Peter VO: Hi Chris, Peter Ray from the Canadian Press,
everybody's been following you on Twitter,
and I think this morning
you were approaching 160,000 followers
I noted you're about ten times more than Tom Marshburn.
First of all, let's talk about the Twitter,
and secondly let's talk about all those photos.
First of all - 160,000 followers!
Now, that's only I think within 21 days.
You started at 20,000, now you're up to 160,000.
Chris: Well, with any new technology, Peter,
it takes a while for people to get used to it,
and to start using it.
Look at anything, look at telephones
a little over a hundred years ago,
or airbags in cars,
even though the technology exists,
more and more people
become aware of how useful it can be.
And what we're doing on the Space Station
is fundamentally fascinating.
And I think the evidence shows, through a measure like Twitter.
Where - of course the exploration we're doing,
the experiments we're doing,
but the view that it gives us of the world
and the - I think the way that it encapulates -
encapsulates where we are in history as well,
of people permanently leaving earth,
with these new technologies and communications
we can directly give people the human side of that.
And the fact that now, over 150,000 people
are directly following what we're doing here every day,
I think it's just a direct measure of how important
and useful this is in the human experience.
Peter VO: Just one followup,
talking about those photos,
everybody is talking about the images you're sending back,
just talk a little bit about those,
in English, and then in French,
and tell me - is there any favourite,
or is there any among those photos that you've taken,
that really strikes you as as more significant than others.
Chris: Since my first flight to the Russian space station Mir,
back seventeen years ago,
I've always maintained that the favourite pastime of astronauts
is looking at the world out the window.
It is - it is so fundamentally beautiful, and mesmerizing,
and I've been doing my best with words
to try and describe it ever since I first saw it,
from on board space shuttle Atlantis,
just after we launched.
And now, I can directly, as I see beautiful things,
send those pictures to the ground.
And you can see the reaction.
It has captured the eyes, and therefore the minds,
and imaginations of so many people.
It's such a wonderful place to better understand our planet.
And for me, I love the beautiful pictures of the world,
but the one that was the most significant for me,
was looking at - they're noctilucent clouds.
These are clouds that you can barely see
from the surface of the earth.
They're the highest clouds that exist.
Tiny ice particles way up in the mesosphere
and yet from orbit, as the sun rises,
the light bounces off of those clouds directly into our eyes
and we can see a part of the earth's atmosphere
that's basically invisible to people on the surface.
To me that's both beautiful,
because of the colours and textures and ripples of it.
But it's also really significant -
it's a way to understand the changes in our atmosphere
and a way to understand exactly
how our atmosphere interacts with the universe beyond.
So the ability to take pictures up here -
it fulfills all sorts of different purposes and needs,
and we're so lucky to be able to be the ones holding the cameras.
Allan VO: Hi, it's Allan Woods from the Toronto Star newspaper,
you're talking about the impression
that some of these images leave with you,
one of the images that I was struck by
was your picture of Syria.
Over Syria, and you said,
"It looks so peaceful from up here,
but the reality on the ground is much different."
How does what you're seeing
change your impression of the world
when you come back down to earth?
Chris: The perspective that - that we are subject to,
that we are privileged enough to see directly with our eyes
is one that I think would benefit everyone.
To go around the world in just slightly over 90 minutes
- to see the whole world in 90 minutes -
and by the time you've come around the world,
with the world turning underneath you,
by the time you've come around the world,
it's turned, and you come over a new part.
So the world just unrolls itself for you.
And you see it, absolutely discretely as one place.
and so when we do look down on a place
that is currently in great turmoil or strife,
it's hard to reconcile
the inherent patience and beauty of the world
with the terrible things that we can do to each other as people,
and can do to the earth itself, locally.
And... if people I think see the perspective more clearly
and that's part of the reason that we work so hard
to communicate what we're doing up here,
as an international team,
is to try and just give people a little glimpse
of that global perspective,
that understanding of the fact
that we're all in this together.
And that this is a spaceship, but so is the world.
And yes, there are important territorial issues,
there are important personal issues,
but at the same time,
with increased communication,
with increased understanding,
comes a more global perspective,
and it's one that we feel incredibly honoured to see directly,
and one that we do our best to try and pass on to everybody,
and 160,000 people are looking through my eyes every day,
and hopefully some of them internalize some of it, also.