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When I get asked why we explore, 
oftentimes I think,

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what would our society look like
if we didn't explore?

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What would our society look like if
we didn't ask what was over the next hill?

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What was across that ocean?
And for us now,

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what's beyond our planet?

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My name is Colonel Anne McClain,
and I'm the commander of NASA's

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SpaceX Crew-10 mission
to the International Space Station.

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I was three years old
when I first told my family

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that I wanted to become an astronaut,
and I'm fortunate

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that no one of my family told me
that it wasn't possible to do.

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They all said,
that's going to be a lot of work.

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And they were right, but they were ready
to support me every step of the way.

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They reminded me of my dreams if
I started to get discouraged,

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because it is a long and challenging road.

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One thing I knew about becoming an astronaut
is that not a lot of people get to do it.

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It was important to me to choose a career
that I was going to love and be fulfilled in,

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regardless of my selection
to becoming an astronaut.

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So I chose to serve my country

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as a helicopter pilot
and an officer in the United States Army.

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I still am an active duty
officer in the Army.

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It's something that brings me
a lot of meaning

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to be able to serve
the American people in that manner.

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And it's something that I would be doing
still every day

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if I was not fortunate enough to wear this
blue suit.

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This is my second flight
to the International Space Station.

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I think, on your first flight,
there's a lot of unknowns, right?

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You don't know how it's going
to feel to go to space.

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You're very focused on making sure
that you know your stuff.

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On this flight, as the commander, I'm really focused on
building a cohesive crew.

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So over the last year and a half,
I've had the pleasure of working

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with my crewmates on Crew-10: 
Tak, Nicole and Kirill.

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We've shared a lot of meals together.

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We've traveled together.

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We've done some tough sims together, and
they are three very special people to me.

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And now we get to go launch to space
and do this incredible mission

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with our good friends.

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The International Space Station
is a proving ground

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for a lot of technologies
for deep space exploration, but it is also

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a national orbiting laboratory
where the U.S.

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can work with universities, research labs,
other countries,

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to develop things that benefit us on Earth.

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Everywhere from cancer research,
Parkinson's research, materials research,

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and, at the same time,
we're looking at the things

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that we're going to use on Mars
and future Moon missions.

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In my career at NASA,
and especially on my first spaceflight,

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there were certain moments that I had,
like when I came out of the hatch

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on my first spacewalk,

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where I realized we are operating
at the edge of what humans are capable of.

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And that is such a special moment.

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I think it's that intersection
of the magical and the technical,

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where I can look
across the amazing beauty of the earth,

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but I can see also this amazing creation,
the International Space Station,

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and it doesn't belong to me
or to NASA anymore

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than it belongs
to every single human on Earth.

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It's our platform
to figure out how we got here,

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where are we going in the future,
and the context in which we live.

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Our goal is to be a beacon of hope
for all of humankind,

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so that people can look and say,

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this is what we can accomplish
when we work together.