and get more out of the energy that we do consume.
You know, I was curious what are the certainty - what are the
repercussions on your body in zero-g? What - first of all, is it, would it be
morning for you there? Would it be night for you there? How do you gauge your
waking hours if you see 16 sunrises and sunsets a day. So we do a lot to try to
manage that circadian rhythm one thing we do is we use different hues of the
the color spectrum, so that we have morning very bright blue light that we
switch and then later in the day it goes to a more normal more balanced spectrum.
And then at night we get rid of that blue light and we all follow the
Greenwich Mean Time. And that's to help synchronize the international
aspect of this. We've got a control station in Houston, in Huntsville, Alabama
Then we've got control centers and in Japan and in Germany and in Russia and
up in Montreal. And all of them need to operate on the same time, so we picked
Greenwich Mean Time. But you know really, if you're not smart and
you're new to the station you run to the windows and you want to check things
out right after you get done with your workday. You get a face full of sun -
it gets very difficult to go to sleep for a couple hours with all that blue
light. Wow I would think so. So is anyone, is there a night shift or is everyone on
that - on those hours? Yes, we try to stay - the crew stays on the same work day
hours and so we work a 12-hour workday. Starts at about 7:30 in the morning and
finishes at about 7:30 in the evening. But there is a night shift, there's
actually a massive team on the ground that is that is controlling about 95% of
what happens on the space station 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a
year. It is an amazing orchestration of an
international program that comes together to truly achieve something that
that we can't do alone. And it's through that strength and diversity and strength
through diversity that we're able to have successfully operated this
station for two decades. It's incredible I got to go to JPL last week and it
was on the day when India was landing on the moon, and the United States were
assisting them in that effort. Could you see that from where you are?
No, unfortunately so I, along with the rest of the crew just had to follow
along with the news reports and it's one of those things
where international cooperation is so important. Because a saying we've got up
here is, space is hard. Things that should be easy, when you
try to do them in space, they just get harder. And the things that we're
trying to do everyday, the team on the ground, NASA and its
international partners, do a great job of making really hard, almost impossible
things look routine. And it's it's one of those things where you can get some
complacency. But the things that we're able to achieve together -
it's something special. For me, that is the biggest thing that
I've pulled from this mission, is that idea of cooperation at a global scale is
what's going to propel humanity into the future. I got to see a little of that.
They were working on the new rover that's going to go to Mars. And it was an
international effort, which was really impressive to see everyone working
together to build different components to this rover. What is your - what are your
current missions at this point? So I'm actually on the tail end of my time
up here. I've got a 200 day mission onboard the space station and I'm north
of 180 days now. Only a few weeks left before I return early in October and on
a routine week it's a lot of difference
science experiments. We do maintenance to maintain the station. I was fortunate
enough a few weeks back to be able to do my third spacewalk. And those are all
just amazing experiences. And you know every day is full of something
new and exciting. If you look at the spectrum of experiments that
you get to do over the course of the mission, I've gotten to be involved
with looking at different ways to develop new types of rubber that will
change the way potentially we make tires, and make cars more fuel efficient.
Or how we extrude fiber optics to help improve communications technology on the
ground and make it more cost-effective. All the way to the other end of the
spectrum where we've done gene editing and we're looking at things
that are gonna help us push for cures for Alzheimer's and cancer. And so it just
spans this whole spectrum. And growing up on a farm I never would have
thought that I'd be able to be involved with things like that.
It really is extraordinary. By the way, you're from Kansas I'm from Missouri so
we're neighbors. It's a good part of the country. I've taken lots of photos of it
over the the past six months. I bet. Congratulations on 200 days. And what is
that like on the psyche what is that - I'm sure you're always busy, but at the
same time, missing family and loved ones at home. How how do you keep your mental
state at peace? Yeah absolutely. You know, being apart from your family, your
friends, your loved ones is a challenge. And one of
the luxuries I think we have of working in low Earth orbit close to the Earth is
the amount of connectivity that we have. The ability to make phone calls and
check in on a routine basis - every weekend being able to do a video
conference with my kids and share a little bit of the experience up here
with them. But also be a part of their life and understand what they're going
through on the ground. So that we have shared experience and at
the end of 200 days, you can come home and return to being a normal family.
Those are the challenges. It's easier here in low Earth orbit, because
communications is almost without delay. As we as we push further and deeper into
space those challenges will become more difficult, with communications delays and
just being able to stay in contact with those friends and loved
ones. Yeah, to me it sounds harrowing and really challenging. I've read astronauts
speak about looking back on the Earth and really being aware how
insignificant we are in the grand scheme of things. Did you have a similar
experience or something different? You know that's one of the special things
about being up here, is being able to float over to the window and see the
Earth below. To look down 250 miles and and with your naked eye you can
see the crop circles in Kansas, in Missouri and you can see
humanity below you and you can see it glide by as we go screaming through the
sky at five miles a second. And just take in - you get a
perspective that you're away from the
Earth and the same view you can see the Moon rising over the horizon
and you get this idea that, I'm not on the Earth and I'm not
at the Moon, but I'm just kind of in the cosmos. And then that perspective
really challenges you because now you're looking down at everything that you've
ever known. All of humanity right there. And you have this deep appreciation for
how big the universe really is. And for me it's just made me cherish and
appreciate how delicate and how precious the little island we live on really is.
I think that's really beautiful to hear. Okay most important question. Who
controls the jam box? So we have a a rotating playlist. We take turns
and it's nice because we have the international flair as well.
So we have an Italian astronaut on board along with the US astronauts and then
two cosmonauts. And so getting to hear some traditional music from
Russia over dinner is a nice change, exposure and helps us really
appreciate that international feel that the crew has. Yes, but every now and then
I'm sure someone's going I wish Nick wouldn't play that country-and-western
anymore. There's that and to have me stop telling my bad dad jokes.
Now how are you able to stay in a single space this way? I see you tapping your feet
every now and then. Are you in a foothold? Yeah I've got a foothold and I
can change that up, but basically there's handrails everywhere and I can just hook
my foot underneath there. And it's one of the unique you talked about challenges
for the body being up here. This is one of those unique adaptations. The
calluses on my feet basically have gone away because I don't walk on the
bottoms of my feet. But now I have calluses across the top of my foot
around my big toe because I'm constantly hanging on things with my big
toe to hold me in place. One of those strange things that you don't really
think about on the ground. And then you get up here and it's like wow the body
is this amazing constantly evolving thing. And space changes everything.
That's incredible to see and I imagine when you're upside down for us it feels
exactly the same as the other way. You know, one of the things we were playing
with in the film which we really didn't get to was this idea of 3D
printing. We were going to this idea that everything would be 3D printed on
location. And I understand you all have already adopted some of that. Yes,
absolutely we've had several experiments up here. So some of the experiments we're
doing here are technology demonstrations to prove out a concept that we hope to
apply, as we go back to - back to the Moon, and as part of the
Artemis program. And so things like tools and simple things that that might be
easy to print on demand when you need them, so that you don't have to launch
every conceivable object with you when you're going on that long trip to the
Moon, or that extremely long trip to Mars. You can just take some some stock with
you, some feedstock and then just throw that in the printer and then
print out what you need. So we've done those things and we continue to
experiment with those. One of the more interesting ideas behind 3D printing
that we just wrapped up an experiment session with was 3D printing organs. And
so we had cardiac muscle and veins and there was a ink printer that we loaded
in the inks, if you wil,l into the printer and watched it try to print out samples
of tissue. it's just incredible to think what the future is going to bring.
I got to ask you, they tell me my times almost up this is such a pleasure, I
could talk - I could ask questions for hours. Please tell me what's a spacewalk
like? What do you feel?
You see - you really are, when you get in your spacesuit, you're putting on your
own spacecraft. And so as you embark out through the hatchway, the first
thing you see is the Earth, 250 miles below. And different than the
perspective you get inside the the space station. The helmet really
provides almost this 180 panoramic view that's unobstructed and you very quickly
forget that there's anything between you and the vacuum of space. Really the only
noise you hear is the the quiet hum of the ventilation system blowing fresh air
behind your head to support - that's your life support system. And then you
find yourself going to work, working with the team on the ground and being focused
on the task. But there are these special moments. I can remember one from my last
EVA where I was out on the very front of the space station and I was
getting ready to pack up a bag and come back inside. And I looked up and and
there was just the Earth. The curve of the Earth and terrain coming
underneath me and I could feel the speed of the station. We're going
17,000 miles per hour through space and I could feel the speed of that as
I'm riding on the front just looking out over everything in front of us and
it's just - the emotions that just wash over you, it's hard to describe.
Amazing. Nick, last question, and I call on your
expertise. Who was more believable, Clooney or Pitt? You were absolutely. Nick
thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure, a real dream of mine. I can't
wait to brag to my kids and thank you for taking time out of your busy
schedule to to speak with me and to watch our film. And all my respect to what you
guys are doing up there. Well thank you. Thank you again for
what you do, and what you're able to do through storytelling to inspire the next
generation, is so critical to the success of our programs in the future.
You know, my generation, I am not going to be the person that steps foot on Mars
but the children that are watching your movies, those young adults
that are watching your movies are the ones that are going to be inspired to
achieve great things. And it's the power of those dreams that you inspire that is
going to propel us successfully into the future, so thank you very much.
Thank you Nick, all the best and all the best to everyone up there. Station this is
Houston ACR that concludes the event.
We'd like to thank Brad Pitt for participating today. Station, we are now
resuming operational audio communications.