WEBVTT

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MS. STILSON: Here's a great question from Ian in Perranporth. On launch day, do the astronauts get much opportunity to be alone

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with their thoughts or is it all "go" with no time to really think?  If the latter is the case,

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when do they feel that things have calmed down enough to think and realize the enormity and importance of what they're doing?

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MS. HIRE:  You know, that's a very good question, because a lot of people are already thinking about the technical

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issues and that type of thing. This question actually does focus on what exactly is going through the astronauts' minds.

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And I'll tell you, it's true, it is all "go" on launch day. Everything is very much by a schedule. And we all know what we're going for,

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we're going for a successful mission. And there is not a lot of time to be alone with your thoughts.

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So I can't really address this question for every astronaut, I can only say personally on launch day, just very, very focused

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on getting out to that launch pad and getting into space and then getting on with all the tasks that we wanted to do and for a successful mission.

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It seemed like it took me even a while just to even recognize I was in space, because we had trained this for this so long,

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sometimes it just varies. You get so busy and then you go, oh, I forgot, I'm in space. There's a real view out the window instead of

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the simulated one like we experience in the simulators. So very, very good question and it's a personal level of when

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each astronaut can truly recognize the enormity of the fact that you're traveling at 17,500 miles per hour above the surface of the Earth.

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