Program 343: Destination Space Station; Open Phones: Trek of a Lifetime

A genuinely "down to earth" astronaut joins us this week on Travel with Rick Steves, to tell us what it's like living and working on the International Space Station, for months at a time.  Colonel Cady Coleman explains how zero gravity changes the everyday things you do, and how circling planet Earth every 90-minutes will change your outlook on life. 

Plus, listeners share tales of their own unforgettable treks and travels, back on mother Earth.

It's the ultimate getaway -- way off the beaten track, on the next Travel with Rick Steves.

• NASA astronaut Cady Coleman

• Cady Coleman's Wikipedia entry and NASA bio.
• Cady Coleman has an account on Twitter @astro_Cady.
• Colonel Cady Coleman performs a flute duet from space with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull.
• Cady plays a traditional Irish instrument to celebrate St. Patrick's Day from space.
• NASA helps you calculate when the International Space Station will fly over your location.
• Information for staying at inexpensive pilgrim hostels along El Camino de Santiago in northern Spain.

• Caller describes frequent travels in the first year of his marriage.  "In the past year, we have been everywhere from the Yukon to Buenos Aires to the shores of the Bosphorus to Paris and Slovakia."   (Paul in Vancouver, British Columbia)
• "My wife and I have traveled all over the U-S and Europe.  Friends are often jealous of us, and tell us they just don't have the money to travel.  I tell them it is a matter of choice:  You give up eating out for lunch every day, and instead put the cash toward your dream trip. You also need to decide what is important to you on your trip.  Instead of fancy hotels, all we want is a simple room to sleep in and use as a base.  Some of the best meals we encountered in Rome were paninis from the mobile stands around the city.  Budget doesn't mean missing out. It’s simply another part of the adventure!"    (e-mail from Michael in Granbury, Texas)   
• Describes visiting uncrowded sites on extended walking trips in Ireland.  "I have hiked two 100-mile-long trails in Ireland:  the Wicklow Way in 1999 and the Dingle Way in 2010.  I saw dozens of Celtic antiquities and heard Irish spoken, and walked paths, crossed farms and beaches, and scaled mountains."  (Craig in Chicago)
• Elderly caller shares experiences from a recent 40 day trek on the Camino de Santiago in Spain.   (K. Louise in Seattle)

• Jean-Luc Ponty, "Computer Incantations for World Peace," Individual Choice / Atlantic
• Jazzamor, "Fly Me To The Moon," Café de la Noche  (collection) / Sunswept Records
• Cady Coleman and Ian Anderson, flute duet on "Bouree (based on J. S. Bach 'Suite in E minor for Lute')," (You Tube video)
• American Symphony Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, cond., Anna Moffo, soprano, "Vocalise (arr. Arcady Dubensky) (Rachmaninoff)," Basic 100, #33: Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 / RCA Victor
• * Anton Paulik and Orchestra, “The Blue Danube Waltz (Strauss),” Night Life in Vienna / Crownstar Records
• Russian State Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Dmitry Yablonsky, “Lyric Waltz” (Shostakovich), Shostakovich:  Jazz Suites No. 1 - 2 / Naxos
• Unspecified music box, "The Blue Danube," Music Boxes, Carousels, and Hand Organs / Cook Records
• Moby, "God Moving Over the Face of the Waters," Go-The Very Best of Moby / V2 Records
• Michel Donato and James Gelfand, "Timeless," Beyond Rubicon (collection) / Disques Rubicon
• June Tabor, "All This Useless Beauty,"  Angel Tiger / Cooking Vinyl
• French Rockin' Boogie, "Bye Bye Mon Nèg'," Zydeco (collection) / Putumayo
• * John Serrie, "Flightpath," True North (collection) / Miramar
• Trudy Pitts, "Take Five," Cocktail Mix, vol. 2 (collection) / Rhino
• Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse (Michel Plasson, cond), "'Temps de Marche' from 'Cinq Grimaces pour Le songe d'une nuit d'été' (Satie - arr. Milhaud)," Satie:  Orchestra Works / EMI Classics 
• Symphony Nova Scotia, Howard Cable, cond., "Fancy Free," Opportunity Knocks / CBC Records
• Luciano Pavarotti, London Philharmonic, "'Nessun dorma' from 'Turandot' (Puccini)," The #1 Opera Album, disc 2 (collection) / Decca
• Loreena McKennitt, “Marco Polo,” The Book of Secrets / Quinlan Road

• Early in segment A, Cady describes accessing the International Space Station with a Russian Soyuz capsule.  At 9:45, see adds that NASA has plans to build a new vehicle for shuttling to the station. 
• At 11:18, Rick says "Russia, you know, has had some problems lately."
• Cady replies at 11:30 that 16 different countries are working together on the International Space Station. 
• At 17:43, and at 37:20, Cady notes NASA's plans for near-future space travel.  "We're actively planning to go back to the moon, and land on an asteroid."
• Cady says astronauts get to vote on the "space food" they have to eat, and adds at 23:51 that dried ice cream was voted off the menu long ago. 
• At 40:29, caller Paul says he was married in September 2011, and describes spending much of the following year traveling with his new bride.