The next members
of the International Space Station's crew come
from three different countries.
Yet they plan to work for a shared goal --
getting humankind ready to fly farther from Earth
than this station can go.
Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield was born
in Sarnia, Ontario, and grew up there and on a farm
in Milton, near Toronto.
The space race had captured his imagination
by the time he was nine
and watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon.
And Hadfield thought to himself,
"I'm going to grow up to be something.
Why not that?"
"But then when I looking
around I'm thinking I'm a nine-year old kid.
I'm a Canadian.
What are my odds?
Not very good.
But I thought well you know
up until yesterday people couldn't even go
and walk on the moon.
And now they can, so maybe I can too.
And so I started getting ready that night.
Basically started, what do I need to do next?
Hadfield got into advanced courses in school
and on the academic track that led to college.
But he also became a ski instructor while learning how
to fly as a member of Canada's air cadets.
"They teach them a bunch of technical things.
They teach them self-discipline.
They give them levels of responsibility
that they might not get otherwise as teenagers.
And in my case I spent one summer learning
to be a glider pilot and getting my glider pilot's license.
And right at the age of 16 I became a powered pilot."
Hadfield joined the Canadian Armed Forces right
out of high school and earned a Bachelor's
in Mechanical Engineering from the Royal Military College.
After jet training he flew the Canadian version of the F-18
for NORAD, attended the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School
and served as an exchange officer with the U.S. Navy
at the Pawtuxent River Naval Air Station while earning a Masters
in Aviation Systems from the University of Tennessee.
Hadfield was selected as an astronaut
by the Canadian Space Agency in 1992 and assigned
to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
On his first spaceflight, the 1995 shuttle mission
that delivered a docking module to the Mir Space Station,
he became the first Canadian
to operate the shuttle's Canadarm on-orbit.
After serving as chief astronaut
for CSA he made his second flight
on the 2001 shuttle mission that delivered Canadarm2
to the International Space Station.
And he performed two spacewalks, the first ever made
by a Canadian astronaut.
Hadfield served as NASA's Director of Operations
in Star City, Russia, retired from the Canadian Air Force
as a colonel and then served in a variety of roles
within NASA's Astronaut Office before getting this assignment
to support the research onboard the International Space Station.
"And it is our big proving ground.
It's our test track for building spaceships in the future
and it is therefore the diving board, the launching board,
that's going to allow us
to confidently go further away from Earth."
Retired Russian Air Force Colonel Roman Romanenko was born
in Schelkovo near Moscow and grew up in Star City
at the center of the cosmonaut community.
His father, cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko,
flew three times before his son graduated from high school.
So the idea of being a cosmonaut wasn't so romantic to the son.
"We never went on a trip, or on a picnic, or business trip.
I was always with my dad and I would just always be in contact
with cosmonauts and I thought it would be always normal
to be with them.
There's nothing special about it for me."
But he did want to be a military pilot.
So after high school Romanenko followed his father
into the Air Force.
He graduated from the Suvorov Military School in Leningrad
and the Chernikov Higher Military School of Pilots.
But after the fall of the Soviet Union young Air Force pilots had
fewer opportunities to fly fighters.
Romanenko found himself co-piloting cargo transport
and ferrying cosmonauts to their launch site in Kazakhstan.
"They weren't allowing me to fly a lot
and so I started thinking about changing jobs.
Maybe find something related to that.
And right at that moment I was told that they're looking
for applicants to join the cosmonauts.
And I thought why not?
I give it a try as well."
Romanenko was selected as a cosmonaut candidate in 1997
and made his first spaceflight
in 2009 commanding the Soyuz spacecraft that brought he
and two crewmates to the International Space Station
to expand its crew to six for the first time on Expedition 20.
Romanenko has also served as deputy commander
of Russia's cosmonaut corps while his nation has worked
with its international partners
to get ready for the next journey.
"If everything is going well, if we are able
to successfully follow the program, the flight program,
even while orbiting Earth
with this rich experience we'll be able to reach other planets
as well with no problems."
Dr. Tom Marshburn is native of Statesville, North Carolina,
the seventh of seven children
who loved working and playing outdoors.
He remembers being excited to watch the first moonwalk
because it fed into his love of adventure.
"I always loved to draw and to paint.
It was in high school that I thought you know,
the space program is interesting to me,
specifically the space program that got me
into the technical field and I just switched completely.
I concentrated on math, science and fell in love
with the physics classes."
After high school in Atlanta he earned his Bachelor's in Physics
from Davidson College and a Masters in Physics
from the University of Virginia.
But he also came to understand that his talents might lie more
in working with people.
"I actually came down to the Johnson Space Center
and started knocking on doors asking for a job
after I received my Masters degree.
One of the doctor's that worked here said,
you ought to get a medical degree cause NASA's going
to need doctors some day.
So I did."
Marshburn earned a Doctor of Medicine at Wake Forest,
trained as an emergency room physician in Toledo, Ohio,
and then worked in an ER in Seattle before being accepted
in the first class of NASA's Space Medicine Fellowship
program to train as a flight surgeon.
In that role for NASA, Marshburn has worked
in the shuttle program, in Star City, Russia,
for NASA personnel assigned as part
of the International Space Station Program
and as lead flight surgeon for shuttle and station crews.
He was selected as an astronaut in 2004
and made his first spaceflight
on a 2009 space shuttle mission during
which he made three spacewalks to complete the construction
of the Kibo laboratory complex
and get the International Space Station in shape for its mission
as a test bed that will help human beings prepare
for the next stage of space exploration.
"You'd have to build something and then test it
out over a long period of time.
Well that's what the space station is.
And with the Russian technology, with a lot of technology,
the international partners have come up with, we're able to find
out how we can maintain these things we call people
for a long period of time in space."