Interview from International Space Station with Hubble Astronaut Megan 

rendezvousing and eventually landing in
the crew dragon so
monitoring the spacecraft systems
helping out the commander as we go
through all of those different phases
so that experience of understanding how
a spacecraft does those things really
helped inform my experience with the new
vehicle
and then of course all of the work that
you do in space um you're always
building on the previous lessons that
you learned so even though there's a lot
of differences between the missions
um there's a lot of similarities as well
to build on
yeah definitely so what was it like
writing and living in the crew dragon
versus your experience on the space
shuttle
well the goals of the two vehicles are
similar to get us from earth
to low earth orbit um but the but the
way they do it is a little bit different
the space shuttle also can take large
payload into orbit so requires a huge
amount of fuel to get the space shuttle

into low earth orbit:

and the solid rocket boosters when you
first light off and get off the launch
pad you're kind of shaking
you're rocking and rolling you feel a
little bit like a rag doll
the crew dragon the falcon 9 rocket is
much smaller just launching just people
and not a lot of cargo into space
and so it requires less energy to get
you there so a much smoother ride was my
experience of the two
and crew dragon of course is quite small
so we spent almost 24 hours in crew
dragon
the four of us it was a very small space
the atlantis space shuttle is bigger
than crew dragon
so we had more room to move around but
of course it's got nothing on the space
that we have near now here on the
international space station
for sure that sounds awesome so the iss
is this amazing orbiting laboratory and specifically within the fields of
astronomy and astrophysics which are two
areas that hubble specializes in what
sort of work is being done up there
well the international space station is
a great platform for doing astrophysics
research as well it's outside the
earth's atmosphere which of course can

interfere

the atmosphere can interfere with
particles that astrophysicists and
astronomers want to observe
so this is a great platform for some
instruments we have a few that i know of
one is called nicer
which looks at the composition of
neutron stars another one is called maxi
and it's an
x-ray all sky monitor and then of course
there's the alpha magnetic spectrometer
which has been here for i think about 10
years and
it's part of the search to understand
dark matter
we as astronauts living here don't
interact really with those payloads very
much although i know that they're very
important to the astrophysics community
although a few years ago ams had a
situation similar to hubble
where it really needed a repair job and
it wasn't designed
to be repaired in space and so a really
ingenious team of engineers and folks on
the ground developed the tools and
hardware and procedures needed
so that astronauts could go out and do
some really tricky spacewalks to recover
that instrument so it does have that in
common with the hubble telescope
that's pretty cool that's really
interesting so let's see what are some
of your main responsibilities and goals
during your time up there
one of the really cool things about
being an astronaut as part of an
expedition crew
on the international space station is
it's kind of all your responsibility
right so you have to help keep the space
station running so there's maintenance
involved so you're working on maybe the water
reclamation system or maybe you're
working on the toilet
but you're also the the hands um and
eyes and ears for the scientists on the
ground that are sending their research
into space and so
you're doing um a part of their research
projects for them sometimes it's as
simple as
changing out cartridges in an experiment
that runs independently
but sometimes it's as involved in
thawing out you know human cells
and putting providing them with a
treatment and then
incubating that and then sampling it and
preserving it to return that science to
earth so this
the the principal investigators can
examine what they've learned
by making use of this microgravity
laboratory so it really is it's a whole
lot of everything which is really cool
yeah that sounds like a lot of fun so
going back to the last hubble servicing
mission you were living inside the space
shuttle for about 11 days and now you've
been living up on the iss for a little
over a month now so have you noticed any
like
day-to-day differences between what it's
like living on these spacecraft
absolutely well the first one we talked
about already is obvious
there's a ton more space it's like six
thousand square feet up here in the
international space station
it's a lot of room to move around i
could be in a module and i can see right
now
three modules and i don't see any other
people and i know that there's a lot of
other people up here so it's a really

big space:

which is interesting another main
difference between a short duration
mission and a long duration mission the
short duration mission you really train
the heck out of every single thing that
you know you're going to do
and the days are very intense and you've got to get all that work done that day
even if something goes wrong you got to
figure it out that day and get it done
space station has a very different pace
we're going to be here for six months
we're in it for the long haul
you have to pace yourself and bring that
energy every single day and you haven't
trained
to do every single thing that you're
going to do in detail up here and so
you're kind of constantly learning new
things which is also very exciting
definitely and let's see nasa has a lot
of exciting missions ahead especially
with human exploration and hubble really
helped nasa lay the groundwork for
spacewalks and using tools in space
so could you tell us a bit about the
artemis program and how the missions
that you've been a part of are helping
prepare nasa for this next giant leap
absolutely i'm very excited about the
artemis program the arteris program
intends to land people on the moon again
in the next couple of years
but more than that it intends to develop
a sustainable presence on the moon
and we're going to be working together
with our international and commercial
partners to achieve this
and there's a lot of things that we need
to be able to do right once we get there
to
to study and stay on the moon we're
going to need you know new landing
technologies new
suit technologies new rover technologies
habitat technologies
including power systems and water
systems and all kinds of things like
that
so um and all of those things are in our
development path to sending people to
mars
which is amazing that that's going to
happen in my lifetime i'm super excited
about all of that
and the work that we do right here on
the international space station informs
all of this development
we are a research platform for all of these things and so
even this summer we're going to be
installing new solar arrays that are
smaller and more efficient than the ones
we've had working here on the
space station for over 15 years we're
also
upgrading our water reclamation system
all the time and so we're learning all
of these things that are going to inform
the development for our future
exploration missions so it's very
exciting to be a part of this
right now absolutely so we probably have
a lot of kids watching right now so do
you have any words of wisdom or a piece
of advice for young people or
specifically young women who are looking
to get to where you're at right now
i think the best advice that i can give
young people is to not be afraid to try
new things one of the things that i've
discovered
um as i've been an astronaut is that
there's always something new to learn
and sometimes it might be something that
you're hey you're naturally you're
really good at this you have a knack for
it you get it right away
and other times it's going to be
something you have to work at or
something you think oh gosh i'm just not
going to be any good at that
but don't be afraid to try those new
things even if maybe you feel like you
failed the first time around you're
going to get better at it you're going
to ask people for help people
want to help you get better at these
things and so just kind of charge in
there and
you know be prepared of course but be
ready to always be learning new things
that's great and now before we jump into
some audience questions i'm curious now
that hubble's been in orbit for 31 years
now
do you have a personal favorite hubble
discovery or image


well you know it's impossible to choose
just one i know you know that
you know it's there's images that are  beautiful just for the way they look and
for or for what they make you
um feel and then there's images that are
amazing for what they tell us and what
we have learned
about the universe so if i had to just
choose one i would say
that one that really stands out for me
is the ultra deep field image
which is an oldie but a goodie um and
you know my understanding is that
basically
we pointed the telescope at a part of
the sky that looked kind of empty
from ground-based photographs and by
kind of looking this deep core looking
for a long time and gathering you know
what would
was very faint light over time realize
that there's you know so many countless
galaxies just in this one little
area of the sky you know we're looking
back billions of light years
kind of galaxies long ago and far away
and and i find that just
very fascinating very compelling to
understand
just this sheer dimension of our
universe it's kind of mind-boggling
for sure me too i think that's that's
probably my favorite as well though it
is definitely hard to choose
so we got in some great questions
earlier this week on social media and we
can go ahead and take a look at some of
those
um a user on twitter asked how long does
it take to get adapted to the space

station.

so for me it took several days to really
feel like i was
adapted well i experienced some nausea
when i first got into space
which was the same as my first flight it
didn't last too long
but after that you're kind of you have a
fluid shift that occurs in your body
because you no longer have gravity
acting on all of your systems
and so you end up feeling a little bit
like you have a cold or just a stuffy
head which is an uncomfortable experience and it took me about i would
say three days maybe to get over all of
that
gotcha okay and another question from
twitter how is sleeping in space
compared to sleeping on earth
well it's interesting because um it's a
little bit harder to fall asleep in
space than you might think it's
quite comfortable because you have no
pressure anywhere on your body because
you're just
floating but your brain is not used to
just floating you're used to having your
head on a pillow or at least on the
mattress or on the floor
and so it does feel a little weird and
it takes a while for your body and your
brain to adapt to the new sensation
right yeah that's a good point so a
question from facebook kind of going
into your educational background
how did you go from working with the
ocean to now being you know floating up
in space what was that transition like
so i actually started off as a teenager
thinking that i wanted to go work for
nasa one day i lived near
ames research center in california and
um
and so i thought i was interested in
airplanes as well living on an air base
and so i studied aerospace engineering
initially at university
but i became interested in ocean
engineering towards the end of my
university career and then made that
transition into studying the oceans but
always
with the idea in the back of my mind
that wouldn't it be great to work for
nasa one day
and the way i think about it it's not
that different our planet is
two-thirds covered in ocean which we're
not naturally
suited to survive in so we use
technology to explore the ocean whether
it's


Also read 
https://duniyaon.blogspot.com/2021/11/space-shuttle-history-timeline-who.html


a special kind of a suit or a

submersible or we send you know unmanned
rovers into the ocean or different kinds of
instruments so there's a lot of
similarities and when you go out on a
ship to conduct research
you have to be able to fix any of your
machinery that breaks you have to be
able to operate with what you have on
hand the team and the
and the hardware that you have on hand
so there's a lot of similarities between
how we explore the oceans and how we
explore space
definitely alright so now we have a
couple questions that were submitted on
instagram
the first one is what do you do in your
free time on the iss
so in my free time i do like to try to
call home i call my family on an
internet protocol phone
i can also send emails and of course i
love to look out the window at our
beautiful planet no matter you know for
over the ocean if we're over land
it's just really it's lovely to look out
the window and watch the world go by
yeah and kind of on that note another
question asked what do you miss about
space when you're
at home on earth
well it's got to be floating it really
is such a remarkable way to move around
um you know it's really i'm gonna i know
that i'm going to miss that when i'm
when i'm eating dinner or maybe even
reading a book i can just kind of
perch up on the wall you know i can just
hop over to the side and just find a
nice little
perch to sit it's very comfortable it's
just
it's really fun you can go fast you can
go slow you can take you know sharp
sharp corners it really is you know you
never get tired of it it's pretty great
yeah i bet and we've also been receiving
some questions
live during this stream so let's see if
we can get to a couple of those now
um from twitter uh someone asked like
how do you feel like seeing the sky
changing color during launch and how











does it just feel being in space
so during launch i'm actually really
focused on the displays right in front
of me there's no view
out the window for me at all and we were
you know so we're just focused on
monitoring what we're supposed to
monitor but also the sensation was so
amazing you're just accelerating you're
just go go go
that we were really enjoying it together
as a crew something that we've been you
know preparing for for a while we were
there was definitely some giggling on
board
during the during the launch phase
for sure so there was also a question
from twitter earlier uh that asked
sort of what's going through your mind
during countdown and liftoff i know
you're very focused but
maybe in the moments leading up to
launch what's that like
so we actually have a couple of hours
where we're in the capsule
suited and strapped in and so you know
during some of that time we're reviewing
you know hey if this happens at this
time here's what actions we're going to
take and here's what you're going to do
and here's what i'll do and here's what
this person will say and we're kind of
reviewing checklists in that way
but then there's also time where we're
just entertaining each other we're
either telling stories or tomorrow had
us

learning some different word games just

to pass the time so
um just like any other people you're you
know trying to pass the time while
you're waiting uh
for a while for sure yeah okay so
someone on youtube is asking
how is like working out on the space
station with exercise what's that all
like
so we're very fortunate to have three
different types of exercise machines on
board the space station one of them is
essentially a stationary bike
one of them is a treadmill and one of them is a resistive exercise machine
that stimulates weight lifting for us
and so every day we're scheduled for
something cardio so either the
stationary bark bike or the treadmill
and also the resistive exercise and we
do that to maintain
our bone and muscle health so we we have
a great complement of
countermeasures basically to the effects
of micro g on our bodies
great and another question what does it
smell like in space is there like a
scent that
that's up there on the iss or
so that's an interesting question um you
know we obviously we recycle our air we

treat our air:

um and so it smells like people up here
um and we don't have you know it's not
it's not really fresh air but
um the the one thing that that i noticed
on my previous flight
when people went out to do a spacewalk
and then came back
inside i smelled the smell of
of cooking meat it smelled like
hamburger to me which was so strange
and it was later described to me as it's
the smell of the metal off gassing it's
been out in vacuum and it's now come
back inside and
and that smell is the is the smell that
the metal makes when it's been off
gassing
um so i would say it's space smells like
hamburger
good to know that's interesting all
right i think we have time for one more
question uh so
someone's asking how do you get along
with your crew members what's the team
environment like
we have so much fun up here that it's
surprising to me that
that um we have as much fun as we do and
we're and we're getting paid for it it's
a really tremendous crew
these are the greatest guys you can
imagine we get along really well
we take care of each other we look out
for each other and
it really it's just a great time up here
that sounds terrific
all right thank you everyone for sending
in these amazing questions
unfortunately i think we're gonna have
to wrap things up for today and let
megan get back to work
but megan thank you so much for your
time and for answering all of those
questions we really appreciate it
it was so cool to hear more about your
time with hubble and what you're up to
right now so best of luck with the rest
of your time on the iss
elizabeth and everyone watching thanks
so much for joining us thank you for
being interested in what we have going
on in the international space station
never stop looking up
awesome thank you so much if you guys
want to keep up with megan you can
follow her on twitter and instagram
astromegan and to keep up with hubble
news you can follow us on social media
at nasa hubble on facebook twitter
instagram and flickr thank you so much
for tuning in and have a great rest of
your day
station this is houston acr thank you
that concludes our event
thank you to all participants from
goddard space flight center station
we're now resuming operational audio
communications
you

Live Interview from International Space Station with Hubble Astronaut Megan