COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- Logging hours of time preparing for games was a common practice for Barry Wilmore when he was a starting linebacker at Tennessee Tech in the early 80s.

Since then, logging days, weeks and month of preparation time became the norm in his career as a NASA astronaut.

Lately, the Mt. Juliet native has been preparing for a whole new routine -- on Thursday, he will ride a Russian rocket into space. Despite a tense political relationship between the U.S. and Russia, Wilmore has completed years of preparation at a cosmonaut training center in Moscow before he launches up to the International Space Station, where he’ll be taking command upon arrival.

Wilmore told NPR that he isn't concerned about the politics surrounding the effort.

“Certainly, I watch the news. I’m aware of what’s been going on globally in the world, but day-to-day, our relationship with our partners in the International Space Station program … it’s not been affected whatsoever,” he said. “If I did not listen to the news, I would not know that there are any political tensions at all, because our working relationship remains to be very strong.”

 Wilmore and two Russian cosmonauts — Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova — have been preparing for their time on the International Space Station for two years, and he says they’ve gotten to know each other pretty well. They’ve been over to his house, he says, and sometimes socialize outside of work. They’ll be spending six months together in space.

It’s not Wilmore’s first time at the ISS, but it is the longest. The Navy veteran was part of an 11-day space shuttle mission to the space station in 2009.

The opportunity to serve as commander of the ISS is something that Wilmore couldn't have imagined when he was studying defensive schemes for the Golden Eagles and trying to learn tendencies of his opponents.
 
"Wow, it’s humbling.  It really is," he said. "From day one when I entered the Navy—I was just about to say how many years ago; I’ll just say many years ago—they trained you, train you for leadership. They train you to be the commanding officer, to take charge and lead men, and, to have this opportunity in this environment, it’s very humbling, very humbling, and I’m grateful, grateful beyond words, for the opportunity and just prayerful that it all comes off well."

For more on Wilmore’s background and the space mission, read his preflight interview with NASA.