SK: It’s somewhat unique in terms of duration – if you compare our involvement in the human subject experiments, Mikhail and I have more of that than certainly an ordinary crewmember might have. Throughout the course of the year here, we’ll have 400 science experiments going on so our involvement is bigger than for someone who’s here for a six-month stay. But from a day-to-day perspective our lives here are no different to any of the other crew members.

You’re working together throughout this year – what does that show us about working together on Earth? Is that something we can learn from?

SK: I think so, this space station, this neutral territory so to speak in a very challenging environment, gives us the opportunity to work on something very important, very difficult. It’s one of the great successes of the space station. We’re getting great results now from the science we do. So there’s a lot to be learnt from this in many different ways.

And Scott, have you learnt anything from the Russians?

I learn stuff from these guys all the time. They have a lot of experience. Their long duration spaceflight experience is more extensive than ours. They do some things differently. They’re more practical. Their budget is less than Nasa has so it’s great to see what they can achieve with more limited resources. It’s quite impressive.

And Mikhail, have you learnt anything from working with the Americans?

I have to say to there’s a lot to learn from Americans. First of all they’re very specific, very thorough, particularly in performing their tasks and objectives and I believe there’s still a lot to learn from our partners and we’re learning from each other everyday.