29 min

The Perks of Knowing Russia in Space MISTI Radio

    • Places & Travel

On today’s show we have some audio from an event co-sponsored by our MIT-Russia program and the MIT AeroAstro department, featuring a NASA astronaut. You may have remembered a past episode of ours that featured astronaut-turned-investor Bernard Harris. But now we have an astronaut who will share the benefits of learning Russian as a space explorer.

Edward Michael Fincke graduated from MIT in 1989, he then joined NASA as an astronaut in 1996. He’s spent a total of 381 days in orbit.

He’s currently training for the first crew flight on Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. The vehicle will provide roundtrip crew transportation services to the International Space Station and, along with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, restart U.S. space launches.

Fincke is also fluent in Russian and Japanese. And his Russian skills have been pretty useful in being an astronaut. In this episode we will share why.

Fincke was interviewed by Piper Sigrest, a 2018 AeroAstro graduate, a third-year aerospace engineering PhD candidate at the University of Michigan, and an aspiring astronaut who’s been studying Russian since their time at MIT.

On today’s show we have some audio from an event co-sponsored by our MIT-Russia program and the MIT AeroAstro department, featuring a NASA astronaut. You may have remembered a past episode of ours that featured astronaut-turned-investor Bernard Harris. But now we have an astronaut who will share the benefits of learning Russian as a space explorer.

Edward Michael Fincke graduated from MIT in 1989, he then joined NASA as an astronaut in 1996. He’s spent a total of 381 days in orbit.

He’s currently training for the first crew flight on Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. The vehicle will provide roundtrip crew transportation services to the International Space Station and, along with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, restart U.S. space launches.

Fincke is also fluent in Russian and Japanese. And his Russian skills have been pretty useful in being an astronaut. In this episode we will share why.

Fincke was interviewed by Piper Sigrest, a 2018 AeroAstro graduate, a third-year aerospace engineering PhD candidate at the University of Michigan, and an aspiring astronaut who’s been studying Russian since their time at MIT.

29 min