This was an interview from 2013 from a deaf school & her: Hi I’m NASA astronaut Tracy Caldwell Dyson. Here I live on the International Space Station. We say ISS.The space station is about 220 miles over Earth. That’s pretty far! Traveling to the space station is very fast, faster than a speeding bullet. Wow.

I want to communicate the importance of what NASA is doing here in space and on the ISS. The school for the deaf has graduated many students who have gone on to do wonderful things.

One thing I have learned is that deaf people can do anything. The only thing they can't do is hear. Maybe some day you can fly into space and live on the ISS.

For more information about what NASA is doing in space on the ISS, go to the web, type: www.nasa.gov/station

Now some quick questions people asked me. Question 1: What is your job on the ISS? Well everyday, maybe I work to help build things on the ISS. Some days I help to {maintain} the ISS, and most of the day I do science (chemistry). Some days I communicate with people all around the world. That is what I think is very important. How did you become interested in sign language?

Long time ago, when I was a young high school student, I met a girl who's deaf; she's same as me, a sprinter on the track team. So she taught me how to sign. Third question: How did you learn so much sign language? Well, after high school, I went to college and when I wasn't in class for chemistry, I was in class for sign language. I went to more places to learn sign language. After college, I went to graduate school. I learned more sign language because I taught chemistry to students and I had one student who was deaf. She needed help understanding chemistry because she had a teacher who wasn't deaf, and she couldn't watch the teacher, read and watch the interpreter all at the same time. It was difficult to understand chemistry (for her).

I helped her and she helped me learn new vocabulary words.

Like before, I didn’t know how to sign chemistry electrons ... words like that.

Okay, well that’s all the time I have for questions. Thank you very much. Bye. #whyisign #askmewhyisign #nasa (on YouTube too).