>> Okay. Well welcome to the 33,
34 change of command ceremony here today
on the good ship international space station.
We're going to hand over today command
from myself to Kevin Ford.
Just wanted to reflect a couple things about our time up here
and just time in history.
Sort of was brought to our attention
on the 55th anniversary of Sputnik that was sort
of a cool event that we actually launched satellites
from the Japanese portion of the space station on that day.
So we got to thinking about what's been going
on in the last couple years;
about a hundred years ago the girl scouts for founded,
Oreos were founded; so those are significant events and a lot
of other really cool things happened all over the world
at that point in time as well.
National parks were founded, a lot of great things all
over the world including aviation started too.
50 years ago I mentioned already Sputnik was a pretty major event
for all of us that got us here today.
25 years ago, Aki just graduated from high school,
Yuri was flying airplanes and I
in the United States became legal drinking age.
So a bunch of interesting past things happened 25 years ago.
10 years ago -- a little over 10 years ago, people became living
on this international space station for a permanent presence
and we are honored to be fulfilling that dream
and living that dream right now.
So I just wonder what is going to happen
or what our future lies in store for us, 10 years, 25 years,
50 years and a hundred years from now.
I think we've left the ship in good shape and I'm honored
to hand it over a Kevin.
Although he's an Air Force guy so we have
to make him a little more Navy because it is a ship.
So I have a little present for him first to --
this is a Navy pennant that -- if you hold this for a second --
flies over Navy ships when the commander is
on board so this is for you.
>> Thank you very much, Suni.
Very nice.
>> And now [inaudible] came up and that was an idea
from Evgeny's daughter and there's four of us living here
in node 2 and it's pretty crowded the [inaudible] is not
lonely but with two of us leaving he might be lonely
and so I'm going to give him a friend.
>> Uh-huh.
We know what to do with that.
>> And I'm not sure you guys know who Magnum PI is
but Oleg is our magnum PI and with
that he gets the traditional Hawaiian shirt that's been
on the ISS for quite some time.
>> Thank you so much.
>> So as you can see we have a great crew up here,
us who are going home very shortly and the ones
who are taking over; the ships in good hands.
>> Thank you very much.
I hope you heard all of Suni's words they were very nice words
and we do appreciate the gifts.
We appreciate also the great hand
over we've gotten from you guys.
It's been relatively short, not as some have been shorter
but three weeks is a pretty short hand over.
And between Oleg, Evgeny, and I we have all together
if you combine all of our space time we have
about three months total time in space so far.
And if you combine the time of Suni and Aki
and Yuri they have three years of total time
in space, living in space.
So they really had a lot to offer us.
We learned a tremendous amount from them and they were really,
really good about sharing it.
We're not really ready to see them go, to be honest,
but it's time for them to get home.
They need to land at a time when the rescue forces can get
to them and find them easily
and get them safely back to their families.
It's been a pleasure serving with them.
Suni said she hopes she left the station
in great shape and they have.
This space station is in remarkably good condition.
It's ready full up utilization.
The exercise equipment is fantastic,
the facilities are fantastic, everything is in order,
the ground teams are running really well and harmoniously
with the crew and the training to get here has been great
so we're ready for a great expedition.
We'll be -- we'll be here holding down the fort
for maybe four or so weeks until the rest of the crew gets here
to complement Expedition 34 and we're looking forward
to doing a lot of science and getting a lot
of utilization done now that the space station is fully
up and ready to go.
So thanks to everybody on the ground, thanks to Suni
and the crew, thank you for a great hand over and I'm ready
to assume command of the International Space Station.
Thank you very much.
>> You've had it.
[ Applause ]
[ Pause ]
>> And Houston that concludes the change in command ceremony.
Thanks for being on board with us.
>> Thank you so much.
It was a great job and congratulations to both
of you and to all of you.
[ Pause ]