NASA's Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japan's Koichi Wakata and cosmonaut Anna Kikina talk to Space.com's Elizabeth Howell from the International Space Station. -- Auroras, spacecraft mods and more: SpaceX Crew-5 astronauts reflect on their time in orbit.
Credit NASA
Credit NASA
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00:00Next up, we have Elizabeth Howell with Space.com. Liz?
00:05Hello. Thank you. Maybe this is for Nicole.
00:08Trying to get Frank into that crew drag must have been one of the most interesting applications of just-in-time training.
00:15Can you talk about how you and the rest of the crew and, of course, Frank got that scenario together? Thanks.
00:25Well, it was really the teams at NASA and SpaceX that worked very closely to come up with a plan quite quickly
00:33so that we can safely add a seat to Dragon and return Frank.
00:38Josh actually put the seat liner in Dragon, so do you want to talk to that, Blue?
00:43Yeah, absolutely. And, Dan, if you could help us out, if you could mute while we're answering,
00:47because we're getting a bit of an echo up here. But, yeah, Frank and I worked together to install that,
00:53and it was really cool to work with Aki. Aki, who had obviously been on Crew-2, was on the ground
01:00and had gone through the whole procedure when he was out at Hawthorne, and so we were able to work very closely with him.
01:07There were a couple of differences as we were putting the wrenches in place.
01:12We had some clearance issues that weren't apparent in Hawthorne.
01:16We worked through it and got Frank a great little seat that I actually wouldn't mind riding in, too.
01:22It looks pretty comfy down there. And he doesn't have to hear us talk.
01:25He doesn't have a headset in that case, so he's not going to hear us running our mouths up there in our seats.
01:35All right, we're getting to some follow-ups now. Let's go back to Elizabeth Howell with Space.com. Liz?
01:43Thanks for finding me again. Koichi, can you talk about your new colleagues,
01:47the two new Japanese astronauts that have been selected, and your feelings about the program going forward?
01:57Yeah, it's really exciting to hear the news.
02:00On Tuesday I saw the news of the Yoneda-san and Suwa-san selected.
02:05Very capable and a very interesting background, and I really look forward to working with them.
02:11This is the best timing. 15 years ago in March, the Japanese first module was launched to the Space Station,
02:17and the government of Japan has decided to join the extension of the Space Station.
02:21And also, we are working with partners for the lunar missions and the Gateway Program.
02:26So for them, they have plenty of opportunities in the low-Earth orbit as well as for the moon exploration.
02:33So I feel very envious, but I would like to convey what I have experienced as an astronaut,
02:40and I would like to support them for their training as well as for their space flight.
02:48All right. We're going to switch over to some social questions now.
02:51Reminder for reporters, press star 1 if you're on the phone bridge to get into the queue.
02:55The first one from Elaine on Twitter wanted to know if anybody in Crew 5 saw any of those outrageous auroras over the past couple nights.
03:11Okay. So Monday morning, I headed into Node 3, which is where our restroom is, but also where the beautiful cupola is.
03:21And it was really dark in there, and I was about to take care of some business that we have to do up here as astronauts doing different samples,
03:28and it's kind of a miserable process.
03:30And it was really dark, and then I heard this little voice down hanging in the cupola, and Duke says,
03:37Blue, you've got to see this.
03:39And I came down, and we just soaked it all in on Monday morning,
03:44and just feeling a little guilty that we weren't in a position that we had the words to describe what we were seeing.
03:50It was really remarkable.
03:52We were over North America, very northern part, you know, at the maximum latitude that we can get.
03:59And so on Tuesday, we took advantage of an opportunity.
04:04We had a half day, and Duke can talk to you about it, but we got set up on a time lapse,
04:09and we got some pretty amazing photography.
04:11We were giddy yesterday when we saw it.
04:14It was really fun.
04:15Koichi's done a lot of time lapse, so he had that expertise, and Josh got it all focused and set up,
04:21and I think we took maybe three night passes worth of photography.
04:25It was just incredible.
04:27But, yeah, I woke up that morning just early and thought I'd spend some time in the cupola,
04:31maybe soaking in some of those, you know, last nighttime views before we depart, and I couldn't believe the aurora.
04:37The coolest thing to me is that as the sun rose, you could still see the northern lights,
04:43and so you get all those amazing colors of the sunrise, the deep red to the orange to the blue,
04:48but you could still see the green of the aurora.
04:51And I have a friend, Amy, that lives in Alaska.
04:53I happened to talk to her on Tuesday, and she mentioned this incredible northern lights that she saw,
04:59and she said, you know, if Alaskans are talking about the northern lights, it's got to be good.
05:03So she sent pictures from Earth, and we sent her pictures from space.
05:06It was pretty special.