>> It was eight weeks ago tomorrow the last time
that a Soyuz spacecraft returned to Earth,
bringing international space station crew members home.
In this particular case, after 188 days in space,
more than 3,000 orbits of the Earth,
totaling some 79 million miles,
it delivered cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, JAXA astronaut,
Koichi Wakata, and NASA's Rick Mastracchio, who joins us here
in the flight control room this morning.
Rick, it's nice to see you back on Earth.
>> Good morning, Pat.
Happy to be here.
>> We've spent an awful lot of time talking
about how astronauts take care of themselves on orbit.
In fact, I've done it already this morning.
To get prepared to return to a one-gravity environment.
So first question is how you do it?
How you feeling?
>> Oh, I'm feeling great.
We exercise quite a bit onboard space station:
a couple hours a day.
I push myself very hard in the hopes
that it would make my life easier after I landed.
And I think I was pretty successful;
I felt a lot better than I expected.
I thought it would take many,
many weeks to really, to feel good.
But I had some vestibular for a couple hours.
That went away pretty quickly.
And in terms of muscle strength, my strength never --
didn't change from pre-flight.
So, I'm feeling pretty good.
>> That's -- that is an improvement, I think,
over much earlier in the station program
where astronauts came home and felt pretty crummy
for quite a long time.
Do you think that the work
that you're doing is what's made the difference?
>> Yeah, of course.
You know, the engineers, the scientists, the doctors,
they're getting much smarter.
They're figuring out the right exercises for us.
We got better equipment.
And so, all that comes together and if you work hard on orbit
and do what the exercise folks tell you,
you could come back pretty good shape.
>> Any thoughts about improvements
that could be made in that area?
Or things that you might want to do?
>> You know, there's always room for improvement.
One of the things is that we actually have to spend two,
two and a half hours a day exercising.
So the goal now would be try to now figure
out what exercise can we do but shorten that length of time
so that the crew member can spend more time doing science
and doing maintenance and not as much time exercising.
But still come back feeling as good
and being as healthy as he is.
>> This mission was your first flight in a Soyuz spacecraft.
What was that like?
>> Soyuz is -- I flew space shuttle three times,
so Soyuz is obviously quite a different vehicle.
A space shuttle is much bigger, much roomier,
has incredible capabilities;
whereas the Soyuz is a very small, very compact vehicle,
but also very reliable, very efficient.
So, going up wasn't much different, but coming back,
it was a -- it was quite a bit of a, kind of --
I called it the wild ride to come home.
And it was quite interesting, and it was actually kind of fun.
>> A bumpy ride?
When you say "wild ride..."
>> Yeah, a lot of rotation, a lot of spinning,
a lot of being tossed about, hitting hard
when you land on the ground.
So nothing like a space shuttle, which is basically
like an airplane landing: very comfortable.
>> Those retro rockets --
they fire a few feet off the ground --
make all the difference?
>> Yeah, I assume they do.
It's hard to tell.
I only have one landing under my belt with the rockets,
so I assumed they helped.
>> A hundred and eighty-eight days in space,
your first long-duration mission.
Was it what you expected it to be going in?
You must have had some preconceptions
of what it's going to be like to have to spend
that much time in that place.
>> Yeah, I think it is.
You know, we do a lot of training,
we do a lot of preparing for the science, we do a lot of training
with the scientists and the investigators
on their experiments.
So we -- you kind of get a good feel
for what it's going to be like.
And of course, I've been to space station several times
so I knew what living up there was going to be like.
So I think it was exactly what I expected.
>> Did it feel longer or shorter than you expected?
>> Well, you know, people ask me that.
But the days go by fast -- the workdays go by very, very fast.
But there's just a lot of those workdays;
188 days is a long time.
But it did -- of course, you know,
time goes by fast the older you get it seems.
But yeah, it went by pretty quick.
>> Did you get enough opportunity to maintain contact
with your family and friends so that you still feel connected?
>> Oh, yes.
Yeah, yeah.
The space station we have quite a few tools to stay contact --
connected with our families.
We have the Internet, of course, with email.
We have telephone, the IP phone.
And we have the video conferencing once a week.
So I felt very connected to my wife and kids and friends.
I've called friends that I haven't talked to in years,
usually I don't make many phone calls when I'm here on Earth,
but I took the opportunity to call a lot of friends
and all my family members while I was up there.
>> That must have been quite a surprise from somebody
out of the blue calling from space?
>> Yeah, I think they -- I think folks enjoy it.
So it was fun to talk to folks, get caught up.
>> Do you get to feel like you live there instead
of just being visiting there?
>> Oh yeah, you absolutely feel like you live there.
I mean, you sleep there, you eat there, you work there,
and on the weekends you're there.
So you are there 24/7, so you absolutely feel
like you're living there for a long time.
>> What were the most memorable events for you from this flight?
>> Like any space mission,
the most memorable events are the dynamic events.
The things like ascent and entry,
the things like the spacewalks.
We did several spacewalks.
And of course, the visiting vehicles;
it was always a fun day when a visiting vehicle came,
it brought food, it brought science, it brought equipment.
So it was always a great day when a visiting vehicle came.
We got to open the hatch to a new shiny vehicle.
So all those events are obviously very memorable.
>> The space walks, as you mentioned, that just gets
to be something of a memory since they were not expected;
they were added after you arrived.
>> Yeah, absolutely they were not expected in any way.
But, you know, the space station is getting a little older
and we have a lot of spare parts up there.
So the system is made to go out and repair these components
as they fail, that's how it was all designed.
And yeah, we got to do a few of them
and get the space station back up and running.
>> Now those weren't your first spacewalks,
but another opportunity to go crawl around on
that thing must be -- must be pretty exciting.
>> Yeah, spacewalks are a lot of work,
they're very challenging mentally and physically.
But they're very rewarding.
It's great when you're out there,
you get great views of the Earth.
It's just -- it's enjoyable to be working
on the hardware out there.
>> You mentioned visiting vehicles
and the station right now has got another visiting vehicle,
a Cygnus vehicle, that should be arriving next week.
That must be pretty interesting, too, to do that prep work
that Steve Swanson and his crewmates are involved
in right now, to brush up on the skills that will be needed
to go reach out and grab that thing.
>> Yeah, absolutely, it's --
we have a great trainer up there called Brobot,
where the crew members can actually practice capturing the
visiting vehicles with the robotic arm.
It's a great tool, it prepares the crew very well
for the actual operations in the Cupola.
And of course, the actual day
of the capture is a very exciting day.
It's a very busy day for the crew.
But it's also very rewarding; at the end,
you have another module hooked
up to the space station, a visiting vehicle.
And you open the hatch and you got all this great equipment
being delivered to you.
>> And with any luck a little fresh food.
>> Yeah, usually there's some --
a few surprises onboard that everybody really enjoys.
>> You spent about seven months of your life off
of the planet now, which I guess is not something you expected
was going to happen when you were a young boy
or like a college student.
Looking forward, what's next for you now?
You were saying a moment ago
that you got some unused vacation time.
>> Oh yeah, of course I have lots of unused vacation time.
I'm going to take some time off and enjoy myself
and recharge my batteries.
But I think we're -- the United States space program is coming
into a very exciting time.
We got Orion and we have the commercial vehicles being
developed and we'll be launching soon in a few years.
So I hope to get involved in that and the design
and the development of those vehicles.
>> Rick, I really appreciate you taking a couple of minutes
to talk about it and welcome back.
>> Thank you.
>> NASA astronaut, Rick Mastracchio,
back from 188 days in space. ------------------------------edef28eb5e69--