0
SPEAKER_01
Coming up next on Passion Strike.
0
SPEAKER_00
I was literally on top of the space station.
0
SPEAKER_00
We were installing an antenna on top of the space station.
0
SPEAKER_00
And so I kind of clipped myself in and got my hands free and sat back and watched the world pass below me for about 25 minutes or so.
0
SPEAKER_00
And what struck me was the reality that what kind of civilization do we have that allows us, all these countries working together to put people in space, not just to go to space, but really to research and challenge ourselves and to explore.
0
SPEAKER_00
and to really improve life on Earth.
0
SPEAKER_00
I grew up carrying buckets of cement for my dad.
0
SPEAKER_00
It was not anything I could conceive of to be sitting on top of the space station installing an antenna.
0
SPEAKER_00
Sometimes I think we all have to stop and take a look, look around us, look at our environment, just look at the civilization we have, we re living in.
0
SPEAKER_00
It may seem in such turmoil on any given day, but really billions of people are living together and getting along.
0
SPEAKER_00
And that s remarkable.
0
SPEAKER_00
and I don t think we necessarily appreciate those aspects of it.
0
SPEAKER_00
We actually can solve problems when we all work together.
0
SPEAKER_00
We actually can take care of this incredible planet if we challenge ourselves to understand it and understand how to make it work.
0
SPEAKER_00
Welcome to Passion Struck.
0
SPEAKER_01
Hi, I m your host, John R. Miles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world s most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you.
0
SPEAKER_01
Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself.
0
SPEAKER_01
If you re new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays.
0
SPEAKER_01
We have long form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes.
0
SPEAKER_01
Now, let s go out there and become passion struck.
0
SPEAKER_01
Hello everyone, and welcome back to episode 448 of Passion Struck, consistently ranked the number one alternative health podcast.
0
SPEAKER_01
A heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you who return to the show every week, eager to listen and learn and discover new ways to live better, to be better, and most importantly,
0
SPEAKER_01
to make a meaningful impact in the world.
0
SPEAKER_01
If you re new to the show, thank you so much for being here.
0
SPEAKER_01
Or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member, and we so appreciate it when you do that.
0
SPEAKER_01
We have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans  favorite episodes that we organize into convenient playlists that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show.
0
SPEAKER_01
Either go to Spotify or passionstruck.com slash starter packs to get started.
0
SPEAKER_01
Are you curious to find out where you stand on the path to becoming passionstruck?
0
SPEAKER_01
Dive into our Engaging Passionstruck Quiz.
0
SPEAKER_01
Crafted to reflect the core principles shared in my latest book, this quiz offers you a dynamic way to gauge your progress on the Passionstruck Continuum.
0
SPEAKER_01
Just head over to Passionstruck.com to embark on this insightful journey.
0
SPEAKER_01
With just 20 questions and roughly 10 minutes of your time, don t miss this chance to gain valuable insights into your Passionstruck journey.
0
SPEAKER_01
Take the quiz today.
0
SPEAKER_01
In case you missed it, last week I had some fantastic interviews.
0
SPEAKER_01
The first was with psychologist Emma Sapella,
0
SPEAKER_01
I also interviewed marketing expert Neil Patel and renowned physician Dr. Michael Greger.
0
SPEAKER_01
In my interview with Emma, we discuss her roadmap to psychological sovereignty, empowering you to break free from self-destructive beliefs and live life to the fullest.
0
SPEAKER_01
In my Can t Miss episode with Neil Patel, Neil reveals his secrets on the power of personal branding, mastering audience engagement and the art of storytelling to build a lasting brand.
0
SPEAKER_01
And lastly, in my interview with Dr. Michael Greger, who s a renowned physician, New York Times bestselling author, and celebrated
0
SPEAKER_01
public health advocate.
0
SPEAKER_01
He explores his latest groundbreaking book, How Not to Age, a scientific approach to getting healthier as you get older.
0
SPEAKER_01
I also wanted to say thank you for your ratings and reviews.
0
SPEAKER_01
And if you love any of those past episodes or today s, we would so appreciate you giving it a five-star review and sharing it with your friends and families.
0
SPEAKER_01
I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners.
0
SPEAKER_01
In today s episode, we have the honor of sitting down with Captain Steve Bowen, a distinguished United States Naval Submariner turned NASA astronaut.
0
SPEAKER_01
With four space flights under his belt, including commanding SpaceX Crew 6, Steve s journey from the depths of Earth s oceans to the vastness of space is nothing short of extraordinary.
0
SPEAKER_01
We ll explore the pivotal moments that shaped his trajectory from his childhood dreams of engineering to his unexpected journey to becoming an astronaut.
0
SPEAKER_01
Steve shares insights into overcoming self-doubt
0
SPEAKER_01
and uncertainty, drawing from his experiences as a submariner and ocean engineer.
0
SPEAKER_01
From his record-setting spacewalks to his perspective on the fragility of Earth from space, Steve offers a unique lens into the challenges and triumphs of space exploration.
0
SPEAKER_01
We ll delve into the parallels between life on a submarine and aboard the International Space Station.
0
SPEAKER_01
uncovering the similarities in daily routines and the pace of operations.
0
SPEAKER_01
Join us as we uncover Steve s reflections on the future of space exploration, his advice for aspiring astronauts, and the profound lessons he s learned about teamwork, adaptability, and resilience along the way.
0
SPEAKER_01
Get ready to be inspired as we embark on this captivating journey with Captain Steve Bowen.
0
SPEAKER_01
Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life.
0
SPEAKER_01
Now, let that journey begin.
0
SPEAKER_01
I am absolutely thrilled and honored to have astronaut Steve Bellen on PassionStruck.
0
SPEAKER_01
Welcome, Steve.
0
SPEAKER_00
Well, good morning.
0
SPEAKER_00
How are you today?
0
SPEAKER_01
I am, man.
0
SPEAKER_01
I m doing great.
0
SPEAKER_01
I always love it when I get an opportunity to talk to an astronaut because I m so fascinated by the work that you have done.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I myself have been on submarines, so we can talk about that in a bit as well.
0
SPEAKER_01
But I want to start with your backstory.
0
SPEAKER_01
I understand as a kid, you dreamed of being an engineer.
0
SPEAKER_01
How did that passion lead you to wanting to attend the Naval Academy?
0
SPEAKER_00
Well, that s an interesting question.
0
SPEAKER_00
When I was little, looking back in the dark ages there, I actually watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon.
0
SPEAKER_00
And so I was five years old or so, and that was a pretty remarkable.
0
SPEAKER_00
So the whole space program, science was news.
0
SPEAKER_00
It was really exciting.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I think that sort of struck up my interest in engineering and science.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I really enjoyed all of that going through school.
0
SPEAKER_00
And so I continued to do well in it and I developed an interest in a lot of different engineering.
0
SPEAKER_00
So like when the time came to apply to colleges, I applied to a lot of engineering schools, knowing that I wanted to be an engineer of some form.
0
SPEAKER_00
I really didn t understand exactly what each of the different engineering disciplines were exactly, but I had a rough idea.
0
SPEAKER_00
And so going to the Academy, I got to sort that out and I ended up being an electrical engineer at the Academy and ultimately got an engineer s degree at MIT for ocean engineering.
0
SPEAKER_00
So.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_00
It was just in my interest as a kid, I brought it along and I really developed it through that.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
I have an interesting historical tidbit for you.
0
SPEAKER_01
I was actually on the brigade honor staff when we had the electrical engineering cheating scandal in the class right below me.
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh, wow.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
So I had always thought that that was one of the most difficult classes I ever took.
0
SPEAKER_01
So congratulations to you on getting through that as a major.
0
SPEAKER_00
Well, yeah, it was a major.
0
SPEAKER_00
We didn t have to take that class.
0
SPEAKER_00
We took all the other classes around it.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s so funny.
0
SPEAKER_01
I interviewed vice-admiral Ted Carter, our former superintendent, and Kayla Baron came up on this discussion and he was saying, Kayla was my aid.
0
SPEAKER_01
And one day she talked about becoming an astronaut and she started talking about all the self-doubt and there s no way I could ever become it.
0
SPEAKER_01
And he goes, well, you never know.
0
SPEAKER_01
Until you apply, Kayla, you got to apply.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I understand you applied for NASA on a whim, not thinking you would ever be selected.
0
SPEAKER_01
And you were in a pool of over 8,000 applicants.
0
SPEAKER_01
What inspired you?
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s interesting.
0
SPEAKER_00
It was, I was on shore duty in 1998 and the Navy message came by basically talking about now astronaut selection.
0
SPEAKER_00
And at that point we were just initiating the space station program.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I thought, well, my submarine background, I thought that was a very similar environment.
0
SPEAKER_00
And so I was looking, I really enjoyed being a department head on a submarine.
0
SPEAKER_00
It was a great opportunity to drive the boat.
0
SPEAKER_00
I was never going to have that type of experience on the boat again.
0
SPEAKER_00
So I applied not thinking I would ever get selected.
0
SPEAKER_00
What s the worst they can say?
0
SPEAKER_00
No.
0
SPEAKER_00
And there was no, no skin off my back in a sense, and if you don t
0
SPEAKER_00
challenge yourself to do this, to volunteer for things or apply for things, you re never going to go anywhere.
0
SPEAKER_00
So it wasn t necessarily a total whim in a sense that it had been crossing my mind through the years, never knew anybody that actually had applied to be an astronaut.
0
SPEAKER_00
So when the opportunity came up, I just followed the directions and I didn t meet really meet an astronaut until I became one.
0
SPEAKER_00
And that s when I found out that was not necessarily the normal way to do it.
0
SPEAKER_01
No, not at all.
0
SPEAKER_01
And our podcast is really about a behavior change in the intentional actions that we take.
0
SPEAKER_01
I was hoping maybe given this background, could you share a pivotal moment in your journey where you had to overcome self-doubt or uncertainty?
0
SPEAKER_01
Because a lot of people have aspirations like being an astronaut, but they re unwilling to make the gamble to actually go down the path because of self-doubt.
0
SPEAKER_01
What would be your advice to them?
0
SPEAKER_00
Well, it s actually.
1
SPEAKER_00
goes a lot further back than that because of the application is, like I said, there s no cost in applying.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it s not going to necessarily affect my job, not going to affect anything like that.
1
SPEAKER_00
The more crucial ones are, whether it be at the Academy or in the submarine force, when you re challenged with difficulties that do affect what you re going to do.
1
SPEAKER_00
There always is that option of not doing the hard thing and
1
SPEAKER_00
I always found it a lot more interesting.
1
SPEAKER_00
And a friend of mine used to quote me back to myself because I told him, I said, I like doing things the hard way because it s easier.
1
SPEAKER_00
And the logic of that was if you try and do the more difficult things, what you learn in that process opens up new opportunities and new places to go.
1
SPEAKER_00
So when I talk to kids, I talk about the fact that as a first grader in the good old days, teachers would tell you things like
1
SPEAKER_00
Steve, you are in the lowest reading group.
1
SPEAKER_00
So this is, I m pretty young.
1
SPEAKER_00
He s saying you re in the lowest reading group and I m pretty stubborn person.
1
SPEAKER_00
I did not want to be in the lowest reading group.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I worked really hard that year to move up to the highest reading group.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so what I learned from that and followed on is anytime that there s a class, they re teaching it to us for some reason.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I always tried to do a little bit more effort in the classes.
1
SPEAKER_00
I was not necessarily doing well and not necessarily enjoying
1
SPEAKER_00
just so I could understand why we were learning that.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I think that provided opportunities along the way.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so when challenged, whether it be in the nuclear pipeline for submarines, there are opportunities there where you could just, you re still going to have a fine career doing something, but it s hard.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s a hard thing to get through those classes and those courses.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so I always look at the astronaut application process.
1
SPEAKER_00
That wasn t so hard.
1
SPEAKER_00
And it was everything along the way to be in a position that those opportunities are available to you.
1
SPEAKER_00
I think that s the biggest thing is you want to, I tried to make sure I had all the opportunities still available to me as long as I could.
1
SPEAKER_01
Now, one of the things I ve talked about on this show is this concept of activation energy, meaning if you think of something on two axes where energy is on one side, intentional action is on the other, and you picture a person trying to push a boulder up a hill, it s at first very high activation energy to get that boulder up.
1
SPEAKER_01
But once you get it moving, it becomes less and less.
1
SPEAKER_01
What role do you think taking purposeful action and lessening this activation energy play a role in achieving long-term goals?
1
SPEAKER_00
I think that is critical.
1
SPEAKER_00
And like I said, I think the, if you continuously try and push, try and do the best you can and try and learn new things to this day, I enjoy learning and trying to achieve new goals.
1
SPEAKER_00
My physical capabilities aren t what they used to be, but I m still out there challenge myself.
1
SPEAKER_00
Uh, physically, I think that keeping that momentum going.
1
SPEAKER_00
mentally, physically, spiritually, however you want to put it, is really important.
1
SPEAKER_00
I think that just makes everything a little bit easier.
1
SPEAKER_00
When you do come to a point where you come to a halt, as you said, getting that activation energy, getting that first step going is huge.
1
SPEAKER_00
And a lot of times, and the physical aspects of it, if you stop working out for a little while and you start working out again,
1
SPEAKER_00
That first attempt, you may not succeed.
1
SPEAKER_00
You ll end up stopping for another couple of days or another week or two and you ll start again, but you need to get rolling.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I think that s the biggest thing is to keep moving.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, thank you for that.
1
SPEAKER_01
And for the listeners who aren t familiar with this, there s actually an underwater habitat off the coast of the keys called the Aquarius reef base, and I was talking to astronaut Nicole Stott, who told me about her experiences of being an aquanaut, and that NASA has sent many people down there because it s the best
1
SPEAKER_01
on earth experience they have to compare to being on the ISS.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I was wondering, because you were the first submarine officer to be selected as an astronaut.
1
SPEAKER_01
How do you think your background as a Submariner or that Aquanaut experience Nicole went through influenced your approach to space exploration?
1
SPEAKER_01
And do you see commonalities between the two?
1
SPEAKER_00
I was always surprised when I showed up here that I was the first submarine officer selected because it seemed like a natural fit.
1
SPEAKER_00
And NASA actually had studies going back to the early 1970s saying, Hey, this is one of the populations we should be pulling from if we re looking for a long duration space flight.
1
SPEAKER_00
The thing I thought was interesting when also when I first showed up 25 years ago, we essentially just starting the ISS experience.
1
SPEAKER_00
I had several doctors here who had looked at the submarine environment and spent a few days on board a submarine.
1
SPEAKER_00
And their comments basically were all, there s nothing similar.
1
SPEAKER_00
Submarine is too big.
1
SPEAKER_00
You have too many resources, et cetera.
1
SPEAKER_00
The thing that struck me now that I ve done an increment was how similar it really was as an experience.
1
SPEAKER_00
My first flight on back in 2008, the first thing I noticed when I crossed over into the space station from the space shuttle was that I smelt like a submarine, which was not a nice thing to say about any place.
1
SPEAKER_00
But you get used to that pretty quick.
1
SPEAKER_00
And the environment itself was very submarine like a lot of the engineering and technology used on board space station initially came from the submarine force because it s an enclosed environment.
1
SPEAKER_00
So the physical environment was very similar.
1
SPEAKER_00
And the amount of space you had on space station was greater than I ever had on a submarine.
1
SPEAKER_00
Operationally though, it was very submarine-like.
1
SPEAKER_00
You fall into that daily routine.
1
SPEAKER_00
Of getting up, getting your work done and working basically at seven 30 to seven 30 on a summary.
1
SPEAKER_00
And you had a rotating schedule, which was not as not as easy to deal with, but every day was a little bit different, but somewhat the same.
1
SPEAKER_00
You re doing science, you re doing research.
1
SPEAKER_00
You have to work in your workout, all of these things are the same.
1
SPEAKER_00
And then you d have a week at a time or a few days at a time where you re working really hard together as a team to accomplish some goal.
1
SPEAKER_00
Like an EVA coming together to get people out the door to safely do that work and bring them back inside.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that was also very submarine-like.
1
SPEAKER_00
So the experience of an ISS thing was very much a submarine deployment.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I had the opportunity in November to talk to a submarine group, and it really made me realize exactly how much of that is true.
1
SPEAKER_00
Aside from the physical differences, the operational things are very similar.
1
SPEAKER_00
I thought it was true.
1
SPEAKER_00
I just verified it was true.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I was on the Baltimore, the Phoenix, and the Cincinnati, all LA class boats, but there s something about that smell that I can never get it out of my head.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I understand- Oh no, no, you can never get it out of your clothes either.
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh my gosh.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s been 25 years, 27 years since I left the boats.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I remember digging something up last year in the Eves, and that suit, that coverall, the poopy suit, had that odor.
1
SPEAKER_00
still after all these years.
1
SPEAKER_01
And the crazy thing is you can wash it 20 times and it just never comes out.
1
SPEAKER_00
Never goes away.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s an amazing thing.
1
SPEAKER_01
Is my research correct that the oxygen generators on the station are the same as the ones on the Virginia class submarines?
1
SPEAKER_00
Pretty much exactly the same.
1
SPEAKER_00
So one of my first jobs after my initial astronaut training, I was working on ISS systems.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so we had not flown the oxygen generating
1
SPEAKER_00
assembly to space yet, it was still in development.
1
SPEAKER_00
But I went up and visited the company and the guys pulled me aside and said, Hey, you want to see your old oxygen generator?
1
SPEAKER_00
And the same company, same cells, same system as a Virginia class, obviously highly modified, but basically the same technology on the Virginia class as we do have on the space station.
1
SPEAKER_00
Obviously on the space station, you re only dealing with seven people.
1
SPEAKER_00
On a submarine, you have a hundred and something people to deal with.
1
SPEAKER_00
But it was interesting because that really, again, made me realize how similar technology is.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, when I was talking to Chris Cassidy, who for the listener, he was my Naval Academy classmate, an astronaut similar to Steve, he told me how beneficial it was for his SEAL training when it came to the astronaut program in terms of teamwork and leadership.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I can see how his close team environment would simulate what it would be like being on the ISS.
1
SPEAKER_01
But did you find a lot of commonalities as well in teamwork and leadership between the two?
1
SPEAKER_00
Oh, absolutely.
1
SPEAKER_00
The, we have a hundred something people on board submarine, but on a watch section basis, if you re a maneuvering or if you re in control, you re actually directly dealing with for six hours at a time, four or five, six other people.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that.
1
SPEAKER_00
was very similar to being on space station.
1
SPEAKER_00
The biggest difference is once on the space station, you end up operating independently for a great deal of the time because everybody s, they split everybody up to get the most work.
1
SPEAKER_00
And you get a lot of your support directly from the ground with people with cameras, basically supporting what you re doing to make sure you re following all the procedures well.
1
SPEAKER_00
So there s that
2
SPEAKER_00
that difference that you end up independently doing it.
2
SPEAKER_00
But that s also true of the watchstanders out in the spaces on the submarine.
2
SPEAKER_00
You don t have direct access to them either.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it s just very similar in that structure of how things get done in that small team aspect, which is very different than a larger military organization where you don t have that small team aspect, that real ability.
2
SPEAKER_00
You have to directly communicate with people to get the work done.
2
SPEAKER_00
Personal relationships that allow you to communicate clearly are really important.
2
SPEAKER_00
And then just the communication discipline, when you re talking to people that aren t directly in front of you, like when we talked to the ground from space, trying to impart the information clearly and in a way that everybody understands the intent is another skill that you have to learn and that
2
SPEAKER_00
you also get in the military or the submarine force in particular, I think.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Especially now that you re flying up there with astronauts who are from different countries and you ve got other countries involved with it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
I can imagine that making sure the communications is right is paramount.
2
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
2
SPEAKER_01
I always love to talk to astronauts about the sensation that they feel seeing the earth from space.
2
SPEAKER_01
And many people call it the overview effect.
2
SPEAKER_01
But when I was talking to Wendy Lawrence about it, I think she gave the best description I ve heard.
2
SPEAKER_01
And she said to her, when she saw the earth and then saw it in the greater context of space, she described the planet as being fragile, meaning
2
SPEAKER_01
She understood how many things were interconnected and how vital it was that these things maintain a certain order.
2
SPEAKER_01
Would you describe it in a similar way?
2
SPEAKER_00
Oh, absolutely.
2
SPEAKER_00
One of the things that you do get from space that you don t get from anywhere else is exactly how thin the atmosphere is when you look at the horizon.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a very thin atmosphere.
2
SPEAKER_00
We use a hundred miles, I mean, a hundred kilometers or 50 miles, depending on whose standards you re looking at as to where you re in space.
2
SPEAKER_00
And if you think of that a hundred kilometers relative to the radius of earth, it s really thin.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so you really see that in a lot of photographs from space, you ll see how thin the atmosphere is.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s where all of our life exists.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s the planet itself, the oceans, it s such an interconnected world.
2
SPEAKER_00
And we re just in the void on this little world interconnected in a very fragile environment.
2
SPEAKER_00
So yeah, Wendy sums it up pretty well.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, thank you for that.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s just something that I wish we all could experience because I think it would make us all live a little bit differently down here on the planet.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s funny.
2
SPEAKER_00
We say that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I do think that it s probably because of the ages we are.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think long before we ever became astronauts long before we ever flew in space, we ve seen those pictures from Apollo eight and later of Earthrise or earth from outer space.
2
SPEAKER_00
I felt, I think those lessons are built into our.
2
SPEAKER_00
our upbringing at this point, where you do see the earth as an orb in a void.
2
SPEAKER_00
And you do understand that everything on that earth is what supports life down here.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I do think that is a lesson that is already built into us, but what I don t think, and I think what we do get the opportunity to do from space is we get that opportunity to take a moment and think about it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Whereas down here, oftentimes we never stop or slow down.
2
SPEAKER_00
Last week, I had the opportunity to watch Totality in Cleveland.
2
SPEAKER_00
And during the eclipse itself, well, before the eclipse started, the actual Totality started, I was talking to someone.
2
SPEAKER_00
I said, you re going to see something we cannot really see from space station.
2
SPEAKER_00
We re going to have four minutes basically of the moon completely covering the sun.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s going to be dark outside.
2
SPEAKER_00
The environment around you is going to change dramatically and
2
SPEAKER_00
This experience, you need to pay attention to it.
2
SPEAKER_00
That gives you a sense of the wonder and awe of the universe that we should all feel.
2
SPEAKER_00
And as from my experience, often I tell the story of being outside doing a spacewalk and the ground calls up and tells me to stand by.
2
SPEAKER_00
And having been around a little bit at that point, when the ground says stand by, it s going to be more than a few minutes.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I was literally on top of the space station.
2
SPEAKER_00
We were installing an antenna on top of the space station.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so I flipped myself in and got my hands free and sat back and watched the world pass below me for about 25 minutes or so.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was overlooking the Russian segment.
2
SPEAKER_00
And what struck me was the reality that what kind of civilization do we have that allows us all these countries working together to put people in space, not just to go to space, but really to
2
SPEAKER_00
research and challenge ourselves and to explore and to really improve life on earth.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I grew up carrying buckets of cement for my dad.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was not anything I could conceive of to be sitting on top of the space station installing an antenna.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s sometimes I think we all have to stop and take a look, look around us, look at our environment.
2
SPEAKER_00
Eclipse was a great natural indication, but just look at the civilization we have, we re living in.
2
SPEAKER_00
It may seem
2
SPEAKER_00
in such turmoil on any given day, but really billions of people are living together and getting along.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s remarkable.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I don t think we necessarily appreciate those aspects of it, that we actually can solve problems when we all work together.
2
SPEAKER_00
We actually can take care of this incredible planet as we, if we challenge ourselves to understand it and understand how to make it work.
2
SPEAKER_01
I just interviewed a person earlier this morning named Noam Platt, and he s an architect down in New Orleans who has building adaptive technology for children who have disabilities.
2
SPEAKER_01
And he was telling me about this recent project that he was working on where they were interfacing with a person in Pakistan and some people in Israel and other parts of the world.
2
SPEAKER_01
And because they were using open source and collaborating,
2
SPEAKER_01
He was talking about how much it speeds up their overall development and how, when they re building these technologies, not only is it helping the recipient, perhaps in Pakistan but they re then able to use that to speed up the delivery of mechanisms to help people out throughout the world and when I think of.
2
SPEAKER_01
Things like climate change and the systems change that we re going to need to do to make that come to fruition.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s stories like Noam s and yours that bring me so much hope that we collectively can work on these things if we get aligned.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s really amazing to me, I ve had the opportunity over the past 25 years or 24 years or so to work with a number of different countries.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s really interesting to see how other cultures solve problems, how they approach problems.
2
SPEAKER_00
One of the most amazing things about Station and really it s the engineering side of me, which says, we had all these modules on earth that never really met each other until they got to space.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they all fit and they all worked, which meant that all these different countries building to the same standard, the same set of criteria were able to meet those requirements.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they all solve these problems in different ways.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s amazing to see how that comes together when you have these different
2
SPEAKER_00
cultures and different ways of approaching problems and how much quicker and more robustly you can solve these things.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, absolutely.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, Steve, I wanted to take you on a history trip on some of your missions.
2
SPEAKER_01
STS-126 was the one that you were talking about when you were doing the assembly mission of the ISS.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I wanted to ask, when you ve got so much going on up there, how do you stay focused amidst all the challenges and distractions that can be a part of space exploration?
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, that s part of our training.
2
SPEAKER_00
I think that s part of how they select us.
2
SPEAKER_00
We want to make sure we have people that can focus.
2
SPEAKER_00
And 126 had the additional challenge of being my first flight.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I really credit it to the training.
2
SPEAKER_00
So when we train on the ground, we try to get the fidelity as high as possible.
2
SPEAKER_00
And one of the major reasons to do that is the space environment is so alien, so foreign that you cannot really simulate it.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it s important that you can get there as close as possible.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s like when you re doing a spacewalk, we train in the NBL, which is a giant swimming pool.
2
SPEAKER_00
We actually have a space station mock-up submerged in a swimming pool.
2
SPEAKER_00
We get in the spacesuit at the NBL.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a downgraded version of the actual spacesuit.
2
SPEAKER_00
So it feels very similar, your tactical,
2
SPEAKER_00
environment, the work that you re doing, it looks very similar.
2
SPEAKER_00
You re just doing the same thing.
2
SPEAKER_00
You get to orbit and it amazed me how little I wasn t prepared for.
2
SPEAKER_00
Obviously the environment itself was the big changes.
2
SPEAKER_00
The actual work, the task, getting things done.
3
SPEAKER_01
were not that much of a distraction in the sense because they weren t that different.
3
SPEAKER_01
So the ability to focus in a foreign environment, I think they probably hire us for that ability, but it is something you have to concentrate on.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so you fall back on your training and your training will keep you safe.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it s interesting that you bring that up because I was talking to Chris about his time as the chief astronaut, uh, leading that office.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I was telling him, what are some of the complications that come with that job?
3
SPEAKER_00
And he goes, well, one of the biggest ones is scheduling.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he brought up something I never even thought about.
3
SPEAKER_00
He said, just like any other discipline that you have going on in a business that some people are better equipped for and there are others.
3
SPEAKER_00
that are better equipped for something else.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he said, one of the key things is spacewalks.
3
SPEAKER_00
He goes, some people absolutely excel at it and other people do not.
3
SPEAKER_00
So if you are having a mission that s going to require extensive spacewalks, it completely changes your crew configuration.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I understand for you, because of your spacewalking prowess, it led you to becoming the first and only astronaut to fly on consecutive shuttle missions, SDS-132 and 133.
3
SPEAKER_00
Can you talk about what happened there and how that came about?
3
SPEAKER_01
It was a little odd.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was, we landed on SDS-132, which was another assembly mission.
3
SPEAKER_01
We call it the first last flight of space shuttle Atlantis.
3
SPEAKER_01
And when we landed, the office basically told us there s no more shuttle flights.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so I started focusing on my Russian and was hoping to get a space station flight.
3
SPEAKER_01
And for STS-133, I was one of the family support astronauts.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was down there because a lot of members of that crew were classmates of mine.
3
SPEAKER_01
Five of the six people flying on that flight were classmates of mine.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I was down there to help their families, make sure they got everything taken care of.
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, they had a major anomaly with the tank.
3
SPEAKER_01
prior to launch, this late October, early November of 2010.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so we go back to Houston, they ve got a scheduled launch date now of February.
3
SPEAKER_01
In January, I get a call that the lead spacewalker on that flight, Tim Kopra, had been injured in an accident and that there was a high probability he wouldn t be available to do the flight.
3
SPEAKER_01
And because at the time I was the lead in the EVA branch, the spacewalking branch for the office, the head of the office and the deputy
3
SPEAKER_01
called me in so we could go through the names, the list.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so it was, I thought it was pretty easy.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s a, we have ratings within the training.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so I took the top names that were still in the office, still available.
3
SPEAKER_01
Cause we had pretty high attrition at that point.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I gave them a list of eight names and we talked different levels of concern.
3
SPEAKER_01
I can say, okay, so if you take any of these eight people, you should be fine.
3
SPEAKER_01
Next level down, there s a little bit higher risk if you use some other combination of the training.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I, for each of those first eight names, I gave a very complimentary thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
I say, well, you take this guy, cause he could do this, like this person, cause they can do that.
3
SPEAKER_01
And when I got to my name, cause I was met the qualification, it would look weird to leave myself off the list that they all knew I was on.
3
SPEAKER_01
I said, don t pick me.
3
SPEAKER_01
Cause I made the list.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I often think they picked me to spite me because I made the list.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it was a unique opportunity.
3
SPEAKER_01
So six weeks from launch, I got added to the flight.
3
SPEAKER_01
And fortunately, I had not basically brain dunked all the shuttle knowledge I had.
3
SPEAKER_01
And this is what I talk to kids about when they re taking tests and when they re going, taking classes.
3
SPEAKER_01
As I said, the teachers are teaching you something for some reason.
3
SPEAKER_01
Don t just get rid of all that information after you take the test thinking you re not going to use it again.
3
SPEAKER_01
So fortunately I had retained all of my space shuttle knowledge sufficiently that they didn t have to add that back into my training.
3
SPEAKER_01
And they were able to turn me around in six weeks.
3
SPEAKER_01
do a couple NBL runs to get myself up to speed.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was already familiar with the procedures based on my position in the office.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so we launched and launched on time in February and able to conduct a few EVAs and get back home safely.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the team, that crew, they picked up the slack and all the other areas that I was not going to be able to help out on.
3
SPEAKER_01
Tim s position was not just the lead spacewalker, but he was also on the flight deck.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so Nicole and B Alvin drew stepped in there and took care of the flight deck requirements.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it was, again, it s a whole team coming together to solve that problem.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I wanted to ask you about your EVAs with 10 EVAs under your belt.
3
SPEAKER_00
My understanding is you re tied for the most excursions by a U S astronaut.
3
SPEAKER_00
What are some of the most memorable moments from your space walks?
3
SPEAKER_01
Every one was unique and interesting.
3
SPEAKER_01
Some of the highlights, interesting observations.
3
SPEAKER_01
One of my early ones, I actually saw a meteorite enter the atmosphere below me.
3
SPEAKER_01
And that was really cool.
3
SPEAKER_01
Wow.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was used to seeing those from the ground and looking up.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was up there looking down and I saw a meteorite streak across the sky and enter into the Earth s atmosphere.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it was great except for I thought for a moment, that rock was just out here with me a few minutes ago.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it really brings home the MMOD, micro meteorite and debris
3
SPEAKER_01
issues with space, keeping the space clear.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s the highest risk for space station is it s going to get hit by something.
3
SPEAKER_01
So that was a pretty unique experience.
3
SPEAKER_01
Another one was also on an early spacewalk was we were coming up over New England.
3
SPEAKER_01
And if you don t know, the reason we can see space station from the ground is that the space station is still in sunlight and we re in darkness.
3
SPEAKER_01
So there s a certain set of unique circumstances.
3
SPEAKER_01
It happens somewhere all the time, obviously.
3
SPEAKER_01
As the space station s entering into darkness, it s still in sunlight, but below you, you can look down in the star.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we were coming up over New England and I was laughing.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was like waving down to my family and friends down there.
3
SPEAKER_01
But sure enough, I get back and they were waving up at the same time.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I thought that was a unique experience.
3
SPEAKER_01
I talked about being, having the opportunity to contemplate the space station because we had to wait on the ground.
3
SPEAKER_01
Having the opportunity in this past couple of EVAs to go out with Sultan Almeida for his first spacewalk and Woody s, Woody Hoberg s first spacewalks was just tremendous, just great people.
3
SPEAKER_01
And having the opportunity to be out there with them, that was, I really enjoyed that.
3
SPEAKER_01
It had been 13 years since I had done a spacewalk and this was their first, and it was just, I had time to think about it.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was really an amazing experience.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s something about seeing the space station from earth.
3
SPEAKER_00
That is just awe inspiring.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I ve only been able to see it one time and it came right over my house here in the Tampa Bay area.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, it was as if it came directly over the house and it was just so incredible to see it, but also it goes so fast that it really gives you about 30 seconds to a minute to watch it.
3
SPEAKER_01
There are some apps out there that it will help you if you want to go outside and see it.
3
SPEAKER_01
I always suggest people go outside when they have the opportunity and bring out good food because they re up there eating space food, which is great for the environment that we have in, but it s not quite what we have on the ground.
3
SPEAKER_01
So that s a good opportunity to go outside and wave and really think about the fact that we ve had people permanently living in space for almost 24 years now.
3
SPEAKER_01
There s over a third of the population of the earth.
3
SPEAKER_01
As long as they ve been alive, people have been living in space.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I don t think we comprehend what that actually means.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s an amazing accomplishment.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I ve never thought about it like that.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you re right.
3
SPEAKER_00
That perspective changes everything about it and makes it more plausible to think about us doing more excursions further into deep space exploration.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, absolutely.
3
SPEAKER_01
The value of exploration, there s the obvious what we learn and how we bring that back down to earth.
3
SPEAKER_01
And when we challenge ourselves to explore, we often look back at Apollo and the things we learned from Apollo, whether it be the engineering side of the communications, the navigation, those things that we learned.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s not just the science, it s the science, the engineering.
3
SPEAKER_01
We challenge ourselves with these things and it makes life better here.
3
SPEAKER_01
But Stephen Hawking and one of my other heroes, John Young, both said essentially the same thing, which is single planet species don t survive.
3
SPEAKER_01
We re going to have to find a way to preserve our earth as long as we can.
3
SPEAKER_01
But ultimately in a few million years or whatever it takes, we re going to have to leave this place and go someplace else to find someplace inhabitable.
3
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely true.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I m going to ask you a couple of questions about that later on.
3
SPEAKER_00
I wanted to ask you one last thing about EVAs.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have to give NASA and the overall community a ton of credit because we have become so accustomed to seeing EVAs performed and the safety record is incredible.
3
SPEAKER_00
But at one time they were thought to be extremely dangerous and people even wondered, could you build the ISS?
3
SPEAKER_00
because there was so much fear in the safety measures around it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I say all this leading up to Chris Cassidy s spacewalk that he did with Luca Parmitano.
3
SPEAKER_00
And the way that Chris tells me about this, he makes it seem like it was just this routine spacewalk and it was his training and he got Luca back in.
3
SPEAKER_00
But for people who don t know the story, Luca is an Italian
4
SPEAKER_00
astronaut, I believe he was on a second spacewalk and he s out there with Chris.
4
SPEAKER_00
And during this, he starts feeling a liquid in his helmet.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he at first thinks it s just sweat.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it turns out to be a magnetic liquid that starts filling up his helmet.
4
SPEAKER_00
And unlike here on earth, where the liquid would go down, it s building up right around his eyes and his nose.
4
SPEAKER_00
How
4
SPEAKER_00
Dangerous was that predicament actually from the standpoint of a layman of what they were experiencing and what, I mean, Chris describes it as routine, but how big a hurdle was that trying to get Luca into the air hatch when I understand it was dark outside, he s having to flip them over and guide them and everything else.
4
SPEAKER_00
Can you just give your perspective on that?
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, no, it was an incredibly dangerous day and he really could have died.
4
SPEAKER_01
He really could have drowned.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was not a light thing.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so when they, it took a while for the ground to realize what was going on.
4
SPEAKER_01
Chris was operating a lot of spacewalks.
4
SPEAKER_01
They re not right next to each other.
4
SPEAKER_01
So.
4
SPEAKER_01
Chris had to come back and get Luca and get him inside.
4
SPEAKER_01
And Luca could not see, he was not going to be of much help to Chris getting back inside.
4
SPEAKER_01
He was looking for opportunities as to where to breathe in that helmet because the water does pool.
4
SPEAKER_01
And Karen Nyberg was on board.
4
SPEAKER_01
I think that s who the other crew member was.
4
SPEAKER_01
Once Chris got him in, got the hat shot, they repressed and got him out very quickly.
4
SPEAKER_01
And again, that falls back on the training.
4
SPEAKER_01
You want to be highly trained.
4
SPEAKER_01
You want, you know, we used to joke about 90% of our
4
SPEAKER_01
training being done with after the first 10, 12 minutes of a shuttle flight.
4
SPEAKER_01
But you really want that 90% to never, you almost never want to use it because that s really the stuff that you rely on when things go bad.
4
SPEAKER_01
And in this circumstance, things went really bad.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we, at the time, the suit been 10 years since that event, and we re still operating the same suit.
4
SPEAKER_01
We ve modified a few things.
4
SPEAKER_01
We ve added some features.
4
SPEAKER_01
But they all bring little complications.
4
SPEAKER_01
So you talked to Kayla before, and Kayla literally did her spacewalk in a suit that s older than she is.
4
SPEAKER_01
We have not really developed a new suit since the 1970s.
4
SPEAKER_01
So the opportunities to have a new suit coming online here in the next few years is a big deal.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I don t necessarily have my personal opinion as to how we should have done that and how we didn t do it the way I would have done it, but it s going to be a market improvement in
4
SPEAKER_01
In mobility and safety, we have learned a lot over the past 50 years as to how to build and design these things.
4
SPEAKER_01
But the EMU, the suit we currently use for spacewalks, there s that engineering balance.
4
SPEAKER_01
How do they solve problems they couldn t model?
4
SPEAKER_01
How that system and suit interacts that every time when we went and took the suit apart to understand this problem in particular, the balance built into that design, we didn t really understand it.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so.
4
SPEAKER_01
until we broke it down and really got into the problems with the suit.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we continue to challenge ourselves to find the problems with the suit, even as hopefully in the next few years, we won t be using this one anymore.
4
SPEAKER_01
But it was a real, no kidding problem.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we ve had problems.
4
SPEAKER_01
Fortunately, that was the only EBA problem of that extent that we ve run across.
4
SPEAKER_01
We have had other problems during EBAs.
4
SPEAKER_01
We ve had problems before we started EBAs and after EBAs.
4
SPEAKER_01
that weren t as hazardous, but still, if we had not tried to fix them or just not really paid attention to what the suit was telling us, could have been just as hazardous.
4
SPEAKER_00
I remember Chris telling me that he got Luca into the air chamber and he said that was some of the most stressful time for him because people don t realize you re in there for what, 20, 30 minutes.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he said it was just this time period where he could see the water growing in size and he was doing everything in his power to keep Luca calm.
4
SPEAKER_00
So he wouldn t freak out about what was happening.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it s Chris, the part he doesn t tell you there that really
4
SPEAKER_01
His experience, his capabilities really helped him a lot because getting the hat shut once you re in there with two people in there is not trivial.
4
SPEAKER_01
Some people, it takes a long time to get that hat shut and sealed and get the procedure going.
4
SPEAKER_01
So I have said in the past that if this had been two other people, it may not have had the outcome it did because they were both incredibly capable people.
4
SPEAKER_01
And it was not a good day.
4
SPEAKER_01
I will tell you that.
4
SPEAKER_00
Earlier in the conversation, you mentioned studying Russian so that you could hopefully get a launch from Russia.
4
SPEAKER_00
And as I was chatting back and forth with Chris today, he told me to ask you about how he stole your two Soyuz crewmates.
4
SPEAKER_01
He did.
4
SPEAKER_01
He actually did.
4
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, yeah, there s that whole thing.
4
SPEAKER_01
So Chris and I, there was a period of time when the commercial crew program was not
4
SPEAKER_01
moving along as quickly as we thought we needed to.
4
SPEAKER_01
So there was going to be a problem with the ability to actually do spacewalks on board the space station.
4
SPEAKER_01
So Chris and I were assigned to help train cosmonauts to do spacewalks.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so there was one person on his crew and one person on my crew that we did NBL runs.
4
SPEAKER_01
We were training so that they could do spacewalks with us and getting ready to launch Chris.
4
SPEAKER_01
So this is beginning of 2020.
4
SPEAKER_01
I had trained with my crew for a year and a half and he had trained with his crew.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, one of his crew members was injured similar to this earlier discussion and was not actually going to be able to fly on his Soyuz.
4
SPEAKER_00
And we can t blame it on West point training in this case.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m sure Chris has told you what happened.
4
SPEAKER_01
It was just a freakish thing.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so suddenly he did not have a crewmate.
4
SPEAKER_01
And when you have a backup crew, cause I was Chris s backup crew, I was slated to fly the next flight with my crew that I trained with.
4
SPEAKER_01
And they took both my crew members and moved them up to Chris s flight.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the irony, and Chris may not have even known this, is that the day this happened, the lead Russian cosmonaut for the Soyuz totally had literally sent me our patch with my name on it saying, Hey, let me get you the patches.
4
SPEAKER_01
This is going to be great.
4
SPEAKER_01
And yeah, later that day it wasn t so great because suddenly I didn t have my crew anymore.
4
SPEAKER_01
Now he took my crew.
4
SPEAKER_01
They were a great group.
4
SPEAKER_01
They were a great crew.
4
SPEAKER_01
They would have been awesome to spend six months with on orbit.
4
SPEAKER_01
That was, yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_01
I like my crew.
4
SPEAKER_01
I like the crew they gave me as a, for the, just for the backup flow.
4
SPEAKER_01
I had another crew that showed up just to get through the backup training.
4
SPEAKER_01
Cause again, the Soyuz launch it s scheduled.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, up until basically a day or two before the launch, they would swap crews if they had to.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so I had a backup group that I trained with for those last few weeks, which was really a good group.
4
SPEAKER_01
It would have been fine to be in space with them too.
4
SPEAKER_00
I actually asked Chris, was he nervous about launching on the Suez?
4
SPEAKER_00
And he said, absolutely not.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was actually less nervous launching on that than the space shuttle because the design is so basic and so ingenious that I was so comfortable with the way that they ve developed this technology that he goes to me, it was no sweat.
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, it s been launching the same sort of vehicle essentially has been launching for
4
SPEAKER_01
60 years or so now.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s a robust design.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s been obviously hundreds of flights.
4
SPEAKER_01
Shuttle was an incredible piece of technology, but it was a very complicated piece of technology.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I joked that when I got off 133 and I looked at Discovery as we walked around it after landing, said it was probably, you could have stood it up on end and launched it again.
4
SPEAKER_01
If we had had the SRBs and this tank and everything else to go with it.
4
SPEAKER_01
We were just figuring out how to fly that thing.
4
SPEAKER_01
And as we retired it, because it was so complicated, it was an amazing technology.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
4
SPEAKER_00
And Steve, you were one of the few astronauts who s been both on the space shuttle and now SpaceX, where you were the crew dragon commander on NASA s six commercial crew rotation.
4
SPEAKER_00
How different do you find the commercial experience compared to the NASA experience?
4
SPEAKER_00
Was the workup very similar or are they very different?
4
SPEAKER_01
Well, it was very different in the sense that the, for SpaceX, for the Dragon training, it was a lot of it was out in California and on Hawthorne.
4
SPEAKER_01
And one of the advantages to that, because of the way we train for space station missions here in Houston, it s hard to schedule people to be together all the time.
4
SPEAKER_01
So getting to know your crew, obviously I had met my crew before.
4
SPEAKER_01
I had not met Andrei Fedayev until he was assigned, really.
4
SPEAKER_01
I guess I had seen him.
4
SPEAKER_01
I had met when I was in Star City, and Huzzah flew as the first UAE astronaut, but Sultan was his backup and so I had met them then.
4
SPEAKER_01
Woody was a class of 2017, so I had spent some peripheral time, but you really didn t get to know people.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so, being in California,
5
SPEAKER_01
with the crew, you really spent more time getting to know your crew.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so that was a benefit in that regard, but it s not here in Houston.
5
SPEAKER_01
And here we tend to, we get a little bit different.
5
SPEAKER_01
So the workup and training was different in that regard to space station training.
5
SPEAKER_01
I had been through several times.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s always been the same.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s a lot of systems.
5
SPEAKER_01
The Soyuz travel was gone.
5
SPEAKER_01
It just was replaced by Hawthorne travel, which was a lot easier.
5
SPEAKER_01
So that aspect was very different, but the concept, that s the big change.
5
SPEAKER_01
So the space shuttle was built to build a space station way back at the beginning of time.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s a pickup truck.
5
SPEAKER_01
It was an amazing vehicle.
5
SPEAKER_01
Well ahead of looking back on it, you scratch your head is what were they thinking?
5
SPEAKER_01
How did they get this done?
5
SPEAKER_01
But it was a remarkable vehicle.
5
SPEAKER_01
That was incredibly complicated.
5
SPEAKER_01
So the object for both SpaceX and Boeing, when they got these contracts,
5
SPEAKER_01
was to build something basically to get you to space safely and get you to space station safely.
5
SPEAKER_01
So you have to launch, get to low earth orbit and go dock for space station and come home.
5
SPEAKER_01
It didn t have all those other mission requirements, but some things are pretty much the same.
5
SPEAKER_01
You still start at zero miles an hour and you end up at 17,500 miles an hour, eight minutes later.
5
SPEAKER_01
So that didn t change.
5
SPEAKER_01
The ride was a bit different.
5
SPEAKER_01
There s some details there, but some of it is very much the same.
5
SPEAKER_00
It s interesting because Winnie Lawrence told me a backstory that I never knew.
5
SPEAKER_00
When President Bush signed the orders to retire the space shuttle, I guess they gave these companies the opportunity to bid on being a supply craft and they could bid on
5
SPEAKER_00
Also doing crew and SpaceX took the risky gamble of building a spacecraft that could do both.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I guess they realized that.
5
SPEAKER_00
They might be farther behind at the beginning, but if they perfected this, they would leapfrog everyone else.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it s incredible.
5
SPEAKER_00
They had that foresight and you can see what it s done for them now.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_01
Their launch vehicle, the Falcon nine.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s the same launch vehicle every time.
5
SPEAKER_01
And they fly, I think it was going to be over a hundred times this year.
5
SPEAKER_01
which is pretty remarkable to get that much experience with a single launch vehicle.
5
SPEAKER_01
The Cargo Dragon and Crew Dragon are similar, but different, but you re right.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that s, that was a risky step, but especially for a company that really had no track record.
5
SPEAKER_01
Hopefully we get Boeing off the ground next month.
5
SPEAKER_01
That ll be really exciting to get them in the mix, providing that access to low earth orbit as well.
5
SPEAKER_01
And there ll be other companies in the future.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s going to be exciting.
5
SPEAKER_00
And Steve, I just have two questions left for you.
5
SPEAKER_00
I read in a previous interview that you did that you believe we have the technology and capability to embark on a Mars mission.
5
SPEAKER_00
Now, what steps do you believe need to be taken to make missions to Mars and the moon a reality?
5
SPEAKER_01
Well, moon is a great stepping point, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, it s a great place to go and learn.
5
SPEAKER_01
Again, I ll go reference John Young.
5
SPEAKER_01
He used to joke when he talked to us.
5
SPEAKER_01
that the moon s only three days away from a can of beans.
5
SPEAKER_01
So if you go there and something doesn t go right, you can get home pretty safely.
5
SPEAKER_01
Mars is very different.
5
SPEAKER_01
Obviously it s depending on the how you get there.
5
SPEAKER_01
I believe that one of the big things we have to do is get there fast and get home quickly because the space environment is not benign.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s a lot more dangerous environment than
5
SPEAKER_01
We knew when we sent people to the moon the first time, one of the big risks for the Artemis crew is they re going to be outside essentially the Earth s magnetic field, which protects us all.
5
SPEAKER_01
And they ll be out at the moon.
5
SPEAKER_01
So that s a huge thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
And looking what we will learn on the moon, one of the important things we re going to have there, we ll have fission power for surface power for electricity, because we re going to be in a place that does not have sunlight available to it.
5
SPEAKER_01
And we ll be in darkness.
5
SPEAKER_01
So in order to get power out of the dark,
5
SPEAKER_01
Nuclear fission is going to be an important thing that we develop that will allow us not just to get power, continuous power, reliable, safe power on the moon.
5
SPEAKER_01
And just as we get 20% of our power here on earth from safe and reliable nuclear power, it s going to be critical for us to reach Mars.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I really think that s how we can get there.
5
SPEAKER_01
If we chose to invest and challenge ourselves to go to Mars quickly,
5
SPEAKER_01
That is how we re going to do it.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s going to be a nuclear system that s going to take us there, take us back, give us that ability, that power, that capability of getting home again.
5
SPEAKER_01
That is the biggest technological thing.
5
SPEAKER_01
But what we re going to learn on the moon is everything else.
5
SPEAKER_01
And we ll be learning a lot of things when we get there.
5
SPEAKER_01
Not just the science.
5
SPEAKER_01
Being an engineer, I come back to one of the greatest things we get out of NASA is the engineering challenges that we overcome.
5
SPEAKER_01
And that s going to be a big part of it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I know Kayla sells herself short and her capabilities, but as I was looking at her background and she thought there was no way in heck that they were going to select her.
5
SPEAKER_00
But I look into her background, not only is she a Samariner, but she s got advanced graduate degrees from Oxford in clean nuclear power technology.
5
SPEAKER_01
She says that.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I met her, I met her first at an army Navy game here and used to Teddy Carter.
5
SPEAKER_01
He graduated before I got to the Academy, but he played ice hockey.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I had heard that all his, all the stories of his hockey experiences.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so we used to joke about that, but she was his aid and he spoke highly of her, as you can imagine.
5
SPEAKER_01
And another astronaut had told me, you got to talk to Kaylee.
5
SPEAKER_01
So I talked to Kaylee really briefly, then I talked to her during her interview.
5
SPEAKER_01
And well, while she was interviewing, I was not a part of the selection team at the time.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it was clear to me that we re going to select her because she s that good.
5
SPEAKER_01
And it s great to have her in the office.
5
SPEAKER_01
She s part of the future.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s really exciting.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s awesome.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m going to introduce the last question I wanted to ask you about like this, as I was doing the research on your most recent ISS trip.
5
SPEAKER_00
This podcast is an alternative health podcast.
5
SPEAKER_00
And so I thought I would throw some health stuff in here.
5
SPEAKER_00
It was interesting for me to realize that some of the experiments that you guys were working on were the Cardinal heart.
5
SPEAKER_00
2.0, which is focused on testing drugs to prevent microgravity induced changes to heart cell function, which I thought was fascinating.
5
SPEAKER_00
You worked on a biofabrication facility.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s allowing you to print 3d replicas of a knees meniscus and microgravity.
5
SPEAKER_00
And then the one I wanted to ask you about is I often talk about behavior science.
5
SPEAKER_00
When you talk to many of the behavior scientists, they talk about me search.
5
SPEAKER_00
And I understand while you were up there, you had to serve as an experiment yourself.
5
SPEAKER_00
Can you explain some of the biological sampling and processing that you had to do?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we are lab rats.
5
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that s part of what you ve signed up for when you become an astronaut.
5
SPEAKER_01
And I always thought it s an important part of what we do.
5
SPEAKER_01
We are a finite number.
5
SPEAKER_01
So that N, that number of experiment that you can run is very small at space station.
5
SPEAKER_01
So we need as many people to sign up for these experiments as possible.
5
SPEAKER_01
But they do incur some interesting things, drawing your own blood, collecting your own blood, processing your own blood, all your other bodily fluids and excretions.
5
SPEAKER_01
You collect some of that at different periods throughout.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s an important part of what we do.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was also a participant in some eye experiments as well that involved basically getting electrodes laid across my eyeballs, which it is almost as bad as it sounds in some ways, but it was ultimately, I think it s important science that we understand how the body reacts in this environment, not just because of the space environment we re in, but what it tells you about the basic functions of how the body operates.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so, yeah, we are lab rats and it s a really important part of what we do to help us understand how the human body works.
5
SPEAKER_01
You eliminate that microgravity, the gravity vector, and you re offering a microgravity environment.
5
SPEAKER_01
You learn all sorts of interesting things about your body.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
Well, I can t wait to see Johnny Kim go up there and perhaps perform a surgery in space.
5
SPEAKER_01
We re talking about remote surgery on the ground.
5
SPEAKER_01
We were doing demos.
5
SPEAKER_01
That s been a big thing to learn is that telesurgery and we ll be working with that in the future too.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
5
SPEAKER_00
And the last thing I just want to ask you is what legacy do you hope to leave behind as an astronaut?
5
SPEAKER_00
And how do you hope to inspire future generations?
5
SPEAKER_01
I m just happy to be here.
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t think about anything beyond myself.
5
SPEAKER_01
So in that regard, I m hoping that I have done well since I ve been here.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m hoping that I ve been a good example for anybody that follows.
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m still here.
5
SPEAKER_01
I haven t left yet though.
5
SPEAKER_01
I don t know.
5
SPEAKER_01
I m just so happy to be here and have the opportunity
5
SPEAKER_01
continue to be a part of NASA s mission and to be a part of the exploration and the research and all the exciting things going on that as a child, I never thought I d ever, it seemed impossible at the basic level, but then just to be a part of it.
5
SPEAKER_01
If I ve said for years, if I wasn t an astronaut, I d be trying to work here on some other field.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s just an amazing thing to be a part of space exploration.
5
SPEAKER_01
I can t
6
SPEAKER_01
I can t think.
6
SPEAKER_01
If you ask that in a weird way, it s like, I never think about what s going to happen after I leave as far as how people will, I just hope they like me now.
6
SPEAKER_01
They haven t asked me to leave yet, so I must be okay.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, Steve, I wanted to thank you and NASA for the honor of having you up here today.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was great.
6
SPEAKER_00
And thank you so much and congratulations on what you ve done.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it looks like you ve got more in the tank and more missions to do.
6
SPEAKER_01
Oh, we ll see.
6
SPEAKER_01
I don t assign myself obviously.
6
SPEAKER_01
And so I m just happy to support it.
6
SPEAKER_01
99% of what we do is not fly in space, but just to be a part of everything that does allow us to do this is just amazing.
6
SPEAKER_00
Well, thank you so much for appearing here today.
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, have a great day.
6
SPEAKER_01
Thank you very much for asking.
6
SPEAKER_00
What an incredible interview that was with Steve Bowen, and I wanted to thank Steve and NASA for the honor and privilege of having him appear on today s show.
6
SPEAKER_00
Links to all things Steve will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com.
6
SPEAKER_00
Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show.
6
SPEAKER_00
Videos are on YouTube at both John R. Miles and our Clips channel at passionstruckclips.
6
SPEAKER_00
Please go check it out and subscribe and join over a quarter million other subscribers.
6
SPEAKER_00
Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals.
6
SPEAKER_00
Please consider supporting those who support the show and make it free for our listeners.
6
SPEAKER_00
You can find me on all the social platforms where I post daily bits of inspirational content.
6
SPEAKER_00
And if you want to join the passion struck challenge, then you can sign up for our weekly newsletter, which is titled live intentionally at passionstruck.com or johnrmiles.com.
6
SPEAKER_00
You re about to hear a preview of the Passion Struck Podcast interview that I did with Bronnie Ware, author of the internationally bestselling book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.
6
SPEAKER_00
In our interview, Bronnie shares powerful lessons about living without regrets, embracing vulnerability, and finding true fulfillment.
6
SPEAKER_02
We can come up with a million reasons to stay in the wrong job.
6
SPEAKER_02
Well of course there s responsibilities and the fear of what happens if I can t feed my child or what happens if I fail and what are my family going to think of me or what are my friends going to think of me.
6
SPEAKER_02
It s really just fear of failure.
6
SPEAKER_02
But one of the tools I use, I ve always used to build my muscle of courage, which I actually think courage is my superpower now, is to face the fact that you re going to die.
6
SPEAKER_02
And when you do that, you end up using death as a tool for living because you realize how precious your time is and how every day it s reducing.
6
SPEAKER_02
Your life is getting closer to the end, whether you ve got five years or 50 years left.
6
SPEAKER_00
The fee for this show is that you share it with family or friends when you find something useful or interesting.
6
SPEAKER_00
If you know someone who s very interested in becoming an astronaut or in deep space exploration, then definitely share this episode that we did today.
6
SPEAKER_00
In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen.
6
SPEAKER_00
Until next time, go out there and become PassionStruck.