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That yeah, I made a mistake, but I could really make this worse.
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If I made a mistake and all of a sudden I unhooked myself and I start floating off into space and they got to come get me now, I ve made it a lot worse because I was nervous and not thinking because I made a mistake.
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Welcome to the Art of Charm.
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I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
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Today we re talking with astronaut Mike Massimino.
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You should listen to this episode if you want to learn why assembling a team around you is crucial for success, why it s important to take small, deliberate steps in the right direction for the sake of your own happiness and your legacy, how to stay focused on the task at hand in the face of disaster by thinking like an astronaut, and learn why even astronauts have imposter syndrome.
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We re glad to have you with us here today at AOC, so enjoy this one with Michael Massimino.
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And by the way, if you re new to the show, we d love to send you some top episodes and the AOC toolbox, where we discuss things like reading body language and nonverbal communication, negotiation techniques, networking, mentorship, influence, persuasion tactics, and everything else we teach here at the Art of Charm.
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In the US, just text charmed to 33444, that s C-H-A-R-M-E-D, to 33444.
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Everywhere else, go to theartofcharm.com.
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Also at theartofcharm.com slash podcast, you can find the full show notes for this and all previous episodes of the show.
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Alright, here s Mike Massimino.
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First of all, you ve spent a lot of time in space, 571 hours and 47 minutes, and that includes 30 hours and four minutes of spacewalking.
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At some point, do you wake up in the morning and go, wait a minute, where am I?
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And realize, I m in space, I m still in space right now, this is real.
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I mean, when you re in space or after?
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No i mean it s just like when you wake up in a hotel room where you re not used to you know you wake up expecting to see your home, your regular bedroom and then you wake up and realize that the first like that first night you realize that where am i know it s kind of this feeling where am i. Just like you get when you re waking up in a strange room or hotel room where you sleep on an airplane and wake up and never deep sleep and remember where you are.
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So it was like that the first couple of times, waking up, I guess, the first day, first night or so.
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But then after a while, you know what, you know, you re there, and you wake up, it looks familiar.
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And then you come home, and you wake up at home, and it looks unfamiliar, like, oh, you re ready to float out of bed, and that won t work.
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You get in both directions, I guess.
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When I wake up in the morning, generally, the first thing I notice is, okay, you know, I probably got a cat on my head or something like that.
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Or, you know, it s a little warm in the room.
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When you re in space, it seems like there would be a completely different set of considerations.
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I mean, you re not just floating around up there.
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Obviously, you re strapped to something and whatnot.
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But when you wake up, what s kind of the first thing that you notice when you re in space?
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Like, is it the weightlessness?
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Is it the temperature?
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What is it?
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I think it s when you first wake up, like, wow, that was a quick night.
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I need more rest.
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You know, just like a regular night, sort of like a time to get up already.
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But then you re like, okay, this is going to be a fun day or an interesting day.
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For me on a space shuttle was more like a slumber party.
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So you have your crewmates are around you in their sleeping bags.
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in the same room.
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So you wake up and you see everybody else, and you see who s up and who s not.
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And you kind of go through your routine of getting out of your sleeping bag and rolling it up.
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Routine kind of becomes pretty important, I guess, because you have to get your stuff out of the way.
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On the shuttle, we have our own little crew cabin, your own little personal crew quarters to sleep in.
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On the space station, they do.
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They have their own little personal area there that they can sleep in.
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They can close the door.
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But in the space shuttle, it was more like a big slumber party.
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So how close are you to the next guy or gal aside right next to you?
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I mean, do you have any personal space whatsoever?
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Oh, no, yeah, we have some personal space, but you know, they re kind of like we re rolling around, you know, kind of around the wall or on someone s on the ceiling.
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I was on the ceiling at times.
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We re just kind of scattered around the cabin.
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So, you know, you re not knocking into each other or touching unnecessarily, banging into each other, but you re fairly close.
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But you wake up and you see everybody.
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You see who s in your sleeping bag, stuff, who s out and who s in the bathroom and that kind of thing.
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You just float out and start your day.
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Usually you ll take off your sleep mask and put that away.
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I had a little kit, sort of a little bag of stuff that I had, you know, my sleep kit, you know, with earplugs and sleep mask and whatever else I needed for the night.
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A little hat.
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I would wear if I was cold in socks and keep my feet warm.
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So you ve got your sleep kit.
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Are you basically then carabinered kind of into the wall of the shuttle?
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Because otherwise I feel like you could wake up and you d just have your head, you know, right in someone else s personal space or you end up floating over to the bathroom or something in the middle of the night or banging your head on something.
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Your bedroll sleeping bag has hooks, various little hooks.
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not carabiners, but like easy quick release hooks.
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And there s different things you can hook it to on the space shuttle.
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There s little things that you can, or receive the hook.
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And so you kind of hook the sleeping bag to the ceiling or hook the sleeping bag to the wall and then you float inside of it so that you re floating as you re inside the sleeping bag.
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You are floating.
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I mean, you re kind of floating with, but you don t float away.
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You ll stay attached to the wall, but you re still nonetheless,
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Floating hovering kind of over the wall of the ceiling or wherever it is that you are so you re not gonna Float away bang your head and wake up your friends.
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You re gonna stay in that one area, but you just float in that one area Here s your sleeping bag is secured
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Got it.
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I mean, of course, when we re little, we learn about astronaut ice cream, and that s pretty much it.
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And then, of course, one kid says, how do they go to the bathroom?
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And that s kind of the end of the space lesson, at least in the 80s.
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So I m still not even sure how that works.
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I mean, I think the one thing that I have in common with astronauts is occasionally during a really long show, I, too, need to pee into a bottle.
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But I think you probably have a little bit more of an excuse.
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Yeah, that s why we don t use the video, in case you re wondering.
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So the first time you sign up for the astronaut program, essentially, and I know it s not as simple as that.
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I mean, in the book, you go over just repeated defeats and setbacks from your eyesight to your PhD thesis and things like that.
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I mean, there s no set path to just becoming an astronaut.
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Contrary to what every little kid sub 10 years old thinks when they say they want to be a spaceman or an astronaut, there s no application process.
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You don t upload your resume someplace and then go to school for this and then end up repairing the Hubble.
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It s more of a convoluted process.
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Tell us, though, what was the thought process going into this?
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I mean, what makes somebody want to be an astronaut and then actually freaking do it?
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I mean, there s an application.
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You don t sign up.
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You say you apply, and there is an application that you can fill out.
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Now it s online.
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I had to use a typewriter for mine.
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But say after you ve been to school and so on, there s no straight path.
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That s absolutely right.
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You follow something that you re interested in,
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study what you re interested in school, do a career, whatever.
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It seems to me that things just kind of open up and happen and you take opportunities.
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But the thing you can do is you can keep applying.
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And so that s what I did.
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But I think it s important.
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I had to learn that you re not guaranteed you re going to get in and there s no one set path.
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And the path that s good for someone else is not going to be good for you.
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And the path that s good for you is not going to work for somebody else.
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There are some jobs that are kind of like, you know, there is sort of like a pattern to it.
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Some of the test pilots, for example, that was more of a traditional pathway.
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Become a high-performance aircraft pilot in the military, and you go to test pilot school, and you have that credential at that point that you can be considered to be an astronaut.
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You know, you ve done those things to be a test pilot astronaut or a pilot astronaut.
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But even that doesn t have a straight path.
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There s different backgrounds for each one of those pilots, too.
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But particularly when you get into the civilian ranks and some of the other military occupations other than pilot,
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It s kind of whatever works for you.
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There s no set path to doing that.
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But as far as what makes someone want to do it, for me, it was the little boy dream of wanting to walk in space, wanting to walk on the moon like Neil Armstrong did.
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When I was six years old, I saw those guys walk on the moon.
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And that got me interested.
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I thought this was a great thing they were doing and the coolest thing that anybody could do.
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And these guys were super rock stars.
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They were the coolest guys on the planet.
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And I wanted to be like them.
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But I really quickly realized I wasn t like them.
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Once I started getting older, I wasn t going to be one of these military test pilots.
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It just wasn t for me.
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And I kind of gave up on the dream.
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I didn t think it could happen.
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When the shuttle program came around, when I was in college, when I was, get out of college, actually, I was a senior in college, the movie, the Wright stuff came out and I went and see that.
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So that was about the original seven astronauts.
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And that started to rekindle my dream of the wonder of space.
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And then I just thought it was cool again.
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But then I started finding out more about it.
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The shuttle program began in 1981 is when they first flew the shuttle.
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They selected the first group of shuttle astronauts in 1978.
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After I was done with college and got interested again because of this movie that I went and saw, I started reading about the astronauts and who they were and I found out that they weren t all military test pilots.
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They were women and people of color and different ethnic backgrounds.
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civilians and it wasn t just a military test.
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pilots who were doing the Ceylon.
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And they were still a big part of it, of course, but military test pilots.
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But it was all types of people who were becoming astronauts, not too much different than who I was, I thought.
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And certainly, I never really thought I could actually do it, really.
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But I thought I could at least try.
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And it wasn t that crazy of an idea to get some experience.
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And
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to make myself even eligible to be considered.
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And even if I got the eligibility where I was qualified to be an astronaut, I m at the minimum education and experience qualifications.
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And you re still fighting uphill.
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It s thousands and thousands of people that want to do this in just a handful that get selected.
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But I thought maybe it could work out.
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And if not, maybe by trying to do that, it would lead me to something else in the space program.
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And it gave me the ambition to try to get more education and to do something that I really was passionate about.
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Which was the space program and I realized that that s really what I was interested in all along.
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I just thought I could never do it.
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And I thought, well, maybe I can t become an astronaut, but maybe I could still, I thought, do something in the space program for a career.
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I started taking steps toward that.
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And the big step I took after working for a couple of years for IBM after college, I left my job and went back to school and went to graduate school at MIT.
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When I got my master s degree, that s when I started getting the credentials to be eligible to meet the minimum qualifications.
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And that s when I started applying.
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Now, at what point were you working at IBM because that was the safe choice?
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I mean, it s earlier in the book, you re working for IBM, it was the safe choice, and finally, someone that you worked with sits you down and says, what are you doing here, man?
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You gotta get out of here, like, save yourself.
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What would you say to someone working a job right now that they think is just suffocating and they made the safe choice?
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I mean, do you recommend that people always go for it, or do you think there s a place for playing it safe?
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Nah, you gotta go for it.
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I think you have to be honest with yourself about what you re really interested in.
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And for me, it turned out that that wasn t the worst thing for me to do, was take a couple years after college in work.
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Because if I would ve went to grad school right away, I wasn t really into the space thing right out of college.
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I think that was part of the issue.
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Getting a college education s a great thing, and I had a good college education under my belt at that point.
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Grad school, I felt anyway, was a little bit more specialized in that now you have your basic education that you get as an undergrad, but now if you re gonna go to grad school, I thought I needed a better idea of what it is I really wanted to do.
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And so what I did is I decided to put grad school on hold and work and think about it.
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So that was useful time, but it became evident that a couple years of that was enough and it was time for me to get going.
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And I think I see this, I see this in a lot of people with my close friends and family members too,
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Go through this that they re unhappy with what they re doing and sometimes you re unhappy.
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I think in your job for different reasons.
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Sometimes you just feel like, you know, you don t like the people you work with and you re just not a right fit for it or you re not doing something that is meaningful to you or you re that passionate about it.
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You know, in my case, I felt that a great job and had good people to work with and I could see myself doing that, but I just wanted more.
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I wanted to feel like what I was doing was really important to me.
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Not that it had to be important to everybody.
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but I didn t think what I was doing there was the thing that I was passionate about, and I thought it was a good job and a good way to earn a living, and you re part of a great team.
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When I was working, before I went to grad school, it wasn t my passion, and I wanted to be part of the space program, and in order to be part of the space program, I had to make a change, and I was gonna have to leave New York and go somewhere else to school, and it would be the best thing for me, and that s why I went to MIT, and I was lucky enough to get in there, but if I didn t get in there, I would ve went somewhere else, but I think that it s important to be honest with yourself
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Yeah, you don t have to jump off a cliff if you re not doing what you want, but you do have to take steps in that direction.
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I think it s important to start taking steps, and it ll open up opportunities for you.
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And so, what I liked when I was an undergrad, and what I started to read about and found interesting was this idea of human factors, of people controlling machines, and how to design the interface, whether it s a cockpit, or a car console, or a computer program,
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whatever such that people can interact with it effectively.
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And what I got really interested in was robotics of human-controlled manipulators and robots working in space.
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And when do you use the robot, when do you use the person, and what s the right combination of that?
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And I found that to be really interesting.
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And there was an advisor I had that I found out, a professor that became my advisor, Tom Sheridan, up at MIT, who had done a lot of research in this area for
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controlling robots in space and in nuclear environments when they started handling nuclear material in the 1950s and 60s, and also undersea submersibles, submersibles that would find the Titanic and so on.
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He worked with that.
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How do you control those vehicles?
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How do people control those things and operate them?
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And I found that to be really, really interesting.
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And that s what I was able to find a niche in, in something that I could
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study in graduate school that I found interesting that also had applicability to NASA and the space program.
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You mentioned about having people who cared about me.
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There were always these mentors, whether it was a teacher or a family friend or neighbor or whatever, coming in at the right time to help me out and give me a nudge.
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There was a guy named Jim McDonald who I worked with after I was a junior in college.
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I worked with him at an engineering company on Long Island called Sperry.
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This was my first big real engineering job where I had to wear a tie to work and so on.
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You know, I think he saw something in me and I just wasn t happy with doing what I was doing.
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And maybe, you know, the traditional engineering job at a big company might be okay for me, but I needed to be in the right area.
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And, and I wasn t really interested necessarily in just being an engineer.
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I wanted to do something that, that I thought had more meaning to it.
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And for me, what I was most interested in was I ended up being the space program and, and I kept in touch.
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I still see him.
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My schedule has been a mentor my whole life for me and a very good friend.
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He was a guy that tried to shake me out of it when I was working after college, saying, you know, you might want to think about what you re doing.
1
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You need to move on with what you really love and take those steps before it gets too late.
1
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Yeah, I mean, you mentioned in the book as well, you only have one life.
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You have to spend it doing something that matters.
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And I think it sounds like that spurred you on quite a bit when you were sitting doing engineering internships, things that weren t really floating your boat.
1
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It seems like you wanted to live by that and thought, look, life s too short to waste sitting in front of this PC, designing user interfaces as useful as that might be.
1
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You wanted to be on the front lines.
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At that time, I wasn t even doing user interfaces.
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I was working as a systems engineer, putting systems together, which was fine.
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but it s more of me.
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I want to be involved with the space program.
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And I think that, uh, the point is that you, the most important thing you can do with your life is what you do with your life and how you re going to spend that time.
1
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And you pay for that.
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It s not money.
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When I was looking at going to grad school, there was this cost associated with it.
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You know, it was going to be a cost that I would have to stop working where I had a real job where I was making
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pretty good money right out of college.
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And so now going back to school, I was going to give that up.
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In addition to that, I was going to have to figure out a way to pay for school.
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And eventually I was lucky.
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I got NASA fellowships to help me pay.
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I was hardly making anything, right?
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I was making a little bit of money was covering my tuition and I had a small stipend.
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So really was not making money in my twenties.
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That was where I spent my time in my twenties was predominantly spent in school where you re paying for the privilege as opposed to getting paid to do something.
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And I remember thinking about that, that it was going to be these years where my other friends were out there making money and, you know, doing that.
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But so there s a money cost with going back to school.
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But I think the cost for me of not doing that was higher because I was going to pay for it with my life.
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And that I would not be able to pursue what I wanted to pursue in life unless I made that change, I felt.
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And, you know, I wasn t sure that this was exactly the right way to go and there were other ways to try, but I thought at least going and getting at least a master s degree.
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At a place like MIT, it was a good idea.
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And that was something I felt like I really should do and wanted to do.
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And if I didn t do it, I d always regret it.
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I think that s the way you need to look at things, not in dollars and cents, but in how you re going to spend your time on the planet.
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How do I want to spend these next couple of years?
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Do I just want to be worried about making money or do I want to do something that I think is really important to me?
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The opportunity to go and get a graduate education at MIT was extraordinary.
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To be there around those types of people, learning the things I learned, being totally involved in learning about technology and engineering and what was going on in the space program and be surrounded by people who felt the same way was just an extraordinary experience.
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And were you thinking about legacy at this time?
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In the book you say, I don t want to tell my children how to live life.
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I want to show them.
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Were you thinking legacy or were you just thinking, all right, I need to do something important for myself.
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Or did you have a wider perspective on this?
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Do you have a longer timeline in mind?
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Well, I think it s both.
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I think I wanted to be a happy person and happy parents eventually.
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Everyone wants their kids to be happy and to pursue their dreams and so on.
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And I think the best way to do that,
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Avenue to show him how to do it in an extraordinary life that s what you want is not impossible it might be difficult to attain.
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I think that happiness in that part of your life in your professional life is attained by at least trying and at least like you feel like you re doing something.
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There were a period of years when i was in graduate school and beyond i was trying to become an astronaut i guess.
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It was 12 years from the time I thought that I wanted to try to pursue this, and after I got out of college in 1984 until the time I was picked in 1996.
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And those 12 years were pretty much filled with this journey of trying to get to NASA as an astronaut.
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SPEAKER_01
It was a long time, 12 years, to be following, pursuing something.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it wasn t just the idea that if I don t make it, it s not worth it.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t think that was it.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think it s more like, at least I m trying.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it might not work out, but I want to try, and I don t want to give up.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that s what I thought the important thing was.
2
SPEAKER_01
And if you re doing that, as long as I was doing that, giving it my best shot, or at least trying to give it my best shot, then I felt satisfied.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it may not work out for other reasons.
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SPEAKER_01
You never know why it will or won t and might not.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I certainly was going to give it my best shot.
2
SPEAKER_01
And those years were interesting because even though I wasn t an astronaut, I didn t think, you know, truthfully that I would ever make it.
2
SPEAKER_01
At least I knew I was putting my best foot forward and trying it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Now, that s what we would want for our kids, but it s also important for us.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I was doing it for me because I really wanted to do it.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the thought of not trying was unthinkable.
2
SPEAKER_01
But at the same point, I wanted to set a good example in that regard, at least, you know, trying to pursue something that s important to you and there s no reason to settle.
2
SPEAKER_04
You hinted on this earlier as well, and I saw this in the book.
2
SPEAKER_04
You said, I ve never achieved anything on my own.
2
SPEAKER_04
People have always pushed me to be the best version of myself.
2
SPEAKER_04
And I thought this was really interesting and important because, of course, you get everywhere with the team, but there s also this myth, especially in the United States or the West, I should say, in general, of this kind of self-made man, the guy who s just pulling it all together on his own, kind of John Wayne figure.
2
SPEAKER_04
And it seems like that was not the case for you.
2
SPEAKER_04
You had a team together to help with your PhD.
2
SPEAKER_04
I mean, you re recollecting how your buddies are tearing apart your thesis, almost for sport at this point.
2
SPEAKER_04
In college, there s no benefit for them.
2
SPEAKER_04
They re just kind of enjoying watching you squirm here.
2
SPEAKER_04
And you realize that if you work hard and get help from good friends, you can do pretty much anything.
2
SPEAKER_04
It sounds like you had the opposite of a bootstrap, do-it-all-myself attitude.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I think that people learn or are successful in different ways, and they weren t torturing me just to see me squirm.
2
SPEAKER_01
They were helping me.
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SPEAKER_01
I asked them to help me prepare for my doctoral exams, and I did it for other people, too.
2
SPEAKER_01
You grill each other and quiz each other, because it s better to do that amongst friends and prepare for when the professors get at you.
2
SPEAKER_01
So they were helping me, and they really did a good job in getting me ready.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I think that, for me, what I found was is that I was more of a team guy, more of a team player where
2
SPEAKER_01
I enjoy trying to bring out the best in other people and having them try to bring out the best in me.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the concept of team, even in a situation where you re trying to get a PhD, which is seen as an individual accomplishment, I didn t necessarily see it that way.
2
SPEAKER_01
I, I felt like there s a lot of support that was, that I needed from my friends, from my lab mates and from my professors and from my advisor and so on.
2
SPEAKER_01
Tell me and they were there to help me and i try to be there to help other people but i think that you know the sense of doing it all on your own i think that that s outdated i don t know when that ever existed but you re going to need help you need a team around you to be really successful.
2
SPEAKER_01
Your life is a team game you re not going to be successful on your own and i don t so i think when you have success you need to think about it alright yes.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know i worked hard i deserve what happened maybe i deserve that.
2
SPEAKER_01
but there s usually plenty of credit to go around, and you need to be grateful for the help you got.
2
SPEAKER_04
So you re at MIT, it s the Smart Kid Olympics, the best of the best, and then you mention in the book, and then there was me, a regular guy from Long Island.
2
SPEAKER_04
It sounds like what we call imposter syndrome, which is essentially, I m the guy that slipped through the cracks, what am I doing here?
2
SPEAKER_04
Is that something that you still feel that way sometimes?
2
SPEAKER_04
I mean, did you even have that up there?
2
SPEAKER_04
You re with this amazing all-star team.
2
SPEAKER_04
Did you still have second thoughts, like maybe I m the ringer here?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
I, you know, I, when I was at MIT, you know, I felt like, I mean, over my head here, look at all these smart guys, but I think a lot of them, you know, a lot of the men and women up there felt the same way, you know, like what s going on here.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think I probably felt it more than most though.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think I just did.
2
SPEAKER_01
I just get the sense that I did in the astronaut program too.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I felt like, you know, it was strange.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I, I, at times I felt like, you know, these guys are so tremendous.
2
SPEAKER_01
These men and women are so tremendous.
2
SPEAKER_01
What am I doing amongst them here?
2
SPEAKER_01
But at the same point, I felt like I did have something to contribute, and there were things that I could do well, and I just wanted to do well.
2
SPEAKER_01
I wanted to be a part of the team.
2
SPEAKER_01
I wanted to do the best I could.
2
SPEAKER_01
I just worked really hard.
2
SPEAKER_01
But I always felt like, particularly I think at MIT, with the level of brain power they have up there, I wasn t your typical MIT student.
2
SPEAKER_01
I felt like, whatever that means, I felt I really had to work hard to keep up.
2
SPEAKER_02
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Now, back to the show.
2
SPEAKER_04
What was your first thought when you saw the fueled rocket?
2
SPEAKER_04
I mean, you d been to the rocket before you got in, of course.
2
SPEAKER_04
What were your thoughts when you saw this thing fueled up, ready to go, and you re walking in?
2
SPEAKER_04
I mean, there s gotta be some heavy-duty, emotional stuff going on when you re about to actually get in and take off and leave Earth.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so what I write about in the book there is that you get out to the launch pad and the rocket is fueled.
2
SPEAKER_01
I hadn t been around the fueled space shuttle before,
2
SPEAKER_01
is burn off of the cryogenic fuel, smoking, it looks like smoke, although it s vapor, going into the air, and it s making these ungodly noises, and it looked like it was alive.
2
SPEAKER_01
It looked like a beast, like an actual beast, alive.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the thought that went through my mind was maybe this wasn t such a good idea.
2
SPEAKER_01
But it was too late by that point, and it was time to get on the spaceship, and let s roll the dice on this one.
2
SPEAKER_01
But it really is very intimidating,
2
SPEAKER_01
To get to space, to go from zero to 17,500 miles an hour in eight and a half minutes to get to orbit requires an extreme amount of power and a huge, powerful machine, the biggest, most powerful machines ever built.
2
SPEAKER_01
These beasts that take us away from the Earth, the power that is harnessed in there is really something that we try to control it, but it is right on the edge of incontrollability just in its utter power.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s amazing that people can build machines
2
SPEAKER_00
that can do that.
2
SPEAKER_00
It just really is, it s just incredible that we can build anything that powerful, but we do.
2
SPEAKER_04
Did you think about the safety factor or death when you re going up there, or are you just too focused on the game, too excited, this is the moment?
2
SPEAKER_01
I think I thought about what might happen.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, safety, you do the best you can.
2
SPEAKER_01
You train to operate safely.
2
SPEAKER_01
Make sure you check everything and make sure you check the other guy and the other guy checks you and you re very open.
2
SPEAKER_01
to making sure that you don t make a fatal error and that everything is just the way it s supposed to be and you have all the people on the ground and you are trained on how to operate in such a way that would be safe so that if you do make a mistake or something is not quite right that you or someone else will be able to catch it because you ll help them see what s going on and come to the conclusion if there is something wrong that could be a safety problem.
2
SPEAKER_01
So you want to be very vigilant about what s going on and help those around you be vigilant with you.
2
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And so we re trained to do that.
2
SPEAKER_01
And so the safety part of it, I knew we would try to.
3
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do the best we could and we would be as safe as possible.
3
SPEAKER_01
But you also know that there s that uncontrollable factor with this, is that because you re doing something that is so dangerous, that even if you operate safely and everyone does their job, that just the nature of what you re doing can overcome that and it can be a bad day.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I certainly thought about what the consequences were and what could happen and tried to be ready for it, I guess, if that was gonna happen.
3
SPEAKER_01
But I thought about it more ahead of time, and particularly in the weeks right prior, before that, I thought,
3
SPEAKER_01
more about it, about what might happen.
3
SPEAKER_01
Not worried about it, but just trying to appreciate the life I had, and that if something did happen, that whatever I left behind was in as best shape as it could be.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then once you get out there, especially on the launch pad, it s different.
3
SPEAKER_01
Thinking about something is usually a lot worse than doing it.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I found if there was something I was scared about, or even up to this day, something I m nervous about, or something that worries me, thinking about it is always much, much worse than actually doing it.
3
SPEAKER_01
is actually doing, you re taking action.
3
SPEAKER_01
Action is always better than inaction.
3
SPEAKER_01
And if you re worried about something that s going to happen in the future, like a space launch, I mean, you can try to prepare and study and do all that, but just the basic nervousness, worry about it, if something bad happening, there s really nothing you can do about that.
3
SPEAKER_01
But then when you get into it and you re going through the checklist, it s not as scary at that point, but thinking about it was always worse.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I can see that.
3
SPEAKER_00
I watched the clip from the Big Bang Theory where you re going up in space, I don t know if it s a Soyuz or something, there s a Russian guy, and there s Howard Wolowitz, and it s like, this is the moment, we re doing it, and Wolowitz goes, I actually have very mixed feelings.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I love this, that s ignition, I love this part, and the guy goes, me too, the Russian guy goes, me too, and then Wolowitz says, I have fairly mixed feelings.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
That s all the writers in the show, that s just us saying the line, but the writers come up with the lines for us.
3
SPEAKER_00
Of course, it is brilliant at some level, because I was thinking, I don t know if I would say I love this part, because at some point, I don t know what all those Gs feel like, or the fact that there s just massive amounts of explosions and fireballs underneath, and we re about to hurtle off into space.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think I would just be extremely nervous.
3
SPEAKER_00
Then again, you ve trained for this, you re excited, there s probably so much adrenaline going that I don t know what you re feeling at that point.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know if you can feel anything.
3
SPEAKER_00
It seems like the kind of thing that would just make you go numb.
3
SPEAKER_00
Are you a natural thrill seeker, though, or is that something that you ve always had in your blood?
3
SPEAKER_01
No, I m not, I m not.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I wouldn t say something like, I was acting when I said I love this part.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was acting, yeah, in the Big Bang Theory television show that I did where we launched.
3
SPEAKER_01
But no, I m not a thrill seeker.
3
SPEAKER_01
Some of my friends were, I mean, especially my test pilot friends, they like doing some extreme stuff.
3
SPEAKER_01
But no, I never was an extreme sports thrill seeker, kind of jumping out of airplane, let s go hand gliding, let s jump off the mountain and see what happens kind of guy.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was a little more conservative and not used to doing that sort of stuff.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think I was out of my comfort zone a lot as an astronaut, but there was sense in what we were doing in our training to build up the experience and the confidence we needed in case something did go wrong on the day that we could react appropriately.
3
SPEAKER_01
So yeah, for me, it wasn t, that wasn t really fun.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was a great experience.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m talking about the real shuttle flight, not the spaceflight and the big bang theory, but the real one.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, for me, it was fairly exciting, both in a fun and also in a kind of a nervousness sort of way as well.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s a lot of intensity and it s fairly stressful as well.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, that was something I had to learn how to deal with.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I mean, you ve said in the book, no matter how bad things are, you can always make them worse, which, when I first heard it, I thought, what kind of attitude is that?
3
SPEAKER_00
And then I realized, actually, that s perfect, because you realize that you can only focus on the things that you can control.
3
SPEAKER_00
What does that phrase mean for you in terms of training, in terms of your life?
3
SPEAKER_00
Because it s a little counterintuitive, like, oh my gosh, thanks for the vote of confidence, Massimino.
3
SPEAKER_00
I can always make it even worse than it is now.
3
SPEAKER_00
Thanks for the reminder.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I wouldn t think it s important, and I don t think it s necessarily a bad thing to remember.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think it s a good thing to remember is that
3
SPEAKER_01
We tend to, I think, make things worse than they really are.
3
SPEAKER_01
When something happens, whatever it might be, you break something, you try to fix something and you break it.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, you re like, oh, well, that s a pain, you know, and now I ve got to do something extra.
3
SPEAKER_01
What the tendency is that I find is that you make one mistake and then you re like, oh, geez, now I m going to have to spend 10 minutes to fix that.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to spend those 10 minutes.
3
SPEAKER_01
So let me rush through this and make that time up.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then by rushing, you break something else, which now you re not just gonna be 10 minutes, but it s now it s another 15 on top of that, whatever might happen, and you just make it worse and worse.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so generally the first mistake, however bad it might be, isn t game over.
3
SPEAKER_01
It might be, all right, but it s very rare that one mistake ends the game.
3
SPEAKER_01
That was bad, but let me contain it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let me not make it worse.
3
SPEAKER_01
We had this happen, but things can get worse.
3
SPEAKER_01
For example, what I found when I was training and what I found in space was is that if you make a mistake, say you break something, which I did, actually, you make a mistake and all of a sudden you ve created this problem, as bad as it might seem, it could get worse.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right now, at some point, if you re working on something that s broken, maybe only part of what you re working on is broken, not the entire piece of equipment, and you could lose your tools.
3
SPEAKER_01
This is what I was thinking of during my spacewalks, that yeah, I made a mistake,
3
SPEAKER_01
But I could really make this worse.
3
SPEAKER_01
If I made a mistake and all of a sudden I unhooked myself and I start floating off into space and they gotta come get me, now I ve made it a lot worse because I was nervous and not thinking because I made a mistake.
3
SPEAKER_01
Or if I made more mistakes and I lost tools, for example, losing a tool that s gonna help me fix this problem, now I ve made it worse.
3
SPEAKER_01
All right, so I ve made this mistake.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t wanna make it any worse.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let me try to contain it in where it is right now.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s not great, but it could always get worse.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think that s what we forget.
3
SPEAKER_01
When we rush and we try to make up for the mistake we made and we don t keep a cool head and we make it worse, then we ve got even a bigger problem to deal with.
3
SPEAKER_00
You re referring to repairing the Hubble telescope, I think, which, as you stated, is essentially brain surgery in space, and you end up with a stripped screw, which, a stripped screw in space, at first I thought, oh, you stripped a screw, I hope this isn t gonna be the whole story, and then I realized, well, you stripped a screw in space, you can t really dig your fingernail under there or grab a screwdriver from a toolbox and hammer the thing off.
3
SPEAKER_00
a, I don t know, $76 million or something telescope with a piece on it that you can t get another one unless you go down to North America and grab one, which is not an option.
3
SPEAKER_00
Tell us about that harness that almost foiled the entire mission because that was kind of a brilliant little example of something that if it happened anywhere else in the world, so what?
3
SPEAKER_00
And the fact that it happens in space could have killed you and destroyed the mission and possibly the whole Hubble telescope.
3
SPEAKER_00
The harness floats off and you had to jump up and get it, but that s fine if you re in Albuquerque and you gotta jump up and grab something.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s not fine when you jumping could actually catapult you into the abyss of nothingness.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was interesting what happened was that was on my first spacewalk of my second mission for me.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was a cable harness, we call it.
3
SPEAKER_01
It was a cable that needed to be hooked up to deliver power to this instrument that had a power supply that had failed.
3
SPEAKER_01
But we had a workaround where we were going to hook this power harness to it and put it to another supply and so on.
3
SPEAKER_01
And this cable, I was going to have good access to it, even was going to be the big repair was going to happen the day after by the other team, the other team of spacewalkers.
3
SPEAKER_01
But the spacewalk that my good Bueno and I were doing that day,
3
SPEAKER_01
gave us good access to hook up this cable for these guys better than they were going to have tomorrow when we rotated the telescope in a different direction.
3
SPEAKER_01
My job was to help them out, do a get ahead for them for the next day and hook this thing up.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it was a cable that I almost always put two hooks on everything that I use just in case one hook came undone, the item wouldn t float away on me.
3
SPEAKER_01
But this one was different because I only had one hook available.
3
SPEAKER_01
I was going to put it on that and then go straight into the telescope and install it.
3
SPEAKER_01
But what happens is I was getting this harness.
3
SPEAKER_01
We were having trouble with the gyroscopes for installing.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I was told to go to the back of the space shuttle and grab a new gyroscope, a backup gyroscope that we weren t planning to use.
3
SPEAKER_01
And therefore it was kind of tucked away in the back and bring it around to the front of the telescope where we were working.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I had this cable on me just with this one hook, you know, kind of flopping off the side of me as I went all the way to the back.
3
SPEAKER_01
to get this gyroscope.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then I came all the way to the front and handed it off.
3
SPEAKER_01
And somewhere I must have done something to bump that one hook.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I put my waist tether in at a handrail on the telescope.
3
SPEAKER_01
And as I m just kind of getting myself set, I see this harness, this cable, float past my head and up away from me very slowly.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it was about to launch itself away from us.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it s interesting, when I went through my mind very quickly at that moment was, we only have one of those.
3
SPEAKER_01
I knew we only had one.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I knew if we lost it, my friends would not be able to repair the instrument the next day, but they did, wasn t going to work without this cable.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I knew that s the only one we have.
3
SPEAKER_01
The next thing I knew was that there was star tracker covers, which was very, very delicate were right above my head.
3
SPEAKER_01
And this thing was floating right past those.
3
SPEAKER_01
So if I left for it, if I left for this thing, I could hit those star trackers.
3
SPEAKER_01
But I also knew from my habits that I had a waist tether around the handrail.
3
SPEAKER_01
at the front of the telescope.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the way started meant that I could, I had
4
SPEAKER_00
a leash and that if I went and grabbed this thing, if I let go to grab it, that my leash would prevent me from hitting those star trackers and would prevent me from launching myself into space.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I knew I would probably be okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then, so I felt, you know, this split second, I made this decision.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I was going to take that chance and try to grab this thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
Cause I thought it would be okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
And sure enough, that was the case.
4
SPEAKER_00
I kind of pushed myself up a little bit.
4
SPEAKER_00
I grabbed this thing and then I had to tug from my wife, Seth, and it pulled me back down to where I was and it worked out fine.
4
SPEAKER_00
If I did not know all those things, I could have created a much worse of a problem by launching myself into space or smashing into the star trackers when I m going to try to get this cable.
4
SPEAKER_00
But it worked out and no one really noticed.
4
SPEAKER_01
And there s a relief that you didn t kill yourself, but there s probably also got to be some relief.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like, I think I got away with that and nobody has to know unless I choose to tell them about this.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Well, what s funny is that when we re working on the public, we re right in the payload bay and the guys inside, you take turns when you go out in space, walk the two teams, but the team inside is looking outside, reading you the checklist and looking over your shoulder and they see everything that s going on.
4
SPEAKER_00
So John Grunsfeld, my buddy s inside.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I think he said, master, you know, before he could really get the words out, I heard him start.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, watch your head and watch, you know, it was over, it was over that quick.
4
SPEAKER_00
And no one said anything, you know, and I have a helmet camera on and I know that everyone in the ground is watching, but no one said anything.
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SPEAKER_00
We just kept going.
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SPEAKER_00
After we got back and we were home for about a week or so, we had a debrief, a spacewalking debrief.
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SPEAKER_00
And we went through that and no one said anything to me, you know, about it at all.
4
SPEAKER_00
No one said, I almost forgot about it.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then Tomas Gonzalez Torres, who was our lead flight controller for spacewalking, the EBA flight controller, the guy that had helped train us along with this, uh, this young lady, uh, Christy Hanson.
4
SPEAKER_00
The two of them worked as a team, but Tomas was the senior guy and he was leading the debrief and asked all the questions and he was looking at, he was in the front room of the control center during those spacewalks and very intimately involved, got to know him very well, good friends with him.
4
SPEAKER_00
He pulls me aside after we re walking out of the debris for actually outside the building.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he comes over, he goes, Matt, I got to ask you something.
4
SPEAKER_00
And the name of this harness was the PI harness.
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SPEAKER_00
It was a P I E was the acronym.
4
SPEAKER_00
I think it s for power interface extension or harness.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t know some way to, we call it the PI.
4
SPEAKER_00
And he comes up to me and he like, you know, very quietly goes, what happened with the PI?
4
SPEAKER_00
He s like, Oh, what do you mean?
4
SPEAKER_00
He goes, I just sort of thing float by your head.
4
SPEAKER_00
You went up and grant what the hell happened?
4
SPEAKER_00
What was that?
4
SPEAKER_00
You didn t want to ask to embarrass me or whatever.
4
SPEAKER_00
He noticed it, but we just kept going.
4
SPEAKER_00
So he did notice, but I think he s one of the few people that noticed what happened, and it could ve been a real problem.
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SPEAKER_00
If the thing would ve floated away, it would ve been a real problem, but I just snatched it before anyone could really notice, except for Tomas.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s funny, because when we think about space, you know, we all watch all these movies, and we think, okay, if you accidentally launch yourself away, you re probably tied to a bunch of different things, or if we really watch a lot of sci-fi, we just figure, oh, there s a way they can maneuver and then grab him, but not really, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, if you float in a direction you re not supposed to float, that s it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, we always have a safety tether on.
4
SPEAKER_00
So the safety tether is 85 feet.
4
SPEAKER_00
So if you get that far away, 85 feet is a long way to be, you know, and we ve had some astronauts will get to see a blooper reel.
4
SPEAKER_00
Like don t let this happen to you.
4
SPEAKER_00
With some astronauts have launched themselves doing a tool chase and they never get the tool.
4
SPEAKER_00
Once the thing gets away from you, it s gone.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re not going to be able to control yourself that accurately to get it.
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SPEAKER_00
All you re going to do is launch yourself somewhere and create another problem.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then, you know, try to reel yourself back in like a fish.
4
SPEAKER_00
It happened a few times, not all the time, very rarely, but still enough times that there s a blooper reel that you can see these things, where these astronauts have made these mistakes.
4
SPEAKER_00
What I think really the bigger danger for me there is if I would have damaged the telescope, because I was in a very delicate area of the telescope, and by launching myself, I could have hit it.
4
SPEAKER_00
But I tell you, when I saw that power harness floating away from me, I saw more than just the harness.
4
SPEAKER_00
I saw the future of astronomy floating away, and I wasn t going to let that happen.
4
SPEAKER_00
It was a little bit risky, but I figured it was worth the risk.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, at some point you re thinking, I m going to look pretty bad if we go back.
4
SPEAKER_01
And the debrief is, so what happened was we were really close.
4
SPEAKER_01
Everybody got up there fine.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then mass let the pie harness go.
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SPEAKER_01
Don t know what he was thinking.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then we couldn t repair it.
4
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right.
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SPEAKER_00
I d be to blame.
4
SPEAKER_00
My name would be on all the astronomy books for the reason why we don t know the age of the universe.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right, exactly.
4
SPEAKER_01
Due to Mike Massimino s gross negligence, we have no idea what this galaxy looks like.
4
SPEAKER_01
Is that blooper reel available anywhere in the public domain?
4
SPEAKER_00
Because that sounds- No, that is certainly classified.
4
SPEAKER_00
Ah, bummer.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was so hoping.
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I don t know where you d get a copy of that.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, probably not on VHS.
4
SPEAKER_00
You d have to dig through the archives, and it s probably not worth the effort.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s more of a training tool than it is.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s not like a blooper reel on America s favorite videos.
4
SPEAKER_00
You d probably find it very boring, actually.
4
SPEAKER_00
But for astronauts, it s pretty cool.
4
SPEAKER_01
Thanks for listening and supporting The Art of Charm.
4
SPEAKER_01
For a list of all the amazing sponsors and discount codes, visit theartofcharm.com slash advertisers.
4
SPEAKER_01
Now, back to the show.
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SPEAKER_01
Producer Jason was asking if there s a simulator at NASA to try and replicate the launch or if every time you launch, it s the first time you felt that stuff.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because you simulate pretty much everything, but it seems like the launch would have to be broken down into parts.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like maybe you can simulate the gravity, but not all the controls.
4
SPEAKER_01
Is there something that s just like the inside of that shuttle and tries to simulate the feeling that you re going to get?
4
SPEAKER_00
There is, but you re right.
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, what you do do it in pieces, but there s no way to get the power of the launch.
4
SPEAKER_00
You just can t do it.
4
SPEAKER_00
So what we do is we have a motion based simulator where we practice launches and it can get you back.
4
SPEAKER_00
You know, you tilt back and you move and have hydraulics moving you around and shaking you, but they cannot replicate that violence on the ground.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s just impossible.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then for the G forces,
4
SPEAKER_00
We do a simulator ride, we do a centrifuge ride.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s a centrifuge at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio that we ride that centrifuge and we go up, we get the G profile for eight and a half minutes.
4
SPEAKER_00
Really what it is with the Gs is that the major part of that is the last two and a half minutes of the launch.
4
SPEAKER_00
From six to eight and a half minutes, that two and a half minutes, you get about three Gs on your body.
4
SPEAKER_00
They spin you around to give you the idea of the Gs building up and then you get to those sustained
4
SPEAKER_00
three G s so you can feel what they re like on your body.
4
SPEAKER_00
We get more G s, not the most G s I ve ever taken.
4
SPEAKER_00
In our airplane, T-38s that we fly, we get up to six or seven G s, but those are only for like a split second, a second or two, a couple seconds, you might get that amount of G force.
4
SPEAKER_00
Here for two and a half minutes, it s kind of long for that amount.
4
SPEAKER_00
Even though three G s is not that much, it s three times your body weight pushing down on you.
4
SPEAKER_00
So it s like you re on your back and you ve got a pile of bricks on your chest is what the feeling
4
SPEAKER_01
Jason, with all the other things to worry about and think about at that time, you ve got two of you sitting on you like a schoolyard bully, basically, at that point, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, but that s not so bad, actually.
4
SPEAKER_00
It s just, all right, okay, you know, we ll just wait until this is over.
4
SPEAKER_00
See, there s really not much for you to do except kind of take it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I guess you re thinking, all right, this is a little uncomfortable, guess I ll wait until I m weightless witnessing the miracles.
4
SPEAKER_00
Right, it s not the worst thing, but you re like, okay, you re happy when it s over.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, sure.
4
SPEAKER_01
You re up there repairing the telescope or doing any kind of spacewalk, which by the way, you ve got over 30 hours of spacewalking.
4
SPEAKER_01
Think about just being out in the vastness of space, looking at the Earth, hanging out with multi, multi, super expensive, multi-million dollar equipment that s super delicate, fragile, and you re thinking about the consequences of a tear in the suit at one point in the book.
4
SPEAKER_01
How do you even decide what to worry about when pretty much everything up there is lethal?
4
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think you don t want to worry about anything.
4
SPEAKER_00
You want to have confidence in your suit and just go about your work, but you also want to be very careful.
4
SPEAKER_00
You just want to operate very safely.
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SPEAKER_00
You don t want to cowboy anything or be cavalier about the way you re moving around and doing things because that leads to trouble.
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SPEAKER_00
You just, you turn into this sort of mode of operating where you try to be very professional, very precise.
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SPEAKER_00
Everything you say that comes out of your mouth, you want to be very, very precise about what you re doing, what you re reporting, what you re asking.
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SPEAKER_00
Every time you move, you re moving with a purpose.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re always know where your tethers are.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re not going to lose anything.
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SPEAKER_00
You re not going to lose yourself.
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SPEAKER_00
You know exactly where your safety tether is.
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SPEAKER_00
You know where everything is, where every piece of equipment, everything that s on you.
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SPEAKER_00
You have this total consciousness of what you re doing.
4
SPEAKER_00
And in that way, you know you re operating in a very efficient way that ll give you the best chance of being successful, but also in a very safe way to give you the best chance of coming back inside.
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SPEAKER_00
And you have to trust the equipment that it s going to work.
4
SPEAKER_00
When you get into your spacesuit and you seal yourself in there, you have help from your friends and, you know, your buddies are checking everything.
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SPEAKER_00
You got people on the ground watching, making sure everything s going okay as best they can.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s what you re doing.
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SPEAKER_00
You try to operate very safely, but still, even with that, at the end of my second spacewalk, I found out there was a slight tear in my glove.
4
SPEAKER_00
And if it was something that we had noticed at the beginning of the spacewalk or anywhere before then, it would have probably created us to terminate the spacewalk.
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SPEAKER_00
But because it happened toward the end and we were coming in anyway, there was really not much we could do about it.
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SPEAKER_00
but luckily it didn t affect anything that day, except make me realize that I got a little bit closer to the edge than I wanted to on that one.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, no kidding.
4
SPEAKER_01
This suit, it seems like if you accidentally made a little tear in it, what are these things made out of that that can kind of accidentally happen?
4
SPEAKER_01
Sounds like there s a lot that can actually go wrong with the suit, and I assume you can t just throw some duct tape on it and go out there anyway.
4
SPEAKER_00
No, the thing you want to prevent from being compromised is
5
SPEAKER_01
the inner bladder of the suit.
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SPEAKER_01
Because the suit has seven layers to it, including a layer of Kevlar.
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SPEAKER_01
The part that is more vulnerable is the gloves, because the gloves don t have that layer of Kevlar in them, because then it can t be too stiff.
5
SPEAKER_01
And the Kevlar just protects mainly from an impact.
5
SPEAKER_01
And so it s in other parts of the suit, but the glove gets a lot of wear and tear.
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SPEAKER_01
And so the material on the outside, which is pretty tough, can get worn down over time.
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SPEAKER_01
And if a little cut developed, it could cut the outer layer.
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SPEAKER_01
Now, I still had a lot of layers inside protecting me, and I still had the bladder on the inside.
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SPEAKER_01
But as you start wearing through those layers, you start exposing the more critical layer.
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SPEAKER_01
So the outer layers, you can take a cut in and survive, but what you ve done is you start exposing the inner layer.
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SPEAKER_01
And it s the pressure bladder.
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SPEAKER_01
It s like a rubbery pressure bladder inside that keeps your pressure, keeps your air, the atmosphere inside of your suit intact.
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SPEAKER_01
you can take a hit or a cut or a scratch in the material on the outside as long as it protects the pressure bladder.
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SPEAKER_01
But what we ve concerned in my case is that we had gone through the outer layers and that we were gonna get closer to that pressure bladder and that s why it would have been a situation where you d have to stop if it had been discovered earlier.
5
SPEAKER_00
Got it.
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SPEAKER_00
And so, right before you re about to leave the shuttle and go on a spacewalk, are you kind of nervous at this point or are you thinking, hell man, I m already in space.
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SPEAKER_00
Like, we re already here, let s just do this.
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SPEAKER_01
To me, it was a huge difference going outside, because you re in a spaceship, and it s kind of like you re in a room, sort of.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re in this room, you know, inside of your cabin, you know, on the ground, and then you re in space.
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SPEAKER_01
But you re in space, but you re still inside the cabin.
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SPEAKER_01
You ve gone far away in the cabin, but you re still inside.
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SPEAKER_01
It s like being in an airplane.
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SPEAKER_01
No, you re still inside the airplane as you re flying around.
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SPEAKER_01
And when you re looking through the window of the spaceship, it s kind of like looking at the fish in an aquarium and looking through a window.
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SPEAKER_01
But when you go outside, out in space, now all of a sudden I really felt like I was outside.
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SPEAKER_01
I was in space.
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SPEAKER_01
And it wasn t looking inside of this room and through a window anymore.
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SPEAKER_01
I was looking anywhere I wanted, and there was really nothing around you.
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SPEAKER_01
I mean, even when you re outside on Earth, you still have the sky.
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SPEAKER_01
You see the stars, you have the sky above you, or clouds.
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SPEAKER_01
But when you re out in space, there s nothing there.
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SPEAKER_01
Just stars, you know, it s just openness.
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SPEAKER_01
This idea, I really felt like I was outside.
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SPEAKER_01
I really felt like a spaceman.
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SPEAKER_01
Was a much different feeling than being inside of the cabin.
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SPEAKER_01
A much more beautiful view as well.
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SPEAKER_01
And you can look anywhere you want and you could really experience the brightness of the sun and the darkness of the, when you re not in the sun and you can feel the temperature changes and you can look out and see things without being constrained by a window and look at the stars.
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SPEAKER_01
and then turn your head and look at the Earth.
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SPEAKER_01
The altitude we were at at Hubble is 100 miles higher than station, where the space station flies.
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SPEAKER_01
It was at the ceiling of where the shuttle could fly, and you could see the curve of the planet.
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SPEAKER_01
You could see the roundness of it, which is extraordinary.
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SPEAKER_00
How clear are the stars without the atmosphere?
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SPEAKER_00
That must have just been a total game changer.
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, you re already looking at pictures of space.
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SPEAKER_00
You re looking at the stars a lot, I would imagine, as a kid, and then you re up there.
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SPEAKER_00
There s nothing between you and those things.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, they re perfect points of light.
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SPEAKER_01
So the reason stars twinkle on the ground is because the light comes through the atmosphere and gets a bit distorted in a twinkle.
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SPEAKER_01
But there s no twinkling.
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SPEAKER_01
They re perfect points of light when you get above the atmosphere and you see them directly.
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SPEAKER_01
You re not any closer to them, but they re just a lot clearer.
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SPEAKER_01
You can see different colors in the stars, and they don t twinkle.
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SPEAKER_01
They re just these perfect points of light everywhere.
5
SPEAKER_00
What about space sickness?
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SPEAKER_00
I wondered, you re in a boat, you re going back and forth, you get a little seasick.
5
SPEAKER_00
Is there space sickness, or is that not a concern?
5
SPEAKER_01
No, it s space sickness for sure.
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SPEAKER_01
I threw up my first day in space.
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SPEAKER_01
I was over it by my second day, and my second flight I wasn t affected at all.
5
SPEAKER_01
But my very first day in space, I was motion sick.
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SPEAKER_01
I was kind of okay, I got everything done.
5
SPEAKER_01
But at the end of that day, right before bed, I tried to drink some water and it came right back up and I wasn t feeling well.
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SPEAKER_01
I was happy to go to bed that night and get a good night s rest and wake up the next morning feeling much better.
5
SPEAKER_01
But it s a conflict of your sensory inputs.
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SPEAKER_01
Your vestibular system is on earth.
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SPEAKER_01
When you re moving around in a boat or a car and you get motion sick, it s because it might be elicited, particularly if you re looking at a, if you re trying to read something and your eyes are telling you you re perfectly still and your inner ear is being accelerated, bounced up and down in a car or a boat
5
SPEAKER_01
whatever, that s what leads to seasickness, motion sickness.
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SPEAKER_01
In space, your vestibular system, which works on gravity, is not moving at all, it s telling you perfectly still, but yet you re moving around, your eyes can say you re moving, and that leads to the same sort of effect.
5
SPEAKER_01
And what happens is the brain gets smart about this, and eventually will stop listening to the vestibular system, because it s not working any longer, and then you re fine, and then you don t get sick anymore.
5
SPEAKER_00
That s amazing how the human body can adapt to space just within a few days.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that s so impressive.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yes, the brain is an amazing thing.
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SPEAKER_01
And the whole system, our body is able to do some amazing things in getting ready.
5
SPEAKER_00
So you re repairing the Hubble, saving humanity, the future of humanity, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
The special forces of NASA over here, 650 grand an hour is a mission cost, but you still gotta be doing some horsing around up there.
5
SPEAKER_00
What was the most fun you had?
5
SPEAKER_00
And I m not talking about the PC answer, like it was really rewarding saving the Hubble program.
5
SPEAKER_00
What s the fun stuff that you guys are doing up there, especially when the missions are over and you re just decompressing?
5
SPEAKER_01
looking out the window, listening to music, and just taking in that extraordinary view was something I could do forever.
5
SPEAKER_01
For me, that was the best way to decompress and just enjoy the time up there and enjoy that view.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s magnificent.
5
SPEAKER_00
Are you able to stay clean up there physically, or is it just kind of like wipe your armpits with a wet nap and wait till you get back to Earth?
5
SPEAKER_01
No, it s pretty good.
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SPEAKER_01
It s just like taking a sponge bath.
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SPEAKER_01
You have liquid soap that you use and waterless shampoo, and you don t really have running water for a shower, but you re able to
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SPEAKER_01
take a sponge bath and stay fairly clean.
5
SPEAKER_01
You re ready for a shower when you get back, for sure.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I bet.
5
SPEAKER_00
There s certainly a lack of water.
5
SPEAKER_00
I mean, that stuff is heavy, and you re bringing plenty of it in your body.
5
SPEAKER_00
As you said in the book, today s coffee is tomorrow s coffee, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, that s the way it is on the space station.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s recycled.
5
SPEAKER_01
On the shuttle, we had fuel cells that generated water as a byproduct of the power that they generated.
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SPEAKER_01
But on the space station, yeah, they recycle all the water.
5
SPEAKER_01
So today s coffee is tomorrow s coffee.
5
SPEAKER_00
What does it feel like to readjust to Earth after you land?
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SPEAKER_00
I mean, what did you do first, and what did you miss most in space besides, of course, your family?
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I miss, of course, as you said, my family and friends, and I miss things like just going to a baseball game.
5
SPEAKER_01
I was looking forward to that.
5
SPEAKER_01
Baseball season was starting.
5
SPEAKER_01
Both of my flights, I flew in the spring and was looking forward to that.
5
SPEAKER_01
A pizza, looking forward to just grabbing a pizza and just watching TV and vegging out, and people, just being around a lot of people.
5
SPEAKER_01
Just being around normal, sort of normal stuff, I think that when we landed, a few days after I landed, my son was a swimmer and he was on our local neighborhood swim team and the swim meets were on Saturdays and all the parents would be there sitting in their lawn chairs under these kind of tent-like structures and getting the kids ready.
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SPEAKER_01
And it was always a crowd of people, just a lot of kids and a lot of parents and coaches and all this activity with the swim meets, just lots of people.
5
SPEAKER_01
I really enjoyed those things, and that s what I miss.
5
SPEAKER_01
Being around a lot of people at a big family or community event, for me, was something I look forward to.
5
SPEAKER_01
Those swim meets, look forward to going to baseball games and eating pizza, using a real toilet, and sleeping in a normal bed.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I can imagine sleeping in a bed that you won t float off of or away from probably and taking a nice little shower as well.
5
SPEAKER_00
What was the strangest thing about readjusting back to Earth?
5
SPEAKER_00
You mentioned at one point you dropped a bag of groceries because you just let it go in midair thinking it would stay there.
5
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you kind of forget where you get used to it, you know, in space just floating stuff.
5
SPEAKER_01
And then you get back to earth and that doesn t work as well.
5
SPEAKER_01
It doesn t work at all.
5
SPEAKER_01
And yeah, so I had that experience where I was taking a bag of groceries out of the car and didn t know where to put them.
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SPEAKER_01
So I just reached back and put it up high and then let go.
5
SPEAKER_01
Like it was going to float right there.
5
SPEAKER_01
And of course it just crashed to the ground.
5
SPEAKER_01
but you re like, dang, gravity is terrible.
5
SPEAKER_01
I think also you re so focused on the mission and you re focused on the mission and training and getting ready for it and executing it and being up there and then all of a sudden it s over.
5
SPEAKER_01
This thing you ve been thinking about for years is now over and it s time to figure out what to do next.
5
SPEAKER_01
In some ways it s fun stuff, spend time with your family and do that, but life on Earth is a lot tougher than life in space, I think.
5
SPEAKER_01
You have more decisions to make, and you have more options, and you have to deal with a lot more than you do in space.
5
SPEAKER_01
In space, it seems to be more regimented, and it s spectacular, and it s fun, and new, and different, and then you get back to Earth, and you gotta mow the lawn and fix the car, and it s a lot tougher.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s not as much fun.
5
SPEAKER_00
How did being in space change you?
5
SPEAKER_00
What sort of lasting after effects do you have from being up there?
5
SPEAKER_01
I think for me, one is that dreams do come true.
5
SPEAKER_01
It s something I dreamt about as a little kid, something I thought would never happen.
5
SPEAKER_01
And even as I m talking to you now, I can t believe that I actually got a chance to do it, so.
5
SPEAKER_01
The dreams really do come true.
5
SPEAKER_01
It is possible to have an extraordinary life.
5
SPEAKER_01
And the other thing is just the beauty of the Earth.
5
SPEAKER_01
I describe it in the book in a few different passages, but one where, as I view the planet, you know, from the spacewalk especially, you can see the roundness of the planet, and you can look and turn your head and see the stars, and just the beauty of it.
5
SPEAKER_01
And one moment when I paused and I thought, oh, this must be the view from heaven.
5
SPEAKER_01
If you could look down from heaven, this is what you would see.
5
SPEAKER_01
I just dwelled on that for a moment,
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SPEAKER_00
And I said to myself, no, no, that s not right.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s not just more beautiful than that.
6
SPEAKER_00
This is what heaven must look like.
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SPEAKER_00
I believe we live in a paradise.
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I believe we re very, very lucky to be here.
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We need to take care of it.
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But I think we re very, very fortunate to live here.
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I can only imagine what heaven would look like, but I can t imagine anything being more beautiful than our planet.
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And I do think we live in a paradise, and we should really treasure every moment that we get to be on this planet.
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Beautifully said, and it s amazing.
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You ve done so much for the future of space exploration, just the Hubble repair in itself, which was, by the way, if you re thinking about grabbing this book, definitely do, even if not just for the very end where you re performing this space brain surgery on the Hubble, and the answer to the problem was rip the handle off using pure brute strength.
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Really funny stuff, and really, really great book.
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What do you think of SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, and companies like that privatizing space travel?
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I think it s our future.
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We ve been waiting, I think, ever since the government got involved with sending people back in space back in the early 1960s.
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And the Apollo program, you know, there s always been this talk of when is it going to open up?
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You know, when it s like aircraft, when airplanes were first designed, it was just a few of them in military applications, and the government used them as military tools.
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And for other reasons, they developed them, the government primarily did.
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Now we have this thriving
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commercial airline industry, where every second we have a plane taking off going somewhere.
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It s going to be a long time until we have a spaceship every second taking off, but I think we re finally at the point now where we can have people flying in space as a profitable business.
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Space has been profitable with launch systems and satellites and communications and all the things that we have with satellites, but now it looks like space travel for people, which is ultimately what I think most people are interested in, is getting a chance to go.
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Is now i think gonna become more and more possible and it s only because of the efforts of the private sector.
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I m like spacex virgin galactic blue origin is another one.
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Jeff bezos is company in the air making incredible strides and they re doing some great things in a blue origin is making rocket motors at nasa s gonna be mine they re just just great companies i think i need visionary entrepreneurial.
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leaders are also space nuts, thank goodness, and they are willing to take the risk and put in that initial capital that you need to get this thing going, take that risk to see if we can open up space to the masses, and I think it s going to happen.
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Besides just sending tourists up for some fun, I think what s going to happen is, because they ll be developing these things, these systems, these rocket ships, propulsion systems, I think that s how we re going to get to Mars.
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I don t think it s going to be a government program or even governments together.
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going to Mars.
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I think it s going to be that.
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I think it will be that.
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I think it s also going to be these private companies that are going to help us get there, too.
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I think it s going to be truly a great effort between different countries and these private companies to get us to Mars.
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So I think it s great.
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It s exciting.
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It s opened up opportunities for people interested in working in the space program.
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Back, you know, when I was a kid, it was basically NASA, one of the really big companies that NASA contracted directly
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Now it s still that, but it s also these private companies and some of my smartest students I teach at Columbia, some of my best students and smartest kids in our country are going to work who are interested in the space program or working for SpaceX and Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin and these other companies.
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So I think it s a great opportunity for those.
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be entrepreneurial, and they can explore space, and they can do some really exciting things.
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But I think we re opening up a whole new golden age, and I think it s here.
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I think it might be maybe just a couple years away, and it may be a little bit, a year or two longer than what we had expected, but that s nothing compared to the lasting effect it ll have over the decades to come.
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Would you go to Mars if given the opportunity?
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Yeah, I m not going to be given the opportunity, but if I was given the opportunity, I would go, yes.
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Right.
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I figured, are you just saying that because you know you re not going to get the opportunity?
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So you re like, yeah, why not?
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No, if I really had a chance to go on a mission to Mars, I d go, but I m getting too old, man.
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I think it s going to be a great mission when it happens, but I think you re going to want to come back.
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I think, you know, there s no credibility to these.
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One in particular that is saying it s a one-way trip and, you know, people are applying to go, it s preposterous.
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Yeah, I think we are going to go, but it s going to be a return trip and it s going to be done the right way.
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And when that happens, it s probably going to be years from now, but maybe not too far along.
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You know, we ll see.
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Elon Musk has some real interest in making it happen soon.
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So, you know, hopefully it ll happen before too much longer, but no, absolutely.
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Seriously, if I had the opportunity to go there, I would.
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You hear that, Elon?
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Bring Mast with ya.
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Sign me up, man.
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Well, thanks for being a hero, Mast.
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We are really honored to speak with you today.
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Really appreciate it.
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Well, it s an honor of mine.
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I really appreciate your interest, and thanks for sticking with me for so long, and appreciate you reading the book, and I hope whoever does read it enjoys it, and appreciate the conversation.
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Thanks.
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Man, that guy s really cool.
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He s been on the Big Bang Theory six times.
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He s done 30 plus hours of spacewalking, 550 plus hours of just space time in general.
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I mean, this is an incredible person.
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And you know, it s funny because I was going to ask him, he s a pretty tall guy.
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I was going to ask him to do the math on his size and calculate the cost.
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of sending him to space versus somebody else who s average size and see if he could justify his performance in light of that extra cost.
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But I ll tell you, his height made him perfect for spacewalking.
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I learned that from the book.
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You have to be big for a spacewalk because you get more leverage.
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And, you know, it s just unfair, Jason.
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Size matters even in the infinite vastness of space.
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It is unfair.
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It is unfair, right?
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I highly recommend the book as well, especially the audio version, because he reads it himself and the passion just really, really comes through.
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I just I loved it.
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And if you enjoy this, don t forget to thank mass on Twitter.
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We ll have that linked in the show notes as well as his book and some other resources mentioned on the show, the same Twitter that he tweeted from from space.
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And remember, you can tap our
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Our album art and most mobile podcast players to see the show notes for this episode will link to the show notes right on your phone.
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I m also on Twitter at The Art of Charm.
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I post a lot of articles and insights there.
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You can engage with me there and engage with the show.
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Our boot camps, our live programs here in L.A.
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Remember, we sell out a few months in advance, so if you re thinking about it a little bit, you should get in touch ASAP.
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Get some info from us so you can plan ahead.
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Bootcamp.theartofcharm.com.
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And don t forget about the AOC Challenge, theartofcharm.com slash challenge, or here in the States, you can text charmed, C-H-A-R-M-E-D, to 33444.
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This challenge is all about improving your networking, your connection skills, and inspiring those around you to develop a personal and professional relationship with you.
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We ll also email you our fundamentals toolbox that I mentioned earlier on the show.
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I m also doing regular videos with drills and exercises to help you move forward every single week.
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It ll make you a better networker, a better connector, and a better thinker.
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That s the artofcharm.com slash challenge or text charmed in the US to 33444.
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For the full show notes for this and all previous episodes of the show, head on over to theartofcharm.com slash podcast.
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This episode of The Art of Charm was produced by Jason DeFilippo.
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Jason Sanderson is our audio engineer and editor.
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Show notes on the website are by Robert Fogerty.
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I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
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Go ahead, tell your friends, because the greatest compliment you can give us is a referral to someone else, either in person or shared on the web from space.
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So stay charming and leave everything and everyone better than you found them.
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Thanks for listening to the Art of Charm.
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Get more confidence, relationship skills, life hacks, and more at theartofcharmpodcast.com.