August 29, 2002

Erika Guillory on screen

Erika: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Kids’ Space Update. It’s the news program just for students all about space. And you know what? We’re programming live from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and we’d like to welcome all of you guys.

You know, Johnson Space Center is really the home of the astronauts. But guess what? It’s been the home of a very special person. As a matter of fact, this person could be the youngest person ever to go into space, and I’m talking about pop star and future space explorer, Lance Bass.

Video clip shows a group of astronauts working at Johnson Space Center

As a matter of fact, Lance could be the youngest person ever to fly in space again. He’s been training in Russia and now in the United States. He and two other Soyuz 5 crew members are getting ready for a late October launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and to give you the latest and the scoop and the greatest, let’s welcome Lance Bass to our program.

Screen shows Erika and Lance Bass on screen with a group of students around them

And you know what? Lance, welcome to our program. You know what? We also have another special guest. We have veteran astronaut, Wendy Lawrence, who’s with us today. Wendy has flown in space three times. As a matter of fact, STS-91 was her last flight, and it was a very important flight because it was the flight that closed the Russia and U.S. Space I program when we went and visited the Mir Space Station. So welcome, Wendy.

Well, Lance, you know, to get the program started, all of us have one big thing on our mind, and that is why space? What got you interested in the space program?

Lance on screen

Lance: I have been interested in space since I was just a little kid. I think my family got me into it. I remember when I was a kid wanting to go to Florida to see a shuttle launch, and my family brought me there for my first time to see a launch. I went to Space Camp when I was little, and I loved science and math and all that, so it’s something I want to do. I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut. That’s what I wanted to do when I "grew up."

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Absolutely. You know we actually have students that are visiting with us today, and some of these students have some questions for you, and be sure, everyone out there, we’re going to get to your questions too. Thank you for logging on today, and let’s start with our first question. We have Stephanie. Excuse, Alicia. Alicia, ask the question.

Alicia on screen

Alicia: Why did you want to do this educational program today with kids?

Lance on screen

Lance: Well, I think, with this whole mission that I’m doing with space, education is my big focus. I want to maybe inspire a younger generation to go into more math and science, maybe inspire that person to become an astronaut that might not have thought about it at an earlier age.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: We have another question from another student at Pearl Hall Elementary from Pasadena, Texas. And go ahead, Matthew, ask your question.

Matthew on screen

Matthew: How long has it been a dream of yours to go to space?

Lance on screen

Lance: It has been a dream of mine since I can remember. Maybe four years old, I always dreamed what it would be like to travel in space and to be an astronaut.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: All right. Well, we’re moving right along, and we’re getting ready to get to the questions on the Internet, but we have one more question that we’re going to take from our in-studio students, and that’s Stephanie Garcia. What’s your question?

Stephanie on screen

Stephanie: Has your creativity as a musician been helpful in preparing for space flight?

Lance on screen

Lance: Very good question. I think the good thing about being a musician and then also combining it with what I’m doing now, the things that have prepared me are like living on the road. I live on a bus, a traveling bus, so I’m used to being in confined areas with other people, respecting each other’s space. And that is a big thing up on the International Space Station right now. You know you have just a small amount of people, but it’s also a small amount of space, so you need to respect everyone’s privacy and other people’s stuff. If you want something, ask for it and return it, that type of stuff. So that really helped me a lot.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Wendy, do you have anything to add to that with all of your space flight experience?

Wendy on screen

Wendy: Well, we often jokingly call a shuttle a big Winnebago in the sky, and the International Space Station, although it looks much bigger inside, and really isn’t that much bigger when you factor in all the people that are going to be onboard. In particular during Lance’s mission, there’ll be a crew the size of six. And so I think that’s a very good description, like a big bus in the sky. Unfortunately, we can’t go outside whenever we want to, so I think Lance’s preparation of living on a bus will serve him well onboard.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: And, everyone, we’re watching here today, they’ve got students from across the United States and across the globe that are sharing with the experience today, and we actually have some questions that are already coming in across the Internet, and the first question is from Donna. She’s from Seattle, Washington. And this question is for you, Lance.

First of all, she wants to say, congratulations for living your dream. Okay, and she wants to know if you can tell us a few details about some of your training.

Lance on screen

Lance: Training. Training is very, very difficult. It’s a lot of fun on one end, but it’s a lot theory.

Screen shows video clip of Lance training with other students in Russia

You have to learn everything about what you’re going to experience up in space. It’s not easy getting around in Zero-G, and that’s lot what you have to train for just as easy as eating on Earth, it takes a very long time to train to eat in space.

So I think the hardest thing for me with the training is, I’m training in Russia, and the language barrier. You have to learn a lot of Russian because all your lectures and classrooms are all in Russian. So learning how to cope with space and then also doing it in a different language has to be the hardest thing.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Now, you know, Lance mentioned that. He knows I've got to ask him. Right then and there. I mean he mentioned about Russian, so, Lance, we want you to talk a little Russian for us. And then you have to tell us what you said.

Lance on screen

Lance: [Russian]. "I understand Russian a little."

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Not bad. Not bad at all. Something else too. We always have the fun things here. You mentioned something about food, and you’ve done some food stuff. We have a few things here. Now before we came on you kind of shared with me that he already has a favorite drink. Now I want you to share that with everyone watching today.

Screen shows Erika and Lance

Lance: [talkover] like three weeks ago, and my favorite is the pineapple. I know you don’t like the pineapple too much. [talkover]

Wendy and Lance on screen

Wendy: My favorite is the lemonade actually.

Erika: As a matter of fact, maybe, Wendy or Lance, you could share with the students watching exactly how something like this works because it looks a little bit like the normal drinks but probably doesn’t work quite the same.

Wendy on screen

Wendy: Well, this is actually a bag from the shuttle food menu. Just think about it for a minute. I’ll ask the students to help me. How would you, say if you had a can of soda, how would you be able to pour that into a glass on orbit? [OVERLAPPING CONVERSATION] Do you think you would be able to pour something into a glass?

Student: No.

Wendy: It’s really, really hard. So the smart engineers figured out that the best way for us to drink something on orbit was to put it into a powdered form because, one, that saves some space, and it also saves weight, and trying to launch something into orbit takes a lot of power, so the less space and weight we can package something in, the better off we’re going to be.

Wendy shows the process of how astronauts drink from a plastic packaged drink

So we actually have what we call a galley onboard. It’s a small kitchen, and we have the means to put water into this drink bag, and we use a long needle, be dangerous, and take it out. The needle goes into here, and so we can add about 12 ounces of cold water, and we shake it up really, really well to mix all the fluid, and I have my nifty little straw, which has a nice little clamp on it.

So when I’m really ready to drink, I just open up the straw take a big sip, and I’m always very careful to close it back off because if I don’t, the lemonade’s just going to keep coming out the top, and it’s going to form this ball of lemonade on the top, which sometimes can break off the straw and float around the rest of the cabin and into my crew members. And they don’t necessarily like that.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: That is interesting because I mean just a simple drink, that’s a lot to learn just to drink something in space let alone all the other types of training that you’ll be doing. We’re going to take one more question from the Internet, then we’re going to go back to our students here at JSC.

Lance, Mr. Lance, he’s a high school teacher, science teacher, he wants to know if you’re going to be keeping a journal online for students that they can look and keep following your training and the launch and your journey in space.

Lance on screen

Lance: One of - the great thing I’ve been doing since I’ve learned that I might have had a chance to train for this mission, is I’ve kept a journal every day. And I’m definitely going to share that with everybody when it’s all over with. I’m doing, the great thing about my mission is it’s going to be a documentary and it’s going to be on television so you get to see exactly how hard these astronauts train to become what they are, cosmonauts and astronauts, and how our relationships are with Russia.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: We’ve got another question from one of the students in our audience here. Go ahead.

Student on screen

Student: What other astronauts/cosmonauts will be traveling with you?

Lance on screen

Lance: On a Soyuz it’s a lot smaller than the shuttle, so we can only fit three people in that, and it’s very tight fit, and so I will be in the far right seat. And then my commander’s in the middle, and that’s Sergei Zaletin. He’s from Russia, and he’s flown a couple of times in space, actually to the MIR Station. And then we have [Frank Davin] from Belgium, and this will be his first time to go up. He’ll be my flight engineer, and he is a fighter pilot out of Belgium.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: We’re ready for another question here in the studio?

Student on screen

Student: After going to the space station, what is your next goal?

Lance on screen

Lance: Wow. It’s really hard to say. Eight months ago I didn’t even know I would be doing this. This has been one of my lifelong dreams, and when I was asked to do this, it just overwhelmed me, and I still can’t believe I’m here training for this.

But my goals afterwards are to continue with the space program. I still want to be involved as much as I can with educating a lot of the younger generation out there and share with the world what my experiences were, and maybe to influence people to go the same route I did with math and sciences and especially to be an astronaut.

And then immediate plans right after, definitely, I have another album to record right after. So in January I’m going to start recording the new album.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: I’ve got a question for Wendy real quick before we move on to another question. Wendy, did you know from the get-go all your plans? Were your goals set out the same way, and is it the same for other astronauts? Do they always know where they want to go and from young?

Wendy on screen

Wendy: I wouldn’t say for all astronauts we know at an early age what we want to do, but I, like Lance, since I was ten years old, knew I wanted to be an astronaut. I was very privileged to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon for the first time, and that just absolutely captured my imagination. So I was also very privileged to have a father who was involved in the selection process for the first group of astronauts. And so he gave me some very wise guidance on how to set my goals.

But there are some astronauts who decide very late in life that they’re interested in joining the space program.

Shows pictures of a group of astronauts

And to be a professional astronaut, somebody who has this as a fulltime career, it’s very, very important that you prepare yourself by getting a very good education, and that’s where we all start. We all continue through high school, graduate from high school, go on to college, and get at least a bachelor’s degree in science.

Back to Wendy

And most of us have advanced degrees, either a master’s or even a PhD. Because when we’re not flying in space, we have technical assignments in support of the space program, and a lot of those assignments involve mission planning and the development of hardware. So it’s very important, as Lance said, that we have a good foundation in math and science.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: All right. Well, we have a question from Zachary here in our studio audience. Go ahead, Zachary.

Zachary on screen

Zachary: What other countries will be represented onboard the International Space Station during your mission?

Lance on screen

Lance: On my flight we have Belgium and we have Russia and we have America.

Screen shows picture of Lance's crew

And up there right now is American and one is Russian, Sergei, and the other one is…

Wendy: Sergei [Vilareibo] from Russia.

Back to Lance on screen

Lance: They’re both from Russia, so two Russians. So it’ll be Belgium, America, and Russia all represented on the ISS.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: And you know, guys, everybody watching out there that we actually are International Space Station, so, Wendy, how many countries are represented with the International Space Station program?

Wendy on screen

Wendy: We have 16 countries right now that are participating in the program.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Well, this question’s coming in from Susan in Texas, and she wants to know, actually she understands that astronauts take music with them to the Space Station. What music will you take?

Lance on screen

Lance: I don’t know yet. You have so little space to bring up on the Soyuz. I have five kilograms I can bring on what they call a progress, which brings up a lot of materials to the International Space Station. And then I’ll get five more kilograms on the actual Soyuz itself. So you get just a little amount of stuff to bring, and with that you have to choose just a few amount of CDs that you can bring. So haven’t really decided yet. Maybe there’ll be some new albums out there that I'll want to listen to for a good ten days, but maybe I’ll just download it onto an MP3 and have a lot of music.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Wendy, I’ve got to ask you too. What kind of music do you like to listen to?

Wendy on screen

Wendy: I have to say that I think my favorite when I’m looking out the window at the end of the day trying to relax is listening to Enya.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Ah!. Okay. Well, let’s go ahead and take some more questions off the Internet. Be sure to send in as many questions as you can. We’ll be here talking with Lance and with Wendy about Lance’s next mission and about Wendy, who is a veteran astronaut of three space flights. We have another question coming in, and this is Tanner. He’s a second grader from Michigan. And he says, "I’m only seven-years-old, and I've wanted to be an astronaut since I was three, and I just was wondering what kind of schooling do I need to be able to fly in space?" And this is for you, Wendy.

Wendy on screen

Wendy: Well, Tanner, I admire you for wanting to be an astronaut ever since you were three. My mother would applaud you because she taught nursery school for 30 years, and she says three-year-olds get it. First thing, finish elementary school and then you can set your sights on finishing high school.

Screen shows pictures of astronauts in space

But it is very important that you get a good education because a good education really will open up the doors for you. But I would encourage you to stay interested in math and science, but it’s important that you focus on your other studies as well, like English and social studies.

Once you’ve finished high school you really do need to go on to college, as I mentioned before. All the astronauts have at least a four year degree from a college, and the U.S. astronauts from a college primarily in the United States, although that’s not a firm requirement.

Back to Wendy on screen

Most of us have gone on for at least another two years of school, so you can see education is very important.

We have degrees in engineering, in the sciences like chemistry or biology. We have some medical doctors who are also astronauts. But first and foremost, finish high school and then go to college and get at least a four-year degree. And I encourage you to find something that you really like to study, and do the best that you can in it.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: I want to put that question to you, Lance. I understand that you’re an advocate of education and the importance of math and science for future space exploration and how we’re going to get students that are with us like today, their age, they’re going to be the ones that are going to get us to other planets and things like that. So what are your thoughts?

Lance on screen

Lance: Well, my thoughts are, you have goals, and just like Tanner, to be an astronaut. There are thousands and thousands of jobs just dealing with the astronauts that are amazing, that you have to have the people that put those astronauts in space, and there are so many amazing cool jobs that you could have here at Houston at any mission control around the world that you have to have these math and science backgrounds for.

Back to Erika

Erika: All right. Well, we’ve got Samuel here that’s with us. And, Samuel, go ahead and ask Lance your question.

Samuel on screen

Samuel: Are you going to sing in space, and do you think your voice will sound differently on the space station than it does here on Earth?

Lance on screen

Lance: That’s a very good question. That’s a question I’ve always wondered, what is the difference. And I don’t know if you have experienced — can you tell if there’s a difference?

Wendy on screen

Wendy: There really isn’t. The pressure that we feel in the room is the same pressure that we have on board the Space Station. Although once you’re up in space, some changes happen to your body. For the most part, some of us get a very stuffy head, so we feel like we have a cold. So I think when you have a cold, you tend to sing a little bit differently, and that may happen to Lance. But otherwise, if he doesn’t feel like he has a cold, it should sound exactly like it does down here on Earth.

Back to Lance

Lance: And that’s a good study. Maybe I could study the voice, and that’s what I’m planning on doing to see what the effects are up in space. And also there are a few instruments onboard, as a guitar and keyboard, so on our downtime we might have a little fun and play a little bit and see how it sounds. It would be very interesting.

Back to Erika

Erika: [L.B.], I’m going to pick on you a little bit. So what school did you go t

L.B.: Pearl Hall Elementary

Erika: Pearl Hall Elementary in Pasadena, Texas, right? And what grade are you in?

L.B.: Fourth

L.B. on screen

Erika: Excellent. So we want to thank all the students from Pearl Hall for helping us today. I know that you also have a question for Lance. What’s that question

L.B.: How do you feel about going on the Russian rockets instead of the space shuttle?

Lance on screen

Lance: It’s very different. I grew up, of course, watching shuttles, so I have had no clue what the differences were between Soyuz and shuttle, and that is what’s been great about what I’ve been able to do is learn and to be educated the difference between the Russian space program and our program at NASA. And the Soyuz is a lot different. It’s a lot smaller, more confined. The shuttle can hold seven people, and I don’t know if I can say it’s a smoother ride, I know the shuttle gets banged up a little bit, but with the Soyuz your knees are in your chest, so your feet go to sleep after a few hours.

But I feel very, very safe in it. The people behind both the shuttle and the Soyuz are very competent, and I think I’m very happy with everyone I’ve worked with and feel very safe that they know what they’re doing.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Well, we have another question that’s coming in with the students here in our audience, and, Alex, go ahead and ask your question.

Alex on screen

Alex: My question is: What does a young child like me need to do to prepare for a career like yours?

Erika: Okay, that would be a question for Wendy Lawrence.

Wendy on screen

Wendy: Well, I’m going to answer that two ways because before I became an astronaut I was a helicopter pilot in the Navy, and, in fact, I’m still a Naval officer. So, again, to become either a pilot or an astronaut you really need to get a good education. So finish high school and go on to college.

To be a Navy pilot I actually went to Flight School, so I, again, had to know a lot about math and science because flying, either in the air and in space, involves some principles of physics that you need to be familiar with. And to become an astronaut, again, go to college, and you want to focus on engineering or some of the sciences that I mentioned before like chemistry or physics or biology.

I think the most unique career field we have represented in the astronaut office right now is a veterinarian. But the advice that we give to all young kids, and I think this is across the board in the astronaut offices, find something you really enjoy doing and then try to do it to the best of your ability.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: You know the students that are with today are part of a program called building cultural bridges, and they all have a love for music. And so one of the things we want to ask you based on the question that Alex just asked is basically how do you pursue the love of music and how to integrate that into your love of space?

Lance on screen

Lance: Well, it’s great — I think music is the international language of the world. That’s what I've always said. We do a lot of our music in Spanish and different languages. I lived, the first two years of my career I lived in Germany, and making music there. So it is definitely the international language.

And what I've experienced with training in a different country such as Russia, knowing the same music and that type of stuff, it’s such a bridge to kind of unite and talking about it kind of breaks the ice a lot. So with the love of music and the love of [this thing], the way it’s compared is the same. I love both equally and it just makes me happy.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Well, we’ve got an interesting question. First, here’s a fifth grader from Pennsylvania wants to know what was the most difficult part of your training so far? What has been?

Lance on screen

Lance: My training, the most difficult has been I guess the Russian language. It is very difficult just to train for a space mission, and then on top of that in another language. It’s fun. I’ve always wanted to learn different languages and I never thought I was going to learn Russian, but it’s a lot of fun. And I’ve been doing it for two months now and have a little down pat, so it’s a lot of fun and I’m enjoying it.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Well, we’re really excited about all the questions that are coming in off the Internet, and so I’m going to read them just like they’re coming across to me. This is: Lance, hi, I’m Iranda in Nashville. I’m wondering if you will be doing any live casts or Webcasts from the Space Station. I’m twelve and my brother’s six-years-old, and it’ll be so interesting to know what you’re doing. And how can we keep abreast of what you’re doing? How can we best keep in the know?

Lance on screen

Lance: I will be staying in contact the whole time I’m up there. I’m getting my ham license this week. That is one of my goals this week, so I can talk to different [souls] around the world on the ham radio, and that’ll be a lot of fun. And, hopefully, people can make contact with that, with the ham radio. So if you don’t know what that is, ask somebody because it’s a lot of fun. I can’t explain it right now.

And then also through my Web site and all that we’re going to have updates and different things, and I’ll probably be doing different interviews from the Station.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: And also, we also have a lot of Web sites, or NASA Web sites, that you can keep abreast of exactly what’s going on with all the crews that are up, especially the International Space Station crew and the Soyuz 5 taxi crew, and you can just kind of keep up with what’s going on with the space program.

All right, we’ve got Annabelle from Switzerland. Remember, we told you guys this is actually a global event, and she says, "Hi, Lance. How did your family and friends react to the news of your impending launch in space"?

Lance on screen

Lance: Different ones, different reactions. My whole family’s sitting behind the cameras right now. But I’ve just gotten so much support from my friends and my family, it’s been incredible. I think my mom was a little, at first, little iffy.

Screen shows Lance parents in the audience

Of course, it’s a very dangerous thing, and so your mom’s going to be a little scared. But the great thing is she’s been here (and actually you’re on television. Say hi.)

Back to lance on screen

The great thing is my family came to NASA this week, and they got to see what I will be launched in, and they got to see who’s all behind it, so I think she’s gotten a little more relaxed about it.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Wendy, I’ve got to ask. It’s really interesting to hear. How did your family react the first time that you went up?

Wendy on screen

Wendy: It was interesting because my dad was also a Navy pilot, and my friends told me that he got more nervous than my mother did. And at about five minutes to blast off (he’s normally very, very talkative) about five minutes prior to blast off he actually stopped talking and got very, very quiet.

But it is very stressful on the families, so I think it’s great that Lance’s family is here supporting him. It really takes a lot of support from your friends and family to be able to train for a space flight. And I have to echo Lance’s comments. I, too, spent some time in Russia training for a space flight, and that’s by far one of the most difficult things I've done in my professional career is to prepare for a space flight in a different language.

So it’s great to have your family behind you, but you have to recognize as well it’s a very stressful event for them. Very exciting, but it’s very stressful to watch a loved one blast off in a rocket.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: All right. Well, considering the fact that the average age of astronauts is nearly twice your age, do you think that your experience may encourage the space industry to select younger individuals for future missions?

Lance on screen

Lance: I don’t know how that’s going to work, but I think I’m just happy that I can inspire a younger generation just to go ahead and start getting into this field.

Screen shows video slip of Lance’s training

The criteria that NASA has of choosing their astronauts is their own way.

There’s been several cosmonauts/astronauts of different ages. It’s just what they have to offer and what everyone’s looking for. You have to have a reason to go to space. If you’re a certain scientist or engineer, they choose certain people for certain missions. I think Yuri Gargarin, which was the first person to ever go to space, was Russian. He was twenty-eight-years-old.

Back to Lance

So there’s no — I don’t think there’s any age limit. Just so that you’re qualified enough and you know what you’re doing.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: This is not a question right here, but I’m going to ask, JC, Joey, Justin, and Chris, we’ve got to find out from your extended family members, what do they think about your impending…

Lance on screen

Lance: They think it’s amazing. Especially JC. JC’s been so supportive. He’s also a space freak like me. We’ve had so much fun just talking about it. He actually came to Houston. He left this morning. Gave him a tour around here, and he got to see some of the training. So he’s even very excited about it, and the rest of the guys, too, have been very supportive.

Screen shows video clip of Lance’s training

It came at a perfect time in our career because we, after the tour, we’re just going to take the rest of the year off just to enjoy it, maybe do some other projects, and it just came at a perfect time.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Well, we have a question in about what was the physical, psychological, and emotional requirements that you had to meet in order to be eligible for the launch?

Lance on screen

Lance: Well, you have to go through a lot of tests, which I had no clue I had to do. I started back in March. And first you have to do all the physicals. You have to go through the medical physicals at a place called the IMVP in Russia, which is an institute to [find] medical problems. And once they okay you, which it takes a good two to three weeks, they test everything, your blood and all that, and make sure that you’re perfectly healthy for space travel.

And then that goes to another board and they see, once you’re approved, your educational background. They select you from a lot of different people wanting to do this. And then once you’re selected, then you go on to your preliminary training, which I did in Russia starting in June, and you just start doing Russian classes. You start doing your basic training for living in space, the Soyuz, which I’ll be going up on.

Shows pictures of the Soyuz in space

And they’ve been very good about it because my situation is totally different from everyone else’s. I’m not an astronaut. I’m not a cosmonaut. So I’m just a space participant, so we’ve had to do a lot of things a lot quicker than other things, and I've had a lot more classes.

Back to Lance on screen

I do 12 hours a day, six days a week. It’s very tough, but I’m sticking in there and I have tons of people watching me, making sure everything’s going right, and if I do anything wrong, they’re right there to tell me, "you know you’re going off track, you need to go this way." So I’ve got a lot of support behind me.

Screen shows Erika only

Erika: Got a lot of people watching you here with the training, but you also have a lot of students out there that are watching you and just wanting to get a glimpse of inspiration about how important the space program is and what they need to do to stick with it with math and science in school so that they can make sure that the space program survives and that we get to the next step.

So with that we’ve got some students that want to know some of the everyday types of tasks. For example, this one student wants to know, what kind of math, if any, is used in your training. By the way, their mom’s a math teacher at Clinton High School.

Lance on screen

Lance: My mom was a teacher in Clinton, a math teacher. Wendy’s going to know way more about actually using it in space and for the training.

Wendy on screen

Wendy: I think a lot of that depends on what you’re actually doing during your mission, say, in particular the shuttle commanders and the pilots when they’re having to bring the space shuttle up close to the International Space Station and actually join the two together. Both of those vehicles are massive vehicles. They orbit the earth at about 17,500 miles an hour, and there’s something that you’ll learn about later in high school and perhaps college called "orbital mechanics," which is based on some laws of physics.

And so our pilots, in studying those laws of physics that govern orbital mechanics, there’s math underlying all of that. So it’s not just adding two plus two, but they need to understand calculus to some degree, and geometry, and trigonometry, and understanding the angles and the co-signs and signs.

And so when you go into high school, you’ll start learning some of those principles, and even algebra comes into play. So from the earliest days of mathematics just the simple basics of addition and subtraction and division up through calculus, they all get employed depending on your phases of flight.

Lance on screen

Lance: And a good tip is to learn the metric system.

Back to Wendy

Wendy: Yes. I agree. Learn the metric system because everybody else uses the metric system.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Lance: We’re the only ones that don’t, so, of course, everything that we do is all in meters and all that stuff. Learn the metric system.

Erika: This is kind of a long one, so bear with me. But it’s a good one. We all know the importance of music education in school curriculum and how music training increases brain power How has your music background training and performance prepared you or helped you in training for space flight? Now they want you to be specific. Talk about examples and direct correlation between music education and scientific technological training.

Lance on screen

Lance: Well, with me, I think just the creative part of it has really helped me. I think it’s opened up something in my head. With music it makes you so creative you just even imagining going into space, you have to, with a lot of the training, there’s no way you can simulate what it’s going to be like, so you have to imagine that and be creative.

With me, also, with the music education, a lot of it is like memorizing words and that type of stuff and seeing where it fits, and that’s a lot to do with the training. You know a lot of memorization and trying to fit things into what goes where and all the physics.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: A lot of people already know that the astronauts space flight requires you to be on a very tight schedule. You pretty much know what you’re going to be doing just about every minute of the day. And so this question kind of goes directly to you, Lance. This is Ryan. He’s a third grader in North Carolina, and he wants to know what do you want to do the most in space rather than what will you be doing in space.

Lance on screen

Lance: You’re right, every minute is accounted for until you have such a strict timeline that you have to meet a lot of your fellow space travelers with you; they have different missions they’re doing, experiments. I know Frank, the astronaut from Belgium that’s going up with me, has an incredible timeline and so many experiments he has to have accomplished in the eight days that we’re going to be up there, which I will be lucky enough to help out with.

But what I want to do is, I have a few things that I have on my timeline, it’s a lot of educational things, a lot of educational videos for different schools, ham radio communication back to schools. So mine is a primary educational mission.

Screen shows pictures of astronauts then back to Lance on screen

It’s so late in the game to do many experiments and to prepare for it because sometimes you have to prepare a good year to two years for some of the things that they do up there and get them all approved to first space flight. Mine is primarily education and also I’m just going to enjoy, really enjoy being up there and taking it all in.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Wendy: You need to make sure that you do spend a few moments in front of the window looking at the earth.

Erika: And I heard that that is one of the biggest things that astronauts like to do in their free time, the very little free time that they get.

Screen shows picture of astronauts looking out the window from a shuttle

Wendy: That’s right. When they do give us some free time, we really do enjoy looking out the window. I think being up in space you just have a unique perspective. This earth is incredibly beautiful. The oceans are very blue. The continents have diversity of colors, greens over the rainforest is incredible, reds and oranges and browns of the desert soil. So I think all of us want to take a few minutes to look down on this earth because it is very precious; it is our home, and I think all of us come back with a sense of responsibility for taking care of it. And I’m sure Lance will feel the same way once he lands.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: A lot of people already know that you went to Space Camp when you were younger and that you’re a huge space enthusiast. So one of your fans out there wants to know, is there anything that has been surprising to you that you didn’t expect?

Lance on screen

Lance: I think all of it I didn’t expect. It’s so — it is so different. I wish everyone could have a chance to feel what it’s like to train for something like this, and especially in a different country like Russia.

Screen shows video clip of Lance with other students training in the classroom

It’s totally different. I’m very lucky to be able to do what I’m doing.

Of course you have a lot of expectations in what it’s going to be like, and a lot of them, yes, I thought the food and all that. I was expecting it to be like that.

Back to Lance on screen

But then there’s so many things you overlook that you had no clue it would take you 24 hours of training to learn, just how to prepare your food and all that, to travel from here to there, just different systems, how to hook up your computer, how to use the computer, how to just use the communication to call down to Earth. It takes a lot of training and a lot of knowledge to know that.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Well, you know, there’s something I've got to ask you, and I’m sure that all the students watching would like to know is that (and this could be directed to Wendy) as Lance [understood] in answering this. How hard is it to go to the bathroom in space? I mean what do you do? How does that work? I've been wanting to know.

Lance: That’s the number one asked question I think.

Wendy: Want to give it a try first?

[OVERLAPPING CONVERSATION]

Lance on screen

Lance: It is very interesting.

Screen shows picture of a toilet in the shuttle

I mean there’s a toilet, I know, there’s one on the shuttle, there’s one on the Soyuz, and there’s one on the ISS, and basically it’s all about you have, it’s a hose, and it’s a suction. So the way you use the bathroom deals with a lot of hoses, and it just takes it somewhere else. Is that politically correct?

Back to Erika and the whole group

Wendy: That worked.

Erika: I would think that of all the training that would be the one thing I’d want to know best. Absolutely.

Lance: And you need to know. You definitely need to know how to work all those types of things.

Erika: Wendy, I understand that there’s your rookie astronaut going into space, at that point there’s a lot of things that are the simpler things that are sometimes the hardest to learn, everything from the eating to going to the bathroom and things like that, maybe even sleeping in space. So what are some of the things that you found the hardest that were some of the simpler things?

Wendy on screen

Wendy: The advice that all the veterans give to the first-time flyers is just be slow and deliberate. Going to the bathroom, the toilet does work very well. It just takes a little bit longer than it does down here on good ol’ planet Earth. And you do want to pay attention to the very important details of how the toilet works and how that hose works and the funnel on the end of it. And the suction system does work very well, by the way. So you don’t have to be that worried.

But preparing food. Most of our food, and there’s some more examples back here, and I’m going to hold one up.

Wendy holds up samples of space food

Most of our food is freeze-dried, and I’m actually holding up a package of seasoned scrambled eggs. So if you’re not reading the instructions carefully, you can end up putting way too much water in your scrambled eggs, and believe me, they really will not taste very well.

And there is a certain technique to eating something out of a plastic container. You need to cut just the corner of this bag open, and you learn the hard way just how much to cut open, and whether that’s enough or not too much. And if it’s too much, then your food tends to float up out of the bag, and then you have to kind of chase it into your mouth with your spoon.

And the preparation of food takes a little bit longer than it does down here on the earth. So I think what you kind of learn the hard way is what you think is going to be simple is probably going to take twice as long up on orbit because you’re floating in weightlessness than it will down here on Earth. And even getting dressed can be a lot of fun when your socks float away and you can’t find them.

Screen shows samples of food being passed around to the students

Erika: I’m going to pass some of this food around. What do you think? Do you think this would be pretty good? I mean you ready to eat this for breakfast in the morning?

Wendy: The pudding is good. The pudding is good, let me tell you.

Lance: I haven’t seen the pudding yet.

Wendy: Where are the M&Ms? The M&Ms are really good, too.

Lance on screen

Lance: We get to train on the Russian food, so, which is a really cool thing too. Half the food we eat up on the International Space Station is half Russian/half American, and it’s totally different system, different ways of preparing it, and all that. So I need to look at this [talkover].

Wendy: Go for the M&Ms.

Lance: The M&Ms?

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: We have a question in from Rachel, and she’s a sixth grader. And she wants to know how long will you be in space?

Lance on screen

Lance: I will be in space, right now, a total of ten days. It takes two days to get to the Station, and then I will be there for about eight days. And it takes a couple hours to get back.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: What are some of the things that you’re going to be doing, or at least the crew members where you’re assisting them?

Lance on screen

Lance: Well, like I said, a lot of videoing, a lot of photography. I’m doing some environmental studies of the Mississippi Delta, and a lot of educational programs up there with the ham radio, with also a video. I will be assisting Frank Davin from Belgium with a lot of his medical experiments, so I’m going to be basically a test subject for a lot of things, hooking up my heart to things and testing out my heart, my blood, saliva. There’s a saliva study. So there’s all kinds of things that I'll be helping out with.

Screen shows picture of Lance’s crew

There’s my crew, right there.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: And we recently — absolutely. We recently — we know that part of your training here in Houston was on the KC135. Now I’m saying "the KC135," and a lot of students out there, what is that all about? Can you explain to us what the KC135 is and what it does, and why were you on it.

Lance on screen

Lance: We call it the parabolic flight.

Wendy: We actually call it the "Vomit Comet."

[OVERLAPPING CONVERSATION]

Lance: It’s a training tool for — to experience Zero-G.

Screen shows video clip of a plane take-off and astronauts flying around in the shuttle

It’s a plane. It’s all gutted out, and you can fit sometimes it’s like 30 people inside. And you sit there and you go up. You experience Zero-G for about 20 to 30 seconds each parabola. I got to do 10 last week. And it was part of my training because I had to don on my space suit, take it off, learn how to travel around Zero-G and feel exactly how much pressure I need to push off a wall.

I think it’s a great experience just to get a feel of what it’s going to be like. But I think, also, once you’re up in space and experiencing total Zero-G, it’ll be a little different and you’ll learn a lot in a good five minutes than you’ve learned in hours of parabolic flight.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Wendy kind of mentioned that we affectionately call the KC135 "the Vomit Comet" because they have a tendency to not feel so good.

Wendy on screen

Wendy: That’s right. You have a tendency to not feel so good in experiencing this 25 to 30 seconds of weightlessness, and then it is a parabola so it means you push up over the top like you would have on a roller coaster, and you’re weightless at that point. And then at the bottom when they pull out is when you start feeling several times the force of gravity.

And so that transition can make people not feel very good, just like you would feel on a very long roller coaster ride. And some of the same symptoms happen to astronauts in their first day in space during that transition from gravity up until weightlessness. At times we tend not to feel good. So that’s also a good preparation for you to understand what your symptoms may be.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Okay. Lance, my twenty-three-year-old sister works as a mission control specialist with Johnson Space Center, and she’s one of the youngest people who work on the team at Johnson. Is it part of your goal for your mission to get younger people interested in space travel and research?

Lance on screen

Lance: I think that’s great. Like I said before, the age is only a number. If you can learn something, if you stick with math and sciences, and if you learn it that quick that you can get a job here at Johnson, that’s amazing. And I think that’s great and hats off to her. But I think if you’re qualified and you work really hard, I think you can do whatever you want to do.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Thanks for all of your questions coming in over the Internet. We also have another question that’s coming in. First of all, I would like to congratulate Lance in his endeavor in his space quest. I’m a big Lance Bass fan as well as an ‘N Sync’ fan. Upon returning from space, do you have any plans to continue with the space program, and will you be returning to ‘N Sync’ for more tours?

Lance on screen

Lance: Thank you very much. Definitely I plan to do both. I want to definitely support the space program as much as I can. It’s something I grew up with and was very excited about. It kind of inspired me to do what I’m doing now with the entertainment industry and it had a part of me growing up.

So, yeah. I would love to go around and share my experience with as many people as I can, help out the space program as much as I can, and also I will be going back to ‘N Sync immediately when I _ I mean I’m still with ‘N Sync now, but we’ll definitely be recording the new album early next year, and we have some tours to make.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: We have a student that writes in and wants to know, they heard you speaking Russian, but was it hard learning how to speak Russian, and what other languages do you know?

Lance on screen

Lance: It’s been very hard, and I can’t even say I speak Russian because I only know very little. It’s very intense. Learning a hard language is hard enough, but on top of that doing ten hours of training a day on top of that, you’re brains just really fried. But just submersing yourself in the language. I’m living there in Russia where everyone speaks Russian. You’re constantly around, all your instructions, all your classes are in Russian. So you’re constantly around it; you’re going to pick it up.

And it’s fun. I want to learn. I mean I’m just one of those people that just loves learning things like that. Other languages that I can understand is Spanish and German. I lived in Germany for two years, and then I live in Florida, so you can’t really get by without knowing a little Spanish.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Well, in case you’re just logging in, we’ve been here for quite awhile, but just in case you’re just able to visit with us, we’re here with future space flight participant, Lance Bass, and with our veteran astronaut, Wendy Lawrence. And we were just kind of chatting with them about what it’s like with Wendy to actually fly in space, and what Lance is looking forward to.

So some of the questions that are coming in with you guys are excellent. So we want to thank you for that. A question that we might have for Wendy would be: What would be the one thing that you would say for students to focus on while they’re in elementary school if they are interested in space flight?

Wendy on screen

Wendy: It’s hard to say one thing that I would focus on in elementary school since you’re learning so many fundamentals at that age. But I would say focus on really learning to enjoy learning. I was very privileged growing up to have a mother who taught for many, many years, and I think that’s one of the things she did so well for myself and my older brother and sister is she made learning fun. And we have always tried to pursue that as adults, to continue to learn. So I would focus on really learning to love to learn.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: We have a question for Lance, and I’m not quite sure if this person read something somewhere about this, but they want to know was science your favorite subject in school?

Lance on screen

Lance: It definitely was. Science and math I loved. I loved physics and all of that. It was something that was just in me that came easy to me, and I just loved to study. I liked English and History and that type of stuff too, but it’s something about the math and sciences that really I grasped a lot easier, and that’s why I knew I wanted to go into a field in that direction.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: I would say that being in the band would probably give you a lot of experience of actually having to deal with different personalities all the time. Maybe you’d get stuck somewhere and you’d have to deal with the same personalities all the time. Do you think that might give you a little bit of insight of what our astronauts are experiencing on the International Space Station?

Lance on screen

Lance: Oh, definitely. I’ve experienced just — I’ve been in ‘N Sync for seven years now, and just living in Germany for two years, getting over that cultural shock at first and trying to communicate with someone from a different country has been an amazing training for me in Russia.

Also, just traveling in a pack of five/six people, for years traveling all on bus, altogether, yeah, you definitely learn to respect each other’s "space." And learn how to live with someone. And you also learn how to read people. I can probably tell you what everyone is about to do before they even do it. And I think that’s what a crew also does, too. They train so much together that they become family, and you know each other backwards and forwards, and you can read each other’s mind, and that’s exactly what you need to be able to do in an environment such as space.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Wendy, would you like to add to that with all your experience from being on Mir?

Wendy on screen

Wendy: I think Lance is exactly right. I’ll refer back to my first flight. We had seven people and it ended up being a 16 _ day mission, and we only had the volume of the mid-deck and the flight deck on the space shuttle. And after the flight somebody asked us what our greatest accomplishment was. And we said, well, we’ve trained together for 12 months and we flew together for 16 _ days in this really small space, and we came back and we’re all really good friends still.

And I do think you become like a family, and it’s very important because you do need to be a team that functions very, very well together.

Screen shows pictures of groups of astronauts

You do need to anticipate what somebody’s going to do, and you do need to understand what they’re thinking and what they’re considering that they’re going to do next and how they’re going to approach that, and what their thought processes are.

I mean it’s a little detail, but in essence you need to get to know them well enough that you’re almost inside their head and you almost understand how they think and what they’re going to do next.

Back to Wendy

So you do become a very close family and a very good functioning team.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Students that are here with us, what do you think? Do you think if all of you guys were a crew and you went into space, do you think you’d be nice to each other if you had to live together for months. You see each other everyday in school, but do you think you could handle it and be nice everyday, and friendly?

You sure?

Students: Yeah.

Erika: Well that’s what I like to hear. That’ll be good. Then we do have some future space explorers, okay.

Student: Actually I think when sometimes it might be a little annoying.

Erika: So what do you do if something like that would happen? What would you do if they were annoying you?

Student: I’d try calming myself down a little bit.

Erika: I think you’re right on the right rack. I think Wendy could probably attest to that, it’s exactly what the astronauts do too.

So let’s talk a little bit more, Lance, about the kind of things that you’re preparing for. We want to know, for example, after you leave Houston, what more or how much more training will you have?

Lance on screen

Lance: Well, I’m halfway done now in training. The mission right now that’s until October 28^th, so I have a couple more months. I go back to Russia Saturday and continue my training where right now a lot of the theoretical stuff has been learned, it’s all the interim classroom study and all day taking exams and stuff. Just like being in school.

And now we’re in the simulators and the markups of the Soyuz, and with my crew we do mission after mission, and they’re going to simulate what it’s going to be like going into space from launch to landing and see how we react hour after hour of being in there with your knees in your chest.

So and just to see what it’s going to be like. They’ll throw different emergency situations in there just in case you lose a little oxygen, little depressurizes, so you know you’re safe, and you’re going to do in a different emergency.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: We have kind of like little quick chance that we actually can probably give the kids (I’m kind of jumping this on our producers) a quick sneak peak of some of the places you’ve been training here in Building 9. It’s the building with the life-size mockups here. And we could probably show them a little bit about it.

I know that we actually at one point had some modules that are — some of the modules that are already on the International Space Station.

Screen shows video clip of shuttle trainer room and Lance’s training with the crew

And there we go. And this — actually this building is huge. We have a shuttle trainer mockup. We also have mockups of the modules, and as a matter of fact, I think this might be some video from your training.

Lance: That’s me right there.

Erika: There you go.

Lance: That’s me an my crew and my backup crew. We were training the last couple of days on the mockup of the International Space Station on the Russian and American segment. And so we’re just going over different emergency procedures and where everything’s located so that we don’t accidentally bump into something and destroy something. So the big key is just to know where everything is and how to react in different situations.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: You know what? This hour flew by really fast. Okay, we only have a few more minutes, and so during the last part of the program I definitely want to give both of you a chance to kind of leave some final thoughts with all the students across the globe that are watching us today. I’m going to start with you, Wendy, and then Lance.

Wendy on screen

Wendy: I think what I'd love to leave with students is: Don’t be afraid to dream your dream. I felt very privileged after 25 years of dreaming about flying in space, becoming an astronaut and actually getting a chance to fly in space. The first opportunity I got to look out the window was about 25 years later after I had my dream. And it was well worth it.

So don’t be afraid to dream you dream, but realize that if you are going to dream it, it takes a lot of hard work for that dream to come true. And the best place for you to start is by getting a good education, but keep working hard, keep taking one step down that path, one step after one step after one step, and there are going to be a lot of ups and downs, and that’s where you really need the support of your friends and your families.

But when times get tough, turn to them, and just realize that things are going to get better, and there is nothing that compares to the feeling of having your dream come true. I still very clearly remember that first look out the window, realizing that I was in space, and I was getting a chance to see our great planet Earth. And all those 25 years of blood, sweat, and tears were well worth it just in that one moment.

Lance on screen

Lance: That’s amazing. Exactly. Dream big and work hard. That is the key. I mean I, as much as I've wanted this so bad, and as big as the dream has been, I've worked very, very hard at this, and I don’t know. And everything I do I work very hard, and as long as you have that goal above your head and you dream so big and you work at it, eventually it’s going to happen.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: Well, guys, it’s about time for us to go, but this is like a real live broadcast, so I actually have one more question for Lance, and it’s from our students that are in the audience today, thank you so much. You guys were a great audience. Go ahead, Alicia, ask.

Alicia: When you were a child, what was your favorite folk song?

Lance: My favorite folk song?

Erika: Nice closing question.

Lance on screen

Lance: Wow! My mom used to sing to me a lot as a kid, and maybe she can think. What was the song that you always sang?

Lance’s Mom: Hush-a-Bye.

Lance: Hush-a-Bye. Hush-a-Bye, it was an awesome song. She used to always sing me to sleep with that. So that’s something I remember as a kid.

Back to Erika and the whole group

Erika: All right. Well, it’s time for us to go, everybody. Thanks so much for joining us for Kids Space Update. We want to give a big hand for Wendy Lawrence and Lance Bass for joining us today. All right!

Until next time, make sure you stay connected, get inspired, and reach the stars. Talk to you soon. Bye.

Screen shows group of students shaking hands with Lance and Wendy