Order of Man - MIKE MASSIMINO, NASA Astronaut ｜ Achieve the Impossible

00:00:00.000 Life is full of hard learned lessons. We all know that, but it's been said that, quote, a smart man learns from his mistakes and a wise man learns from the mistakes of others.

00:00:10.180 That's why this podcast is so powerful, because we get to hear from incredible men doing incredible things who can teach us things that would be painful, delayed and expensive to find out on our own.

00:00:22.260 And I can think of few men as qualified to do so as former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino. Today, Mike and I talk about some of his best learned lessons in the NASA program and in space, including no one leaves the pool until everyone passes the test.

00:00:38.760 We also talk about learning to adjust to life and your goals along the way. What was different about NASA astronaut candidates, affectionately referred to as ASCANS, he told me that, I'm not making that up myself, that made them successful, knowing when to pivot and to break a few rules and ultimately how to achieve the seemingly impossible.

00:00:59.600 You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and boldly charge your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time. Every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated. Rugged. Resilient. Strong. This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.

00:01:24.140 Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler. I'm your host and the founder of the Order of Man podcast and movement. Very, very excited about the conversation today with Mike. I've been looking forward to this one for a very long time, and I've wanted to have Mike on the podcast for years. We were finally able to make it happen.

00:01:41.320 And if you're new to the show, we've got guys like Tim Tebow and Terry Cruz, Matthew McConaughey, Ben Shapiro, Jocko Willink, Andy Frisilla, and the list goes on and on and on of the men who have joined us and imparted some of their hard-earned lessons and wisdom with us.

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00:03:02.200 All right, let me introduce you to Mike Massimino. He is a former NASA astronaut with multiple trips to space with a total of nearly 24 days spent outside of our Earth's atmosphere.

00:03:13.860 He is now a professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University and also the senior advisor for space programs at the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum.

00:03:23.600 He holds a master's in mechanical engineering from Columbia and also a PhD from MIT and is also notably the first man to tweet from space.

00:03:34.260 We do talk a little bit about that in today's conversation.

00:03:37.100 He's also a New York Times bestselling author with his last book, Spaceman, and has recently written a new book called Moonshot, An Astronaut's Guide to Achieving the Impossible.

00:03:47.820 Mike, so great to have you on the podcast. I think you are only the second astronaut that I've had on the podcast.

00:03:58.440 And I remember trying to get you on the podcast when, was it Spaceman? Was that your first book that came out?

00:04:04.900 Yep, that was the first one.

00:04:06.580 I reached out then and I wasn't able to get you. Unfortunately, your team reached out to me and I'm like, yes, absolutely.

00:04:12.820 I want to have Mike on the podcast. So, I've really been looking forward to having you and having this conversation.

00:04:19.120 Well, thanks for having me, Ryan. I appreciate it.

00:04:21.620 Tell me about the difference between Spaceman and your newest book that you've come out, which is called Moonshot,

00:04:28.300 and why you decided to write another book about, you know, obviously your career, but also lessons in leadership

00:04:36.200 and how we, as civilians, can implement some of the lessons that you've learned in space in our own lives.

00:04:44.160 Sure, Ryan. The first book you mentioned, Spaceman, was a memoir.

00:04:48.960 So, it was kind of details about me and what I had been through and how I got to the astronaut office

00:04:55.720 and what I did in space and so very biographical.

00:05:01.800 This new book, Moonshot, is trying to share lessons learned to hopefully help people achieve their own moonshots.

00:05:13.880 You know, over the years of my going to, trying to get to NASA and then at NASA,

00:05:18.960 there were lessons I learned that I think were important for success.

00:05:24.880 And that's what this book is, is about a few decades worth of lessons learned,

00:05:32.080 presented in a way that hopefully will help others achieve their goals as well.

00:05:36.640 I think it will. I've got the book here, so I read it myself.

00:05:39.040 Oh, cool. There you go.

00:05:39.540 Yeah.

00:05:39.920 Yeah.

00:05:40.600 And I like these because this one, like I looked through it and on the content section,

00:05:46.360 it doesn't have any page numbers on it because it's not quite finished yet.

00:05:50.060 So, these are always like prized possessions.

00:05:51.940 Yeah, exactly.

00:05:53.060 Yeah.

00:05:53.320 They're always prized possessions in my collection of books.

00:05:56.700 Yeah.

00:05:57.780 The real book, let me see if I have a copy here.

00:06:00.540 If you're near me.

00:06:02.460 Now, I'd have to go out in the hallway to get one, but it looks more or less the same,

00:06:05.420 except it's got a hardcover.

00:06:07.160 Yeah.

00:06:07.380 But it doesn't look intimidating at all, which I was happy about.

00:06:09.720 It's not very thick.

00:06:11.160 It's a couple hundred pages, but it's not as big as the memoir was.

00:06:16.600 So, it doesn't seem very intimidating.

00:06:18.700 I think I was glad to see that it didn't appear that way to me anyway.

00:06:21.900 And I think that's good.

00:06:23.020 What's the phrase?

00:06:24.080 Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, right?

00:06:26.360 If you can't explain it in a succinct way, then maybe you don't know your information well enough.

00:06:31.260 Yeah.

00:06:31.480 There's a saying.

00:06:33.160 I would have, if I had more time, I would have written a shorter book.

00:06:37.160 Yeah, exactly.

00:06:37.800 It's hard to get, it's hard to get to, so it's, but no, I'm very happy with the way it came out.

00:06:42.520 I don't know, though.

00:06:43.300 I'm curious.

00:06:43.940 I spent a little time in the military, and that's the antithesis, I think, of what we're talking about now.

00:06:49.380 It seems like everything is over-explained, and every little detail is accounted for,

00:06:54.740 and sometimes there's scenarios and situations that are addressed that just seem completely irrelevant and unnecessary.

00:07:02.660 Have you found that to be the case at NASA as well, or is it a well-oiled machine,

00:07:06.560 and you guys focus on the fundamentals, and the rest, I mean, I hate to say, figure it out along the way.

00:07:12.480 I'm sure you don't do that, but I think you understand what I'm saying.

00:07:16.080 Yeah, I think for, I thought it was appropriate.

00:07:18.900 You know, the way we worked as a unit in the astronaut office and the mission control center

00:07:25.380 and our instructors and that group of people at the Johnson Space Center especially,

00:07:30.500 I thought were, when they told you something, it was because you needed to know.

00:07:35.600 I mean, it was, so I felt like the details were important.

00:07:38.900 I think you couldn't know everything, but I felt like the more you knew about something you were working on,

00:07:44.540 the better you would be at it.

00:07:46.080 A lot of what we did was taking care of problems that sometimes we created ourselves

00:07:52.160 or we encountered along the way, and you had to adjust and think about what to do,

00:07:56.540 and I think problem-solving comes with practice,

00:07:59.460 and that's what we did in a lot of our training exercise.

00:08:03.500 We were basically training all the time, and we were on the ground one way or the other

00:08:06.480 to be prepared when we got to space.

00:08:09.020 So I didn't feel like there was a lot of, there was a lot of rules.

00:08:13.140 I think, like, for the way we operated, it was fine.

00:08:15.680 I thought, like, the government had a lot of rules in general, though.

00:08:19.360 Yeah.

00:08:20.240 Yeah, just the way they did everything, just, you know, the rules they had to,

00:08:26.640 what you had to do to set up travel and administrative stuff and all that, bookkeeping.

00:08:32.500 Yeah, that was a little, that was a little much.

00:08:34.260 But as far as the way, compared to all that bureaucracy, I guess,

00:08:38.980 when it came down to the way we were going to operate, I thought it was pretty streamlined,

00:08:43.120 and we stuck to what we needed to know and what we could control.

00:08:48.980 So I think the government in general, a lot of times, has got a lot going on.

00:08:52.980 You know, it's a big, it's big.

00:08:55.420 Yeah.

00:08:55.740 But I feel like within your own team, you can try to get right to business,

00:09:00.520 and that's what we did.

00:09:01.340 Are there unconventional or at least little-known characteristics that somebody like myself or

00:09:08.480 listening would want to know about what it would take to be an astronaut?

00:09:13.720 I mean, you know, when you think about it, obviously, the ability to lead.

00:09:17.080 You talked about the ability to problem-solve.

00:09:19.700 Obviously, somebody who's physically, mentally, emotionally healthy, I imagine,

00:09:24.120 is something that's very important.

00:09:25.620 Somebody that can deal in difficult and challenging circumstances.

00:09:32.820 But are there other characteristics that would make one astronaut or prospect

00:09:37.640 more appealing to an organization like NASA over another?

00:09:42.860 I think that what I was looking for...

00:09:46.760 Are you hearing me okay?

00:09:49.220 Yeah, I've got you just fine.

00:09:50.240 Yeah, I've got you.

00:09:51.540 Okay.

00:09:53.720 If I can double-check here.

00:09:55.440 Sorry.

00:09:56.460 Yeah, no, do what you need to do.

00:09:57.760 Like I gooned something.

00:09:58.780 No, we're good.

00:09:59.220 You're good.

00:09:59.540 You're hearing me.

00:10:00.100 You're hearing me clear.

00:10:00.660 Audio sounds good on my level, so I think you're fine.

00:10:03.380 All right, anyway.

00:10:03.800 Okay, great.

00:10:06.960 Once you get selected, which is not an easy thing to do because a lot of people want

00:10:10.100 to do that job and there's only a few spots, you start helping evaluate applications and

00:10:16.320 candidates after you're in the office, in the astronaut office for a little while.

00:10:22.260 And that's kind of interesting because now, you know, what are you looking for?

00:10:26.560 What do you want?

00:10:27.740 And a lot of people are qualified.

00:10:30.920 That's the first question.

00:10:32.200 Can they do the job?

00:10:33.140 Are they capable?

00:10:33.900 Are they competent?

00:10:34.420 And then the other part is, I think, that kind of comes into it, which is a little harder

00:10:40.540 to assess.

00:10:44.100 Is there any sign of ego that's going to be a problem for us?

00:10:49.520 Ego, I think, can help you want to achieve things and do things and give you confidence.

00:10:55.100 But is this person so much an individualist?

00:10:58.900 Are they going to be a problem when it comes to the team concept that we work under?

00:11:04.000 And then also, is this person passionate about the job?

00:11:08.380 There was it was a job.

00:11:11.420 I mean, just like you're saying in the military, you know, sometimes people glamorize certain

00:11:15.080 careers in their mind of what they think it's like in a movie or something.

00:11:17.960 But the astronaut job was really it was a job.

00:11:20.640 I mean, we got to fly in space, which was awesome.

00:11:22.560 But even that was was hard work.

00:11:24.300 And there was a lot of late nights in training and a lot of missed holidays and birthdays and

00:11:29.180 other celebrations and a lot of long hours and weekends.

00:11:32.200 And and it wasn't easy.

00:11:34.360 And there's a bit of danger involved there.

00:11:36.000 A lot of things we did.

00:11:37.020 So it it wasn't necessarily all fun all the time.

00:11:41.200 And I think that I look for people that had that passion because I think it's the passion

00:11:45.760 and the dedication to the space program that keeps you going when when times are tough.

00:11:51.300 Um, but that the team concept, the idea of finding someone who is willing to admit when

00:11:58.480 they can't do something, you know, because that was part of it, too, that that I learned

00:12:02.120 along the way that was very helpful to me was that the culture we had at NASA was that

00:12:08.340 if you needed help with something, your job was to speak up.

00:12:10.700 And that could be maybe you're hurting and can't perform or something's going on at home

00:12:14.980 or you you just don't understand the concept that we're trying to learn or you're having

00:12:18.600 trouble doing whatever it is, you need to speak up and get some help to rectify that,

00:12:23.380 because if you don't, then you're going to hurt the team.

00:12:25.800 And if you're good at something, your job is to help others.

00:12:28.820 And the idea was if you're really good at something, but your teammate is really struggling

00:12:33.100 with it, then you have something you need to fix, which is help your teammate.

00:12:37.200 So it was this idea of working as a team and putting individual accomplishment kind of

00:12:42.060 on the side.

00:12:43.380 That was that's something that is, I think, hard to find.

00:12:46.840 And I think the most important quality, I mean, you need to be competent to be able

00:12:52.080 to do the job.

00:12:52.840 But I think those those those team, the teamwork aspects of it, those those personality aspects,

00:12:58.320 the way you the way you work with others and the way you deal with the world is do you

00:13:03.020 see it as it's all about me or do I do I take care of the people around me?

00:13:08.700 And that, I think, is the is the thing that we're we're looking for.

00:13:12.280 I always look for more than than other other aspects.

00:13:15.200 Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

00:13:17.340 I'm glad you talked about it as not always being glamorous either, because how many total

00:13:21.940 days do you have in space personally?

00:13:24.960 Yeah, I only got 26.

00:13:26.580 And how long were you an astronaut?

00:13:29.000 18 years.

00:13:30.120 So, yeah, 26 days.

00:13:32.780 You're doing the job that everybody thinks is what astronauts do.

00:13:37.000 26 days out of 18.

00:13:39.300 So I really appreciate you telling us that, because sometimes, you know, even with me to

00:13:44.880 a lesser degree, I'll get people who are like, oh, wouldn't it be cool to talk with guys like

00:13:48.720 Mike and whoever else you're talking to?

00:13:50.460 I'm like, it is cool.

00:13:52.100 But I'm also answering emails and dealing with nonsense and, you know, worrying about the

00:13:58.040 finances.

00:13:58.820 And there's other things that aren't as fun that you don't get to see on a daily basis.

00:14:04.240 Yeah, absolutely.

00:14:08.140 There's always those details that every job comes with.

00:14:15.080 And it's a job.

00:14:18.240 You know, it's a really cool job, but it's a job.

00:14:21.640 But it's interesting, Ryan.

00:14:23.940 I really did like the non-flying part of it, too.

00:14:27.280 I mean, the paperwork or whatever was the pain.

00:14:29.540 They tried to limit that for us, but the training and figuring out problems and being part of

00:14:34.780 the team on the ground, either, you know, preparing and training to go to space or working

00:14:39.640 underwater, training for our spacewalks, flying in our jets, T-38 jets that we flew in, and

00:14:45.380 working, just working to figure out problems with our engineers for how we were going to

00:14:49.320 do our spacewalks, what tools we needed, how are we going to get the job done?

00:14:54.080 I miss that.

00:14:54.880 I miss that as much as being in space.

00:14:58.300 Actually, when I dream, you know, I used to dream when I first left the astronaut office,

00:15:02.260 I dream about being in space.

00:15:03.940 And now I tend to dream more about the preparation we did and missing that, those aspects of the

00:15:08.460 job, too.

00:15:09.320 Is that right?

00:15:09.760 That's interesting.

00:15:10.840 Yeah, I really.

00:15:11.440 I mean, it was, I enjoyed, you got, and that was the thing, you needed to enjoy that,

00:15:14.780 those things where you weren't in space, because, you know, it took, first of all, it took

00:15:19.260 a long time to be selected.

00:15:20.760 It was about a 10-year process for me to finally get picked, and after getting rejected three

00:15:24.920 times.

00:15:26.580 And then it was another two years of basic astronaut school, and then it was another four years

00:15:32.900 after that until I got to fly.

00:15:33.960 It was two years to be assigned, so it was two years of astronaut's college, more or less,

00:15:38.120 to be qualified after you're selected.

00:15:40.800 And then another two years until I got assigned to a flight, and then it was another two years

00:15:44.880 of being assigned until the actual rockets launched.

00:15:47.820 So you've got to enjoy what you're doing along the way and enjoy the training and the other

00:15:53.400 parts of the job, other than flying in space.

00:15:56.280 Yeah.

00:15:57.100 So what was your path?

00:15:58.720 Are you, so you're an engineer, correct?

00:16:02.080 And that's your background?

00:16:04.380 Are you, did you go through the military route, or were you a pilot beforehand?

00:16:09.000 What does that route look like for you?

00:16:10.740 Yeah.

00:16:11.220 No, I didn't go through the military route.

00:16:13.780 I did have, I was academic.

00:16:15.680 So I had some work experience.

00:16:18.580 I had a degree in engineering, had a PhD in engineering, and I had a private pilot's license.

00:16:28.040 So I enjoyed that.

00:16:30.140 But no, I was not a military person.

00:16:32.500 An astronaut office is about half and half, 50-50 military, non-military.

00:16:36.540 Okay.

00:16:36.740 It used to be all military, way back when, when they first started.

00:16:39.820 But especially with the shuttle program in the late 70s, they started selecting more civilians.

00:16:46.420 And so it's an interesting mix.

00:16:48.620 I think, you know, you need military people who can play nice with civilians who are kind

00:16:52.700 of academic and pointy headed.

00:16:54.060 And, you know, you need scientists and engineers who can operate and work with the military culture.

00:17:01.740 I think the military culture, meaning, to me, meaning that you take care of each other and you, you know, you're very team-oriented

00:17:08.780 and you're on time and you do your job and that comes first, all those principles.

00:17:15.540 I think that was our culture, you know, speaking up when, when you made a mistake, not holding it against people

00:17:20.980 when they admit their mistakes, but trying to, trying to understand what happened and keep going.

00:17:26.200 I think a lot of that came out of the military culture that we had in the office.

00:17:29.760 Did you ever find it challenging with your, with your, your, your level of education to communicate effectively with somebody

00:17:39.960 who didn't have the same level of, of formal education?

00:17:43.580 I mean, because that can be a challenge at times too, when you have an engineer, for example, talking with, you know,

00:17:50.020 somebody who doesn't have that level of education.

00:17:51.980 It's like, okay, we're not even speaking the same language.

00:17:54.260 How do you, how do you work through some of that?

00:17:56.920 Well, Ryan, I always felt like if you really understand something, you should be able to explain it to anyone.

00:18:03.820 You know, if you, you know, it's like, oh, I can't explain it to you.

00:18:07.000 It's too complicated.

00:18:07.720 Well, maybe you don't know it well enough.

00:18:09.320 You know, I think, uh, you should be able to, to explain the basic idea of what you're, what you're doing to, uh,

00:18:15.960 to a young person with, with those in elementary school or below, whatever, or, you know,

00:18:20.640 someone who doesn't have education or someone has different experiences.

00:18:23.440 Um, I, I, I, I never, I never thought that was someone else's fault for not understanding what I was saying.

00:18:31.120 I needed to communicate it better.

00:18:33.400 And, um, I, I, I think that there's, um, I think it takes a lot of effort to do that.

00:18:38.860 It's not easy, but I think if you really understand something, you should be able to communicate it.

00:18:42.780 And, uh, so I, I, I think that I hopefully was able to do that.

00:18:47.120 And, but I never felt like, uh, I was talking over people's heads.

00:18:50.800 They couldn't understand what I was saying.

00:18:52.220 It was, it was my job.

00:18:53.260 If I needed, I needed for someone to understand what was going on.

00:18:56.220 It was my job to figure out a way to communicate that to them. 0.99

00:18:59.100 Well, and it's not like you're dealing with dumb people either.

00:19:01.360 I mean, these, the, these individuals are the top of the top, you know, these are the best people we have to offer.

00:19:06.800 So, yeah, certainly the astronauts and the engineers, but I mean, just about it, you know, a lot of people might just have the same background.

00:19:12.620 Um, but most people in life want to do their jobs and want to do well.

00:19:16.780 And, um, yeah, I think if you communicate with them, if, if it's something that you're trying to explain in a situation, I'm thinking, I guess I'm imagining, you know, a situation where we need something done in this person, we need their help.

00:19:27.440 How do we explain to them what we need?

00:19:29.000 I think that most people want to help.

00:19:30.720 Most people want to do their job.

00:19:31.900 Most people want to be, be part of the team that's successful.

00:19:34.760 So, um, I think it's our, you know, our job, if you, if, if you're able to, if you need something done or you're able to something, whatever it is, you know, something about, about something and someone else doesn't, it's your job to figure out how to communicate it effectively.

00:19:46.360 So I always looked at it.

00:19:48.260 I'm glad you talk about that because I think there is this idea that seems to be more prevalent than it has in the past, which is, and I think this is perpetuated by social media that if somebody doesn't get it, that's their, their fault.

00:20:02.780 That's their problem. 0.99

00:20:03.600 Like they don't understand they're dumb. 1.00

00:20:05.140 They don't get it. 0.99

00:20:05.700 And I think, I mean, you can take that attitude.

00:20:08.860 Sure.

00:20:09.420 But with me, I'm a community, I'm a professional communicator.

00:20:12.540 That's what I do for a living.

00:20:13.600 So if I want to communicate a message and I want somebody to understand something, the onus is on me to make sure that I do it in a way that the person listening.

00:20:24.480 Can receive it in a meaningful and significant way and then act on the information.

00:20:29.780 So it serves them in some positive way.

00:20:33.320 Yeah.

00:20:33.600 I, I, I agree with you a hundred percent, right?

00:20:35.600 And I think that if you really understand something, you should be able to communicate it to anybody.

00:20:40.280 Yeah.

00:20:41.080 Yeah.

00:20:41.480 I like how you broke down in the book.

00:20:44.000 You talk about the, uh, 10 different lessons that you've learned and you've alluded to one quite often.

00:20:49.240 And the one that really stood out to me and you, you already alluded to this is, and I wrote it down here.

00:20:53.940 No one leaves the pool until everyone passes the test.

00:20:57.840 Can you explain that to me?

00:20:59.840 Yeah, that was, uh, that was one of my first lessons at NASA.

00:21:03.520 And it was, uh, we were going to have to sweat, take a swim test.

00:21:07.920 And, um, I, I didn't, I found out about this after I was selected, you know, I was selected as an astronaut and my fourth try.

00:21:15.780 And I was very excited.

00:21:17.160 You get a phone call giving you that good news.

00:21:19.940 And then you receive an information packet with, uh, welcoming you to the astronaut office and basic stuff about moving to Houston.

00:21:26.660 When you show up for work, blah, blah, blah.

00:21:28.720 So, uh, so I opened this thing up and I'm very excited.

00:21:31.780 And, uh, you know, first paragraph was, you know, congratulations or something like that.

00:21:36.100 And then, uh, second paragraph was please practice your swimming because you're going to have to take a, a swim test in order to go through water survival through the Navy water survival course, uh, down in Pensacola.

00:21:47.640 And, and the reason for that was, is that we're going to be flying in ejection seat aircraft.

00:21:52.440 And if we eject out of the airplane over water, we come down in a parachute.

00:21:55.900 You got to learn, you know, how to do that.

00:21:57.640 You got to be able to eject and, and, and work the parachute and go into the water.

00:22:01.780 And then survive in the water until someone comes to get you.

00:22:05.720 Right.

00:22:06.060 So you don't want to drown after all that.

00:22:08.140 Right.

00:22:08.860 And the same for the space shuttle.

00:22:10.340 We had a bailout mode where if you, um, if, if you launched in and you had a problem and you couldn't make it to orbit and you come back down, uh, you could try to turn back toward the United States and land somewhere there.

00:22:24.020 Or you could keep going over the ocean and try to land.

00:22:27.500 And we had a couple of sites in Southern Europe or Northern Africa.

00:22:30.240 But if you were stuck in between and what we called the black stripe region, you were going in the water, you were going in the ocean. 0.91

00:22:37.940 So we would, we would bail out.

00:22:40.000 Yeah.

00:22:40.160 That was, that was, we, you know, no, luckily never had to do that.

00:22:42.420 Although we did have two accidents where they, that would have been a better option, but, um, but, but what wasn't, wasn't feasible.

00:22:48.400 But for those, for those cases where we lost the two space shuttles, but, uh, the, the thing was you, you, you bail out of that thing.

00:22:55.520 You're going to just end up finding yourself in the water.

00:22:57.340 You want to be able to survive that.

00:22:58.520 So to survive the experience in the water until help comes and get you.

00:23:02.820 So, uh, that was, um, that was why we needed to go through water survival training.

00:23:07.980 And in order to go to water survival training, you had to be able to pass a basic swim test.

00:23:11.320 So you don't drown during the water survival.

00:23:13.180 So I guess they had no experiences where people showed up and from NASA and the Navy was like these people.

00:23:18.520 They don't have the basic skills.

00:23:20.360 They can't, they can't take the course.

00:23:22.520 So they warned us.

00:23:23.440 We were going to have to pass the test before we could go do that.

00:23:25.920 And, uh, I was a little concerned, you know, but I, I practiced, I was not a strong swimmer.

00:23:30.600 I mainly avoided the waters as I was growing up, but, uh, I needed to learn how to swim.

00:23:35.500 Well, and I practice, practice, practice.

00:23:37.440 And, uh, but I still was worried about how I was going to do, you know, even if I could get by the test, I thought I could do, you know, I don't look like this, you know, again, I was just this academic type.

00:23:47.660 And I had all these cool military people and pilots and everything.

00:23:51.460 And here, you know, who's, you know, who's the dork is what I was afraid of.

00:23:54.180 So I was trying to, you know, try to, you know, try to hide that as long as I could.

00:23:57.720 Anyway, uh, after our first week, our first week was mainly administrative stuff.

00:24:01.820 And at the end of that week on that Friday, um, we were just mainly getting lectures, people telling us about stuff, you know, this is the health plan.

00:24:08.640 This is how you do this, whatever.

00:24:10.000 And then, um, at the end of that week, uh, Jeff Ashby, who was a Navy pilot, um, astronaut in that class before us was, was, was, was proving himself a good leader.

00:24:21.300 And he was given the, the assignment of leading us through our training, being like our adult supervision, telling us what we needed to know.

00:24:28.520 And so he gets, goes to the front of the room and he, and he says, all right, into the first week, I want to remind everyone that, uh, our, the second week, our training starts in earnest.

00:24:37.700 And we're going to begin on Monday with the swim test.

00:24:39.920 I was like, how about a math quiz this out of the way?

00:24:42.840 You're right.

00:24:43.260 Yeah.

00:24:43.540 Yeah.

00:24:43.800 It's like, oh man, something more your speed.

00:24:46.480 This is terrible.

00:24:47.300 Yeah.

00:24:47.420 About a physics quiz.

00:24:48.560 How about we do that?

00:24:49.300 You know, uh, something.

00:24:51.220 And, uh, and then he goes on to say, okay, who are the, um, who are the strong swimmers in this class?

00:24:56.240 So we had a couple of Navy qualified divers and some other people that raised their hands.

00:25:00.480 And then he said, uh, who more important, who are the weak swimmers and don't lie to me.

00:25:05.140 So I raised my hand as did a few other people.

00:25:07.720 And, uh, and then he said, all right, every, everybody who didn't raise their hand could

00:25:12.160 leave, but, um, go home for the weekend.

00:25:15.120 But the people who raised their hands, the strong swimmers and the weak swimmers are going

00:25:19.620 to stay after class.

00:25:21.320 And you're going to find a time to get together over the weekend at a pool.

00:25:25.400 And the strong swimmers are going to help the weak swimmers with their swimming.

00:25:28.860 Because when we go to the pool on Monday, no one leaves the pool until everyone passes

00:25:33.340 the test.

00:25:34.280 Wow.

00:25:34.700 So that, that made me realize I'm in a different world here now.

00:25:37.080 You know, individual accomplishment is okay, but to be successful at NASA, and I think

00:25:42.100 to be successful at life and in us about everything, it's, it's a team game.

00:25:46.780 You've got to look at the success of the team that the individual accolades are great, but

00:25:51.340 how is my teammate doing?

00:25:52.620 How, how are we doing to, uh, to achieve what we need to, to all accomplish?

00:25:56.700 And so you could have been Michael Phelps and set a world record in that pool, whatever

00:26:00.920 that means doing this stuff.

00:26:02.720 But if you left a teammate behind, um, then you also failed.

00:26:06.860 And then the other side of it was, I don't want to be the one holding back the team, which

00:26:09.860 was, I think almost as, almost as important as a lesson.

00:26:13.180 If you're, if you're hurt, if you can't perform or whatever it is that you can't do, you need

00:26:17.020 to admit, admit that because you don't want to hurt the team.

00:26:19.860 And, you know, if you're injured or whatever's gone in your mind, as I was saying, you know,

00:26:23.940 you need to be able to admit that.

00:26:25.000 So, um, that was a lesson I learned.

00:26:27.360 And so I admitted I needed help and I got help, uh, over the weekend.

00:26:30.600 It actually became fun.

00:26:31.600 It was never, it was never like in anything we were doing.

00:26:34.940 If someone needed help, you never, you looked at it as an opportunity to be helpful because

00:26:38.060 you know, it'd be paid back 10 times over when you needed that help.

00:26:41.260 And that was important for the team to be successful.

00:26:43.420 So it wasn't like the, the strong were burdened by the weak.

00:26:46.840 It was like, it was part of their job and that the only, the only way you got yourself

00:26:51.860 in trouble is, is if you didn't help when you're, when you could, or if you needed help

00:26:57.200 and you didn't admit it, because both of those things will hurt the team.

00:27:00.600 And so that was, um, that to me was a very good lesson to learn right off the bat of where

00:27:05.300 I was, uh, in a lot of different ways is you need to help, need to think about the team.

00:27:10.240 It's nothing wrong with not being able to do something.

00:27:12.180 As long as you get that help and make sure you're up to standard so you can do your job and

00:27:16.460 may help make the team successful.

00:27:18.460 Um, admit, admitting mistakes is okay.

00:27:21.580 Admitting that you need help is okay.

00:27:23.880 No, one's going to ever hold that against you.

00:27:25.600 You try to hide stuff.

00:27:26.940 That's when you get into trouble.

00:27:28.260 If you're hiding something and then you get found out, uh, that could be a problem.

00:27:32.140 So you always want to come forward with making a mistake, doing something wrong, whatever

00:27:35.860 it is, let people know, Hey, I did this, you know, this is what we can learn from it.

00:27:39.620 And, and, uh, but you try to hide up a mistake, particularly when, when it could affect someone

00:27:44.820 else.

00:27:45.140 And then you're, then you, that's not good.

00:27:47.100 Then you can't be trusted.

00:27:48.840 It almost seems a little counterintuitive based on, maybe this is just based on the

00:27:52.240 movies, right?

00:27:52.880 Where, uh, I, I would assume without hearing that story that in the, in the second week,

00:27:58.720 when the training really begins, it almost becomes a, uh, a weeding out process.

00:28:04.260 Like, let's see who doesn't have it.

00:28:06.000 Cause we need to get them out of here as quickly as possible.

00:28:08.100 But it doesn't sound like that's the case at all.

00:28:12.340 No, it wasn't.

00:28:13.400 Um, you know, but at that point you're all selected as astronauts and you, and you realize

00:28:19.000 that you're only going to be successful if you help each other, you know, no one can go

00:28:23.320 into space by themselves.

00:28:25.420 It's not that any one thing we did was that difficult.

00:28:28.240 It's just that there was so much of it and not, not any one person could do it.

00:28:31.700 So you needed to work as a team and, and, uh, and work together to accomplish the task.

00:28:37.220 You wanted people looking over your shoulder.

00:28:38.780 You wanted to look over their shoulder.

00:28:40.700 You didn't want people to feel like you were being critical by doing that.

00:28:43.460 You know, that was something that we, that's the way we operated.

00:28:45.600 So, um, it was not, it wasn't that I'm going to get there before you.

00:28:52.420 Um, and if, when that did ever surface, I was unsatisfactory.

00:28:56.880 And so if someone was perceived as a me, me, me person, uh, that person would quickly need

00:29:03.900 to, to straighten themselves out.

00:29:05.440 And if they didn't, then there would be a problem.

00:29:08.120 So it wasn't so much that if you couldn't do the job, but if you, if you presented yourself

00:29:12.900 as someone who was out for themselves, that was a problem because that, that could lead

00:29:17.000 to trouble on a, on a mission.

00:29:18.640 When, so when you, when you're selected for the program, are you officially an astronaut

00:29:24.920 at that point or, or is, or does that come later?

00:29:29.420 Well, it kind of comes later, right?

00:29:31.060 But they call us, you're actually, when you apply to become an astronaut, uh, we're talking

00:29:34.760 about the NASA program now, right?

00:29:36.340 Right.

00:29:36.660 Sure.

00:29:36.820 You applied to, you applied to the, to the, uh, astronaut candidate program candidate or applying 0.98

00:29:42.180 to be an astronaut or as you're affectionately called as an ass can.

00:29:45.580 So we're all asking astronaut candidates. 0.93

00:29:49.180 So you're an astronaut candidate when you're hired.

00:29:52.600 So they more or less have two years to get rid of you without anybody, you know, without

00:29:57.120 any real repercussions there.

00:29:59.060 Uh, if something's not going well, uh, or whatever that means, uh, you, you can get out

00:30:04.560 of there.

00:30:04.960 You know, they can get rid of you.

00:30:06.360 Um, uh, that rarely happens, but most people complete their training and get the opportunity

00:30:13.020 to, to graduate.

00:30:14.840 We actually have a little graduation and you get your silver astronaut pin at graduation.

00:30:19.240 And then, uh, and then when you fly in space, you get a gold astronaut pin.

00:30:23.240 Of course you pay for all this stuff.

00:30:24.980 It's a government program.

00:30:26.180 So, so the individual stuff, yes, by your own stuff, man, we paid, but we paid for our

00:30:31.740 own coffee, even water.

00:30:33.340 If you wanted filtered water, you had to pay for that too.

00:30:35.780 It was like, is that right?

00:30:37.460 Yeah.

00:30:37.860 It was, you know, we're not going to, you can't put that bill to the taxpayer, man.

00:30:41.260 You got to buy your own coffee.

00:30:42.380 So, you know, look as, as a taxpayer, I appreciate that.

00:30:45.980 So thank you very much.

00:30:46.840 There you go.

00:30:47.360 That's it, man.

00:30:48.000 You got to keep, got to keep it above board here. 0.98

00:30:50.080 Um, so, uh, yeah, you're an ass can when you first arrive and, uh, treated as such. 0.99

00:30:57.420 Yeah. 0.99

00:30:57.860 I'm sure.

00:30:58.880 Yeah.

00:30:59.240 You were responsible for, for like running the parties and, uh, entertainment at the

00:31:03.800 Christmas party, all that stuff.

00:31:06.280 Ash, Ash cans did all that stuff. 0.98

00:31:08.160 We need some ass cans around here. 1.00

00:31:09.580 It rains this. 0.98

00:31:10.140 You want to have a party?

00:31:11.040 Where are they?

00:31:12.180 Uh, I don't know if we can say that anymore.

00:31:13.780 I don't know.

00:31:14.180 They probably don't even say it at NASA anymore.

00:31:16.080 It's, uh, politically incorrect.

00:31:17.440 I'm sure that I can or party.

00:31:19.360 What's that?

00:31:19.900 Well, uh, I'm sure, I'm sure there's plenty of parties.

00:31:22.780 I'm sure. 0.96

00:31:23.440 I just don't know about the ass can thing. 0.97

00:31:25.700 Oh yeah. 0.86

00:31:26.200 I think that, no, I don't think that's changed anytime soon.

00:31:30.080 Um, were there very many candidates, ask hands, uh, that, that scrubbed out themselves

00:31:35.640 that decided, Hey, you know what?

00:31:36.940 This isn't what I thought it would be.

00:31:38.820 I mean, it sounds like at that point, you've got so much vested in it.

00:31:42.700 Uh, I'm sure you grew up as a, as a, as a young boy wanting to do this.

00:31:46.760 I can't imagine somebody saying I made the program, but I think I'm good.

00:31:50.460 I'm out.

00:31:51.500 Yeah.

00:31:52.520 Uh, well, um, all of us, we had 44 of us, uh, 35 Americans and nine international astronauts.

00:32:01.440 All of us successfully completed the ass can year in a year and a half, two years, uh, wherever

00:32:06.800 it was.

00:32:07.120 So we all graduated, but then, uh, time went by and we had a couple of things that delayed

00:32:14.460 things.

00:32:15.400 There was, we were waiting for the, we were building a space station and a lot of the

00:32:19.020 flights were for, to build the space station with the shuttle.

00:32:22.400 And, uh, that was a delayed because, uh, I, the service module, which was needed to have

00:32:27.600 people on board, uh, and continue the build after the first element launched, uh, was delayed.

00:32:33.660 Uh, it was, uh, the, this, the Russians were building that and it was delayed a couple of

00:32:37.760 years.

00:32:38.120 So it backed up the flights and people had to wait in line, um, to get assigned.

00:32:43.720 And then, uh, I got to fly and then it was an accident, uh, which again, cut, we had the

00:32:50.080 space shuttle Columbia accident.

00:32:51.140 And so, uh, there's some waiting around going on there.

00:32:54.180 And, uh, we had out of the 44 of us, all, but four people flew in space and three were

00:33:01.900 because of medical reasons.

00:33:03.280 And, um, the, uh, the, the, the fourth was, uh, was, uh, was, uh, was kind of just lost

00:33:10.680 interest.

00:33:11.560 You know, they, I think that person got involved in doing other projects and didn't, you know,

00:33:16.460 went on a rotation somewhere at NASA.

00:33:18.380 I think they're just, they still with the government now even, but, but never got a chance

00:33:22.560 to fly because they got distracted to do other things, which I hopefully was the right

00:33:26.840 thing.

00:33:27.300 So that that's either it's a medical thing or you, or you choose to do something else.

00:33:30.960 Rarely is it that someone gets bounced.

00:33:34.160 Man, let me step away from the conversation, uh, you know, as well as I do, because you

00:33:38.380 might be one of these people that it's that time of year where every man starts thinking

00:33:42.140 about how 2024 is going to be better than 2023.

00:33:46.760 And while I really judge no man, no man who is working to improve his life at any time of

00:33:53.860 the year, uh, I do want next year to be better than this year was, but the only way that is

00:34:02.300 going to work is if you do something different than you've done.

00:34:05.300 And I've got two resources that will provide just that for you.

00:34:09.220 Our first is our free battle ready program.

00:34:12.240 When you join this free program, you're going to unlock access to 17 emails that are going

00:34:17.940 to work you through a program that is guaranteed to change your life.

00:34:22.720 If you do the work.

00:34:24.080 Now, the second is our brotherhood, the iron council.

00:34:26.380 And this brotherhood will put your efforts on hyper drive as you work closely alongside

00:34:31.140 1000 plus other men who are collectively and individually working to achieve their version

00:34:37.780 of quote unquote, the impossible.

00:34:39.900 Uh, we open that up in two weeks.

00:34:41.720 So you can head to order a man.com slash iron council to get your name on the list and also

00:34:47.300 order a man.com slash battle ready to join our free battle ready program.

00:34:52.940 I hope to see you in both.

00:34:54.680 You can do that again at order a man.com slash iron council and order a man.com slash battle

00:35:00.420 ready right after the conversation for now, let's get back to with Mike.

00:35:06.180 So it sounds like you're on a rotation, you're waiting in line.

00:35:09.280 Is there, is there a way to skip the line?

00:35:11.300 Is it performance based?

00:35:12.660 Is it, uh, based on, you know, certain criteria or based on what the mission might be and your

00:35:18.000 aptitude for your ability to complete that mission where you might bump ahead of somebody

00:35:22.360 else?

00:35:23.580 Yeah.

00:35:23.960 It's not like you, you know, it's, it's like everyone's in a pool, right?

00:35:27.340 You know, everyone's in the, in the pool of candidates once you get through the ASCAN

00:35:30.900 training.

00:35:31.280 And then, so like the first guy in our class, one of the first pilots that flew in our class

00:35:37.740 was, uh, uh, was Scott Kelly.

00:35:40.820 And, um, he was, was he the guy you had on your podcast by some chance?

00:35:44.960 He does a lot of outreach.

00:35:46.380 No, he wasn't.

00:35:47.120 Who was it that you had him?

00:35:48.020 Do you remember who it was?

00:35:48.980 Uh, I feel really bad because I can't remember right off hand.

00:35:52.600 I actually, I actually think that he had just been selected.

00:35:56.580 I'm not even sure.

00:35:58.220 I'm not even sure that he was officially an astronaut at that point.

00:36:02.380 I think he was at the, at that, that ASCAN, uh, yeah.

00:36:06.000 Uh, point stage.

00:36:07.680 Well, Scott, uh, Scott's a good guy.

00:36:10.300 And, uh, I know of Scott.

00:36:12.860 What's that?

00:36:13.660 You know, I know of Scott.

00:36:15.900 Yeah.

00:36:16.120 He almost spent a year in space.

00:36:17.420 He's got a twin brothers, also an astronaut, Mark.

00:36:19.660 Good guy.

00:36:20.320 So, uh, so I remember like when they were looking, what they wanted to do is they had

00:36:24.420 a flight.

00:36:25.320 Again, these flights were backed up.

00:36:26.760 So we had been astronauts for about, uh, almost three years and we hadn't had one of

00:36:31.880 our, maybe we had one of our international astronauts fly, but they were kind of on a different

00:36:35.300 program because their countries had arrangements for them to fly.

00:36:38.280 But out of the Americans, no one was, uh, no one had, had was flown in space yet, but

00:36:43.300 there was a flight coming up to the Hubble space telescope.

00:36:46.120 The one before I got to go on the third in the series of five to service a telescope was

00:36:50.780 kind of a last minute thing that came up.

00:36:52.500 It was, there was some problems with the telescope.

00:36:54.780 It could not do its job any longer.

00:36:56.440 They needed to get up there as quickly as possible.

00:36:58.740 So they kind of, uh, they added an extra flight to go do this and one of the guys to get

00:37:03.600 up there quickly and they wanted to get someone from my class just for morale purposes, get

00:37:07.820 them assigned.

00:37:09.080 And so, uh, the, the, the question was, who can we fly out of these pilots?

00:37:12.800 And the answer came back from the training team.

00:37:14.940 Well, it's a short amount of time.

00:37:16.320 So you need someone who's already had rendezvous training, a pilot that has completed that.

00:37:20.660 And so Scott had that.

00:37:21.720 He had, I think he might've been the only guy out of the pilots, um, that had, uh, finished

00:37:26.760 the completed the rendezvous course.

00:37:28.360 Cause that in itself takes a couple months.

00:37:29.900 So they were on such a, so that that's an example of that would happen for me.

00:37:33.500 We're actually, you're docking with the space station.

00:37:36.080 Is that what that is?

00:37:36.700 Well, in that case they were, they were flying, uh, they were flying a Hubble.

00:37:39.280 And so it's learning how to fly a spaceship, uh, in, you know, in, in, to do this, fly

00:37:45.340 through spaceships in, in, uh, in formation more or less and, and how to, cause the orbital

00:37:50.940 mechanics are kind of tricky.

00:37:52.300 You actually, um, if you speed up, you'll go to a higher orbit.

00:37:56.760 Like if you're following something and you speed up too much, you'll go to a high, you'll

00:38:00.960 increase your energy, go to a higher orbit and actually slow down.

00:38:03.880 Cause the higher orbits, you'll, there's lower orbits going faster.

00:38:07.180 It's really wacky.

00:38:08.600 And, uh, you know, so you gotta be careful and you don't want to get too far, far, too

00:38:12.480 far behind.

00:38:13.220 So there's a way you approach a certain way and kind of get behind it.

00:38:16.440 You approach through, uh, you know, through the, the gravity vector or the, you know, the,

00:38:20.500 the vector to the earth, the R vector, we called it.

00:38:23.120 Um, and you would come up there and then kind of, you'd have to work the transition to get

00:38:27.300 in behind it and follow it using a velocity vector.

00:38:30.120 So it was a little bit tricky and there was a lot of, a lot of emergency situations, failures

00:38:35.260 and everything else you had to learn to deal with and tools you would use to help your radar

00:38:38.880 and lasers and all kinds of stuff.

00:38:40.520 So, so it was pretty, pretty intense and, uh, would take a couple months.

00:38:44.620 So that's how they made that day.

00:38:46.560 This guy has rendezvous training.

00:38:47.700 He's a good guy.

00:38:48.180 Let's, let's grab him to be the pilot of his flight.

00:38:51.420 In my case, um, the, that following Hubble flight, um, they had always had, um, experienced

00:38:59.440 people spacewalk on Hubble, the very first servicing mission, all the, there was four

00:39:04.000 spacewalkers on each flight and each one of those on the first mission, each one of the

00:39:07.580 spacewalkers had flown and done a spacewalk on the next mission.

00:39:12.280 And they had all the spacewalkers, uh, two of them, two of the guys were experienced

00:39:17.880 spacewalkers, but the other two guys who never spacewalked before had flown before.

00:39:22.600 And that's the way it was for the next two missions.

00:39:24.620 And then for that, for that mission that I was assigned to, they were trying to get,

00:39:28.980 give opportunities to new people.

00:39:30.520 And they felt they were confident enough, uh, in, in what they knew about the telescope

00:39:35.040 at this point.

00:39:35.720 So what they did is they assigned two people who had spacewalking experience, one person

00:39:41.480 who was, um, a person who had flown before, but not spacewalk and then one total rookie.

00:39:47.320 And I ended up being that one rookie.

00:39:49.420 So, um, no, I, I, they, they, I was available.

00:39:53.480 A couple of my classmates had already been assigned to other flights.

00:39:56.060 So I wasn't the first one assigned to a flight, but I was still available and they felt that

00:40:00.560 was the right guy for, for the, to be a space walker on Hubble and I got the job.

00:40:04.320 So it's kind of looking around who's available and who fits.

00:40:08.880 And, uh, it really, it, I think they try to make the decision as best they can, who is

00:40:13.460 the right person for the job.

00:40:15.340 And that, that can mean a lot of different things, but, but they'll try to, you know,

00:40:19.320 they'll try to give, um, new people opportunities.

00:40:22.800 My friend, Greg Johnson, who I flew with on my second flight was a Navy pilot.

00:40:26.060 And he had this saying that you, you want to hand out assignments to the, to the junior,

00:40:31.120 most qualified person.

00:40:32.360 You want to give the new people a chance.

00:40:34.460 You want to give it to a junior person when you can, uh, but you want that person to be

00:40:37.980 most qualified, the most qualified person to do that.

00:40:41.340 What's the, what's the purpose of the, giving it to the junior, the junior most person, as

00:40:45.960 long as they have the criteria of being qualified, what's, they don't need to be junior most.

00:40:49.840 They just, you just try to give the new people a chance is what you try to, you always try

00:40:53.880 to give the new people a chance.

00:40:55.080 Um, you don't want to save all the goodies for the people, you know, it's, it's not, it's not

00:40:59.820 good form.

00:41:00.500 It people, you know, people will see that, you know, if the experienced guys are getting all

00:41:04.620 the good assignments and the new people aren't getting a chance and there's really no good

00:41:08.540 reason for that.

00:41:09.520 Um, that's not good for morale and, and, uh, it doesn't help the future of the program.

00:41:13.960 And you always, yeah, nobody wants to, nobody wants to stick around.

00:41:17.060 I'm sure at that point, I mean, come on, you know, and it's like, it's not really,

00:41:19.740 it's not fair, you know, it's kind of being greedy.

00:41:22.360 And, uh, so that was not looked upon as being something that you'd want to do is, is be

00:41:28.160 greedy about flight assignments.

00:41:29.440 You want to try to bring the new people along and give them opportunities, but you can't

00:41:33.760 do that.

00:41:34.080 My second flight, we ended up flying four rookies on that flight.

00:41:37.960 But the way to counterbalance that is that we had three people, including me who had flown

00:41:42.320 to Hubble before.

00:41:43.580 So, you know, you could fly four people on a new, you know, four new people on a flight.

00:41:47.480 If you have three other people who are not just familiar with flying in space, but also

00:41:51.280 familiar with the telescope.

00:41:52.820 Um, so that was, so, you know, you try to, you try to mix and match and get the right grouping

00:41:57.040 of people.

00:41:57.820 And a lot of thought goes into it.

00:41:59.600 I used to think, oh, it's just, you know, by chance or whatever, but they, they really

00:42:04.040 did try to put together the right team based on experience and skill level to get the, you

00:42:09.360 have to get the job done.

00:42:10.520 So if you don't have anyone available, who's a newer person that, that can fill the, you know,

00:42:15.860 giving the, one of my bosses explained that, that it was, they were signing a flight and

00:42:20.300 they were looking, they wanted to give people, they needed people who were competent and they

00:42:24.740 needed, who had the right experience.

00:42:26.700 And they also want to give new people a chance, but the experience, uh, the experience, uh,

00:42:32.760 chip, uh, outweighed the flying, the new person.

00:42:36.340 And they, they gave it to an experienced person.

00:42:38.500 So, and he came right out and told us, this is what the, this is why we made this decision.

00:42:42.100 We went with this person who's, who's experienced it.

00:42:44.200 That happens too.

00:42:44.840 A lot of times you, you need that experience, but when you can, you want to, you want to

00:42:49.340 assign the new people to do something when, when possible.

00:42:52.880 What, what was it like that, that, that when you went on that first space walk, you know,

00:42:58.260 and I don't, I don't know the mechanics of it.

00:43:00.240 It's, you know, obviously you put your suit on and you're attached and you've got your

00:43:03.180 hoses and harnesses and cables and whatever else.

00:43:05.840 And then, you know, I'm sure some door opens and there you are and you're out there and

00:43:11.360 you're like, I've been in situations, not nearly what we're talking about here, where

00:43:15.160 it almost feels like this defies physics and it's just really unsettling.

00:43:21.400 What was it like for you?

00:43:22.420 Yeah.

00:43:23.440 Um, we were really well-trained Ryan.

00:43:26.080 And I'm sure if you're in the military, the experiences you, no one was trying to kill

00:43:30.060 me, you know, occasionally it happened, but you know.

00:43:33.180 That was an accident when that happened, you know, they felt bad about, um, but, uh, it

00:43:39.360 was, it was a bit overwhelming from the, the thought of doing, it was more overwhelming

00:43:44.720 than actually doing it.

00:43:45.840 And we were so well-trained.

00:43:47.340 It was unbelievable.

00:43:47.960 When I, when I first poked my head out of the airlock, the, the, the door does open,

00:43:52.220 as you mentioned in air space, it's the door to space and you leave it, you go out out

00:43:56.800 of the airlock.

00:43:57.360 And I poked my head out first to kind of go out on my back, looking up at a head up out of

00:44:01.660 the airlock and my, uh, spacewalking buddy, Jim Newman was already out and he was up on

00:44:06.960 a, on a handrail up on the bulkhead, looking down at me.

00:44:10.840 And, uh, he's, he looks down there and it was his big smile on us.

00:44:15.220 I could see it was, it was day past.

00:44:17.040 So the sun was out, but he had his visor up looking down at me with his big smile on

00:44:21.620 his face and above his, uh, above his head was Africa. 0.71

00:44:26.340 So I, it was, uh, and I thought to myself, how in the world am I going to get anything

00:44:30.140 done around here?

00:44:31.100 You know, this is just a beautiful view, but then I turned my head and looked and there

00:44:35.780 were handrails on the bulkhead of the space shuttle for us to move around on just like

00:44:39.800 there were in the training pool.

00:44:41.320 And I remember looking at that and said to myself, uh, I'm all right.

00:44:44.660 I know what I'm doing here.

00:44:45.580 This looks familiar.

00:44:46.440 And, uh, I felt that way through the whole spacewalk, uh, nothing prepares you for looking

00:44:51.040 at the planet and that experience being out there is pretty insane, but to do your job,

00:44:57.700 you know, we were really well prepared and you, you know, you, I think it's okay to be

00:45:02.740 nervous about things.

00:45:03.560 It shows that you care.

00:45:05.560 Um, I think, you know, people sometimes, Oh, I'm nervous.

00:45:07.680 That's all right. 0.96

00:45:08.200 It shows you if you didn't give a crap about what you were doing, you wouldn't get nervous, 0.98

00:45:11.360 right? 0.97

00:45:11.580 You get something's meaningful to you.

00:45:13.220 Typically we'll get nervous and then that's all right.

00:45:15.460 And it helps you prepare, but you reach a point where it's time to execute.

00:45:19.800 And it's, you have to put all that behind.

00:45:22.660 You have to trust in your training and your team and your tools and yourself and say, now

00:45:27.020 it's, it's time to relax.

00:45:28.960 And we were ready to go here and we're going to execute the plan and, uh, try not to worry

00:45:34.400 or being scared doesn't help you in those situations.

00:45:36.980 I think you just have to focus on what you're doing, rely on, on your training.

00:45:40.640 And that's what I did and was able to get through it that way.

00:45:43.300 So the real question is having seen it from your vantage point, is the earth flat?

00:45:49.260 That's the real question we need to have answered here today.

00:45:52.220 All right, Ryan.

00:45:53.420 Can you answer that?

00:45:54.420 No, it's not flat.

00:45:57.100 Brought that off your list of worries.

00:45:59.160 All right.

00:45:59.880 We'll, uh, so many other things to be worried about.

00:46:01.880 Don't worry about that.

00:46:02.680 Uh, one of the lessons that you had just alluded to is, um, just, just making adjustments.

00:46:10.020 You've got your training, you know, obviously you said you're well-trained, uh, but still

00:46:15.000 you see Africa, you see, you see the planet, the way it is, and then you have to pivot and 0.95

00:46:20.380 you have to make adjustments.

00:46:21.340 And that's one of the chapters in the book is knowing when to pivot.

00:46:24.560 Um, how do you know when to do that?

00:46:26.580 I'm sure that with all the protocols that an organization like NASA has in place, like

00:46:31.660 we talked about earlier, um, there's probably a lot of rules, but I imagine there's times

00:46:36.860 where rules need to be bent and broken based on situations.

00:46:41.020 How do you know when to do that?

00:46:43.720 Yeah.

00:46:44.140 Um, I think sometimes, uh, what I found was that, uh, the decisions are made for you.

00:46:50.480 Like we are retiring this spaceship and bringing in another one.

00:46:54.980 That's what happened with the space shuttle.

00:46:56.880 And there were guys in the office that would be like, we need to keep the space shuttle.

00:47:00.680 And, you know, we had this meeting, the NASA administrator came down to talk to us and

00:47:04.700 he was like, but why are we giving up the space shuttle?

00:47:06.700 And he's like, well, the space shuttle is going away and your government has made that decision.

00:47:12.040 So you can't fly it anymore.

00:47:13.840 It's not going to be available to you, you know?

00:47:15.900 And you have to adjust to this new world of working with SpaceX.

00:47:20.760 And we were at the time working with the Russians more closely as our only ride to space for 0.68

00:47:24.780 a while.

00:47:25.140 And we're like, we shouldn't be doing that.

00:47:27.020 Well, it doesn't matter.

00:47:27.860 Cause that's what's happening.

00:47:28.960 So sometimes the changes, you know, it's there, the, you know, the, the technology is there.

00:47:34.180 The internet is part of our life.

00:47:35.500 We have to use cell phones.

00:47:36.800 I don't know.

00:47:37.120 Maybe you don't have to, but you know, there's things that life changes and you need to accept

00:47:42.060 these things.

00:47:42.680 Um, that's, and, or, or are you going to get left behind?

00:47:46.280 You're not going to be able to continue.

00:47:48.140 You're not going to be able to communicate or, or be successful, I think.

00:47:51.400 But the, the other, I think the harder question is maybe, or the harder thing to do is know

00:47:55.960 when it's time for you to make the choice to do something differently.

00:47:59.480 And, um, that's what I was faced with.

00:48:02.500 Um, and you asked me how, I think you, you got to listen to yourself and listen to your

00:48:06.780 heart and your soul and what you're telling yourself.

00:48:08.280 When I decided to become that I, not that I was going to decide to become, but I would

00:48:12.320 decide that I would try to become an astronaut that I wanted to be part of the space program.

00:48:16.700 I wanted to try to do that because I didn't know if it was going to work out, but I knew

00:48:20.820 I wanted to try.

00:48:22.340 Um, I was listening to what my heart was saying was important to me.

00:48:26.700 I, I just found myself always interested in that since I was a little kid watching Neil

00:48:30.720 Armstrong on the moon, I was always interested.

00:48:33.180 I never believed I could be a part of it.

00:48:34.740 I thought, there's no way I'm going to be able to do this, but, but, uh, and I never

00:48:39.240 really thought about it seriously until after I was graduating college, but it was, it was,

00:48:45.500 it was obvious to me that the space program was really important to me.

00:48:49.300 I would walk by a newsstand and I would see a space article or something on a magazine.

00:48:53.540 I would stop and read it if I was the TV flipping channels and it was a space something on, I

00:48:59.080 would, I would watch it.

00:49:00.480 I was, I was interested to me.

00:49:02.640 There was something inside of me that, that told me that this was different than anything

00:49:06.740 else that was going on to me.

00:49:08.120 It was really important to me and either I could just keep watching it or I could try

00:49:11.780 to be a part of it.

00:49:12.580 And I knew I would only be happy with myself if I tried to be a part of it.

00:49:16.680 I could understand if I wasn't able to, because I was not accepted as an astronaut or couldn't

00:49:20.920 get a job in the space program.

00:49:22.300 Those things happen.

00:49:23.640 That's life.

00:49:24.260 But at least it wasn't going to be because I wasn't trying.

00:49:27.660 And I think when it came time for me to leave, it was the same thing of, I, I, I felt after

00:49:33.580 my, it actually happened to me on orbit on my second flight, some of the last days on

00:49:37.480 orbit, we had some time off and I was looking out the window, listening to music, watching

00:49:41.540 the earth.

00:49:42.320 And I felt satisfied with what I was doing.

00:49:44.480 It was really strange, right?

00:49:45.580 I never, I never thought I'd say I felt satisfaction after that second flight.

00:49:49.720 And when I came back to earth, it was, I, I started seeing signs in myself that I wasn't

00:49:56.540 as interested as I was before, you know, really years ago.

00:49:59.840 Like, yeah, like when I was, I mean, to become an astronaut and to go on these space flights

00:50:04.900 that I would have done any, I would have, I mean, I wouldn't have done anything. 0.91

00:50:08.040 I wouldn't have done anything, you know, illegal or immoral or really stupid. 0.97

00:50:11.360 I tried to avoid doing that, but I felt like I would eat dirt. 0.90

00:50:14.540 You know, someone said, Hey, you want to fly to space?

00:50:16.420 You got to eat that dirt.

00:50:17.380 I would like verify you sure I'd eat it.

00:50:19.660 I mean, I would have done anything.

00:50:20.920 You know, I was okay to sacrifice, take the risk, uh, you know, sacrifice time with the

00:50:25.900 family, which was unfortunate, but had to happen sometimes.

00:50:28.940 Um, and I was okay with all that.

00:50:30.960 I was like, that's all right.

00:50:31.700 You know, you know, this is, this is what I'm willing to do.

00:50:34.580 And I felt after my second flight, I, I just wasn't the same.

00:50:39.600 Like I wasn't that interested in doing the extra training anymore.

00:50:44.240 I wasn't that interested in the overnight shift at this space center.

00:50:48.200 I was, there were other things that aspects of the job and, and what was going on with

00:50:53.260 my family that all of a sudden seemed more important.

00:50:56.040 I still did my job, but I didn't have that real fire.

00:50:59.360 And I think to do something like dedicate yourself to a space flight, you need to be a hundred

00:51:04.140 percent in, and so does everybody else in your life.

00:51:06.940 Um, and I, I just didn't feel that burning desire.

00:51:09.940 And I think I kind of suspected it was kind of going through the motions for a while that,

00:51:14.040 oh yeah, I'll go to space again.

00:51:15.640 But, um, and if it was easy, I probably would have went, if I would have gotten assigned to

00:51:19.040 one of the final shuttle flights, I would have gone, I think, because I knew how to do that.

00:51:23.580 So it's fully trained for that sort of flight.

00:51:25.860 It would have been, you know, I don't know.

00:51:27.360 I want to say easy, but I think I could handle that.

00:51:30.580 But what happened was I wasn't offered one of those flights.

00:51:32.580 I was offered a flight to go to the space station on a Soyuz, a Russian rocket.

00:51:37.480 And the training was going to take about three years.

00:51:40.020 And most of it was going to be out of the country.

00:51:42.240 And my kids were both in high school.

00:51:44.100 And when I weighed all of it, I was like, ah, I think I want to maybe do something else.

00:51:49.320 And so I turned down that flight assignment.

00:51:51.520 And when I turned that mainly, I, I, I put it on my personal reasons or, you know, I don't

00:51:57.460 want to, I don't, I can't, it's not a good idea for me to be away from home at this

00:52:01.040 time for that long for these years, maybe in a few years or something.

00:52:04.740 And my boss was pretty cool about it.

00:52:06.740 Peggy, which was like, okay, fine.

00:52:08.460 You know, I'm disappointed, but I understand.

00:52:11.000 And we'll keep you in mind for the future or something like that.

00:52:13.180 But once I, once I, once you turn down a flight assignment, I think you're really telling

00:52:17.420 yourself something.

00:52:18.040 And I was like, that's it.

00:52:19.340 You know, what am I doing?

00:52:20.520 You know, what am I telling myself?

00:52:22.060 And I knew it was time to start thinking about something else and that that was okay.

00:52:26.620 Um, I, I think I'll always consider myself an astronaut.

00:52:30.240 You know, I'm always, I think that's, that's what will define me.

00:52:35.080 I think in my mind, anyway, uh, people might think of other things, you know, whatever that

00:52:40.320 might be.

00:52:40.800 Um, my role on the big bang theory, if you've seen the show, the big bang theory on that

00:52:45.980 show seven times and people know me from that, even people at NASA know more about me being

00:52:50.980 on that show than me, what I did in space.

00:52:53.000 So, yeah, you know, but that, but in my brain, you know, I'm not an actor in my brain.

00:52:57.820 I'm, uh, I'm that, you know, 35 year old astronaut, you know, that's, that's who, uh, that's

00:53:03.620 how I think of myself.

00:53:04.780 And I think that's okay.

00:53:06.040 Um, but I think it's also important to find in that move to the next thing, you know,

00:53:11.560 not to give up, not to give up a dream to find another dream.

00:53:14.860 And, uh, for me, what I enjoyed is doing things like we're doing right now, Ryan, telling the

00:53:20.120 stories of space and sharing these incredible lessons that I learned and trying to be helpful

00:53:26.060 to other people.

00:53:26.680 I'm a professor at Columbia.

00:53:28.180 I was an instructor before I was, I was a, I was a Georgia tech as a professor there for

00:53:33.640 a short time in less than a year, it was really like nine months.

00:53:36.260 And I found that I was selected by NASA.

00:53:37.720 And so that kind of, that started to slow down.

00:53:40.640 So I was there less than a year in Atlanta, uh, teaching there, but, um, I had done that

00:53:45.460 and, and, uh, and I always had that in the back of my mind while I was at that NASA, that

00:53:49.340 at least I had something else I could go to if, if the NASA thing ever, you know, kind

00:53:54.360 of wound down for me.

00:53:55.880 And, uh, and so I looked at academic jobs and I was offered a job at Columbia.

00:54:00.720 I got a chance to come back to the New York area.

00:54:02.540 I live in New York city now and, uh, do some work at the intrepid museum, write books and,

00:54:08.520 uh, do other things that, uh, that I really enjoy give talks about the, about what I learned

00:54:13.960 as an astronaut and how it could help people.

00:54:15.900 So I was overjoyed to find out that the lessons I had learned would be useful to people.

00:54:20.500 And the only way to really share those is to get out of the astronaut office, believe

00:54:24.060 it or not.

00:54:24.400 I mean, cause that job is your job is flying in space and you're really, you really can't

00:54:29.620 write a book.

00:54:30.180 You know, you're not allowed to, you're, you know, it's, uh, you know, it's against

00:54:34.760 the ethics rules.

00:54:35.520 You're not allowed to profit from your, while you're an astronaut.

00:54:38.160 So, although you are tweeting from space though, I do know that about you.

00:54:41.200 Yeah.

00:54:41.640 All right.

00:54:41.920 So I did tweet from space, but this is interesting, Ryan, to give you an example.

00:54:45.720 Uh, if you remember like about a couple of years ago, NFTs were a big deal.

00:54:50.300 Yeah, sure.

00:54:51.020 You remember that?

00:54:51.640 This is a little off topic here, but NFTs are big.

00:54:55.240 And some guy, I think the first guy that sent the first tweet, whoever that guy was on invented

00:54:59.240 Twitter, he sent the first tweet and they minted it as an NFT and it sold for like a lot of

00:55:04.240 money.

00:55:05.140 Do you remember this at all?

00:55:06.520 Yeah, I do.

00:55:07.560 You remember that?

00:55:08.040 All right.

00:55:08.560 So, uh, one of my, one of my agents had this idea.

00:55:12.240 You sent that first tweet from space, you know, and it's on your account.

00:55:15.760 You get to keep your account.

00:55:16.780 You know, why don't we mint that and sell that you get a lot of money for the first

00:55:20.880 tweet from space.

00:55:21.880 And it's like, okay, let me check with my old boss.

00:55:25.200 So I go over to NASA, cause I do not want to get crosswise with the federal government.

00:55:30.120 Of course.

00:55:30.280 I reached out to the lawyers there and they said, you created that tweet while you were,

00:55:36.640 you know, while you were on the job, while you were a NASA astronaut in space on a U S

00:55:43.280 government spacecraft, that is considered to be a work of the United States government

00:55:48.320 and cannot be copyrighted.

00:55:50.720 And for anyone to claim it, for anyone to claim it as the, you know, as a copyright or that

00:55:56.000 they could mint it as an NFT would be unethical at best and, and, and a felony at worst.

00:56:03.200 So it's like, okay, that's it.

00:56:05.220 I don't need to, I don't need to miss that.

00:56:06.740 Just wanted to check.

00:56:07.840 No, no, man.

00:56:08.520 So that was, that was part of my job, Ryan was sending that first tweet from space.

00:56:12.980 So, yeah, yeah, that's pretty interesting.

00:56:14.900 You know, I did, uh, years ago, probably three or four years ago, I, I saw the space shuttle.

00:56:20.800 I don't, I don't know which shuttle it was.

00:56:23.780 Um, uh, I believe it was at the Smithsonian in DC and that's discovery discovery.

00:56:30.860 Hey, so discovery is there.

00:56:32.180 Yeah.

00:56:32.840 That, that is amazing.

00:56:34.900 I mean, it, it is, I, I was, I was just taken back.

00:56:39.760 I was so blown away.

00:56:40.840 I mean, we all, we all see the shuttle on TV or, you know, it's picture on it, on the

00:56:45.060 internet, but then you stand, I mean, it's massive.

00:56:47.900 It's way bigger than I thought it was.

00:56:50.160 Yeah.

00:56:50.560 And it's just this incredible piece of technology and machinery.

00:56:55.920 And, you know, the fact that it travels to space, I was just so taken back by it.

00:57:01.780 It was, it was amazing.

00:57:03.040 No, it is, it is truly amazing.

00:57:05.660 Uh, Ryan, there's no doubt about it.

00:57:07.180 Every time we have one here in New York at the intrepid museum, it's a spatial enterprise

00:57:11.860 that was used for drop tests, never went to space, but it's the same size as the other

00:57:16.980 space shuttles is discovery is in Washington.

00:57:20.160 As you mentioned endeavors in LA and, uh, uh, Atlantis, one of the ones I flew on is in

00:57:26.220 Florida.

00:57:26.600 Uh, so they are, but they are huge.

00:57:30.080 They're, they're incredible.

00:57:31.920 They're really incredible.

00:57:33.300 Uh, you compare that to what we get back now from the Soyuz or the little, the, uh, the

00:57:38.720 dragon space, the space sex, they come back, they bop up and down like a cork, you know,

00:57:42.540 these little, these little room, you know, it's like, they're flying in a closet.

00:57:46.200 It's like, you know, they have a, at the intrepid museum, we have a Soyuz that's flown in

00:57:50.120 space right next to the space shuttle.

00:57:52.320 It's out the back at the, behind the space shuttle on the floor.

00:57:55.220 It looks like a poop that came out of the butt of the space shuttle.

00:57:57.980 It's so little. 0.60

00:57:59.080 It's like a little, it's like the baby competitors gigantic thing.

00:58:03.500 And that's what, yeah, that's people have that same reaction when, when, when I, when 0.87

00:58:07.280 they see it for the first time, like, Holy crap, it's really big.

00:58:10.720 It's, and it also, it's, so it took off, it took off like a, like a rocket.

00:58:15.560 Okay.

00:58:16.420 With seven people on board.

00:58:18.380 That's relatively a lot of people.

00:58:19.740 We don't have anything that flies that many people right now and a bunch of stuff.

00:58:23.400 Yeah.

00:58:24.080 A lot of equipment, the space station, a lot of equipment, the Hubble space telescope

00:58:28.160 is the size of a school bus.

00:58:30.160 That's big.

00:58:31.100 You know what I mean?

00:58:31.500 You take a lot of, you can't fit that stuff.

00:58:33.360 These little baby things.

00:58:34.300 They got to like send up the gear separate.

00:58:36.580 And so you can take up a lot of cargo and seven people and launch it off the planet.

00:58:43.580 Right.

00:58:44.500 Then it can go to orbit and become like a mini space station.

00:58:47.940 You live in there.

00:58:48.900 It opens, it opens up the doors so you can radiate heat and you can do your job and you

00:58:53.320 can, you can stay there for, you know, like I did about 14 days.

00:58:56.980 Um, and then you close this thing back up and it lands on a runway, like an aircraft.

00:59:03.120 It's a glider.

00:59:04.020 There's no power when it comes out.

00:59:05.560 It just glides down at the end.

00:59:07.080 Oh, okay.

00:59:07.780 But this is unbelievable.

00:59:08.900 And it lands on a runway and we're able to create this thing back in the seventies and,

00:59:14.740 uh, just an amazing spaceship.

00:59:16.820 We'll never have anything as cool for a very long time.

00:59:19.460 The ones we have now are, I think are, are better because they're a lot safer and they're

00:59:24.460 reusable and they're much less expensive than operating the shuttle.

00:59:28.120 So they're good for those reasons.

00:59:29.780 But the cool factor, I think I'd go with the space shuttle.

00:59:33.260 I agree.

00:59:33.740 You know, I, I remember as I was standing under it, looking at this massive, you know, aircraft

00:59:39.880 and, and I had read, uh, the Wright brothers by David McCullough years.

00:59:44.760 Yeah.

00:59:45.440 Yeah.

00:59:45.700 And I, I couldn't help, but think if, if those two were standing exactly where I was

00:59:51.820 standing, what they must have been thinking based on, you know, coming from a bicycle

00:59:59.320 shop to gliding three feet off the ground for 50 meters or whatever the first flight

01:00:04.900 was and how far it's come in a relatively short period of time.

01:00:09.600 Yeah.

01:00:09.900 It was a little over a hundred years.

01:00:11.440 You know, they did that when, well, they did it in 1903.

01:00:14.700 I think they did 1903, I think is exactly, but that wasn't much of an aircraft.

01:00:18.760 It was like a kite, you know, flying around those guys, you know, with the goggles or whatever

01:00:22.420 they were doing.

01:00:23.300 Yeah.

01:00:23.820 It was a little sporty.

01:00:25.940 Yeah.

01:00:26.480 Yeah.

01:00:26.900 Interesting.

01:00:28.080 Yeah.

01:00:28.260 And to the moon in 1969, you know, amazing.

01:00:32.580 Wild.

01:00:33.700 What do you think of the, uh, I want to be respectful of your time, but I do have a question about

01:00:38.100 the future of space travel.

01:00:40.100 We have, uh, obviously advanced technology, um, you know, admittedly without trying to,

01:00:46.900 to be offensive to you or anybody else who, who is an astronaut, uh, you know, there's

01:00:51.160 a lot of human error, of course, that needs to be taken into consideration.

01:00:54.660 Uh, now we have AI.

01:00:56.640 Do you feel like more space travel will be done without the use of astronauts and more

01:01:03.640 based on technology?

01:01:05.040 Like what, what does that look like?

01:01:06.380 Do you think?

01:01:07.140 I think it's, uh, no, I think there's still a role for the astronaut.

01:01:11.320 I think that technology really helps.

01:01:13.940 Um, we can reuse the rocket ships in a way that we couldn't before they're able to fly

01:01:19.260 the booster back instead of with, with the shuttle, we were able to, we recovered the

01:01:23.840 solid rockets, but the external tank got thrown away.

01:01:26.380 Just dumped, right?

01:01:27.280 Big piece of equipment.

01:01:28.260 What's that?

01:01:29.180 I said, they were just dumped, right?

01:01:30.960 Dumped.

01:01:31.340 Well, yeah.

01:01:31.720 Well, back in the Apollo days, just everything was dumped except for the command module came

01:01:35.120 back, you know, that gigantic, colossal rocket and only a little bitty thing came back

01:01:39.500 from it with where the crew is in.

01:01:41.060 Um, so now everything gets reused and, uh, with the shuttle, we reused most of it, but, but

01:01:46.700 now just about everything can come back and very efficiently to be used again, um, refueled

01:01:52.740 and, and do it over.

01:01:53.960 And, uh, uh, so that, that's an advantage.

01:01:57.460 It brings the cost down.

01:01:58.780 So the technology can bring the cost down because you can reuse things and do things more efficiently.

01:02:03.960 Um, also the, the private companies are a little bit more efficient than the government.

01:02:08.140 We talked about government bureaucracy, NASA and the government is, you know, you're dealing

01:02:13.100 with the taxpayer's dollars, so you can't do everything with it.

01:02:15.560 You got to be careful what you're doing.

01:02:16.800 Um, they also have become, I think a bit risk averse because they've had some accidents.

01:02:22.060 This is the government I'm talking about, you know, and, but I think private enterprise

01:02:25.800 didn't want to take risks with people's lives, but they're a little bit quicker in their

01:02:29.220 development.

01:02:29.800 They can make decisions much more quickly than the government can.

01:02:32.800 And maybe that's what you were referring to earlier about the government bureaucracy.

01:02:35.640 I think private enterprise has that advantage.

01:02:38.200 So I think having them involved has been, been a, meant a lot.

01:02:41.660 It's been a big difference that we've been able to do things more efficiently at a lower

01:02:46.500 cost.

01:02:47.040 My, my Columbia students, my students that I teach, I've been able to fly two experiments

01:02:51.100 in space in the last couple of years.

01:02:52.660 That'd be unheard of, you know, even like five or 10 years ago, but now it's possible.

01:02:56.280 So it's opened up a lot of opportunities.

01:02:57.980 And with the, you mentioned the AI and the automation, it's reduced the amount of training

01:03:02.800 necessary.

01:03:03.400 It was ridiculous how much training, especially our pilots to fly the shuttle.

01:03:08.320 I asked, I asked a guy on my first flight, Dwayne Carey Digger was an air force guy.

01:03:13.000 And I asked him, how much of your training did you not use in space?

01:03:16.220 Because we had to know everything when it came to the thing about spacewalks.

01:03:19.620 We generally practice what we were going to do.

01:03:21.080 And then we also added how we would solve problems, but you had to handle every emergency on

01:03:25.900 the space shuttle or in the robot arm or everyone else.

01:03:28.400 So most of your training was for these things that were never going to happen.

01:03:31.980 And he, he, he said to me that 99.99% of his training, he never used in space.

01:03:38.580 But now since the computer can handle a lot of this stuff, you can train to do other things

01:03:42.920 that you're actually going to be doing in space instead of worrying about all these

01:03:45.420 contingencies.

01:03:46.620 So, um, it's brought down the training, uh, effort for work in the spaceship.

01:03:52.040 Now you can concentrate on other things.

01:03:53.880 Um, and it's made it so more people can go, you know, we have Captain Kirk flying to space,

01:03:58.100 you know, so, uh, yeah, I got that going on.

01:04:01.200 So, and I think that's a good thing.

01:04:02.740 So it allows more people to go with less training, allows people to do more things.

01:04:08.020 Um, it it's, it's, I think been a big advantage getting these commercial companies involved.

01:04:12.280 And that's what I expect will continue to happen in the future.

01:04:14.900 And I think there'll always be, you mentioned about the role for people.

01:04:18.080 I think there's always going to be a role for people.

01:04:19.980 People can still do things that robots can't do.

01:04:22.740 Automation can't do.

01:04:23.840 We can make decisions and improvise and do things that might not be in the computer program.

01:04:29.540 Uh, they, they, that can't match us.

01:04:32.120 Now, even if there is a time where some kind of robot from star Wars or something can,

01:04:36.720 you know, those drones or whatever they ought to clones or whatever they launch, you know,

01:04:40.680 those little guys with the weapons, whatever it is, you know, those guys that made for the

01:04:44.200 battlefield, that's a good idea.

01:04:45.320 But you know, if you know, they could explore and pick, I still think we're going to want

01:04:48.560 people, uh, involved because we're human and we can't deny that.

01:04:52.880 And yeah, you know, really landed first on the moon.

01:04:56.200 We know about Neil Armstrong and the Americans, but I, I didn't know this, uh, when I was an

01:05:01.360 astronaut and when I became an astronaut, but I found out that the Russians, the Soviet 0.87

01:05:06.000 union landed a spacecraft on the moon before the Americans did.

01:05:09.200 Did you know that?

01:05:10.220 Oh, really?

01:05:10.680 No, I didn't know.

01:05:11.300 I didn't know that until it became like, what?

01:05:13.520 I didn't know that.

01:05:14.340 You know why we don't know that?

01:05:15.240 No one cared.

01:05:16.120 That's why, because it wasn't a person.

01:05:17.600 It was just a piece of machinery.

01:05:19.740 That's right.

01:05:20.260 They got a machine up there.

01:05:21.860 Like, okay, we're going for the person.

01:05:24.180 And that everyone remembers Neil Armstrong taking it for whoever.

01:05:26.920 I mean, I remember you've heard of it, right?

01:05:29.000 Sure.

01:05:29.380 But no one knows what, no one cared.

01:05:31.400 Cause it wasn't a, I think for us to pay attention and to really feel like we've done

01:05:35.980 something, we want people involved in the guys who went to the moon.

01:05:40.200 Four of them are still alive.

01:05:41.540 I just hung out with one of them, Charlie Duke last week.

01:05:43.940 Very cool guy.

01:05:45.260 He was on Apollo 16.

01:05:46.880 So he was like the 11th, the 10th guy to walk on the moon out of the 12th.

01:05:51.080 Anyway, he's still the youngest guy to walk on the moon and he's 88 years old.

01:05:54.040 We haven't seen him.

01:05:54.740 He was the youngest out of the 12 and he's, he's still, still alive.

01:05:58.560 Anyway, no one else has been there yet since him, since Apollo 7th.

01:06:02.360 Anyway, there's, I was talking to him about it and I've heard the other guys say the same

01:06:06.380 thing that when they, when they, when they landed on the moon successfully, the world

01:06:10.400 didn't see it as an American accomplishment.

01:06:14.540 They saw it as a world accomplishment.

01:06:17.020 The entire world paid attention.

01:06:19.760 Every newspaper, including the Soviet union had it on the front page and covered it live.

01:06:25.300 Every place around the world from, uh, ally to foe had that thing going everywhere because

01:06:34.440 it was that important.

01:06:35.420 And when they, when they traveled after the, after their flights, the moon guys, when they

01:06:40.260 would go to India, wherever they were, it wouldn't be the Americans did it. 0.79

01:06:44.040 It was, we did it.

01:06:44.960 We saw it as a human accomplishment.

01:06:47.420 And I think there's something about that, that we can't deny that we like to participate

01:06:52.160 in things.

01:06:52.660 And so even you send your machine there to see what's there and do stuff, but what we're

01:06:56.820 going to get inspired by and what we're going to want to do and be interested in is having

01:07:02.780 people participate.

01:07:03.760 And it doesn't, it can't be all of us, but at least sending a represents a representative

01:07:07.880 to do stuff.

01:07:08.640 I think that's what makes life interesting.

01:07:10.960 Well, I'm excited about whether it's colonizing Mars or finding new discoveries.

01:07:15.820 I'm excited to see what happens.

01:07:17.480 I know there's so much more to be explored and so much more to learn.

01:07:20.480 And obviously, you know, we only got into two or three of the 10 harder, hard learned

01:07:25.140 lessons.

01:07:26.200 But the book is moonshot.

01:07:27.720 There's a lot more lessons in there.

01:07:29.740 If you would let the guys know where to connect with you, where to pick up a copy of the book

01:07:34.140 and learn more about what you're doing and hear, hear more of your stories.

01:07:37.680 Yeah.

01:07:38.320 So I've got a website, Mike Massimino.com.

01:07:41.940 You can contact me through that website.

01:07:45.180 Also, there's information about the book and other stuff that I've done are there.

01:07:49.840 So you can explore there if you'd like.

01:07:51.360 I'm also on Twitter.

01:07:53.300 It's the first guy to tweet from space.

01:07:54.580 We talked about that.

01:07:55.260 Astro underscore Mike on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook.

01:08:00.040 Well, I got all that going.

01:08:01.640 And if you're interested in getting the book, I mean, the most important thing to me is that

01:08:05.060 maybe this conversation, Ryan, was helpful for some.

01:08:07.740 And if they want more, hopefully they can get it in the book and that that moonshot is

01:08:13.820 available wherever you want to buy a book.

01:08:15.960 If you like doing it around the corner at the bookstore, the local bookseller, that's

01:08:19.980 nice.

01:08:20.760 If you do it through Amazon, it's there.

01:08:22.960 Barnes and Noble, whatever, whatever, however you buy a book, it's there.

01:08:28.300 It's not in the libraries yet, I don't think, but eventually it'll be there, too.

01:08:31.220 You can check it out in the library.

01:08:32.400 But but if you're interested in getting wherever books are sold, you'll you'll be able to find

01:08:35.900 moonshot.

01:08:36.340 Well, we'll sync everything up.

01:08:38.300 I appreciate you.

01:08:39.320 I appreciate your service to this country.

01:08:42.080 Obviously, your desire to follow your dreams.

01:08:45.380 It's very inspiring to me.

01:08:47.040 And I really appreciate your time today.

01:08:48.900 Thanks for joining us.

01:08:50.360 All right.

01:08:50.780 I enjoyed the conversation.

01:08:52.220 Thank you for your service and for doing such a great podcast, dude.

01:08:55.460 I think that hopefully, you know, your other episodes have been helpful to a lot of people

01:08:59.800 and inspirational.

01:09:00.640 I hope this one is as well.

01:09:01.600 Thanks for having me.

01:09:02.260 Man, there you go.

01:09:04.500 So my conversation with former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino, very powerful one today, very

01:09:10.520 informative, a lot of fun.

01:09:12.440 I had been excited about that conversation and Mike did not disappoint.

01:09:16.200 And I was very grateful to have him on the podcast to share some of his ideas and thoughts.

01:09:22.160 And I'm sure if you're anything like me as a young man, you maybe you wanted to be an astronaut or at least you found it fascinating.

01:09:28.560 And to be able to talk with somebody who's done some incredible things is always an honor for me.

01:09:33.240 Make sure to check out his upcoming book, Moonshot, an astronaut's guide to achieving the impossible.

01:09:38.620 You can check out his last book, Spaceman, and then just connect with Mike on the gram, on X, on Facebook.

01:09:46.400 Take a screenshot right now.

01:09:47.860 This goes a long way.

01:09:48.820 Just a quick screenshot.

01:09:50.420 Tag us up on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, wherever you're doing your thing.

01:09:54.000 Tag Mike, tag myself.

01:09:55.340 Let other people know what you're listening to.

01:09:56.920 That goes a long way in promoting what we're doing, but it also helps other people see information that will serve them in their life.

01:10:04.600 And then the very last marching order for you is as you're doing your Christmas shopping this year, look no further than MontanaKnifeCompany.com and use the code ORDERAMAN at checkout.

01:10:16.740 All right, guys, that's all I've got for you.

01:10:18.740 We'll be back tomorrow for our Ask Me Anything.

01:10:21.340 Until then, go out there, take action, and become the man you are meant to be.

01:10:25.700 Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.

01:10:28.860 If you're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be, we invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - November 28, 2023

MIKE MASSIMINO, NASA Astronaut ｜ Achieve the Impossible

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