I have had the opportunity to work with the Russians and to train with the Russians in Star City. I have also had the opportunity to work in Italy and work with the Italians, Alenia, and the Italian Space Agency in some of the work that they were doing in developing pressurized modules for the Space Station. I think having an international partnership has been crucial to the success of the International Space Station. Without a doubt, we realized how important it was after STS-107, and that drove it home to many people. If they didn’t already know it, it was perfectly clear after the tragedy. We would not have a presence and a continued presence in space if it weren't for our Russian partners. They have stepped up and have launched on the Soyuz vehicle the last two crews to man Space Station. And, and they remain very solid partners. The, the Italians are building almost two-thirds of the pressurized modules that make up the International Space Station. Our class was the largest astronaut class we’ve had -- nine international astronauts were selected in our class from seven different countries -- and so we get to work and train with some of the best people from all the countries, all the different countries around the world. I think it’s very important for us to gain a different perspective and to learn from our partners how each different culture, how each different country approaches solving the similar problem. The Russians have a different technical view on how they build and design their spacecraft. They’re robust, they’re durable and they’re very simple. Maybe we can learn a lesson from how they design their spacecraft when we go back to designing our next, and our future spacecraft. And, and the Italians and, and the rest of the European community have been outstanding players in developing of the MPLMs and the other pressurized modules such as the Cupola and the COF. The Canadians developed the arm that’s been working so well, don't forget the Japanese partners that we have -- of course, Soichi is on our flight, and he’s a classmate of mine.
Let me press on, Charlie, if I might for a minute, with a final set of questions here. In a big picture sense, you talked about that it's going to be important to, to maintain the vigilance, the dedication for flight after flight after flight, many flights beyond yours, but your flight is the first, and I'm just wondering how significant and how important is STS-114, your flight, in getting this agency physically and psychologically back in the saddle, back in orbit, as far as Space Shuttles are concerned?
Well, I hope it's going to be a tremendous boost, psychologically, to this country and to the space effort. I mean, we really need it. And we need to get back to flying, and we need to get back to flying safely. Along those lines, we're training very hard. And as I mentioned, over and over again, teams of people are working very hard to make sure that we have the tools and we have the capability to ensure that future missions are safe. Now you have to remember that these next couple of flights are very much experimental flights. Like I said, we're looking at new technologies and we have to ensure that these technologies will be suitable, if they're ever called into action, if we never, ever need to use these technologies that they will do the job and we will be able to return crews safely and we'll, we will be able to, return the vehicle safely. We only have a couple of chances to make sure that these technologies are fully developed, and our flight is, is one of the first, and we're going to learn a lot from it. But like I've said, every one of these flights is an experimental flight, and we need to continue learning from it. Our flight is just the beginning. And I think we know that. The rest of the missions will be viewed as experiments, and, hopefully, we'll be learning as much as we can from every one of these flights.
