NAPA, Calif. (KGO) -- NASA astronaut and former Napa resident Kate Rubins has been back on earth for about nine months since her stint on the International Space Station.
RELATED: Napa's astronaut Kate Rubins speaks with old high school from ISS
Tuesday at the Research and Development conference in Washington DC, Rubins talked about the importance of the space mission and the science that's being conducted on the ISS.
"I want to analyze the microbiome of the spacecraft and the astronaut, I think there is a huge amount of work out there that we haven't discovered," she said.
Other speakers at the conference also include Space X's Elon Musk.
The conference has sessions in the Bay Area at the Exploration Forum at Ames Research Center at Moffett Field.