A Public Service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. Nasa astronaut frank rubio held a News Conference ahead of his Upcoming Mission to the International Space station in midseptember. He and two russian cosmonauts will lift off in a russian spacecraft. This is just under 20 minutes. Frank, how are you feeling about your Upcoming Mission . Good morning. We feel great, we feel ready. Is truly an honor to represent erin nation and the nasa team on this mission. I am excited to be flying with the crew for only a couple of weeks. They are a fantastic crew and im looking forward to becoming a part of their team as we tackle the iss together and its been an honor to be a part of the soyuz 68 in all this mission represents. We have had incredible training and we are excited about the mission. We will take some questions from the media. I think its an incredibly important mission. It has been a good and strong relationship with the russians in this represent the ongoing effort of the tremendous teams on both sides and amazing people. I think its important when we are at moments of possible tension elsewhere that human spaceflight and exploration, something both agencies are incredibly passionate about, that it remains a form of diplomacy and partnership where we can find common ground. I think its been an ongoing relationship for many years and i hope to keep it going for many more. We will take a question from the nighttime news spacer or. Thank you so much for taking my question. I am marvin marshall. I hope you are having a wonderful day. Its a pleasure to talk with you before your first spaceflight stop what kind of geforce training do you go through to get your body for a ride on the soyuz . Its great to meet you also. Its incredible, the opportunities we have in this program and the training we get. The most common training is probably the t38 aircraft which is a supersonic highperformance jets of being able to fly that on a regular basis provides amazing training. We also conduct training in american and ive had a chance to train in russian centrifuges. Those provide probably the most realistic training in the sense they can dial it down to exactly the type of force you will feel during the mission profile. You have to go through in the entire profile and it recreates a level of comfort and its great having that before we go on our mission. We will take a question from aviation week and space technology. Good morning and thank you very much. What science and Technology Research are you looking forward to and possible spacewalks . Good morning. I think we are all super excited about the entire mission step we spent a ton of time on spacewalks. I think we are all excited to do that. There are some neat biological experiments i look forward to because of my background. Bio fabrication experiments will be up there and the possibilities that represents. It would be phenomenal in our capability to deal with human disease on earth. Those type of things, sometimes their mind blowing when you think about it. It helps to make those a reality. The next question is from space policy online. Thank you so much for taking my call. Im wondering if the covid prelaunch protocols have changed. What is the covid situation in russia and you still have two go down three weeks in advance and be quarantined . Thats a great question. Its a very real thing for all of us. The medical team that supports as does a tremendous job. They have kept amazing protocols in place to keep us all healthy and we going to quarantine and that hasnt changed much. We want to keep the iss as safe as possible. We have a quarantine period and i think we feel great about the team supporting us and the fact they will keep us safe as well as the crew on the station and safely return us to earth. We will take a question from cbs news. Im curious how your russian crewmates have accepted how you guys have blended to gather and can you tell us a little about each one, what kind of guys they are and how do you get along . Thanks for that question. Its important to point out that we all get along great. They become good friends of mine. Sergei is a former Russian Air Force pilot, dimitri is an engineer but more importantly, theyve gotten to know my family and ive gotten to know there is. We have similar priorities and the fact that family comes first and our main focus is to make this mission happen as safely and productively as possible to ensure we get everything done. Its great, we have hung out quite a bit. No matter where we are from, if more people got to know each other, i think we would be pleasantly surprised at the commonalities we have and we can get along together better. We will take another question from nighttime news space report. Feel free to continue on. Did you have a question . What are some of the food items were meals you have chosen to eat before launch and if you have an opportunity to bring them with you . That hits close to home. We havent done the menu yet. Im excited that we get some nice meals down there. A lot of my meals with the part of an experiment. We are looking at how a healthier diet affects performance in space. To that degree, i do get to choose as many things as we normally might but there is some great food with lots of omega3s, food that is high in vitamin and i am excited to be part of that experiment. The good thing about being an Army Astronaut is im used to eating these quite a bit and thats prepared me well for my sixmonth mission. Lets take a question from space news. I know this particular flight required getting the integrated crew agreement signed which only took place about a month ago. Were you following that . Was there nervousness about whether the agreement would be completed in time to allow you to fly . We were following it because of the fact that if us directly. I dont know that i was nervous about it. I had confidence it would happen step there was a confidence of knowing that if it happened, we would be ready and if it didnt there would be other opportunities. I am incredibly excited about the fact that it did happen. No nervousness about it. A question from social media. On twitter, what to the final weeks look like leading up to your launch . Its really busy. In russia, we will spend the last couple of weeks doing simulations in the soyuz but also in the russian segment of the International Space station and we will have final exams on that and those are all day events where you take a day full of normal things and possible emergencies that could happen and make sure air training is ready to go. Once we pass those, we will continue to train for our mission and transition to quarantine and spend more time together as a crew and hopefully get to see our families during the last week or so. That can be limited exposure during quarantine. Then we launch. Its super busy, so busy in a good way, it keeps you from focusing too much on anything but the training and the things you need to do. A couple of more questions on the phone, marsha smith with pate with space policy. Thanks for letting me ask a second question. Today is the flight readiness review and if all goes according to plan you lunch next monday. I presume we will be watching it. Where will you be and will there be a watch party . Are your colleagues excited about this as well . I think we all are. All space explorers, i think this kind of thing gets inside you. I dont know we will have a launch party. For me next week is finals week so we will be pretty deep into preparation. I would love to watch the launch. If i dont get to watch it live, i will watch a recording of it as soon as possible after training is completed that day. I am excited to see it and i think my crewmates are equally excited for watching it and the nasa team and everything it represents. We are all excited for that launch. We will take another question from nighttime news space report. Thank you again for taking another question. What was one of the hardest things that you had to go through and you are able to overcome during training and its been a pleasure speaking with you today and we wish you the best of luck on your flight out and we look forward to seeing it up there testing you up there and we thank you for your service. I appreciate that. For a lot of astronauts, probably the toughest thing is the separation from my wife and four kids. Thats been a challenge but ive got an incredible family and theyve stepped up to the plate and made this as easy as possible for me. Its been a challenge but we have all gone at it with a positive attitude and try to embrace what it represents. Other than that, as far as the actual training we do, the Water Survival Training we did in russia where you practice getting out of the capsule in case of an Emergency Water landing, that was a pretty challenging event. It was a lot of fun but there was a lot of sweat in that survival suit but we got through it and passed with flying colors and it was a lot of fun. A question from Jennifer Marshall with orlando sentinel. Thank you so much for taking my call. Its nice to talk to you again. I just realized we talk to you a couple of months ago but it was really in 2020 step from the time we spoke back then when you are first chosen as a latino to participate in this project, how has all this changed for you as far as what you were expecting, what is the thing that has been most different and is there any special item youre are thinking of bringing with you when you leave . Its great to talk to you again. In 2020, when we were selected, its important to know that there is 50 incredible astronauts in our office that are audibly capable and looking forward to doing that mission. Whats changed for me is i was assigned to this mission. My focus has been primarily on this and getting ready for my iss mission stop i am excited about whoever will get to do the first couple of waterless missions and a huge blessing if i get to participate in that in the future. The last couple of years, i have tried to stay focus on this. I get to go to space, get to go to the iss and do some incredible things that very few people get the opportunity to do. I will bring some small items with me from my family. There is not a whole lot of room in the soyuz. There is not many items we get to bring but i get to bring myself and some pictures of the family and thats good enough. Sounds good. We will take a question from twitter will you take part in a spacewalk in your mission . We dont know yet. Hopefully i will but there are more incredibly talented crewmembers who are all fully trained for spacewalks. I think we will all be excited for each other regardless of who is doing what and we will do our best to support each other and make sure we have success in everything we do up there. The final question for you how are you feeling . Youve been training for a couple of years as an astronaut and now for this mission, how does it feel to finally be so close to your first launch to space . And what are you looking forward to most besides the work and the science that you will be doing on board the space station . Its hard to capture how you feel. Youre proud, all of us probably feel a little bit nervous. Just because of the sense of responsibility you have for everything thats involved from the launch to being on the iss and doing the daytoday science experiments, possibly doing spacewalks and then returning. There is high risk in everything we do so i think most of us stay pretty focused on what we can do to make sure our part is done right. As much is that brings a sense of pride and responsibility, i think we all want to make sure we get it right. Its an honor and its incredibly humbling to be in this position. Fewer than 600 people have gone into space in the history of humanity so to be one of the incredibly lucky and blessed few the get to do this, its a humbling feeling and humbling expe