THE WORK NOW UNDERWAY ON BOARD THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION
IS DESIGNED TO SUPPORT DEEP SPACE EXPLORATION IN THE FUTURE
AND PROVIDE BENEFITS ON EARTH TODAY:
THE EXPEDITION 33 CREW MEMBERS ARE WORKING ON EXPERIMENTS
IN ASTROPHYSICS AND EARTH SCIENCE, IN EDUCATION
AND IN TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT,
AND IN HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY AND PERFORMANCE.
...there's a myriad of things that are going on, you know,
not only U.S. but European, uh, Japanese experiments...
...there's experiments from all over the world
that we'll be doing and hoping,
help some of the human research that's going on.
A TOP PRIORITY IS LEARNING HOW A PROLONGED STAY
IN SPACE AFFECTS THE HUMAN BODY.
SOME OF THE DATA IS GATHERED
FROM OBSERVING HOW CREW MEMBERS OPERATE IN MICROGRAVITY;
SOME OF THE DATA IS GATHERED IN THE FORM OF BIOLOGICAL SAMPLES
FROM THE CREW THAT WILL BE EXAMINED
ON THE GROUND AFTER THE FLIGHT.
We will study the bone, tissue, pre-flight and post-flight,
we'll perform blood tests; it's a large area for research.
AT THE SAME TIME, THROUGHOUT THE MISSION,
THE CREW MEMBERS SPEND TIME EACH DAY IN PRACTICAL APPLICATION
OF THE BEST THEORIES ABOUT HOW
TO COUNTERACT THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF LIVING IN SPACE:
TRYING TO PROVE CONCEPTS THAT WILL KEEP DEEP SPACE EXPLORERS
OF THE FUTURE HEALTHY ON MISSIONS
THAT WILL LAST FOR YEARS.
THIS WORK ALSO CONTRIBUTES
TO THE STATION CREW MEMBERS' OVERALL HEALTH
AND PHYSICAL FITNESS, SO THEY'RE BETTER ABLE TO WORK
WITH ALL THE OTHER EXPERIMENTS ON BOARD, INCLUDING SOME
THAT HAVE A SIMILAR GOAL, SUCH AS A STUDY OF THE MEDAKA FISH.
the importance of these very small fishes are they have bones
and muscles just like human beings, so what we're trying
to do is have them stay in space for longer duration
and then bring them down and then take at a look
at their bone structures and muscles
and see the effects of microgravity.
THE CREW MEMBERS TEND TO THE OPERATION OF THAT EXPERIMENT
AND OTHER INVESTIGATIONS GOING
ON IN THE STATION'S SEVERAL LABORATORIES,
SERVING AS THE ON-ORBIT HANDS
FOR EARTH-BOUND RESEARCHERS WORKING IN A NUMBER
OF SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES.
in those kinds of equipments we'll be acting
as lab assistants, all kinds of media that have to mixed and,
you know, temperature has to be maintained,
certain time stamps will have to, will have to be kept,
and everything needs to be done with a lot of precision
and a lot of attention to detail THIS PLATFORM
IN SPACE SUPPORTS ALL OF THAT RESEARCH, PLUS, A WHOLE SLEW
OF EXPERIMENTS ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE SPACE STATION
THAT ARE CONSTANTLY GATHERING DATA WITHOUT THE ASSISTANCE
OF THE HUMAN CREW MEMBERS.
FOR EXAMPLE: We have the JEM Exposed Facility that,
that has some even NASA payloads outside, um, for example, MAXI,
an X-ray, an all-sky X-ray detector, on the outside,
we're getting ready to take up SCAN Testbed on HTV
which will go on, like, an external log, logistics platform
out there, and, of course, Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer sitting
out on the starboard side as well.
...TAKING ADVANTAGE OF BEING IN SPACE TO GATHER INFORMATION
ON COSMIC PARTICLES FOR RESEARCHERS WHO ARE TRYING
TO LEARN WHAT THE UNIVERSE IS MADE OF AND HOW IT BEGAN.
FOR ALL OF THE CREW MEMBERS, THERE IS ONE OTHER WIDE-RANGING,
HIGH-PRIORITY TASK THAT MUST BE COMPLETED SO THAT THESE DOZENS
OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATIONS CAN PROCEED: And the task is
to maintain the space station in due condition
so that all the units and all the apparati perform
as they should, and should any
of those break down, to be able to fix it.
THAT MEANS PERFORMING REGULAR MAINTENANCE WORK,
BEING READY TO REPAIR HARDWARE THAT BREAKS DOWN,
AND POSSIBLY DOING A SPACEWALK IF NEEDED TO TEND TO EQUIPMENT
ON THE STATION'S EXTERIOR, ALTHOUGH NO SPACEWALKS ARE
IN THE PLAN FOR THIS INCREMENT.
THERE WILL BE A GOOD BIT OF TRAFFIC
AT THE SPACE STATION LATE THIS YEAR: ALONG WITH THE GOINGS
AND COMINGS OF THREE UNCREWED RUSSIAN CARGO SHIPS, WILLIAMS,
MALENCHENKO AND HOSHIDE DEPART THE STATION
IN THEIR SOYUZ SPACECRAFT IN MID-NOVEMBER
TO CONCLUDE EXPEDITION 33; FORD BECOMES COMMANDER
FOR EXPEDITION 34, AND IN EARLY DECEMBER HE AND NOVITSKIY
AND TARELKIN WELCOME A SOYUZ CARRYING THREE EXPERIENCED SPACE
FLYERS: STATION VETERAN ROMAN ROMANENKO OF ROSCOSMOS
AND FIRST-TIME STATION CREW MEMBERS,
NASA ASTRONAUT TOM MARSHBURN
AND CANADIAN SPACE AGENCY ASTRONAUT CHRIS HADFIELD.
THEY WILL ALL BE ON HAND TO SUPPORT THE PLANNED ARRIVALS
OF TWO AMERICAN COMMERCIAL CARGO SHIPS, SPACE-X'S DRAGON
AND ORBITAL SCIENCE CORPORATION'S CYGNUS,
WHICH ARE EXPANDING THE STATION'S FLEET
OF DELIVERY VEHICLES.
they fly up underneath the space station just within reach
of our Canadarm2 robotic arm.
We'll fly over top of the pin and grapple that, that, uh,
that vehicle and berth it to the bottom port on Node 2,
right under the U.S. segment, and have access to the cargo.
THOSE CARGOES-TONS OF FOOD, FUEL, OXYGEN AND AIR, CLOTHING,
WORK SUPPLIES, AND SCIENCE HARDWARE-ARE VITAL
TO MAINTAINING THE EXPEDITION CREW MEMBERS THEMSELVES,
AND COMPLETING THE MISSION OF THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION:
TO PREPARE HUMAN EXPLORERS AND THEIR TOOLS
FOR THE DEEP SPACE EXPLORATION MISSIONS
THAT ARE MOVING OFF THE DRAWING BOARDS RIGHT NOW...
the ability of the humans to, to not only function in space
but be very functional when they arrive at their destination,
those are the kinds of things we're learning from the science.
Uh, fuel technologies, fuel transfer technologies,
and all the things we can learn about the space environment,
are all valuable to us for, for pressing on out.