While he is new to this mission, Fincke is no stranger to flying. Back in 2011 he broke the record for most time in space by a US astronaut (he has since been passed by Scott Kelly during his year in space and Peggy Whitson), and he has completed nine spacewalks. At MIT’s Apollo 50th anniversary event during MIT Space Week, I pulled him aside to talk about his upcoming mission.

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You only got assigned to the Boeing mission back in January. What was it like to hear that you were going back to space?

It’s always exciting to get a space mission. You know, this is my fourth space mission. I waited eight and a half years to hear those words. On the other hand, it came at the expense of my very good, dear friend Eric Boe. He and I had been working on this program for four or five years together, and it was his turn. Unfortunately, he couldn’t take his turn. I was happy to step in, but not at Eric’s expense. So it was mixed feelings, but of course the mission must go on.

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How does training compare with your last missions on the Soyuz and the shuttle?

Our mission is called the inflight test, so our first and foremost objective is to be the first crew to test out the Boeing CST-100 Starliner so that we can certify it and that future crews can go up and down to the space station on a regular basis. On the other hand, we’re also running out of Soyuzes, so NASA has an option with the Boeing company to extend our mission to six months. So my training is making sure we know what to do on our own spaceship, but then be ready for another six-month space mission. I’ve already done two of those, so that’s the part I bring to the team, whereas my colleagues Nicole Mann and Chris Ferguson from Boeing—they’re focused on the spaceship.

So where are the preparations at right now?

Right now, the spacecraft itself, the CST-100 Starliner, is going through its testing phase. At the end of each phase we go check it out and spend time with our little baby spaceship. Well, it’s not a little baby. It’s a big baby.

The second thing taking a lot of time for me is to catch up on the space station. The space station, of course, is an international project, so I have to spend five weeks in Russia to see the Russian part. I’ll spend a week in Europe and a week in Japan. So a lot of my schedule is getting back up to speed with the modern-day space station, as well as focusing on our new spacecraft. So it’s very busy.