recently this happened capture confront SpaceX launched its crew dragon marking
the first time that a commercially built crew capsule launched from American soil
this is exciting all on its own but this upcoming Soyuz launch could also mark
the end of an era and what could be the last time Americans are sent to space in
a country other than their own expedition 5960 is expected to launch on
march 14th from the balcony or cosmodrome in kazakhstan ferrying the
new crew to the ISS including astronauts from October's failed abort mission the
two astronauts in one cosmonaut will be joining the crew already aboard the ISS
working on roughly 250 experiments to further our understanding of the human
body test new technology and even try to further wrap our brains around what time
means in space this latest mission will be on a Soyuz ms 12 spacecraft carrying
a three-person crew alexey ovchinin of the russian space agency Roscosmos NASA
astronauts Christina hammock coke and Nick Hague 4ov Keenan and Hague this is
their second attempt to make it to the ISS on October 11th 2018 the pair were
headed for a routine trip to the space station on a Soyuz rocket but two
minutes after liftoff a problem occurred during the separation of one of the
Rockets strap-on boosters forcing them to perform an emergency landing via
ballistic re-entry which sounds scary and is scary but it's actually the only
way astronauts used to re-enter at the beginnings of human space travel
since then ovchinin and Hague have been retrained and are prepared for
expedition 59 60 we got in touch with Hague currently stationed in Star City
Russia and spoke to him about his feelings of
heading back after only a few months well you know if you asked me a year ago
if I'd be in this position I could have never imagined it so it's a little bit
surreal being able to have another opportunity this quickly but I feel very
fortunate for the opportunity to be able to get up there and you know finally get
to doing the mission that I've been training for at NASA for the last five
years expedition 5960 will be making history
as they will be on board when the first Commercial Crew vehicles are scheduled
to arrive at the ISS having launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida do you
hasn't launched astronauts into space from its own soil since 2011
since then astronauts have been ferried to and from Earth via Russian Soyuz
rockets but this agreement is due to run out by the end of 2019 now there's a
chance that they may have the opportunity to buy more seats but the
overall goal is to get back to launching from the US so why did the u.s. stop
ferrying its astronauts to space officially named the space
transportation system NASA's Space Shuttle program had its first flight on
April 12th 1981 the space shuttle program was the world's first reusable
rocket shuttling astronauts repairing satellites and even helping to build the
ISS during its reign the program had five space shuttles that flew a total of
135 missions but by 2011 one estimate put the average cost per trip to roughly
1.5 billion dollars so after 30 years of service NASA decided to retire the
program since then the US has been entirely dependent on Russia as the
Soyuz is the only spacecraft available to transport crews to the ISS and
they're pretty reliable the Soyuz is the longest operational manned spacecraft in
history although it's expensive the u.s. currently pays 81 million dollars per
seat for its astronauts two hits arrive which is why in 2014 NASA decided to
spend its coin in the private sector awarding both SpaceX and Boeing with
contracts to build spacecraft that could shuttle astronauts in the long term this
also means that NASA has more resources available to tackle challenges like deep
space exploration and getting to Mars to be ready for the task
SpaceX built its crew Dragon spacecraft that sits atop a falcon 9 its first test
flight dubbed demonstration 1 launched on March 2nd from Kennedy Space Center
making history as the first commercially made American spacecraft and rocket to
launch from the US after a day in Earth's orbit the capsule successfully
docked into the ISS delivering its spacesuit sensor wearing test device
named Ripley and roughly 180 kilograms of supplies
it remained docked for roughly five days before making its descent back to earth
splashing down into the Atlantic Ocean the other contract was awarded to Boeing
who cst-100 our liner capsule is scheduled for its
uncrewed test launch in April 2019 star liner is designed to be reused at least
ten times within the span of six months SpaceX and Boeing are continuing tests
but both have committed to manned space missions for later this year nASA has
already assigned the crew that will be heading up on these historic flights and
although crew dragon and star liner are built to carry seven passengers for
these first operational missions they'll carry only four crew members along with
roughly 100 kilograms of cargo by having different launch capabilities it
provides more launch options when needing to replan an aborted launch like
what happened to option and and Hague back in October this is going to make
the the program much more robust by having multiple means to launch from
whether it's the US whether it's Boeing or whether it's space X or or whether
it's on a Soyuz we've got all these ways to deliver crews so that if we do have a
problem we're more resilient and we don't have to bring down the size of the
crew of the station and put a you know a damper on the the research and we can
continue to move forward at the pace that we want to because at the end of
the day it's also about the really cool science happening on board the ISS right
now there are roughly 250 scientific experiments stationed aboard send up on
previous missions from different space agency partners looking to study various
aspects of life in space these experiments include how to grow food and
microgravity or monitoring lightning from space that happens every second or
how astronauts experience bone density loss during expeditions before heading
up the astronauts get training so they're able to handle the experiments
and they can even volunteer for them like the airway monitoring program sent
up by European Space Agency to help study astronauts loan function on the
ISS the study looks at the nitric oxide the astronauts breathe out which helps
in understanding the conditions of our lungs in space monitoring nitric oxide
levels helps to detect inflammatory diseases in the lungs like asthma
previous crews of astronauts have volunteered for the experiment like
German ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst and we also found that spaceflight triggers
a little bit the reaction of the lungs that are very close to what people have
when they have asthma so we can still breathe freely in space
it's not really stopping us from working and living there but we can still use
that little change to measure that right and we can understand it better because
we are in a much more controlled environment than it's possible down here
on earth for expedition 59 60 Nick Hague volunteered to be the human
test subject for the experiment so the benefit is when we get to the surface of
the Moon and there's dust and we know we had problems with lunar dust back in the
Apollo program we're going to be able to monitor the health of the astronauts
even better while they're working up there and and diagnose problems and
protect us while we're exploring the moon space is not easy it's a it's a
risky business it's always going to be a risky business but why do we do it
we've been up there for two decades on the space station in this amazing
international collaboration performing science collecting data so the
scientists on the ground can learn more about our planet
they can learn more about humans in our bodies and and how they behave they can
learn more about the universe that surrounds us and and all of that is
advancing humanity and so we accept those risks so that we can continue to
move forward and continue to expand the boundaries of what we know that's it's a
vital mission and we're doing it every day and I want people to when they see a
launch like that I want them to connect that launch with the importance of the
mission and that's just it there are so many launches happening every year so
many historic moments that aren't to be missed which is why we're committed to
bringing you more launch coverage than ever before that means we'll be there to
talk about the next crew Dragon launch Boeing Starliner
and the latest International moon missions if there's anything you'd like
us to cover on future missions let us know down in the comments and as always
thanks for watching seeker and I'll see you next time