Saturday Morning News

Sergei Krikalev Discusses the International Space Station

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KYRA PHILLIPS, ANCHOR: Once again, we're going to go back to Miles O'Brien. He's in Moscow, and he's been there all week to observe the activities at Russia's once-secret cosmonaut training center -- Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, wish you could have been here. It's been a fascinating trip here, getting an opportunity to see how the cosmonauts train at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in the place they call Star City. And as well as the cosmonauts, a few NASA astronauts.

As you well know, the U.S. and the Russians, along with 14 other nations, have teamed up to build an audacious project in low earth orbit. It's called the international space station, and in about 30 days' time, that space station, which has been taking shape over the past couple of years, now consists of about three modules, two of them Russian, one of them U.S., that space station is slated to be occupied by its first live-aboard permanent crew.

And joining me is one of the members of that crew, Sergei Krikalev, a Russian cosmonaut, who will be answering to Bill Shepard (ph), the NASA astronaut who is the commander, and along with Yuri Gedzenko (ph).

Sergei, thanks so much for being with us on CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

How is the training going so far?

SERGEI KRIKALEV, FORMER MIR COSMONAUT: It was kind of long training, longer than we expected and longer than usually takes to fly to Mir. But it's almost finished. In a month we are going to be (inaudible) in a rocket, actually on 30th we are going to fly to new international space station.

O'BRIEN: That's -- it gets a little exciting when you get down to one month before the launch. I'm curious, after four years of training, how much is left to do?

KRIKALEV: Actually training is endless process. You can improve your knowledge and ability to do task you need to do as long as it takes. But for us, it was even more challenging for us, because we were trained when -- we start our training when it was no training materials. It's not like Mir or shuttle program, when system is matured and developed for many years. O'BRIEN: So everything is new, including the relationship. And I'm curious how that relationship works out in a personal level. Are you all getting along well? And are you -- do you have any concerns about spending a long period of time in space with this crew?

KRIKALEV: It's not first long-duration flight for me. I know how to fly long-duration flights in the expert our team (ph) perform well on this mission.

O'BRIEN: What is the secret, though, to getting along with two others in such a closed space for such a long period of time?

KRIKALEV: Patience.

O'BRIEN: Patience it is. But -- I mean, and I assume over the course of your previous flights, you got into situations where you had problems with others. How did you deal with it?

KRIKALEV: I didn't actually have any problems with others. Sometime we can argue about what's the best way to do this specific task. But usually we don't argue, something like on personal level or something like that. And I think another important thing is motivation. All of us are going through this long training to get ready to this flight, and we are flying to do our job well. So kind of this attitude usually help to solve any problem we are going to have in flight.

O'BRIEN: Sergei Krikalev, who has the right stuff to spend a long time aboard a space station. Thanks very much for being here with us on CNN SATURDAY MORNING. We wish you well on your mission, which is now slated to begin October 30.

KRIKALEV: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: All right, that's pretty much it from Moscow, Kyra. If you're a space junkie, this has been the program to watch, I guess. I hope we kept you interested all the while, and we'll be seeing you a little bit later.

PHILLIPS: Well, I'm still trying to figure out how we can make the millions of dollars so you and I can be the next ones going up in space.

O'BRIEN: Now, that would be an incredible long shot, wouldn't it? I'd like to try that one.

PHILLIPS: There you go, that's our next story. Thanks, Miles.

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