Yeah, So The Human Body Changes A Lot When You're In Space. There's Things That Happen Like Fluid Shifts,

I thought, um, I actually thought The Martian was pretty good.  They do a good job there of kind of showing the challenges of working in a space environment: some of the isolation, how do you troubleshoot problems, the kind of interactions that crews would have.  I think that's a movie that captures somewhat the feel of space exploration.

What popular film is the closest to reality for you?

Human space flight is very stressful, and particularly as a flight director with the responsibility for the safety of the crew and the integrity of the vehicle and the execution of the mission, I was very stressed during those years.

One of the things I love to do to de-stress is to run.  So during the Expedition 14 mission, which was seven months long, I was very stressed.  And I figured, hey, why not train for a marathon?  So after training for several months, I actually ran a marathon.  

And this is a picture of me [shows laptop screen] talking to the commander of the International Space Station, Mike E.L.A.  He called my friend while I was at mile 23.  Mile 23!  I'm supposed to be focused!  But she hands me the phone and he says, "Hey, I've had people posting at all the different mile markers and you are looking great out there, so..."

And I said, "Well, can I-can you call me back in like--mmm--thirty minutes because I might be across the finish line by then, and right now I'm kind of busy." ________________

Transciber note: She pronounces name of the commander of the ISS as “Mike Elay”, but a quick google shows that Michael E. Lopez-Alegria was the commander of Expedition 14.  In case you were wondering about the three initials.

What do you do to relax in stressing situations?

Yeah, that's a great question and that's exactly how it feels.  Once we get up about 13 miles above the earth, and get everything set up and start doing the science collection, every now and again you have to kind of stop and just take a minute to look around.  And it's a fascinating sight up there.  

On a normal clear day looking down at the earth, you can see the curvature of the earth out in front of you, and then the sky is just a really dark purple up there because you're above all the moisture in the air that causes the dark blue to turn to light blue down towards the earth's surface.  And it's such a different sight, it really makes you understand how small we really are.

What does it feel like to be up there and look down at the Earth? I've always imagined it would send me into a moment where I feel so small compared to the expanse and beauty of Earth.

Ah, that's a really good question!  I think I would say, study as much as you did, but also try to have a little bit of fun.

Hey, Kate! What would you say/what advice would you give to your younger self? ✨

"So a black hole is just pure gravity.  In technical terms, that means that Einstein taught us that gravity is energy.  Energy is mass (E = mc2) .

Mass creates more gravity, so you get this essentially runaway effect where gravity is causing energy is causing mass is causing more gravity.

And it just pulls itself in on itself more and more and more, and you get this runaway called a singularity surrounded by an event horizon, which is the black hole."

uhmm, can you tell me what exactly a black hole is? or what iy does? thanks, just really confused and curious on how it actually works.

Over my 28 years here, I've had the opportunity to work a number of different critical missions at NASA, particularly as a flight director.  And each one of those missions has been an amazing honor to have the public's trust put in my hands.  

But one of the aspects I like the most about it, which is also the scariest, is the fact that people's lives are in my hands.  Decisions that I make can impact the lives of the crew members, the integrity of the vehicle, and the success of the mission, and I liked having that responsibility.  I was honored to have that responsibility.

And I think if you are a flight director and you ever lose track of that, then it's time to stop being a flight director.

Before my question I would like to congratulate you on your career at Nasa, it must be amazing to work there even if you didn’t achieve your dream of being an astronaut, you can still lead missions from the ground. (Sorry if my punctuation is a bit off) as for my question, what has it been like to work at nasa all of these years and get to help with so many missions? Do you ever get nervous for the people who’s lives are in your hands? Signed ~ Phillip

The first time I saw Earth from space I couldn't even talk; I was absolutely speechless, as were my crewmates.  The three of us were just silent it seemed like for thirty seconds, it was such a beautiful sight.  And one of the things that was really interesting to me was how different it was seeing it out the window with your own eyes versus seeing the picture.  

I think I had this idea in my head that I knew what Earth looked like because you've seen so many videos, but they're all photographic images, so the dynamic color spectrum is a little bit dulled.  When you see it with your own eyes, it's so much brighter.  It's so much more vivid than I could have imagined.  It's just this beautiful blue planet.

What was your first thought when you first saw earth from space? And what realizations did you have?

Being a flight director was such an honor.  I was only able to do it for eight years, but I loved every minute of it.  My favorite part about that is being able to lead such talented teams.  

I had a different team with me every day, different teams on different missions I supported, but the one consistent thing is that they are all dedicated to flying these vehicles safely, to protecting the crew, to executing the mission.  

And it was just an honor to be able to lead them. I considered it a successful day if I didn't have to step in and I could just sit back and watch the team do their thing, and they are beautiful.

What was your favorite part of being a Flight Director?

So one of the things I didn't know about being an astronaut was all of the different kinds of skills we need to learn.  You come in and you're kind of a baby astronaut trainee, and they teach you things about like how to fix the electrical system and the plumbing on the space station.  You need to learn how to train in dangerous environments.  We learn how to fly airplanes.  We learn how to do spacewalks underwater.  

So one of the most surprising things was just the variety of skills we need in order to be successful expedition pioneers on board the space station.

What's something you didn't know about being an astronaut before you actually became one? Do you have any words of advice for young astronauts?

So on the ISS we have a wake-up time.  There's not really any predetermined time because we're orbiting the Earth every ninety minutes.  But you have to pick a time scale, so we actually picked GMT, which is close to London time.

So we wake up, we have a normal conference call with the ground, we talk about things that are going on the space station, what we're going to do that day, and then we have a plan that tells us what we're going to do down to every five minutes on board.  And so it depends on the day.  

A lot of time we're doing science experiments, sometimes we're doing maintenance on the space station, sometimes we're even getting ready to do a space walk.  Those are the best days.  But every day is something new and different up there.

What does a normal day for you consist of?