Governor Hochul: “You have worked and prepared very hard for this. And what an inspiration to particularly young girls. We are so proud of you and we put out questions to students all over the State of New York, but the most significant thing right now is that you'll be one of the few group of astronauts to ever have seen a total eclipse of the sun from space.”
Hochul: “Here on Earth, we're looking forward to the solar eclipse going all the way across the State of New York; Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, up to the Adirondacks. So, the rest of the world is going to be watching New York State as well. So, you'll be watching from a different vantage point.”
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul hosted a virtual conversation with International Space Station Astronaut, Dr. Jeanette Epps.
VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.
PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page here.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
Governor Hochul: Station, this is Governor Kathy Hochul. How do you hear me?
Dr. Jeanette Epps: I have you loud and clear, Governor. It's a pleasure to talk with you today.
Governor Hochul: Thank you, Dr. Epps. We are thrilled to be talking to you. We have been so looking forward to this. We have so many questions for you starting with, what's it like? We've asked students all over the State of New York to send in questions and they all want to know, what does it feel like?
Dr. Jeanette Epps: Well, I can tell you that it's amazing being here now. Looking at the Earth from this perspective has been a pure joy and it's a mind-blowing experience that you can only get coming to the Space Station or flying to space. So, it's a great adventure. One of the things that I've wanted to do for a long time. So, it's amazing.
Governor Hochul: You've prepared so long, for such a long part of your life for this. What inspired you to want to be an astronaut in the first place?
Dr. Jeanette Epps: Well initially, I didn't want to become an astronaut. I just wanted to become an aerospace engineer. I never dreamed that they would select me to be an astronaut, so I didn't set my sights on becoming an astronaut. When I was a kid, about nine years old, my older brother came home from college and he looked at my grades and my twin sister's grades and said, “Well, you know, you guys can become astronauts or maybe even aerospace engineers.”
And my mind back then thought they'll never select me to be an astronaut, but I can become an aerospace engineer. So that's what I focused on rather than focusing on becoming an astronaut.
Governor Hochul: But you have worked very hard and prepared for this. And what an inspiration to particularly young girls. From a place like Syracuse, I went to college in Syracuse, I know it well, it's a great community, but I'm sure it wasn't easy to be one of the smartest kids with your sister in a school and trying to figure out what the path looks like. So, we are so proud of you and we put out questions to students all over the State of New York, but the most significant thing right now is that you'll be one of the few groups of astronauts to ever have seen a total eclipse of the sun from space, one of the few Americans.
So, the questions from the kids are how does that feel? What is that going to be like? I have a specific question from a student from Penfield. Sarah from Penfield says, “Can you see the total eclipse forming in space?”
Dr. Jeanette Epps: Well, what we can see mainly, is the shadow of the eclipse over the Earth as it passes through. So, we won't be able to look directly at the sun and see the eclipse that way, but what we'll see and we're looking for, is to see the shadow as it crosses over the Earth.
Governor Hochul: What an incredible vantage point. Here on Earth, we're all going to be wearing glasses. We handed out these protective glasses all over New York — which we're wondering — do you need to wear glasses when you're up in space? That's what they're asking.
Dr. Jeanette Epps: We do have glasses to wear while we're up here, but we're going to be focused on taking pictures of the shadow as it goes over the Earth and we'll have a couple of discussion topics as well as the event approaches. So, looking at the eclipse from this vantage point, you know, it seems like it should be the same thing as looking at it on Earth, but looking at it from this vantage point and taking photos may help give astrophysicists and astronomers a different perspective on it. And we may learn some things out of it.
Governor Hochul: Oh, that's exciting. And here on Earth, we're looking forward to it going all the way across the State of New York; Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, up to the Adirondacks. So, the rest of the world is going to be watching New York State as well. So, you'll be watching from a different vantage point.
One of our questions from Katie in Binghamton was, can you literally see New York or even Syracuse from space? Can you tell where it is when you're looking out?
Dr. Jeanette Epps: She's asking if we can see New York? Yes, we can see New York. We've got a telephoto lens. We can look at some areas. There’s been many great photos of the Finger Lakes from the Space Station and just looking at the different geology of New York, it’s an amazing view. You can see Long Island clearly; you can see all parts of New York from this vantage point.
Governor Hochul: Maybe you can send us some special pictures for New York State that we can post here in the Capitol. I'd love to continue featuring that. So maybe we’ll have to align that.
We also have a question about, you know, what it's like for you as a woman of color to be in that position and what that message sends to other young women who may not think they have the same chance that you had or may not have a brother who came back and put the ideas in their head.
What do you say to them and how do you hope that your experience is going to help drive more young women, especially in the science and the technology and the math fields where there's a lot of great careers, right?
Dr. Jeanette Epps: Yeah, there's so many great things that I want to share just because I realized over my career how many young ladies don't really believe that this is something for them, or something that they can do. They don't think they have the right stuff to become an astronaut, but I'm here to tell them that we all do – and it all depends on the work and time and effort that you put in as well as the desire.
If you have a passion for space, if it's your goal and your dream, but you don't have parents that were scientists or engineers, but you have a desire to do that – I encourage them to stay the course to do the hard things. Everything is hard until you learn it. So, learn the hard things and pursue your dreams. Don't back down, no matter what.
Pursue your dreams with all your passion and you never know where you'll end up. You may end up becoming an astronaut, you may not. But the big thing is that you will go way far — well, you'll go much further than if you had never had that dream to go that far.
So, I say dream big, pursue your goals and your passions with all your mind. There's always time to have fun as well. So, I don't want to give the impression that everything is all work, but there's a lot of fun, especially up here in space as well.
Governor Hochul: Well, Dr. Epps, tell us about what you do for fun up in space.
Dr. Jeanette Epps: Well, you know, as a crew up here, we do have dinner together, and we bond and we have lots of great talks. We watch movies together. We even play a few games. We may have just some minor games that we may play. But, you know, being with friends is, you know, we can always make any event fun. Looking out the window is another thing. I'm looking out of the cupola.
Governor Hochul: Are you able to watch any women's basketball from there? We had a big game in Albany a couple of days ago – Iowa, Caitlin Clark, LSU. So, the whole world was watching Albany for a brief time when they weren't looking up and looking for you. Are you able to watch any sports up there from America?
Dr. Jeanette Epps: Well, we don't really watch much of the sports that are going on right now, but we have movies and different things that we can watch. We're actually pretty busy at this time. So, watching movies is kind of like on the back burner for a little bit, but we had a vehicle visit from a SpaceX30 cargo vehicle visit, and we've been unloading that and doing some of the experiments so that we can pack up the vehicle and send it back to Earth.
So, you know, we're busy a lot. That's why when we get together to have dinners together, that's our fun time. You know, evenings around the table in our Node 1 is where we end up chatting and having a little fun.
Governor Hochul: So, what are some of the other experiments that you're working on? Do you have something exciting you're working on to send back?
Dr. Jeanette Epps: Well, for a lot of the experiments, we're the hands and the eyes of the researchers back on Earth. So, we have these great experiments. For example, the thigh cuff experiment. What the thigh cuff does is it applies pressure to your thighs to help regulate the pressure that you get in your body when you go to space. Because there's no gravity, you get a fluid shift in your body up and it can cause problems like SANS.
This is the Space-Associated Neuro-Ocular Syndrome where you have more pressure on the back of your eyes and it could create vision changes. So, one of the research experiments we're looking at is, how does the thigh cuffs that we wear change the pressure to reduce the fluid shift? How does that affect their vision? How can we use those for future space flights to help new people fly to space and have less issues with the fluid shift?
And then we're also looking at something called H-bond, where this is looking at neural inflammation and different drug tests that we can do in space and compare the results in space to the ones that are going on the ground. And maybe it'll help us develop new drug therapy for neuro inflammation, different things like that. So, we're doing all kinds of different things. We're also looking at different materials and how they burn in space. We’re working on something called electrostatic levitation furnace. So, we've got a lot of cool things that we're working on to help life back on Earth as well as in space.
Governor Hochul: That's exciting. I was also curious to know actually what it was like and what you were feeling when you took off to head up there. I mean, there had to be a lot of just energy and an adrenaline rush and what did it feel like? Describe it for us.
Dr. Jeanette Epps: Well, I have to tell you, it was surreal. But had you been in the vehicle with the four of us, you would have heard four people scream like we were on an amusement park ride. It was amazing and it was very surreal. It was a very smooth ride as we increased speed. When the booster would shut off, that's when you would feel a change in G's, and it was just, it's like a big rollercoaster ride. It was amazing. And that's one of the reasons, you know, just feeling great during the launch, and just amazed and looking at the Earth from – oh gosh, so many miles up – right now, we're approximately 260 miles above the Earth's surface. But as we rose, it's just amazing to see the Earth.
And I know that's the word I keep using, amazing. It's hard to describe the view from here, and the things that happen as you're launching, and the changes in your body and the knowledge that you're now untethered from the Earth. It's just – it's one of those things, breathtaking and mind-blowing and it takes time to get your brain wrapped around that. But every day that I look out the window, out the cupola windows, it's amazing to see the Earth from this vantage point.
Governor Hochul: Oh, I can imagine. That's extraordinary. And also, all the preparation you had to do to get to this point. What was some of the training like and dealing with weightlessness? Is that something that you prepare for when you're getting ready? And then so it doesn't feel strange, or does it still feel strange when it actually happens?
Dr. Jeanette Epps: Well, one of the cool things is that back in Houston, we have a mockup of the Space Station, of the modules that are on the U.S. side and the Russian side. And the familiarity that we had when we came through the hatch was amazing because the mockups are really good in Houston. But, you know, that's one of the places that we train in Houston. We do all of our emergency procedures there, we go through simulations of emergency procedures, routine ops. scenarios. So that's part of the training.
But we also do like a lot of analog missions. Like I've been – lived in the cave, I've lived underwater, I've done all these different NOLS trips. NOLS is a National Outdoor Leadership School. So, hardcore camping for you. And so, all of the analog missions that we do, as well as all the training that we do back in Houston, the T-38 jet flying that we do. We do robotics. We did spacewalk training. So, there's a lot of training that we do and that I've gone through over the past 15 years to get to this point.
Governor Hochul: Well, it's an extraordinary story. We're so proud of you. We're going to have to wrap in a minute because I know you have a lot more work to do while you're there. But just one last quick question. All of our students who sent in a question want to know what microgravity is all about. Are there any demonstrations you can show us before we say goodbye?
Dr. Jeanette Epps: Well, I can show you a few things, but I'll try not to hit anything. Floating is like, you know, I was standing there straight because I had my feet under a – under a rail. But you can do all kinds of things and end up in weird places.
Governor Hochul: Did you ever hit your head when you do that?
Dr. Jeanette Epps: Well, you can because as you can see, this is a laboratory and there's all kinds of lab equipment here. So, you know, we can do some weird space tricks, but – the mic float around, do a couple of different things.
Governor Hochul: That's amazing. We're so excited to have a chance to get to chat. Can't wait to see you back on Earth. Come see us in Albany and we'd love to honor you and recognize you. And just continue the safe journey and enjoy watching that eclipse on Monday, April 8, because we'll all be watching as well and thinking about you, Dr. Epps. So, thanks for a great conversation.
Dr. Jeanette Epps: Thank you, Governor Hochul. I really appreciate you taking your time to have a chat with me and ask the questions that the students have. So, thank you so much for your time.
Governor Hochul: All right. Thank you. Godspeed.