Preflight Interview: Scott Parazynski

The STS-100 Crew Interviews with Scott Parazynski, Mission Specialist.

Q: First off, tell us: Why did you want to become an astronaut?

A: I think I've wanted to be an astronaut ever since I could walk and talk. Just the dream of flight, the chance to explore. My father worked on the Apollo program when I was very young and just always had the notion of one day following in the footsteps of the early pioneers of space flight. Had the posters on the wall and the model rockets and just kind of never lost that dream.

Talk us through the process that got you to fulfilling that dream. Let's hear about your education and your career path that got you here.

Okay. I ended up growing up overseas quite a bit. My father worked with the Boeing Airplane Company. And so, that took us to Dakar, Senegal; Beirut, Lebanon; Athens, Greece; Tehran, Iran - so some kind of faraway places, very exciting places to live as it turned out. And then, I ended up going to Stanford University and Stanford Medical School for my training, and while at Stanford Medical School, I began working at the NASA Ames Research Center. One thing kind of led to another. I began working on problems that affect long-duration space flight and was able to then apply to the space program as an astronaut candidate back in 1992.

Tell me a little bit about your career as an astronaut here.

I've been very fortunate since my arrival here in '92. Had three very exciting, challenging space flights. The first mission was STS-66, back in November of 1994, and we went up for an 11-day mission on Atlantis to study the Earth's global ozone distribution and monitored a number of different scientific payloads on that flight. Then, on my second flight, STS-86, I served as the flight engineer on the seventh Shuttle-Mir docking flight. So, I ended up going up to the Mir space station at a very exciting time in its history. I was able to perform a space walk with a Russian cosmonaut - the very first joint U.S.-Russian space walk out of the shuttle - and some other challenging interesting work while docked there. My last flight was STS-95 with Senator John Glenn that certainly generated a lot of public interest, looking at some of the corollaries between the normal aging process and physiologic changes that occur to all astronauts when they fly in space. We had a number of other experiments on that flight as well, looking at solar physics and material science and a whole host of other things. Another thing that's a little unique about my background as an astronaut is that I was slated to be a long-duration astronaut aboard the Mir space station. In fact, I spent several months learning how to speak Russian and then living and training in Star City, Russia and was excited to serve as Jerry Linenger's backup and hopefully would have served on a later increment. But safety concerns arose that I was too tall to safely fit into the Soyuz capsule in an emergency, so, as fate would have it, I wasn't able to spend my five months up on Mir.

Despite that disappointment, you've had a lot of great things happen to you.

That is indeed the case, yeah.

Any particular people along the way that helped you get to be where you are?

I guess, are you asking in terms of role models and -

Role models, right. Those that helped guide you along the way.

I guess if I were to reflect on who my prime role models were to get me where I am today, it would be great explorers and scientists - folks like Jacques Cousteau and Sir Edmund Hillary - and then the pioneering astronauts - John Glenn, [Alan] Shepard - and of course the Gemini and Apollo astronauts that took us to great places. I guess I can reflect a little bit about having the opportunity to fly with John Glenn. It's an amazing opportunity and something that I never would have imagined to grow up with a role model and then ultimately follow in his footsteps and actually fly with that person, Senator Glenn. So, it's a real honor and amazing treat to be able to do that.

Now you're assigned to another very important mission - STS-100. Tell me what the goals are of this flight. What's the significance of this new robot arm you're attaching to the space station?

Well, the primary goal of this mission, first and foremost, is to install and check out the new robotic arm for the space station. It's an incredibly complex piece of hardware. The shuttle arm that we fly for the space shuttle program in itself is a very complex machine, but this arm - and I have a demonstration here - is capable of actually walking over itself, kind of leapfrogging from point to point. And, that gives us great capability for not only the assembly of [the] space station but the maintenance and support of space walking activities all throughout the space station. And, if you look behind me here, you can see that the space station is a huge facility spanning two football fields in area. [There are] huge solar arrays that will need servicing and replacement [and] other pieces of equipment that will need assembly and maintenance. So, really, the - I call it the mechanical backbone of the or cornerstone of the space station program - is what we're delivering to the station. So, first and foremost, our job is to install the arm and help the space station crew get it checked out in preparation for the following flight, which is the delivery of the airlock. And, I think as you're probably aware, each successive mission in the space station program is critically dependent upon the last. So, if we don't get our job done, then the next flight can't do their job. Another primary activity on this flight is the delivery of the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, called Raffaello. It's an Italian contribution to the program. And this will house a number of scientific experiments, hardware racks for the space station, as well as food and clothing and other logistics supplies for the [Expedition] Two crew. And that's also a job that I'll be associated with very closely.

Before you can get all this important hardware up there, you have to rendezvous and dock with the space station.

Yes, indeed.

Talk through the process of that - how that's going to happen, and what your role is in doing that process.

Rendezvous with an orbiting vehicle actually starts on the launch pad. We actually have to launch as the space station is almost going overhead so that we can play a game of catch up over the next 2 or 3 days. And, we're performing a number of burns with our orbital maneuvering system engines to get in a matching orbit and then accelerate to catch up with the space station. I'll serve as the rendezvous navigator. Of course Kent Rominger, the Commander, will be at the controls, and Pilot Jeff Ashby will be also monitoring propulsion and other systems during the rendezvous. Chris Hadfield is another key player in the rendezvous. He'll be using the handheld laser to give us marks of our range and range rate. It's a device very similar to a policeman's laser, and he'll just take pings off of the space station as we get nearer and nearer. My primary role, as I said, will be as navigator, and I'll be collecting a number of different sensory inputs using radar. We have a laser system called TCS that feeds information into my computers and then also handheld laser marks that Chris will be taking. And, we'll kind of synthesize all of those inputs and give that information back to the Commander so that he can make the right inputs and coast us up to a very gentle, smooth docking with the space station. And, it's really an amazing feat if you think about [it] - to start on the ground and play catch up with an orbiting vehicle traveling at almost 18,000 miles an hour. And, at the moment of docking you're within a degree and 3 inches of perfectly centered on the docking structure. And, you're going at 18,000 miles an hour, just like the space station is. Phenomenal technology.

After you achieve this phenomenal, amazing thing you do dock with the space station. What happens in the hours right after the docking?

Right after the docking Chris Hadfield and myself will be controlling the hooks that actually attach the two 200-ton vehicles together. And so we'll be driving those hooks. We'll be doing leak checks to make sure that there's no leak between the interfaces of the two vehicles. Once that's completed, we'll do what we call the "PMA shuffle." We don't want to open up the hatches immediately and ingress the space station because Chris and I are going out the following day for a space walk. We'll be at 10.2 pounds per square inch of pressure. Of course, sea level is 14.7 pounds per square inch. Going to 10.2 a little bit earlier in the flight helps us get rid of some of the nitrogen in our system and reduces our risk of the bends when we go EVA the following day. So we'll be doing this PMA shuffle, so-called, to exchange gear from the shuttle to the space station and get some critical equipment that we need the following day for our space walk. So, we'll open up the vestibule between the space shuttle Orbiter Docking System and the PMA and then actually go inside the PMA and recover a Pistol-Grip Tool and a couple of other tools that we'll need for EVA 1. And, we'll also deliver to the space station a number of water containers and mail from home and fresh fruit and other more critical supplies for them.

And, it will be a couple of days until you see the Expedition Two crew face-to-face. But, when you do see them, do you have anything special you're bringing them? You mentioned fruit. Anything else?

We certainly have a lot of surprises for them. Hopefully they can't see this broadcast. But no, I think we have a number of things from home - things that they really enjoy - foods in particular, music, of course mail and videos from home, things of that nature that we'll be delivering. And, we have a few things planned for on orbit that'll be a surprise.

Now, after the docking, the shuttle's robot arm is used to install the robot arm on the space station like we mentioned, and the first space walk begins - something you're keenly interested in. Talk us through that day. What happens on the day of that first space walk?

On flight day four, one of the busiest days of the flight is also one of the most exciting. We'll get up first thing in the morning. Myself and Chris will be getting into our liquid-cooled undergarments and putting on biomedical sensors and things of that nature. Meanwhile upstairs, Jeff Ashby's going to be flying the robotic arm. And, it's a very challenging task to, first of all, remove the Spacelab Pallet that houses the space station robotic arm and a UHF antenna that we'll also install. He has to pick that up and maneuver it out in front of the nose of the orbiter and install it on top of the Lab. The tolerances the arm has to fly are very tight. Visibility is somewhat limited, but we think that with the various views that we can command from the shuttle and using the Space Vision System he'll be able to do this quite nicely. Once Jeff has installed the Spacelab Pallet onboard the Lab, he'll ungrapple the arm, back away and drive the arm back down towards the airlock, where Chris and I'll be waiting to go. We'll have already done our 100% oxygen prebreathe. We'll be fully suited up of course, and once we have the go, we'll take the airlock to vacuum and open up the hatch and go outside. It's six and a half hours nominally planned - a very tightly choreographed activity with John Phillips, our intravehicular crewmember, kind of as the quarterback of this whole activity. Chris will be setting up the arm, getting a Portable Foot Restraint out of, basically, a tool locker in the payload bay, installing that on the arm. While he's doing that, I'll be climbing up on the Laboratory module. I'll be checking on a slide wire that runs alongside of it, verifying that it's intact. And then, once that's complete, I'll switch my safety tether reel on to the Laboratory. I'll go up to the Spacelab Pallet on the top of the Lab and hook up four different connectors, and, these are critical to the life of the station arm. Both power and data and video lines run through these. Once all four connectors are mated, we can then begin giving the arm keep-alive power. And, that's something that the space station crew inside the Lab will do on their laptop computers. Once that's complete, Chris will be on board with me. We'll then move the UHF antenna from the Spacelab Pallet, off of that and down around to the other side of the Lab. We'll unbolt four bolts on the base of the antenna. Chris will get another three on the shaft of the antenna. He'll then lift it off of the pallet and ride around on the arm to the installation spot. At that point, I'll receive the base of the antenna soft dock it. Then I'll torque up the four base bolts, and then I'll allow Chris to clear the area. And as he's doing that, I'll swing up this UHF boom. And, it's a remarkable piece of hardware, actually. As the boom deploys, the two antenna ray domes also deploy in turn, and I think it's going to be really an interesting thing to see on downlink for folks. Once that's accomplished, another couple of bolts, an electrical connector and the UHF antenna should be ready to operate. A few other commands that the space station crew will be required to do inside to make that happen. Following that, both Chris and I will head back up to the Spacelab Pallet. And, there are a number of jack bolts that have to be released to basically lessen the torque on bolts that we call "super bolts," and they're almost 4-feet long. Thus the name. And so each of these bolts [is] torqued down to about 18,000 pounds. To achieve that, they have jack bolts that add a little extra torque and keep the application of the torque symmetric. So, we have to, in sequence, un-torque jack bolts around the head of the super bolt, and it's a very methodical, sequenced activity. Once all the jack bolts are backed off appropriately, then I'll remove all four of my super bolts and hand those over to Chris. And, he'll receive them while he's still on the arm and put them into a device that we call the "quiver." It's just like an arrow quiver you know, from Robin Hood or whatever. But basically, [we] install the super bolts in four long slots, and then, he'll go to his end and remove the super bolts on his end of the Spacelab Pallet. I'll receive them and install his super bolts in the quiver and close up the top of that, and we're ready to proceed with the really critical portion of the EVA, which is the assembly of the arm itself. What this entails is, first of all, removing some expandable diameter fasteners. These are bolts that, as you apply torque to them, they actually expand in the hole and lock in place, so I have to get these out of their launch position. There are a number of clevises that exist at the hinge of the arm, I can show you on my mock-up here. The arm in its launch configuration is essentially folded in half, and right here is the hinge joint. If you can imagine, this entire upper surface is folded back on to itself. I kind of liken the arm to a spider or praying mantis. It kind of gracefully gets unfolded and becomes a very powerful structure once it's completely assembled. But once the expandable diameter fasteners have been removed, I actually lift up the booms manually so that I can access all four of the lower bolts. Then Chris will come by on the arm and swing this entire upper boom up and over, and this also requires a great deal of coordination between Jeff Ashby, who's driving the arm, and Chris on the arm to make sure that he can reach during the maneuver. And, it's also close to a number of reach limits and singularities on the shuttle arm. So, it's going to be a very slow and methodical activity to get Chris in up and over there. Once that's completed, then I will free float all the way around and install eight of these expandable diameter fasteners. It's a key activity on the flight because, if we don't have all eight of those installed properly, the arm won't have the proper rigidity to do its job. So Chris, at the end of the arm, can actually wiggle it, shake it - very gently obviously - to help align it so that I can install the expandable diameter fasteners. Once they're installed Chris will come back to the upper portion of the arm. I'll be on the lower portion of it, and we'll torque up those expandable diameter fasteners. And, basically that's the completion of EVA 1. It's a lot of work all fit into a six-and-a-half-hour EVA, but we've been doing really well in the pool. I have a lot of confidence that things are going to go well in flight.

Is that robot arm fully functional at the end of that space walk?

No, it's not. In fact, at the end of EVA 1, it has keep-alive power, but it hasn't really been brought operational. After we come back inside, the space station crew has a number of activities to get it powered up, to bring the video system operational, to get the joints operational. And that's actually a primary activity for the following day. Of course, the space station arm is still based on the Spacelab Pallet, and what it really needs to do is be based off of the Laboratory module. We're bringing that Spacelab Pallet back home. Its new house actually is on the side of the Laboratory module on an interface that we call the PDGF or Power and Data Grapple Fixture, so the crew will basically fly the space station arm up and over to the other side of the Laboratory module and grapple this Power and Data Grapple Fixture. And that'll be the preparatory steps for EVA 2.

Also on this first space walk - you mentioned the UHF antenna. what sort of communications are going to be possible once that's hooked up?

The UHF antenna that we're deploying is a great added capability. As we currently rendezvous with the space station, we have to use a VHF antenna, very similar to what's used in general aviation these days. It's line of sight and has some limitations. It also requires flying in an extra box of equipment every docking flight. Now what we'll be able to do on rendezvous is just use our regular UHF antennas in the orbiter to communicate during rendezvous. It's also going to be the primary communication path for EVA communication so that, when the station crew is outside doing an EVA, they can talk to their IVA crewmember via the UHF radio. So a very powerful capability.

You mentioned earlier the Multi-Purpose Logistics Module you guys are taking up there. Tell me a little bit more. Exactly what is the MPLM and what are you bringing up on this particular flight?

The MPLM, or Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, is an Italian built module, as I mentioned earlier. Ours is named Raffaello. Leonardo and Donatello are the other two flight models of the MPLM. On our flight, we'll be bringing up primarily logistics and supplies and scientific equipment for the space station crew, also, some other hardware in support of the next assembly flight 7A and some of the outfitting for the airlock.

What's the process of getting that thing attached to the station?

The installation of the MPLM requires use of the shuttle's robotic arm, which I'll be flying both on the installation and removal. Installation occurs on flight day five, and Umberto Guidoni, from the European Space Agency, will be my trusted ally and will be helping me all through the process. What we'll first do is grapple the MPLM in the payload bay. Once that's successfully accomplished, we'll demate a rigid electrical umbilical that we'll deploy out of the way. That basically is used to control heaters and other electrical avionics during a launch and landing. Once we've done that, we'll very slowly and carefully lift the MPLM out of its V-guides - clear of the shuttle's payload bay - and then reorient the MPLM so that it's in a proper configuration high above the payload bay to dock with the Node. We're going to be taking it up to the nadir port of the Node on space station. And, using a number of different sensors there, Umberto's going to be turning on the Space Vision System using a series of black dots to calibrate the Vision System to give us guidance to very precisely align the MPLM with the berthing interface. I'll also be using a centerline berthing camera, which has some other cues to fly out any attitude errors and help me stay on track as I berth the MPLM on the side of the Node.

After that work, you and Chris Hadfield are going to go back outside for a second space walk. What happens during that second space walk?

The second space walk is to me perhaps even more exciting than the first. Although perhaps to the downlink viewer it might not be quite as visually captivating because of all the mechanical interfaces that are going to be deployed - the UHF antenna and the space station booms. EVA 2 is going to be very meticulous, delicate work as we basically rewire the space station robotic arm. As I mentioned earlier on EVA 1, the SSRMS is powered off of the Spacelab Pallet, and it's really not in a position where it can live for a long time. In fact, on flight 8A, the S0 truss gets installed right where the Spacelab Pallet is located right now, so it's not a permanent solution. We need to bring the power and the data off of the side of the Lab. So, what I'll be doing is reconfiguring wires underneath the surface of the Lab so that the Power and Data Grapple Fixture that the arm is already attached to can now transfer power and data and telemetry. If you can, envision just a small kitchen table-sized area with about 24 connectors, half of which are made of fiber-optic material. And, if you even look at them wrong, they might snap or break. This is the kind of environment that I'm going to be working in, and so, it's really critical that I not get tunnel vision. I have to keep the big picture, not just of the connector that I happen to be working on but my tethers and tools that are suspended off of my suit - make sure that they don't snag any of the adjacent connectors or do any harm. So it's kind of an interesting challenge. Earlier flights - 5A and 5A.1 - add additional cables on to this area, so, by the time that we get there on 6A, the cables that I'm going to need to interface with are at the very bottom, as luck would have it. So, I've got to very carefully extract these sensitive cables and bring them up and over the top. And so it's going to be, as I mentioned, very slow and deliberate work, but I'm looking forward to the challenge. Chris will be translating up to the starboard port on the Node and recovering the early communications antenna that was installed on flight 2A, STS-88. Essentially, this is an antenna that's no longer needed. We now have excellent communications capability on board the space station, and this antenna's right in the way of the airlock installation on flight 7A. So, he'll be removing six cables, a couple of which will be temporarily stowed on the side of the Node, and four others that he'll actually bring inside the airlock with him at the completion of the EVA. It's a box a little bit bigger than a breadbox. It weighs about 100 pounds. It also has a metallic extension that attaches it to the side of the Node that he'll retrieve and bring back with him to the airlock.

Tell me about what happens after that reconfiguration you do on the side of the Lab.

I'll be meeting Chris at the airlock to help him temporarily stow some equipment, and actually, we had been working single string up until this point on the EVA. We'll then proceed to the Spacelab Pallet one more time. We have to disconnect the connectors that I had mated on EVA 1 so that the space station crew can now remove the Spacelab Pallet from the Lab Cradle Assembly where it had been living for about 3 days. I'll also be going up on to the Spacelab Pallet one final time to retrieve a video signal conditioner - a VSC - and also retrieve a Portable Foot Restraint and one tether and bring those back to the orbiter. So we'll be doing just a couple of clean-up steps. And, once the electrical connectors are demated, the Spacelab Pallet is free to be removed and essentially put out of the way. It's going to go into an overnight park position to give us a little bit more room with the shuttle's arm now to allow me to ingress the arm one more time, and I'll be picking up the DC Switching Unit - DCSU - electrical box that's an on-orbit critical spare from the payload bay. And I'll be installing that on the side of the Lab on the ESP. Chris'll meet [me] there and help with some of the electrical connectors for that final installation. Once that's complete, we'll be taking down the Portable Foot Restraint on the end of the arm just temporarily [and] stowing it on the side of the Lab, cleaning up tethers and calling it a day.

A very complicated day.

Yeah. Another busy day.

At that point, you can test out this new robot arm the following day. What happens during that? How do you test out that arm?

The arm, of course, at this point has grappled to it the Spacelab Pallet. So the space station crew - in conjunction with Chris Hadfield, who will float on over to the space station while the arm is being flown - will do a loaded checkout, if you will. The Spacelab Pallet weighs on the order of 3,000 pounds, so they'll check out the dynamics features of the arm with a load at the end of it, check out the video systems on board, check out the performance of all of the various capabilities that the arm has to offer. So it's a three- or four-hour activity to shakedown the arm, if you will, and then deliver it to a point where the shuttle arm can now pick up the Spacelab Pallet. Chris, who hails from Canada of course, will be doing the honors there. Kind of very nice symbolic thing as well, to be able to, for the very first time, have both Canadarms operational. He'll be grabbing the Spacelab Pallet offered up by the space station arm and I'll back him up as his R2 and retrieve that from the station crew. The station will then back away the SSRMS and Chris will then berth the Spacelab Pallet back into the payload bay.

You also have scheduled a tentative third space walk. What will happen on this third space walk and why is it tentative?

Well, anytime you try to do something this challenging, things always crop up - unexpected surprises. Having a third unscheduled space walk for this flight really makes sense because, if a problem arises on EVA 1 and we aren't able to fully get the arm deployed, we might need to go out on a second space walk to have that happen. And that, of course, trickles down to the other activities on EVA 2 and getting it all accomplished in the scope of our mission. So it makes sense in that regard to have a book-kept third EVA. And you just never know what's going to happen in terms of space station activities. If you'd recall back to assembly flight 4A, at the very last moment, an extra task was added to the flight - a potential probe that was added on top of P6. That added an additional EVA to that flight. It's certainly a possibility for that sort of activity to develop for our flight as well.

If you don't need that third EVA, what happens? What do you do with that extra day?

Well, we certainly have a lot of transfer activities to keep us busy. But I suspect we'll have most of our transfer activities done by that day and, basically, we'll offer up our services to the space station crew to help out with whatever maintenance or assembly activities that they need us most. Those guys work very hard with a crew of just three. And I know that, during the 4A docked time period, the shuttle crew basically went over and volunteered, and they were kept very busy during the one day that they had together.

After the MPLM is unloaded, you've removed everything and moved things back over on to it that you're returning from the station, it's going to be then returned to the payload bay. What's the process of that happening? [Is it] just a reverse of getting attached?

It's a little bit different than the reversal. We won't have the same visual cues as we did for installation. We won't have the Space Vision System for installation. But Umberto will be will be there to help as my R2 during the uninstall. And we use the centerline berthing camera and an elbow camera looking at the berthing interface there - Common Berthing Mechanism. And, very gradually, very slowly, back it away after John Phillips has opened up the capture latches on the Common Berthing Mechanism. Once it's safely clear of the petals, we'll then roll the MPLM back down and drop it down into the payload bay. The challenge on this day, I think, as for all berthing activities, is just getting the right alignment in the payload bay and the right attitude to drop it into the V-guides. And once we get the alignment established, we'll just drop it down into the V-guides and Umberto will drive the latches to secure it for the ride home. Following that, we'll also deploy the rigid umbilical - electrical umbilical - to deliver heater power to the module.

After that, you're ready to, then, the next day, say goodbye to the Expedition Two crew and get ready to undock. Tell me about that day. What happens in the course of that day?

Well, I think it'll be the completion of a very intensive and exciting docked timeframe. It'll be hard to say goodbye to Jim and Susan and Yury. I know that from my experience, having been up on the Mir space station. [I] understand that they've been up there for quite a while and they have quite a long way to go yet in their increment. It's always a little bit difficult to say goodbye. Once we've made our last transfers and our last goodbyes, we'll close the hatches, of course, depressurize the vestibule between the two spacecraft, and Jeff Ashby will be at the controls for the undocking. I'll be using the handheld laser, much as Chris did for the docking activities. Chris and I will be operating the Orbiter Docking System. I'll push the button to open the hooks, and 2 minutes and 20 seconds later or thereabouts, springs between the two vehicles will start a little bit of a separation rate. And, as soon as we see that, Jeff will fire thrusters and begin our separation from the space station. Meanwhile, Chris will be monitoring all of the navigational sensors up front. And Kent Rominger, the Commander, will be monitoring the undocking and fly around from up front, as well as the orbiter systems. And, there'll be people all around, of course, taking pictures and "oohing" and "aahing" as we do this fly around. The idea is to back out to 450 or 500 feet and then perform a fly around of the space station, and it's our intent, on one quadrant of this fly around, to get some really dramatic footage using an IMAX camera. It's a three-dimensional IMAX camera mounted in the payload bay. So Yuri Lonchakov will be controlling that camera and, when the conditions are right and the space station is up on the horizon as we're flying around, we'll take quite a bit of footage of the space station.

You have, as you mentioned there, a Russian crewmate on this flight. You've had a lot of experiences with the Russians throughout your career. Have those experiences helped you prepare for this flight in any way?

Absolutely. And it's above and beyond the language capability. It's understanding some of the Russian culture and Russian engineering and spacecraft systems. I think it's given me a much greater appreciation of everything that goes into the space program. I've also been very fortunate on every single one of my flights to have an international crew. [I've} flown with Frenchmen on two occasions [and] Russians, of course. I did a space walk with a Russian cosmonaut on my second flight. And of course on this flight we have a Canadian and an Italian astronaut. I've also flown with a Japanese astronaut. And it's just a very exciting time to be in this line of work to see the multicultural and international flavor of the way the space program's become.

What do you think about the growing role of cooperation in space?

I think it's here to stay, of course. With somewhat more limited resources but a more focused goal than perhaps we had in the Cold War, we can focus on the things that are really important, things that are going to improve the quality of life here on Earth. And so working together with the Russians and the Europeans and the Japanese and the Canadians and now the Brazilians, [we're] pooling our resources and our intellect to improve the quality of life here on Earth through the space station. We're also looking at the edges of the universe, looking at discoveries in astrophysics and so on. It's a very exciting time.