At the end of our Astronaut Training Experience at Kennedy Space Center on 18 February new, astronaut Captain Jon McBride came and talked to us. Hed made some smalltalk while posing for pictures with us earlier, and found out where we were all from, so tailored the talk to us a bit (Im from New Zealand and one of the friends I went with is from the Czech Republic, so both countries were mentioned.) He starts off by telling us about real astronaut training and how to become an astronaut. Then he talks about the 38 nations that astronauts/cosmonauts/taikonauts come from. After giving us a history of space flight and more about his own journey to become one of the first to fly on a space shuttle, he talks about the end of the space shuttle programme, and answers some questions.\r
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Eric: What do you think of the new options theyre working on?\r
Jon asking himself: Why do we want to spend money to go to Mars?\r
Eric: What was the longest shuttle mission in space?\r
Some other guy: How would you describe seeing Earth from space?\r
Me: Did you ever get used to something so much in space that you tried to do it on Earth. e.g. drop something and forget it wasnt going to float?\r
Some other guy: What kind of stuff do you retired astronauts do for hobbies?\r
Eric: How many astronauts total have there been?\r
Jon asking himself, after talking about the many famous people he meets as an astronaut: What are some of the favourites that youve met?