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I'm an astronaut.
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I flew on a space shuttle twice,
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and I lived on the International
Space Station for almost six months.
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People often ask me the same question,
which is, "What's it like in space?"
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as if it was a secret.
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Space belongs to all of us,
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and I'd like to help you understand why
it's a place that is magic for all of us.
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The day after my 50th birthday,
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I climbed aboard a Russian capsule,
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in Russia,
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and launched into space.
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Launching is the most
dangerous thing that we do,
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and it's also the most thrilling.
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Three, two, one ... liftoff!
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I felt every single bit of the controlled
fury of those rocket engines
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as they blasted us off the Earth.
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We went faster and faster and faster,
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until, after eight and a half minutes,
on purpose, those engines stop --
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kabunk! --
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and we are weightless.
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And the mission and the magic begin.
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Dmitry and Paolo and I
are circling the Earth
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in our tiny spacecraft,
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approaching the space station carefully.
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It's an intricate dance
at 17,500 miles an hour
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between our capsule,
the size of a Smart Car,
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and the space station,
the size of a football field.
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We arrive when those two craft dock
with a gentle thunk.
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We open the hatches,
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have sloppy zero-G hugs with each other,
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and now we're six.
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We're a space family, an instant family.
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My favorite part about living up there
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was the flying.
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I loved it.
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It was like being Peter Pan.
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It's not about floating.
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Just the touch of a finger
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can actually push you across
the entire space station,
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and then you sort of
tuck in with your toes.
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One of my favorite things
was drifting silently
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through the space station,
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which was humming along at night.
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I wondered sometimes
if it knew I was there,
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just silent.
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But sharing the wonder
of that with the crew
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was also part of what was important to me.
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A typical day in space
starts with the perfect commute.
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I wake up, cruise down the lab
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and say hello to the best
morning view ever.
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It's a really fast commute,
only 30 seconds,
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and we never get tired
of looking out that window.
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I think it reminds us that we're
actually still very close to Earth.
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Our crew was the second ever
to use the Canadian robotic arm
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to capture a supply ship
the size of a school bus
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containing about a dozen
different experiments
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and the only chocolate that we would see
for the next four months.
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Now, chocolate aside,
every single one of those experiments
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enables yet one more
scientific question answered
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that we can't do down here on Earth.
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And so, it's like a different lens,
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allowing us to see the answers
to questions like,
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"What about combustion?"
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"What about fluid dynamics?"
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Now, sleeping is delightful.
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My favorite -- I mean, you could be
upside down, right side up --
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my favorite: curled up
in a little ball and floating freely.
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Laundry? Nope.
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We load our dirty clothes
into an empty supply ship
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and send it off into space.
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The bathroom.
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Everyone wants to know.
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It's hard to understand,
so I made a little video,
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because I wanted kids to understand
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that the principle of vacuum saves the day
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and that just a gentle breeze
helps everything go
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where it is supposed to.
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Well, in real life it does.
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(Laughter)
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Recycling? Of course.
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So we take our urine, we store it,
we filter it, and then we drink it.
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And it's actually delicious.
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(Laughter)
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Sitting around the table,
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eating food that looks bad
but actually tastes pretty good.
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But it's the gathering around
the table that's important,
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I think both in space and on Earth,
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because that's what cements
a crew together.
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For me, music was a way to stay connected
to the rest of the world.
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I played a duet between Earth and space
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with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull
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on the 50th anniversary
of human spaceflight.
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Connecting to family was so important.
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I talked with my family almost every day
the whole time I was up there,
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and I would actually read books to my son
as a way for us just to be together.
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So important.
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Now, when the space station
would go over Massachusetts,
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my family would run outside,
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and they would watch the brightest star
sailing across the sky.
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And when I looked down,
I couldn't see my house,
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but it meant a lot to me to know
that the people I loved the most
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were looking up while I was looking down.
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So the space station, for me, is the place
where mission and magic come together.
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The mission, the work are vital steps
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in our quest to go further than our planet
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and imperative for understanding
sustainability here on Earth.
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I loved being a part of that,
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and if I could have taken
my family with me,
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I never would have come home.
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And so my view from the station showed me
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that we are all from the same place.
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We all have our roles to play.
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Because, the Earth is our ship.
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Space is our home.
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And we are the crew of Spaceship Earth.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)