Tron: Legacy and a Little Tree – Living the Dream: Astronaut Mike Fossum

June 2, 2011

It’s Thursday evening here, and we proceed with preparations to launch very early next Wed morning. Technically that will be 8 June here, but still the 7^th where most of you live. Yes – I’m getting excited!

Yesterday we planted our own trees on “Cosmonaut Lane.” It’s a really cool tradition where every participant in the Russian human spaceflight program plants a tree. Walking around this area is a walk through history. Now I have my own little twig.

Astronaut Mike Fossum - tree planting ceremony in Baikonur, Kazakhstan

Last night we got together and watched the movie ‘Tron: Legacy’ in Russian language with English subtitles. We picked that movie for obvious reasons once you see our crew poster (below). It was fun listening closely to find disconnects between the spoken and written words.

Today was a day filled with mostly personal preparation. I have turned in my crew notebook and personal items to be stowed in our Soyuz spacecraft tomorrow morning early. Now I’m finishing up annotations of notes in my flight procedure books. Next will be working on email lists and other administrative stuff that will probably consume all free time.

We’ve taken a number of runs along the river to the south of here, but today was a workout in the gym. I’m trying to push the weights to get my muscles and bones as strong as possible before living in zero-G for almost 6 months, but will continue working throughout the mission using the equipment we have on-board.

Tomorrow will be busy with our second (and last) fit checks in our Soyuz vehicle. It’s pretty amazing to finally be working on a ship with our name on it. It’s not just any old spacecraft – it’s OUR spacecraft! Hope to get some more pictures and maybe video tomorrow.

Some of the best news is my family has all arrived in Moscow in the last two days and they will be heading out here on Saturday. I can’t wait to see them!!!

In the meantime, NASA just posted these videos which we have been working on in our free time out here.

Tree Planting Tradition and Ceremony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=9-d_PDxLlcs

Flag Raising Ceremony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp6U3Di1Btg

Spinning Cosmonaut

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5A2TCUw5Yc

In case you missed them, there are more videos here:

We did this one in Star City about running in the forest. (A bit quirky, but had fun doing it!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6X5QhRvGWQ

Departure from Star City:

https://www.youtube.com/user/NASAtelevision#p/c/F79E4EB7A88AC7FA/4/NMSKOdvS-V4