NASA and National Geographic are teaming up to bring to earth an inside look at the International Space Station.
On Fri. March 14, astronauts onboard the ISS will give viewers a guided tour. On-the-ground astronaut Mike Massimino and T.V. host Soledad O’Brien will be providing a behind-the-scenes look from mission control in Houston, Texas.
Astronauts Rick Mastracchio of NASA and Koichi Wakata of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) will give the tour of the ISS to the National Geographic Channel. The astronauts will also show some of the experiments that have taken place on the space station over the last year.
The astronauts and crew will discuss the importance and difficulties of keeping healthy during these long missions.
The lack of gravity affects the body in multiple ways and the crew will detail how the astronauts stay healthy. This will include an explanation of the daily exercise program, as well as world-famous “space food”.
The health of astronauts on long-duration trips to the ISS is a crucial area of research for NASA. Beginning in 2015 two astronauts, Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko, will spend a full year aboard the ISS.
On Sun. March 16, Massimino will take the U.K.’s “Channel 4” back into mission control. He will detail the real-time decisions he and the ground crew had to make during his time on board the ISS. Massimino was recently on two separate missions to upgrade the Hubble Telescope.
