We'd like to have immediate answers to all of our questions. I think medicine in particular. I found it frustrating as a physician sometimes to not be able to tell someone exactly why something was happening to them. There are still so many mysteries in medicine.
When you talk to crews that went to Mir or have gone up to International Space Station, they say that you go through different phases of adaptation or getting used to the space environment.
We're looking at Earth science, observing our planet. Also space science, looking at the ozone in the atmosphere around our Earth. Also looking at life science. And on a human level, using ourselves as test subjects.
This has been a great experience for me. The first couple of days you don't always feel too well. You adjust to the fluid shifting, how to fly through space without hitting things or anybody else. But then you get in a groove.
Things are going very smoothly. As expected, there are some minor glitches, and the eight minutes that it took us to get to orbit, we trained months and months for, and didn't have to use any of that preparation, other than being aware and ready.
Some things are only capable of being done in space. Examples of that are looking at our Earth from that far away, and understanding the entire processes of storms and weather patterns, and oceans, and coastlines.
There are some very significant changes in the way the fluids are distributed in our body, the way our heart functions initially, and as well as our bone and muscle.
The Navy's paid for you to go through school, and then they need doctors to go out and take care of people who are in various different parts of the world. I decided to pay back my time first as an undersea medical officer. I was stationed in Scotland.
The microgravity or the very, very low amount of gravity that we have up in space forces some changes in different processes. It forces changes in us as human beings.
It's such a long mission and we get to spend so much time in space... we're doing such exciting research. And I don't want to overemphasize the life science research, but as a physician the life science research that we're doing is extremely exciting.
There was a moth in there, and it still had its wings crumpled up, and it was just starting to pump its wings up. Life continues in lots of places, and life is a magical thing.
We've had such thorough training, we've had an excellent team on the ground. With the minor glitches that have occurred, we've been able to take care of them. And the teams on the ground are getting tons of incredible data.
