The Art of Manliness - What It's Like to Spend a Year in Space

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.220 In March of this year, Mark VandeHei returned to Earth after spending 355 days in outer space.

00:00:16.580 Today on the show, I talked to Mark about what it was like to spend nearly a year in orbit

00:00:19.940 and how he ended up setting a new record for the longest space flight by an American astronaut.

00:00:23.880 We first talked about how Mark went from being a soldier in the Army who served twice in Iraq

00:00:27.560 to working for NASA. Mark explained the application process for becoming an astronaut

00:00:31.380 and what he thought were the hardest parts of his training.

00:00:33.580 He then shares how you exercise in outer space, what a typical work day in the International Space Station is like,

00:00:38.020 and how it feels to do a spacewalk.

00:00:39.680 I asked Mark whether he was worried when the Russians threatened to abandon him in space,

00:00:43.440 whether life on the space station is hard on morale, what it's like to physically return to Earth,

00:00:47.200 and whether there's a letdown when it's finally time to hang up your astronaut pack.

00:00:50.360 After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash space.

00:00:57.560 Mark Vandehei, welcome to the show.

00:01:13.160 Well, thanks, Brett. It's great to be here.

00:01:14.860 So you are an astronaut, and you just got back in March from nearly a year-long stay

00:01:21.580 in the International Space Station.

00:01:23.640 And we're going to talk about it, because that's an American record.

00:01:25.940 And we'll talk about the day, how that happened.

00:01:28.360 But before we do, let's talk about just being an astronaut.

00:01:30.380 How long have you been an astronaut?

00:01:31.740 What's kind of the stuff you've been doing as an astronaut?

00:01:34.520 Oh, I became an astronaut in 2011.

00:01:39.200 Prior to that, I was an astronaut candidate here at Johnson Space Center, starting in 2009.

00:01:44.060 And from 2011 on, a lot of it's maintenance training, trying to make sure you're ready for a space flight.

00:01:51.240 And I served as the director of operations in Russia for a year.

00:01:58.520 So I spent that year in Star City, Russia, where the crew members that were then assigned

00:02:03.520 to launch in a Soyuz spacecraft to get to the space station were training.

00:02:07.820 That was definitely a highlight for me of that time.

00:02:11.240 I also studied Russian a lot, quite honestly, in the intervening years.

00:02:16.640 There's a lot of neutral buoyancy lab training we do to get ready for spacewalks.

00:02:20.080 That's a big part of it.

00:02:21.440 And that's some of the recurring training I mentioned.

00:02:24.280 And probably about once a month, I would do a public affairs event where I'd go and talk

00:02:28.300 to anything from organization to elementary school.

00:02:34.100 How many missions have you flown as an astronaut?

00:02:36.780 I've flown two, both to the space station and both getting there and back on a Soyuz spacecraft.

00:02:43.060 Gotcha.

00:02:43.720 And so as being an astronaut, were you like a typical kid who, when I grew up, I wanted to be

00:02:49.120 an astronaut?

00:02:49.600 Was that something you've always wanted to do or did it just kind of happen?

00:02:53.060 It wasn't something that I wanted to do only because I didn't think it was possible.

00:02:59.560 And I think I was just trying to be too cool.

00:03:02.340 I didn't want to say I wanted to be an astronaut someday because it felt a lot like saying I

00:03:08.420 wanted to be Spider-Man or Superman someday.

00:03:10.160 And it just, that wasn't something that I thought made sense.

00:03:14.020 And I still am quite shocked that I actually have gotten to be an astronaut and even getting

00:03:22.920 to go through the interview process to be an astronaut I thought was amazing.

00:03:25.880 And being able to say that I've actually been to space as long as I have, I'm still a little

00:03:30.320 puzzled by that.

00:03:31.000 Well, what's interesting about you and your career, unlike a lot of astronauts who get

00:03:36.160 to NASA via the Air Force, whether they're a pilot or a fighter pilot or something like

00:03:39.920 that, you had a military career, but it was through the Army.

00:03:43.240 So how did the Army lead you to NASA?

00:03:46.240 Because we typically don't think of Army and space in the same thing.

00:03:50.800 Yeah, actually, we have pretty consistently had at least one Army officer in at most, not

00:03:59.900 every, but most astronaut candidate classes.

00:04:03.780 It's something that the Army, unlike the other services, though, initially wasn't getting

00:04:09.540 very well represented.

00:04:10.600 We don't have high performance jet pilots in the Army.

00:04:13.660 So in that regard, and that was what NASA was looking for initially, almost exclusively.

00:04:17.520 So at some point, if I understand correctly, the Army said, hey, what can we do?

00:04:22.520 We've got some really good people.

00:04:23.860 And then I think the Johnson Space Center director at the time said, why don't you let us borrow

00:04:28.740 a few of them and then we'll see how they do.

00:04:31.780 And so we would send typically helicopter pilots eventually, once that was a thing for the Army.

00:04:37.540 We were sending helicopter pilots here.

00:04:40.080 And again, they weren't high performance jet pilots, but they were great leaders and did

00:04:44.660 a wonderful job.

00:04:45.820 And so that was a way to get those folks in.

00:04:48.980 And for me, it was kind of a strange path.

00:04:55.180 I had switched because I got the opportunity to go to grad school as part of the preparation

00:05:01.000 to teach at West Point.

00:05:02.900 I was in grad school studying physics and the physics I was most interested in was space physics.

00:05:09.820 And then at the same time I was in grad school, the Army opened up a new career field called

00:05:14.000 Space Operations.

00:05:14.720 And I recognized that I was going to spend five years away from the tactical environment

00:05:20.480 I was familiar with in academia and recognized that was going to potentially only a 20-year

00:05:26.420 career.

00:05:26.780 That was going to set me back quite a bit.

00:05:28.140 So when space operations came up as a possibility, I thought, wow, this is something that I might

00:05:33.400 be uniquely suited to help out with.

00:05:35.620 So I checked into it.

00:05:37.620 I thought it sounded really interesting.

00:05:38.980 And I managed to become a space operations officer.

00:05:40.700 And then it turned out that because this whole field was new, there was an Army astronaut who was talking

00:05:49.080 to the general in charge of Army space operations and are talking about this new career field and how

00:05:54.020 it would be nice to have the ability to broaden the experience base of space operations officers

00:06:00.300 by having one of them actually work at the astronaut office and be exposed to human spaceflight

00:06:07.100 in that regard and then come back to the Army.

00:06:09.720 And so shockingly, at some point, I got invited to work at NASA when I always thought it would be

00:06:16.260 cool to work at NASA, but I never thought it would actually happen.

00:06:19.160 So that's kind of a long story for how I ended up working at NASA in the first place.

00:06:23.420 I actually started working at NASA in 2006.

00:06:25.980 So you were more of like a liaison between the Army and NASA.

00:06:30.020 Actually, what I did when I was working here as what we call an engineer in the astronaut office

00:06:34.480 was I was working as a capsule communicator.

00:06:36.640 So my job was to have the astronaut's perspective and work in the mission control center

00:06:42.080 and understand enough of what the flight controllers were talking about in the mission control team

00:06:47.800 so that when the flight director said, tell the crew this, I understood well enough

00:06:51.560 what that was about to be able to explain to the crew, which was a fantastic job.

00:06:55.980 You're communicating, history's happening.

00:06:58.960 You're getting to watch what they're doing in space as part of your workday.

00:07:02.060 I just, I loved it.

00:07:04.140 It was fantastic.

00:07:05.400 Well, can you tell me a bit more about space operations in the Army?

00:07:08.160 This is new to me.

00:07:08.920 I didn't know this existed.

00:07:10.020 What is the Army trying to do with space operations?

00:07:13.700 Granted, I have been out of it for quite a while because the last time I was really involved

00:07:17.920 in Army space operations was prior to 2006.

00:07:20.040 So a lot of it might have changed.

00:07:21.560 But the Army recognized that there's a lot with all the digitation that's coming on

00:07:27.960 that the Army can take great advantage of assets in space.

00:07:33.280 But we weren't really doing a good job of influencing investments in space that would benefit the Army.

00:07:41.960 So we recognized that was a lack.

00:07:44.120 So that was part of it, getting some people in the Army, all with some experience in the field,

00:07:50.380 pretty fairly senior officers, at least with 10 years under their belt, typically back then.

00:07:56.900 Getting involved in space operations and space operations in the Army was,

00:08:01.220 we could provide some commercial imagery, for example.

00:08:04.460 There are some detection assets that we had access to.

00:08:10.520 There's satellite communications we could help out with.

00:08:13.500 It was really to help the military units we were supporting take full advantage of the space assets

00:08:19.740 that are available to the country.

00:08:22.400 Gotcha.

00:08:22.980 Okay, so you end up at NASA.

00:08:24.800 You're working there.

00:08:25.840 An opportunity arises for you to apply to be an astronaut.

00:08:29.840 What's the application process like?

00:08:31.780 I mean, is it very thorough, I imagine?

00:08:35.640 Yeah, it actually starts out with something pretty simple.

00:08:38.440 You go to usajobs.gov, and it's the same application process that you'd use if you wanted to be a fireman for the federal government.

00:08:47.140 Every federal government job's out there, including astronauts.

00:08:49.400 So that's where you start.

00:08:51.460 And if you make it through the thousands of applications to actually get an interview, then it definitely gets more intense.

00:08:57.620 How long does the application process take?

00:09:00.420 Oh, gosh.

00:09:01.180 It's probably on the order of more than six months, I would think.

00:09:04.900 And that's really because every one of those applications gets reviewed by somebody.

00:09:10.620 And we've had up to 18,000 applicants in some recent classes.

00:09:15.920 And that process gets that number down to about 400 that are considered really highly qualified.

00:09:23.560 And then we start checking references.

00:09:25.560 And after that, once the references have been checked, we'll pick 120 people or so to actually start coming in for the first round of interviews.

00:09:32.660 Well, that's really competitive.

00:09:35.240 And then so there's multiple rounds of interviews.

00:09:37.620 And I imagine there's like tests involved, too.

00:09:39.860 I mean, are they doing like psychological tests to make sure this is your fit for this position?

00:09:44.620 There are definitely psychological tests.

00:09:46.700 And I'm not sure if this is a good idea, but I admitted during my first interview week that after three hours of filling in the dots, I stopped.

00:09:54.240 And so at first, every dot I filled in, I thought, what are they going to think about me when I put this in there?

00:10:00.080 And I was really putting a lot of thought into everything.

00:10:03.300 And then after three hours of that, I just didn't care. 0.99

00:10:05.880 I just wanted to finish the darn thing. 0.94

00:10:07.820 So I told them that they had definitely gotten the real me at some point because I just was exhausted by the process. 0.98

00:10:14.620 All right.

00:10:14.780 So you go through this process.

00:10:16.160 You're selected.

00:10:17.480 Let's talk about training to become an astronaut.

00:10:19.080 Now, I imagine a lot of people who apply to be an astronaut, they've been training to be an astronaut their entire lives.

00:10:25.940 They're physically training, doing all the math, and getting hours in the cockpit.

00:10:31.060 What did your training look like after you got picked?

00:10:35.200 After I got picked, so we've got this astronaut candidate time period.

00:10:39.700 We affectionately call the people that are in that situation.

00:10:41.720 We call them ask hands.

00:10:42.560 Because it's two years where you are violent.

00:10:49.900 Almost everybody passes.

00:10:51.400 We have had some people not make it through.

00:10:54.000 The training is everything you need to do to demonstrate potential to be assigned to a space flight.

00:10:58.740 So we train people on EVAs in our neutral buoyancy lab in a very large pool.

00:11:06.400 And when I say EVAs, I mean spacewalks.

00:11:09.020 We train people on the International Space Station systems.

00:11:11.600 And when we had a shuttle program, we were training people on the shuttle systems as well.

00:11:16.500 So whatever spacecraft we have available, we train people on those systems.

00:11:20.080 We train, we use a T-38.

00:11:22.520 That's a NASA jet that helps get people in an operational mindset.

00:11:29.460 The other things we do, we've got robotics training.

00:11:32.360 That's a very challenging task too, learning how to operate the robotic arm that we have on the space station.

00:11:37.200 So we put people through, of course, on that.

00:11:38.900 And then it's an international, our space station program is an international program.

00:11:44.080 So, and there's a lot of training that happens in Russia.

00:11:47.160 So a big part of the training is learning Russian.

00:11:50.780 And that's, that is no small task either.

00:11:53.180 Are you now fluent in Russian?

00:11:54.260 I would say I have been pretty fluent in Russian, but it's a surprisingly perishable skill.

00:12:00.580 I think the most fluent I was in Russian was on the day I launched for my first flight because I had spent so much time in Russia learning how to be a co-pilot for a Russian spacecraft.

00:12:14.700 And I felt pretty comfortable.

00:12:17.440 I mean, I was fluent enough to be able to talk on the radio very publicly to make reports about their spacecraft in Russian and understand what they were saying.

00:12:26.560 So in some regards, yes, but there's so much further to go.

00:12:30.040 There's certainly topics, many, many topics I could get into where I would be very clueless about how to communicate.

00:12:35.480 So we've had another astronaut on the podcast and he mentioned part of the training was like wilderness survival training.

00:12:42.120 Did you do that?

00:12:43.840 We have what we call land survival training.

00:12:46.420 I'm not sure.

00:12:47.180 I think you were talking about Terry Verse.

00:12:48.340 Is that correct?

00:12:48.760 Yeah.

00:12:49.060 Yeah.

00:12:49.260 Correct.

00:12:49.680 Yeah.

00:12:50.040 Yeah.

00:12:50.220 I listened to that podcast too.

00:12:51.940 And actually I was an office mate with Terry for a while.

00:12:54.140 We do land survival training up in Maine.

00:12:56.280 And back then, at least we used to, I think it's changed now.

00:12:59.720 It used to be run by the Navy.

00:13:00.900 I think we switched down to the army at Fort Rucker in Alabama.

00:13:05.480 I hope I'm saying the right thing.

00:13:08.240 And I mean, out of all the stuff you had to do this two-year process, what was the most difficult component of your training that you had?

00:13:16.060 Oh, I would say both the Russian and EVA training.

00:13:20.780 And they're very different.

00:13:22.820 The EVA training, the spacewalk training is very physically demanding, but it's also very mentally demanding.

00:13:29.280 So it's a combination of being in good enough shape to have enough mental capacity left over to do the right things in an environment where you really do not want to mess that up.

00:13:40.680 And then the Russian is just so humbling. 1.00

00:13:43.640 And it's one of those things where I think if you're a person who really likes to know that you've got a grasp on this and this is going to work out, it's just something about language just feels like it's shocking that it works.

00:13:59.520 But you don't, it's either there or it's not.

00:14:01.400 It's a skill.

00:14:01.900 And you don't really know, I'm not sure how to describe it.

00:14:06.280 It's just, it's just challenge.

00:14:07.200 All right.

00:14:07.300 So being in space without gravity is surprisingly hard on the body.

00:14:11.420 And we're going to talk about that here in a bit.

00:14:13.380 So what did you do as far as fitness training to get ready for a space mission?

00:14:18.220 I, I always liked exercising.

00:14:20.840 So I don't think I, I changed anything specifically to get ready for a space flight.

00:14:25.720 It, I just did the variety.

00:14:29.020 I, I, I would look, honestly, I would look at the CrossFit website.

00:14:31.980 I'm not trying to condone any products, but they had a variety of workouts and I would pick one of their workouts and I would go for it.

00:14:37.840 And I did recognize at my age, if I tried to do the prescribed workouts that I would hurt myself.

00:14:43.760 So I recognized that if I hit muscle failure five times, it was time to stop that exercise and I, or drop the weight to half of what I was doing, something like that.

00:14:51.260 So I had, I certainly had a learning process with how to survive those workouts.

00:14:54.560 Does NASA just have astronauts prepare physically on their own or do they set out like, here, here's some, a suggested workout plan or this is kind of like, well, it's up to you.

00:15:03.900 It sounds like you just did whatever you wanted to do.

00:15:06.240 I did.

00:15:06.940 And there's a wide variety of enthusiasm about exercise in the astronaut office.

00:15:10.660 And certainly people tend to be much more on the fit side, but some people like to work out in the, in the facilities we have here on Johnson Space Center.

00:15:22.000 Other people like to do it at home or in a different facility.

00:15:25.620 The nice thing is you've got a lot of resources here to help you out.

00:15:28.800 So we've got some strength and conditioning and rehab specialists that are fantastic coaches.

00:15:33.760 In fact, one of the things I've been working on is snatches lately and the strength coach that helps me out.

00:15:39.940 He's fantastic.

00:15:40.740 So that's, that's just a wonderful resource.

00:15:42.560 Well, let's talk about exercise in space.

00:15:44.540 What does that look like?

00:15:45.780 And how do you do that in zero G?

00:15:48.600 Great question.

00:15:49.720 We have three devices that we use for exercise on the space station.

00:15:53.460 One of them is called a red.

00:15:55.060 It means advanced resistive exercise device.

00:15:57.120 It's a very large device we use for the closest we can get to weightlifting because the weightlifting doesn't really make sense in space.

00:16:05.580 So the way it works, the way I like to describe it is imagine that you have a seesaw and there's a kid on the other side that's pulling up on their end of the seesaw.

00:16:15.720 And you want to pull up on your end of the seesaw.

00:16:17.500 And that kid always applies the same amount of force.

00:16:19.980 So if you put the fulcrum right in the middle, you're going to pull on to lift, to change the position of that seesaw, you're going to have to exert a little more force than the kid on the other side of the seesaw.

00:16:31.820 But let's say you want to vary that.

00:16:33.180 You can change the pivot point between you and that kid.

00:16:37.220 And then you can make it a very small amount of force to a very large amount of force based on what mechanical advantage or disadvantage you give yourself.

00:16:45.700 So hopefully that helps you visualize what I'm talking about.

00:16:48.000 But the way it works is we have that lever arm with a pivot point that's adjustable and allows us to change the force from 20 pounds to 600 pounds.

00:16:58.900 And that quote unquote kid on the other side of the seesaw is a couple of vacuum cylinders.

00:17:06.260 So when you pull up on the bar or the cable that you're pulling up on, you are forcing a couple of plates that are being pushed on by the air pressure in the space station.

00:17:17.500 And that's what provides the force.

00:17:19.600 What kind of things are you doing with this thing?

00:17:21.500 Squats, shoulder presses?

00:17:23.480 You can do squats, shoulder presses, deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, curls, crunches, bench press.

00:17:31.880 Pretty much anything.

00:17:33.180 Pretty much.

00:17:33.900 Although we tried doing things like thrusters where you use the cable and you put the bar on your shoulders and go from a deep squat into a standing position with the bar over your head.

00:17:46.300 But having that cable run across your chest and across your face makes it not quite the right positioning.

00:17:52.660 So I actually didn't like doing that in the long term.

00:17:54.340 And then another thing, I tried doing kettlebell swings, but using the cable, but you don't have momentum like you would.

00:18:02.000 That's one thing we really don't have.

00:18:03.320 So in a kettlebell swing, that momentum that you generate with your hips and your legs prevents you from, ideally prevents you from having to use your shoulders as much.

00:18:12.660 But it started feeling like it was just a front raise for me when I was trying to do a kettlebell swing.

00:18:18.280 So you got this resistance device.

00:18:19.740 What other devices do you have on there for physical fitness?

00:18:22.420 We've got two devices we use for cardiovascular fitness.

00:18:25.680 One is T2.

00:18:27.140 It's a treadmill.

00:18:28.500 And that's interesting in space because if you just ran on a treadmill, as soon as you pushed off with your foot, you would depart the treadmill.

00:18:36.380 So what we have is a backpack.

00:18:37.640 What I would describe as a backpacking harness minus the backpack.

00:18:42.120 And that is a fairly comfortable harness, which we attach some chains to on the side.

00:18:48.220 And those chains attach to bungee cords. 0.99

00:18:50.880 And you can adjust the length of the chains because, in that case, it changes the length of the bungee cords.

00:18:57.020 And that allows you to adjust to – at my height, it was about up to 130 pounds of force.

00:19:04.040 So it still wasn't as much as I actually weigh.

00:19:06.920 But I talked to – we've got some pretty impressive athletes in the astronaut office.

00:19:10.640 And one of them mentioned to me that they actually just added a second set of bungee cords and doubled it.

00:19:15.560 And I was blown away because, for some reason, 130 pounds – it feels a lot like you're wearing 130 pounds on your back and your hips.

00:19:23.140 So it's not comfortable at all.

00:19:24.500 It really starts to wear – in fact, there was – I went for a two-hour walk one time.

00:19:28.500 And by the time I finished, those hip pads had worn a hole in the skin on my hips.

00:19:34.760 So it's not comfortable.

00:19:36.100 I was not a big fan of it.

00:19:37.620 Although, I'll tell you what.

00:19:38.720 If I ever weigh – ever get to weigh only 80 pounds, I can run really, really fast.

00:19:45.320 So what's the other cardio device?

00:19:47.080 The other cardio device is called SEVIS.

00:19:49.400 I don't know what every letter in that acronym means, but it's an ergonometer.

00:19:54.260 It's a bicycle.

00:19:55.400 A bicycle without a seat because you don't need it.

00:19:57.760 And I love that one.

00:19:59.300 That's a really challenging exercise device.

00:20:01.860 You can go up to 350 watts.

00:20:04.440 And, yeah, I really got some brutal thigh-burning workouts out of that machine.

00:20:09.720 And so this physical activity during space is important because when you're up in space,

00:20:15.660 I mean, what happens to your body in zero-G?

00:20:18.560 Yeah, you – humans are very adaptable.

00:20:22.940 So we adapt quickly to the space environment, which means your body recognizes you don't need

00:20:27.200 the skeletal structure to help you be able to stand upright on the floor.

00:20:31.200 And you don't need as much musculature.

00:20:34.200 So very quickly, all those things would atrophy.

00:20:36.460 And so it's very, very important to work out.

00:20:38.840 And because of that, every single day, NASA schedules an hour and a half for resistive

00:20:43.780 exercise and an hour for the cardio exercise.

00:20:47.300 And sometimes I actually – again, I like exercising.

00:20:50.160 I would try to do two hours of resistive exercise instead of an hour and a half.

00:20:55.660 And then – and I actually got up earlier in the morning just to be able to try to do

00:20:58.760 that.

00:20:59.740 We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.

00:21:03.400 And now back to the show.

00:21:04.840 So when you went to space, like, what was your – what was your job on the space station?

00:21:09.900 Like, what was your – why were you there and what were you doing?

00:21:12.600 Everything every crew member is doing on the space station is to support the science mission

00:21:17.300 that we've got.

00:21:17.940 There's science we're doing to help with exploration.

00:21:20.720 There's science we're doing that actually helps people out on the ground today.

00:21:23.900 There's technology demonstrations, for example, as well.

00:21:27.240 And every crew member, I think – I think of them as laboratory technicians, where we're

00:21:33.760 not the scientists per se.

00:21:35.220 We're not the ones who design the experiments.

00:21:37.400 A lot of times we don't do any observations or gather data for the experiments.

00:21:42.000 And we're certainly not analyzing the data and writing papers about those experiments later.

00:21:48.300 There's scientists that are doing all that.

00:21:49.820 But we're just making sure that what they've dedicated so much of their life to is functioning

00:21:55.380 as well as possible on the space station.

00:21:56.960 We'll help troubleshoot, make sure they have all the resources they need, and things like

00:22:01.500 that.

00:22:02.360 So, like, what did a typical workday look like for you?

00:22:04.240 Like, what time would you wake up?

00:22:05.500 I mean, that's another – I mean, like, I guess time is different up in outer space.

00:22:09.340 But, I mean, how long is a workday for you?

00:22:11.360 The workday officially starts with a morning planning conference, typically at 7.30 in

00:22:17.140 the morning, and ends with an evening planning conference that finishes around 7.30 at night.

00:22:22.640 And that sounds like a really long day.

00:22:25.880 And those are only the weekdays.

00:22:27.220 Ideally, Monday through Friday would be that.

00:22:28.860 We have weekends off with a couple hours of house cleaning on the weekend.

00:22:31.880 But in that 12 hours on a weekday, we've got an hour for lunch, and we've got the two

00:22:38.340 and a half hours I mentioned for exercise.

00:22:39.920 So, it ends up being about an eight and a half hour workday.

00:22:43.700 So, you did spacewalks.

00:22:46.040 What was your first spacewalk like?

00:22:47.840 And did you have any sort of, like, you know, spiritual or awe-inspiring experience with

00:22:52.220 it?

00:22:52.820 It's definitely awe-inspiring.

00:22:54.960 And I would say the spiritual stuff that I ran into was just looking out the windows

00:22:59.760 on the space station before the spacewalks actually happened.

00:23:02.560 I would say – so, as far as the emotions associated with doing a spacewalk, we study a lot to make

00:23:09.880 sure you're ready because it's a very public eight-hour shift or six-and-a-half-hour, seven-hour

00:23:15.780 shift working outside.

00:23:17.180 And the first emotion I remember is this sense of the lighting changing inside of the crew

00:23:25.860 lock.

00:23:26.800 So, imagine you're in this clunky space suit with another crewmate and you're head to

00:23:32.220 toe.

00:23:32.920 And the more experienced crew member, the person in charge of the spacewalk, is the one who

00:23:36.400 opens the hatch.

00:23:37.720 And so, on my first spacewalk, I was EV2, extra vehicular crew member number two, the

00:23:43.060 less experienced person.

00:23:44.320 And I didn't have my face over the hatch.

00:23:46.360 I had my feet over the hatch.

00:23:47.840 But when Randy Bresnik, who was in charge of that EVA, opened up that hatch, there was

00:23:53.780 this bright light shining, reflecting off of the earth into that space that previously

00:24:00.080 just had artificial lighting.

00:24:01.360 And it was clearly outdoor lighting.

00:24:04.280 It was like looking through a storm door on a winter day in Minnesota.

00:24:09.160 It was just very bright all of a sudden.

00:24:11.240 And I had the sensation that, whoa, that's outside.

00:24:14.260 And this is real.

00:24:15.180 This is really going to happen.

00:24:17.380 Once I actually got outside, it was nighttime, which might have made it a little bit easier

00:24:22.360 on me.

00:24:24.180 And the neutral buoyancy lab that I mentioned earlier does such a good job of making us familiar

00:24:30.060 with the terrain of the outside of the space station, that that seemed like a very familiar

00:24:34.680 environment.

00:24:36.640 And all I can say about, it's just hard to get your head wrapped around the distances

00:24:42.740 that you're looking at.

00:24:44.100 It's when you're holding onto a spacecraft going at five miles a second and it's dark

00:24:50.800 outside.

00:24:51.360 It's just the distance between you and the earth is hard to grasp.

00:24:57.060 The distance between you and the stars, this vast openness that you're in the space suit

00:25:01.880 in, it's hard to get your head wrapped around it.

00:25:04.120 And honestly, you've got a lot of work to do, so you don't want to spend too much time

00:25:06.280 trying to dwell on it.

00:25:08.100 And yeah, I mean, I guess some people don't realize this about the EVAs.

00:25:11.280 It's like, this is a grueling thing.

00:25:12.440 Like you're in there, like you said, for six hours.

00:25:15.140 Yeah, we plan them for six hours.

00:25:16.520 But I've had a spacewalk go to seven hours and 40 minutes.

00:25:19.260 And I think we've had cosmonauts go for more than eight hours on their spacewalks.

00:25:23.840 It's like during that time, I mean, I guess they have things for the bathroom, but like

00:25:27.860 you can't eat during that time, right?

00:25:30.020 We don't have any food.

00:25:31.300 No, I would typically, even in the neutral buoyancy lab, I would basically eat everything

00:25:35.560 that I would eat throughout the day before the day started.

00:25:38.800 Just at least psychologically, I knew I had all the calories, even though I wasn't eating

00:25:43.440 at a normal pace, I would.

00:25:44.980 And then when you're done with this thing, you got back in the spacewalk, were you just

00:25:48.440 like exhausted?

00:25:49.260 Like you're just like, oh my gosh, get me out of this thing.

00:25:50.960 I want to go to sleep.

00:25:53.080 Yeah, this might be a little too graphic, but I was exhausted and soaked in my urine and

00:25:56.420 sweat, quite honestly.

00:25:58.260 Sounds pleasant.

00:25:59.740 Yeah, it's not as sexy as it sounds.

00:26:02.100 And I think you and I talked on a call while you were in space, and you described the spacesuits

00:26:07.460 as just really smelly.

00:26:08.760 Like you showed us the spacesuits, like, yeah, these are pretty smelly.

00:26:11.100 And I'm like, I don't imagine space being smelly, but I imagine that would be smelly

00:26:15.460 if it's just soaked with urine and sweat.

00:26:17.920 It's smelly inside once you finish the spacewalk, but we do a really good job of cleaning them

00:26:21.880 up before we do it.

00:26:22.800 So they're very well maintained.

00:26:25.240 So you have the distinction of being the American, the longest time in space. 0.61

00:26:32.400 How did that happen?

00:26:33.380 Was this planned?

00:26:34.140 It was a possibility, I always knew.

00:26:38.520 And I got to clarify, I don't have the record for the longest time career-wise in space for

00:26:44.460 an American.

00:26:45.680 I just have the record for the longest single space flight.

00:26:49.520 Right.

00:26:49.740 And so I've had a lot of people thank me for being so flexible and accepting the job without

00:26:58.540 knowing with certainty how long I was going to be in space.

00:27:01.960 But I recognize that the folks that gave me the assignment actually made it very easy on

00:27:07.260 me because when my boss's boss asked me if I wanted to do this, he was able to say right

00:27:15.040 from the get-go that this might be about a year-long flight.

00:27:18.000 So when I talked to my wife and children about whether or not I should say yes to this, I

00:27:23.080 was able to tell them that if I say yes, we need to expect that it will be a year-long

00:27:27.140 flight.

00:27:27.600 So even though I didn't know it was going to be a year-long flight until about four and

00:27:32.680 a half, five months into the flight, it wasn't a big emotion.

00:27:37.740 It wasn't a challenge.

00:27:38.660 It was something that my family and I had already accepted as the most likely thing.

00:27:43.180 Okay.

00:27:43.460 So you always knew this was a possibility.

00:27:46.060 And I mean, I think people don't realize this.

00:27:47.660 There's a lot of logistics in getting astronauts back from the space station to Earth because

00:27:54.440 you're not only dealing with our country, but you have to deal with other countries' schedules

00:27:57.960 as well.

00:27:59.320 Yeah, certainly.

00:27:59.980 Especially if it's other countries' spacecraft.

00:28:02.180 They get the final say in the timing of things.

00:28:05.200 Yeah.

00:28:05.380 And so the other country, is Russia how we get up there?

00:28:09.200 Or was?

00:28:10.100 In not all cases.

00:28:10.960 We've got a very successful commercial crew program right now that's delivering four people

00:28:15.620 at a time to the space station.

00:28:17.260 But we still, and hopefully we'll continue with this, we still are sending astronauts on

00:28:22.440 Russian spacecraft, that Soyuz spacecraft I mentioned.

00:28:25.020 And the reason I say I'm hoping we continue with that is because ideally we'll put U.S. 0.70

00:28:31.080 astronauts and Japanese, Canadian, European astronauts on that Russian spacecraft.

00:28:36.240 And at the same time, we'll put Russians on the U.S. commercial spacecraft. 0.57

00:28:41.600 Well, speaking of Russia, while you're up there, the whole conflict and war in Ukraine started.

00:28:47.220 What was that like?

00:28:48.400 Did that affect you guys besides the logistics of getting you down?

00:28:52.440 But did it affect the camaraderie amongst the astronauts up there?

00:28:55.980 It really didn't.

00:28:58.180 The cosmonauts are wonderful people.

00:29:00.320 They have been great friends.

00:29:02.980 They are currently, and I'm sure they will be great friends of mine for life.

00:29:07.440 And there are different perspectives on things.

00:29:10.280 And I think it was a good eye-opener for me on how the variety of information sources we use

00:29:18.520 or maybe where we get our information has a big effect on how we view a situation.

00:29:28.040 So, and that's certainly obvious in the United States with the big political divisions we have

00:29:32.360 going on.

00:29:32.840 So, that can be challenging, but it really, we spent so much time cooperating with the cosmonauts

00:29:41.080 to try to get our mission done that the crisis in Ukraine is not something that would come up a lot.

00:29:50.380 So, there was a while back ago, right before you were supposed to come down,

00:29:55.220 there was, I think it was some Russian, some government guy made a threat like,

00:30:00.600 oh yeah, we're not going to bring Mark down.

00:30:02.840 Did, were you like, did that make you nervous?

00:30:04.640 Or did you think that was just, this is just bluster?

00:30:06.980 So, I wasn't paying a lot of attention to social media, and that's how that came up.

00:30:10.860 And the first I heard about it was talking to my wife on our internet protocol phone. 0.85

00:30:16.380 She told me about it, and I started laughing because I thought it was so ridiculous. 0.67

00:30:19.120 And I didn't realize how I was not being the best husband at that moment

00:30:23.820 because she was very stressed about the situation, and I was just laughing at her.

00:30:27.700 I wasn't laughing at her, but I realized that this, because of the information she was getting,

00:30:34.600 this is a legitimate source of stress for her. 0.95

00:30:37.040 But it seems so far from the realm of possibility, knowing the situation I was in,

00:30:42.900 and kind of living the situation.

00:30:44.420 I was up there on the space station.

00:30:45.680 I have a relationship with the cosmonauts.

00:30:47.660 I just never thought that was a possibility.

00:30:49.440 So, it never, I think the biggest effect it had on me was trying to figure out how to be a better listener

00:30:54.520 and to understand the perspective that my wife had because it was just so foreign to what I was living.

00:31:00.620 So, putting aside geopolitics, I mean, do astronauts,

00:31:04.180 do they just get on each other's nerves being cooped up there in the space station?

00:31:08.180 You can.

00:31:09.220 That certainly can happen.

00:31:10.280 There's personality differences that can be challenging.

00:31:12.700 But, and I'm saying that because there have been situations where, because of the way I behaved,

00:31:19.100 I felt like I definitely needed to apologize to someone after the fact.

00:31:22.580 And we all have our moments.

00:31:23.960 We're human beings.

00:31:24.540 We're definitely not perfect.

00:31:25.900 But I also think that NASA is doing a fantastic job recognizing every astronaut that's getting hired now

00:31:32.060 is going to be on some type of extended duration of space flight

00:31:35.460 or stuck in a very small space with very few people.

00:31:39.240 And they're picking people that I say are very good campers.

00:31:43.480 They're pleasant to live with.

00:31:44.940 So, I really enjoyed getting, that was one of the best things about being on the space station for me

00:31:50.240 was getting to live and work with some wonderful people.

00:31:53.520 Well, so we talked about the physical toll that being in space for a long time can have on the body.

00:31:58.760 Your bones start deteriorating, basically.

00:32:02.000 You start losing muscle mass.

00:32:03.640 What about the psychological toll?

00:32:05.060 What does the psychological toll of space travel look like?

00:32:07.860 It depends a lot on the person.

00:32:10.540 So, my first flight, I was in a situation where I had trained really, really for a long time.

00:32:19.400 From 2011 until I launched in 2017.

00:32:22.300 In some way, I was training for that space flight.

00:32:24.640 But I was the only rookie on that space flight.

00:32:27.480 And so, every little mistake I made, I would beat myself up about it.

00:32:31.720 And every time, I kind of had a little bit of a chip on my shoulder.

00:32:34.560 Every time someone felt like they needed to spend a little bit extra time hovering over me, watching what I was doing,

00:32:41.380 I felt like they were just expressing a lack of confidence in me,

00:32:45.140 which, quite honestly, I didn't like because I had a little bit of a lack of confidence in myself.

00:32:49.160 I was shocked at how many things I could mess up after all that training because there's still a big adjustment to that zero-G environment.

00:32:56.840 So, the second flight, I just had gotten better about paying attention to my own mental processes

00:33:07.440 and could better recognize that there was a narrative that I was given myself that wasn't necessarily true.

00:33:16.420 And I think I was probably much more pleasant to be around.

00:33:19.600 And I enjoyed my existence up there a lot better.

00:33:22.280 So, I'm not so sure space takes any bigger psychological toll or puts a bigger psychological stress on anybody that we…

00:33:32.420 It's really…

00:33:33.200 It's just a human thing.

00:33:34.780 It's much like whatever job you're doing. 0.94

00:33:36.580 So, what do you do, like, I mean, are there things you do just to relax and kill…

00:33:42.420 I mean, not kill time, but just, yeah, relax and decompress after a workday?

00:33:45.380 Like, what do you do for fun on the space station?

00:33:48.160 Oh, I liked reading.

00:33:50.380 We also got together once a week to watch a movie together on the space station.

00:33:55.060 And once a week, we would have a group dinner, which is always pleasant.

00:34:00.620 We even kind of had some dance parties on the space station.

00:34:04.340 That was kind of fun.

00:34:05.000 We just get some music going and just play around with what it's like to dance.

00:34:10.460 It turns out if you dance in orbit, you got to really pay attention to where your feet are and your elbows are because anybody…

00:34:16.360 The person next to you could be upside down and you don't want to elbow someone in the face.

00:34:19.620 So, it's a very different challenge.

00:34:22.200 So, I mean, even though you're in the vastness of outer space when you're up there in the space station, you spend nearly every waking minute in a confined physical quarter.

00:34:31.220 I mean, how big, how many square feet is the space station?

00:34:35.980 The best way for me to describe it is it's got the internal volume of a six-bedroom house and it's gotten bigger recently.

00:34:43.580 We added a couple extra modules while I was on orbit.

00:34:46.400 So, it's actually really large.

00:34:49.540 That was one of the most shocking things for me.

00:34:51.060 Even though we've got really good mock-ups of the internal volume of the space station, in the United States, we have the U.S. part really well mocked up and not so well mocked up to the Russian part.

00:35:02.800 And the Russian part has pretty lengthy modules that go towards the Earth or away from the Earth. 0.83

00:35:08.620 And those aren't oriented that way on the ground because it just doesn't work for us to train in.

00:35:12.980 So, it was shocking to me how much it kind of, I don't know if this is something that most of your, I don't even know if the people still make these, but I had a hamster as a kid and a habit trail.

00:35:21.620 And it reminded me a lot of a habit trail because there's tunnels that go in all kinds of directions.

00:35:26.380 What is your sleeping quarters like?

00:35:28.060 Is it pretty small?

00:35:29.980 What is that like?

00:35:31.580 It is small, but you don't need much space.

00:35:33.740 So, to give you an idea, if I put my back against the wall where my sleeping bag was and stuck my arm out straight in front of me, I could just about touch the far wall.

00:35:42.620 And then I did not have enough space to put my arm.

00:35:46.040 It was about the same width, shoulder to shoulder.

00:35:50.100 Probably, if I stuck, I think if I put my elbows out in both directions, I might have been able to hit the sidewalls.

00:35:56.000 There's a door that shuts.

00:35:57.680 There's a fan that gives you some white noise.

00:35:59.680 And there's a lot of sound insulation.

00:36:01.280 So, it does give you a lot of privacy.

00:36:03.800 I could hear if people were talking outside my crew quarters, but I couldn't understand what they were saying.

00:36:08.400 And we got a laptop in there so you can do your email.

00:36:11.600 That same laptop is what I used to get on the phone with my family to do video teleconferences.

00:36:18.880 It was plenty of room.

00:36:19.960 It really was fine.

00:36:21.340 So, yeah, you never got claustrophobic?

00:36:23.120 I never got claustrophobic at all.

00:36:25.680 So, okay, you're up there for a year.

00:36:27.540 You finally get back.

00:36:28.900 What was it like physically to get back from space?

00:36:33.740 You feel wobbly, for sure.

00:36:36.540 I was pretty fortunate.

00:36:38.020 I didn't have any nausea.

00:36:39.380 The medicine I used worked really well to help me out with that.

00:36:42.660 So, one of the things we do when we land, or at least I did when we landed, is a field test because we're trying to understand how when we launch people to other planetary objects that are really far away that will involve an extended space flight to get there.

00:36:56.220 We want to know what they can do.

00:36:58.000 So, I did a field test within an hour of landing, and before I got any medical interventions like an IV to help rehydrate me, just to see what I could do.

00:37:08.960 It was very much like a sobriety test.

00:37:11.880 And I probably, of course, I wasn't drinking any alcohol, but space flight probably would have prevented me from passing the test.

00:37:18.960 And how long did it take for you to feel like, I got my earth legs back?

00:37:24.880 Did it take a while, or was it pretty instantaneous?

00:37:28.400 It took, well, it's a gradual process.

00:37:33.520 The first time, I can kind of give you a milestone.

00:37:35.660 So, I was able to walk around without assistance within that first hour.

00:37:40.640 If I had to close my eyes and walk toe, heel, toe, heel, I had no idea which way I was up.

00:37:45.420 I would fall over right away.

00:37:47.220 Eight hours later, it was getting more comfortable.

00:37:50.020 Eight hours after that, I was able to feel very celebratory.

00:37:53.220 So, 16 hours, 20 hours after I landed, I was back in Houston already, and I was very comfortable walking down the steps and throwing my arms in the air and feeling really excited about being able to see everybody.

00:38:04.400 I couldn't drive probably for 10 days because there's concerns that if you turn your head really quickly, that you might get the spins, and that would be very bad if you're driving a car by yourself.

00:38:14.260 So, we had to wait a little while for that to go away.

00:38:16.960 The biggest thing for me that I noticed was if I was in one position, say, prone for an extended period and then stood up quickly, I felt lightheaded, very lightheaded when I would change orientations.

00:38:30.060 And that pitch just did probably for two or three weeks.

00:38:32.880 And how are things now?

00:38:34.720 I think they're great now.

00:38:36.140 The only thing I'm not doing yet that I'm looking forward to doing is running.

00:38:40.840 The doctors told me not to run for the first month, and I thought, come on, this is kind of silly.

00:38:45.920 So, I literally went running for 10 minutes, or walked for 10 minutes, ran for a minute, walked for two minutes, ran for a minute, did that cycle four times, and then walked for 10 minutes.

00:38:56.300 But in just that four minutes of running spread over a half an hour, I managed to step off a curb and my knee started swelling up.

00:39:02.380 So, the doctors were basically...

00:39:04.620 They were kind about it, but there were certainly a lot of, I told you so.

00:39:08.600 And I'm not running yet.

00:39:11.660 I'm going to wait for a couple more months before I start trying to run.

00:39:14.040 The issue apparently is a bone contusion.

00:39:15.700 So, my body just wasn't used to the forces involved.

00:39:19.000 And, yeah, things started swelling up.

00:39:23.240 Yeah.

00:39:23.400 So, going to space seems like one of the biggest achievements a human can hope for.

00:39:27.580 Did you experience any psychological letdown when you got back?

00:39:31.980 This time, not so much.

00:39:35.020 And actually, I don't think...

00:39:35.940 I certainly understand what you're talking about, where if you spend so much time trying to get ready for something, and your whole life is focused on that one thing, and then when it's done, you realize, wait, I don't have a plan for this next period.

00:39:48.340 I've experienced that.

00:39:49.320 But I didn't experience it with space, because I think while I was in space, I was thinking about, what am I going to do next?

00:39:55.500 And looking forward to spending more time with my family, kind of living a more simple life.

00:40:00.280 So, I think...

00:40:02.480 And maybe it's just got to do with my age, too.

00:40:04.880 I'm in my mid-50s.

00:40:06.740 So, I'm really putting a lot of emphasis on the importance of relationship with my friends, my family.

00:40:13.200 And my career, I recognize, is not something that's going to be a big focus for more than about a decade.

00:40:20.480 So, I'm in a good spot.

00:40:22.980 So, what's next for you, career-wise?

00:40:24.520 Like, what do you do?

00:40:25.700 I mean, I imagine you're not going to go to...

00:40:26.920 Are you going to go to...

00:40:27.420 I mean, I imagine you're not going to go to space anymore.

00:40:29.200 Yeah, I don't think most astronauts do this, but I've been making it pretty public that I don't plan on going back.

00:40:33.660 I made a commitment to my wife that I would fly twice, and that would be it.

00:40:37.760 And she was very supportive of that.

00:40:40.460 So, I don't plan on going back to space.

00:40:41.940 And that's because it's a big sacrifice.

00:40:46.200 There's things like, when my kids went to college, I wasn't around to take them to college.

00:40:51.300 When one of my sisters got married, I wasn't there.

00:40:54.300 I wasn't able to go to her wedding.

00:40:55.660 My brother got married.

00:40:56.480 I wasn't able to go to his wedding.

00:40:58.360 So, there's a lot of really important life events that you can't do because you've turned over your schedule for your life to the federal government.

00:41:06.900 And when things change, you just got to change with it.

00:41:09.360 So, as far as my career, I'm definitely planning on continuing my career at NASA for a bit.

00:41:15.940 There's a lot I'm looking forward to.

00:41:17.200 It's a very dynamic time period.

00:41:18.960 We've got tests for spacecraft coming up soon for lunar flights.

00:41:23.960 We've just had successes with a new commercial spacecraft getting to the space station.

00:41:28.160 And I'm looking forward to working as a Capcom again.

00:41:31.280 And I really, when I worked as a Capcom talking to the crew on orbit, I had never been there.

00:41:37.340 And so, having been there, I feel like there's something more I can help out with in that situation.

00:41:42.420 And I've got a lot of friends that are going to be flying to the space station in the future.

00:41:45.480 So, being able to participate in that space flight in some way, small way, would be great for me.

00:41:52.340 And certainly, if there's leadership opportunities that come up, I'd be open to that as well.

00:41:57.620 We'll see.

00:41:58.740 And then after that, I'm very interested in the sustainability of the Earth.

00:42:04.240 I, as one of the few people that I've gotten to look at the Earth from outside the atmosphere, really have a sense of how thin that atmosphere looks relative to the scale of the Earth.

00:42:14.460 I don't think most of us realize that we're not really separate from space.

00:42:19.080 When you're on the Earth, all of us, when we step outside, the only thing that's separating you from the vacuum of space is what I like to call a puddle of air molecules.

00:42:28.440 That if you go to Colorado, you can actually feel that you're starting to climb out of it.

00:42:34.540 You go up to Mount Everest, and you're in a thin enough part of that atmosphere that it's not survivable for extended periods of time.

00:42:43.360 So, it's a very, very thin layer, and that's the thin layer that we live in.

00:42:48.200 That's the only part that humans live in.

00:42:50.680 The Earth is so huge, but this atmosphere just feels like it is small to me, and it's a very precious resource.

00:42:57.820 So, I'd like to be smarter about how the way we consume things, just how we live our daily existence, to understand what the impacts of that are, and maybe at some point help educate people about what I've learned associated with that.

00:43:13.840 So, we'll see.

00:43:14.980 I certainly am enthusiastic about being outdoors.

00:43:18.540 I've always been enthusiastic about being outdoors, but being stuck indoors for such a long time has certainly reinvigorated that enthusiasm.

00:43:25.780 So, self-associate with the outdoors, I'm excited about as well.

00:43:31.180 Well, Mark Vandeheye, this has been a great conversation.

00:43:33.040 Thanks for your time.

00:43:33.600 It's been a pleasure.

00:43:34.740 Thanks, Brett.

00:43:35.220 It was really wonderful talking to you, and I'm still blown away I get to do this.

00:43:38.820 My guest there is Mark Vandeheye.

00:43:40.280 He is an astronaut who spent 355 days in outer space.

00:43:44.140 Make sure to check out our show notes at awim.is slash space.

00:43:46.780 We can find links to resources.

00:43:47.880 We can delve deeper into this topic.

00:43:48.900 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast.

00:43:58.900 Make sure to check out our website at artofmanliess.com, where you can find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles written over the years about pretty much anything you think of.

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00:44:29.760 Until next time, this is Brett McKay.

00:44:31.020 Remind you not on the list of the AOM Podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - July 04, 2022

What It's Like to Spend a Year in Space

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