WEBVTT 00:00:00.050 --> 00:00:01.730 Houston, we have a podcast. 00:00:02.090 --> 00:00:06.590 Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, Episode 440, 00:00:06.830 --> 00:00:08.210 To the Moon and Back Again. 00:00:08.390 --> 00:00:10.450 I'm Niloufar Ramji, and I'll be your host today. 00:00:10.610 --> 00:00:15.090 On this podcast, we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, and astronauts, 00:00:15.150 --> 00:00:18.950 all to let you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight and more. 00:00:19.310 --> 00:00:24.570 On April 1st, 2026, Artemis II launched on a nearly 10-day voyage around the moon, 00:00:24.750 --> 00:00:27.630 marking the first crewed flight of NASA's Orion spacecraft. 00:00:28.190 --> 00:00:31.670 NASA astronauts Reed Weissman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, 00:00:31.930 --> 00:00:34.790 along with Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, 00:00:35.150 --> 00:00:38.970 splashed down on April 10th in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego. 00:00:39.550 --> 00:00:44.430 At their farthest point, the crew traveled 252 ,756 miles from Earth, 00:00:44.610 --> 00:00:49.670 setting a record for the greatest distance humans have traveled in space and observing 00:00:49.670 --> 00:00:51.670 the lunar surface like never before. 00:00:52.230 --> 00:00:55.350 Since they've been back, the crew have been on a whirlwind tour, 00:00:55.530 --> 00:00:57.410 sharing their experiences with the world. 00:00:57.710 --> 00:01:01.090 And of course, we had to have them back on Houston We Have a Podcast. 00:01:01.510 --> 00:01:05.670 We heard from the crew when they were selected for Artemis II on episode 283, 00:01:05.750 --> 00:01:08.450 and then right before they flew on episode 417. 00:01:08.590 --> 00:01:12.110 And we've had a chance to get to know them right here on the podcast. 00:01:12.410 --> 00:01:13.790 Coming back from their journey, 00:01:14.050 --> 00:01:17.770 we sat down with each of the crew individually to hear their reflections, 00:01:18.170 --> 00:01:21.270 and we laughed, we cried, and everything in between. 00:01:21.570 --> 00:01:24.970 I hope you enjoy these conversations after their historical mission. 00:01:25.450 --> 00:01:26.810 Let's go for our crew. 00:01:27.100 --> 00:01:29.520 our teammates, and all humanity. 00:01:51.550 --> 00:01:52.710 Reid, welcome back. 00:01:53.130 --> 00:01:56.430 It's been a little over three months since the Artemis II mission, 00:01:56.430 --> 00:01:58.930 and that mission took you around the moon. 00:01:59.130 --> 00:02:01.070 So first off, tell us what that was like. 00:02:01.710 --> 00:02:05.410 It was the greatest adventure that four humans can ever go on. 00:02:05.690 --> 00:02:07.690 I mean, we know the crew well. 00:02:08.090 --> 00:02:10.970 I was with Victor, Christina, and Jeremy this morning. 00:02:10.970 --> 00:02:16.970 We're still bonded just like we were during the mission and getting to see some of the 00:02:16.970 --> 00:02:17.150 sights. 00:02:17.230 --> 00:02:17.810 I guess... 00:02:18.470 --> 00:02:22.450 The biggest surprise to me being a space station flyer on this, 00:02:23.070 --> 00:02:24.750 I knew the crew was going to be good. 00:02:24.850 --> 00:02:26.270 I knew mission control was going to be good. 00:02:26.450 --> 00:02:28.270 I was pretty sure the vehicle was going to be good. 00:02:28.690 --> 00:02:31.210 The thing that blew my mind was how quickly we left Earth. 00:02:31.770 --> 00:02:35.690 I mean, it was just gone, especially on the second, third day. 00:02:35.870 --> 00:02:35.870 It 00:02:35.870 --> 00:02:37.870 just was so small and getting smaller. 00:02:38.050 --> 00:02:38.050 It 00:02:38.050 --> 00:02:39.310 was this little crescent out the window. 00:02:39.510 --> 00:02:39.510 And 00:02:39.510 --> 00:02:42.910 from my time in the space station, it was just shocking to me. 00:02:43.090 --> 00:02:44.310 I didn't expect that. 00:02:44.390 --> 00:02:47.450 I didn't expect us to just be gone so quickly. 00:02:48.070 --> 00:02:50.130 It just disappears in the background. 00:02:50.410 --> 00:02:52.810 And, you know, everyone will ask you about launch, 00:02:52.810 --> 00:02:56.810 but was there a quiet moment maybe days later, 00:02:57.030 --> 00:03:01.470 the next day when you suddenly thought, I'm actually on my way to the moon? 00:03:02.110 --> 00:03:06.770 I think we've started to talk about this a little bit as a crew. 00:03:06.990 --> 00:03:11.310 And for me, I don't know if it was a protectionary element in my brain, 00:03:11.450 --> 00:03:16.190 but I kind of thought at all times before every one of these major burns that. 00:03:16.740 --> 00:03:18.940 that if something didn't go right, we were going to go home. 00:03:19.440 --> 00:03:23.560 So we launch off of the Cape, off of Pad 39B at the Cape, 00:03:23.700 --> 00:03:27.500 and we go out to our first Apogee where we need to raise our perigee or we're going to 00:03:27.500 --> 00:03:28.060 come straight home. 00:03:28.140 --> 00:03:30.040 In my mind, it was like, well, if this doesn't go great, 00:03:30.140 --> 00:03:31.400 we're going to be home in 45 minutes. 00:03:32.890 --> 00:03:34.190 And then it went great. 00:03:34.250 --> 00:03:39.470 And then we did our giant Apogee raise burn, and we're going out to 38 ,000 miles, 00:03:39.590 --> 00:03:40.330 24-hour orbit. 00:03:40.430 --> 00:03:43.210 And I thought at the peak of that orbit, I was like, all right, well, 00:03:43.390 --> 00:03:45.150 if it's not going great, we're just going to go home. 00:03:45.610 --> 00:03:48.290 And then we did our perigee raised burn and it went great. 00:03:48.290 --> 00:03:49.270 And we weren't going home. 00:03:49.370 --> 00:03:51.210 And then our next step is translunar injection. 00:03:51.670 --> 00:03:57.300 And heading into that burn, Jeremy and Christina were at controls of the vehicle. 00:03:58.380 --> 00:03:59.640 Victor and I were supporting. 00:04:00.240 --> 00:04:04.620 And we had a few things go a little bit wrong as we're cruising through the Van Allen 00:04:04.620 --> 00:04:05.100 belts. 00:04:05.400 --> 00:04:07.160 Christina lost her computer. 00:04:08.160 --> 00:04:10.020 And so she had to go to backup procedures. 00:04:10.020 --> 00:04:13.400 And then we had a cabin leak suspected. 00:04:14.170 --> 00:04:16.650 warning come up and that got us our adrenaline going. 00:04:16.650 --> 00:04:19.870 So we're like 20 minutes from translunar injection and we have a cabin leak suspected. 00:04:20.090 --> 00:04:21.770 And I'm just kind of sitting there like, 00:04:22.070 --> 00:04:25.510 maybe we are actually going to go home on this one, but everything was looking good. 00:04:25.670 --> 00:04:28.730 And mission control did a superb job of cleaning that up. 00:04:28.810 --> 00:04:30.570 And then we did translunar injection. 00:04:30.570 --> 00:04:36.230 And then it was kind of then that all of those thoughts of, we're just going to go home. 00:04:37.120 --> 00:04:40.280 They went into the background and now we're not going home. 00:04:40.660 --> 00:04:41.940 We're going to the moon. 00:04:42.570 --> 00:04:44.230 And from that point on, 00:04:44.470 --> 00:04:48.550 I never thought about anything else other than we're going to the moon. 00:04:50.310 --> 00:04:53.790 See, you and the crew, I keep going back to Christina's words, 00:04:53.950 --> 00:04:54.550 planet Earth, 00:04:54.730 --> 00:04:55.490 you are our crew. 00:04:55.770 --> 00:04:58.790 That's one of my favorite lines post-flight, among many others. 00:04:59.010 --> 00:05:05.110 But your crew aboard Orion really stood out to the world for its camaraderie. 00:05:05.210 --> 00:05:08.330 Is trust like that something you can deliberately build as a crew? 00:05:08.490 --> 00:05:11.790 Or is it something that you discover when things get hard? 00:05:13.790 --> 00:05:14.850 That is a great question. 00:05:15.870 --> 00:05:20.730 As you were using the word trust, I was thinking in the back of my head, the word earned. 00:05:22.870 --> 00:05:26.390 I think you can set out with intentionality to build trust. 00:05:26.570 --> 00:05:27.170 That's a great thing. 00:05:27.290 --> 00:05:28.090 It's a noble cause. 00:05:28.650 --> 00:05:31.130 But I think at the end of the day, trust has to be earned. 00:05:32.400 --> 00:05:34.940 And I'm going to take a little bit of risk here with this conversation, 00:05:34.940 --> 00:05:39.750 but this crew put in a tremendous amount of work leading up to this flight. 00:05:40.520 --> 00:05:43.400 And for those who are close to us, they know we weren't always friends. 00:05:44.100 --> 00:05:45.800 We weren't always aligned. 00:05:46.220 --> 00:05:48.340 We definitely were not always in agreement. 00:05:48.500 --> 00:05:50.140 That made us stronger in the end, actually. 00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:57.340 But I never really knew how this crew was going to show up when the rocket lit, 00:05:57.440 --> 00:05:59.040 when we were weightless, when we were on our way to the middle, 00:05:59.120 --> 00:06:03.720 when we were doing real life or death high-risk elements. 00:06:04.040 --> 00:06:09.720 And honestly, the first window I got into that was... 00:06:10.580 --> 00:06:13.460 I had opened up an oatmeal and I hadn't hydrated it enough. 00:06:13.800 --> 00:06:17.420 And so there was so much oatmeal floating out of this bag, 00:06:17.560 --> 00:06:19.760 like 10 ,000 pieces of oatmeal is an underestimate. 00:06:19.960 --> 00:06:21.560 It's a cloud of oatmeal floating away from me. 00:06:22.400 --> 00:06:24.040 And I was just looking at it and I'm like, 00:06:24.120 --> 00:06:26.280 I've spent six months at the International Space Station. 00:06:26.380 --> 00:06:29.140 I should not be this bad at astronauting. 00:06:30.180 --> 00:06:30.540 Astronauting. 00:06:30.620 --> 00:06:31.160 New verb. 00:06:31.400 --> 00:06:35.000 And I'm looking at this cloud and my first instinct was I got to clean this up. 00:06:35.080 --> 00:06:36.360 And then it was just so much. 00:06:36.480 --> 00:06:37.180 I was like, all right. 00:06:38.150 --> 00:06:40.870 Just let it float because there's just no solving this. 00:06:41.150 --> 00:06:44.410 And Victor turns around and he's just like, no problem. 00:06:44.550 --> 00:06:47.750 And he just starts kind of gathering it up and eating some of it and pushing some of 00:06:47.750 --> 00:06:51.690 it over towards the HEPA filter and letting it get stuck to the filtration system, 00:06:51.690 --> 00:06:53.850 which is totally safe and completely reasonable. 00:06:54.090 --> 00:06:56.170 But I think for me personally, 00:06:56.170 --> 00:07:03.030 that was a moment for me when I knew we had that trust and that went across the whole 00:07:03.030 --> 00:07:03.270 crew. 00:07:03.430 --> 00:07:07.860 And that sort of grace towards each other on this mission. 00:07:08.310 --> 00:07:12.290 in the end resulted in the ultimate trust between the four of us. 00:07:13.050 --> 00:07:13.970 What a great answer. 00:07:14.210 --> 00:07:15.530 You may have done this a time or two. 00:07:18.880 --> 00:07:21.040 You could tell I turned my paper upside down. 00:07:21.100 --> 00:07:22.200 I don't even want to know the questions. 00:07:22.340 --> 00:07:23.300 I just want to have a conversation. 00:07:23.720 --> 00:07:24.640 I love that. 00:07:24.640 --> 00:07:27.140 And I'm using the questions as a guiding parameter. 00:07:27.340 --> 00:07:29.720 But more than anything, I want to talk a little bit now. 00:07:30.170 --> 00:07:31.770 about your role as commander. 00:07:32.050 --> 00:07:35.190 So as leaders in any kind of organization, 00:07:35.190 --> 00:07:40.850 we're always looking to lead in certain areas and then have our team complete tasks in 00:07:40.850 --> 00:07:41.630 other areas, right? 00:07:42.150 --> 00:07:45.970 So during a mission, when there are thousands of decisions to be made, 00:07:46.130 --> 00:07:48.390 different procedures, you're timelined out for the day, 00:07:48.550 --> 00:07:55.010 how do you know which of those decisions deserves your attention and which ones do you 00:07:55.010 --> 00:07:56.530 intentionally leave to your team? 00:07:58.350 --> 00:08:00.350 What an unbelievably difficult question to answer. 00:08:00.810 --> 00:08:02.710 Maybe I shouldn't have flipped my piece of paper over. 00:08:05.260 --> 00:08:06.840 It's a great question. 00:08:07.140 --> 00:08:13.000 And first, I think I would just love to talk about followership and teamwork. 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:16.180 And you said as the commander of the mission, 00:08:16.180 --> 00:08:20.180 that almost made me a little bit embarrassed because I really was just a member of this 00:08:20.180 --> 00:08:21.120 unbelievable crew. 00:08:21.340 --> 00:08:22.880 And at any time during this mission, 00:08:23.510 --> 00:08:24.710 Every ship needs a captain. 00:08:24.910 --> 00:08:25.530 I get that. 00:08:25.690 --> 00:08:28.790 But I think if we were sitting here with Victor, Christina, and Jeremy, 00:08:29.130 --> 00:08:32.990 I would hope they would say, like, we all were leading in that mission. 00:08:32.990 --> 00:08:36.950 And we all had a lot of responsibility at a lot of different times. 00:08:37.130 --> 00:08:39.790 And if you actually dissected the work in the mission, 00:08:40.050 --> 00:08:43.710 my hope would be that I was almost the fourth crew member. 00:08:44.210 --> 00:08:47.730 And Christina and Jeremy were running almost everything on orbit. 00:08:47.850 --> 00:08:50.410 Victor was running just about everything on ascent and entry. 00:08:50.750 --> 00:08:53.130 We worked really deliberately to... 00:08:53.060 --> 00:08:58.620 build out this team and give everybody real meaningful work and meaningful responsibility. 00:08:59.760 --> 00:09:01.960 But back to your question about like, how do you know? 00:09:02.120 --> 00:09:02.960 You don't know. 00:09:03.360 --> 00:09:06.020 I've spent a lot of my time in the cockpit of aircraft. 00:09:06.020 --> 00:09:07.420 I went through test pilot school. 00:09:07.660 --> 00:09:12.360 I think Navy test pilot school is probably the time when I started to most understand 00:09:12.360 --> 00:09:15.720 if you got a thousand things thrown at you at once, 00:09:16.060 --> 00:09:20.720 try to find the one thing that is life or death, focus on that first. 00:09:20.800 --> 00:09:22.160 And then maybe the next like, 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:27.580 10 things that you got to get done soon. 00:09:28.160 --> 00:09:34.140 And then everything else can become, I wish Matt Dominick was here. 00:09:34.280 --> 00:09:36.220 It could become a future Reed Wiseman problem. 00:09:36.380 --> 00:09:38.240 He always says that, like, this is a future Matt Dominick problem. 00:09:38.360 --> 00:09:39.540 Like, I'll worry about that one tomorrow. 00:09:40.700 --> 00:09:44.820 But we developed a little saying in the crew. 00:09:44.940 --> 00:09:49.920 Victor brought it up the first time when we were trying to figure out we're the first 00:09:49.920 --> 00:09:54.000 humans to fly the spacecraft and our first action can be right and it can save our lives. 00:09:54.320 --> 00:09:56.880 Or it could be really wrong and that could really hurt us. 00:09:57.180 --> 00:09:59.660 So we developed like no fast hands in the cockpit. 00:10:00.980 --> 00:10:03.420 Let's be cerebral and methodical about our decisions. 00:10:03.540 --> 00:10:07.020 But at the end of the day, if there is an emergency that needs an immediate action, 00:10:07.300 --> 00:10:09.100 something that must happen right now, 00:10:09.260 --> 00:10:13.780 we developed the mantra of what is the first right thing you need to do. 00:10:14.320 --> 00:10:16.920 And if you do that first right thing, 00:10:17.200 --> 00:10:21.980 you generally can get yourself out of most of those main. 00:10:22.420 --> 00:10:22.760 issues. 00:10:22.980 --> 00:10:26.080 And so that was really what we went through every time we were faced with a challenge. 00:10:26.180 --> 00:10:26.960 What's the first right thing? 00:10:27.360 --> 00:10:28.600 Let's go slow and methodical. 00:10:28.720 --> 00:10:30.660 Let's try to figure out what's going on with the vehicle, 00:10:30.760 --> 00:10:32.600 what's going on in Houston, and let's talk through this. 00:10:32.680 --> 00:10:36.000 And we didn't have a whole lot of major emergencies on this mission. 00:10:36.040 --> 00:10:38.460 And everything that we did have pretty much turned out to be a false alarm. 00:10:38.620 --> 00:10:41.040 So maybe we weren't challenged sufficiently. 00:10:41.560 --> 00:10:43.280 That's a long answer to a short question. 00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:47.420 I think that you were challenged more than enough and you executed well as a team. 00:10:47.540 --> 00:10:52.380 And one of the best parts about being a captain on a ship is actually having your shipmates 00:10:52.380 --> 00:10:53.420 work with you. 00:10:53.540 --> 00:10:54.580 And that's the collaboration. 00:10:54.580 --> 00:10:54.580 I love my 00:10:54.580 --> 00:10:54.840 shipmates. 00:10:55.060 --> 00:10:55.900 I love them. 00:10:56.080 --> 00:10:56.640 That's wonderful. 00:10:57.380 --> 00:11:04.120 So now everyone has talked about how successful the Artemis II mission was, 00:11:04.120 --> 00:11:09.040 how much we accomplished, how much we learned, how much we may have increased efficiencies. 00:11:09.730 --> 00:11:14.550 So tell us something about the Artemis II mission that the public may not know happened. 00:11:14.830 --> 00:11:16.410 Oh, it was so hard to get to our food. 00:11:16.730 --> 00:11:18.650 We had this amazing food. 00:11:18.830 --> 00:11:23.830 We had like the best space food that any astronauts have ever eaten in space from our 00:11:23.830 --> 00:11:25.230 food lab here at Johnson Space Center. 00:11:26.370 --> 00:11:30.490 But it was just, it was very hard for us to get. 00:11:30.940 --> 00:11:33.100 to the food in the way you would want to eat. 00:11:33.220 --> 00:11:36.840 They're just in these large bags and breakfast is mashed in with lunch, 00:11:36.940 --> 00:11:38.000 which is mashed in with dinner. 00:11:38.180 --> 00:11:41.100 And so we had these great menus, but in the end of the day, 00:11:41.300 --> 00:11:44.720 you're floating and we had no way to store all this food that was coming out of this 00:11:44.720 --> 00:11:45.040 bag. 00:11:45.220 --> 00:11:47.580 There's like, like think if you, 00:11:47.600 --> 00:11:52.580 if you pack for a long trip and maybe you use one of those compression pockets where 00:11:52.580 --> 00:11:53.820 they take all the air out. 00:11:53.980 --> 00:11:57.680 So three days worth of clothes fits into like a baseball glove, you know, backpack. 00:11:58.320 --> 00:11:59.280 So think about that. 00:11:59.480 --> 00:12:02.980 And now think about removing gravity in your weightless and you take scissors and you 00:12:02.980 --> 00:12:06.740 cut open that backpack and now all that force is there and everything that's in that 00:12:06.740 --> 00:12:07.900 backpack now is expanding. 00:12:08.080 --> 00:12:11.520 Well, think if it's 10 days worth of food or in our case, three days worth of food, 00:12:11.680 --> 00:12:12.640 that's a- 00:12:12.630 --> 00:12:16.950 tremendous amount of packaging and food products that we just didn't have anywhere to 00:12:16.950 --> 00:12:17.250 store. 00:12:17.390 --> 00:12:18.470 We didn't have little Ziplocs. 00:12:18.490 --> 00:12:19.570 We didn't have ways to organize. 00:12:19.770 --> 00:12:21.950 We didn't have ways to dig in and find all this food. 00:12:22.090 --> 00:12:26.250 So we were really behind timeline the first few days as these four humans are in this 00:12:26.250 --> 00:12:27.490 small vehicle living. 00:12:27.630 --> 00:12:28.830 It's a magnificent vehicle. 00:12:28.990 --> 00:12:31.390 And once we hit our stride towards the end of the mission, 00:12:31.570 --> 00:12:34.750 it was very easy to work and live in there and very comfortable. 00:12:35.030 --> 00:12:36.270 But those first few days, 00:12:36.490 --> 00:12:39.550 I think the thing that was just getting to me the most was food. 00:12:39.830 --> 00:12:41.010 And then maybe 00:12:41.570 --> 00:12:45.730 a little bit of Outlook inefficiencies based on how we're using the Deep Space Network 00:12:45.730 --> 00:12:46.630 with Outlook. 00:12:47.010 --> 00:12:48.710 I joke that with my kids, 00:12:48.930 --> 00:12:54.950 they would get my response to two days ago's email today because we would only get a 00:12:54.950 --> 00:12:56.430 sync twice a day. 00:12:56.530 --> 00:12:57.670 So they would email me. 00:12:58.050 --> 00:12:59.830 I wouldn't, I would get that on the next sync. 00:12:59.990 --> 00:13:02.970 I would reply on the next sync and then they would get it on the next sync. 00:13:03.070 --> 00:13:06.210 So that's like 48 hours from the time they emailed me until they get anything back. 00:13:06.350 --> 00:13:08.570 And so think about how out of sorts we were. 00:13:08.710 --> 00:13:11.450 Like I'm trying to answer questions for Monday, but it's Wednesday. 00:13:11.710 --> 00:13:15.010 And then on Friday, they're reading my answers on Wednesday to their Monday email. 00:13:15.130 --> 00:13:15.650 That's like 00:13:15.650 --> 00:13:17.970 longer than a comm delay from here to Mars. 00:13:18.190 --> 00:13:19.210 By far. 00:13:19.530 --> 00:13:23.350 So anyway, that, I mean, that led to some humor, but it's all, 00:13:23.410 --> 00:13:24.770 it was just an honor that we even had. 00:13:25.240 --> 00:13:27.100 outlook and that we could get email from our families. 00:13:27.300 --> 00:13:27.520 That's awesome. 00:13:27.520 --> 00:13:28.100 That's cool. 00:13:28.740 --> 00:13:34.200 I keep thinking about the first couple of days of the mission when a hazelnut spread 00:13:34.200 --> 00:13:35.720 floated across. 00:13:36.140 --> 00:13:37.580 Are we not allowed to say Nutella? 00:13:40.420 --> 00:13:41.480 Yep, we took that. 00:13:41.660 --> 00:13:42.280 You know, NASA, 00:13:42.280 --> 00:13:45.780 I love them because they'll take the labels off of water bottles and press conferences, 00:13:45.780 --> 00:13:48.020 but somehow no one took the label off that. 00:13:48.180 --> 00:13:49.320 that bottle of Nutella. 00:13:49.700 --> 00:13:49.800 I keep thinking 00:13:49.800 --> 00:13:51.000 about your food going everywhere. 00:13:51.140 --> 00:13:53.300 And that was one of the items of food that went somewhere. 00:13:53.580 --> 00:13:53.580 That 00:13:53.580 --> 00:13:54.880 was one of the first things we unpacked. 00:13:54.960 --> 00:13:54.960 It 00:13:54.960 --> 00:13:56.560 was in our flight day zero food kit. 00:13:56.720 --> 00:13:58.800 And I do love a good dessert. 00:14:00.030 --> 00:14:01.810 I think we all have a sweet tooth. 00:14:02.030 --> 00:14:07.330 So tell us one thing that you may have worried about that the rest of the team, 00:14:07.350 --> 00:14:09.850 it may not have been in the back of their minds. 00:14:10.170 --> 00:14:15.230 Was there some particular thing that you may be as commander or as the fourth crew member? 00:14:16.360 --> 00:14:17.660 I love the way you just said that. 00:14:19.680 --> 00:14:23.150 I think people have asked me if I was scared on this mission. 00:14:23.330 --> 00:14:25.750 And the short answer is yes, absolutely. 00:14:26.710 --> 00:14:28.990 You're 250 ,000 miles away from home. 00:14:29.550 --> 00:14:32.390 If you don't have a little bit of fear underneath the surface, 00:14:32.530 --> 00:14:33.730 I think something's wrong with you. 00:14:33.810 --> 00:14:34.830 And I definitely felt that. 00:14:35.090 --> 00:14:36.790 I felt my heart rate go up a few times. 00:14:37.070 --> 00:14:39.930 I could tell I was anxious isn't the right word. 00:14:40.110 --> 00:14:43.310 I was comfortable, but I could tell it's just the position that you're in. 00:14:44.230 --> 00:14:46.670 It is one that is fear invoking. 00:14:47.370 --> 00:14:48.610 But I think the thing. 00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:55.440 that maybe i was most worried about was and it's a false worry in hindsight but just 00:14:55.440 --> 00:15:01.780 crew cohesion on this and the stress of the situation and i was not i i was not adding 00:15:01.780 --> 00:15:05.700 to the crew cohesion i mean i'm a i got all all the same faults that everybody else does 00:15:05.700 --> 00:15:10.960 but i think that was the one thing like i just want the four of us to stay on the rails 00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:17.700 and keep this thing going through the mission and i mean goodness we did like oh i mean 00:15:18.360 --> 00:15:19.400 Just couldn't believe it. 00:15:19.520 --> 00:15:21.880 Even when we splashed down to the Pacific Ocean, 00:15:22.020 --> 00:15:24.200 the first thing that Victor said to me was, now I'm excited. 00:15:24.400 --> 00:15:25.960 Because he had said the whole time, like, 00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:27.520 I'm not going to be excited until we splashed down. 00:15:27.640 --> 00:15:29.620 And just the fact that we splashed down, 00:15:29.720 --> 00:15:31.500 we'd just gone from 39 times the speed of sound, 00:15:31.620 --> 00:15:35.260 we splashed down to the Pacific Ocean, and he looks over at me and goes, now I'm excited. 00:15:35.440 --> 00:15:38.160 I mean, all that stuff was just, it was just gems. 00:15:38.300 --> 00:15:40.500 And Christina was doing it, and Jeremy was doing it, I was doing it. 00:15:40.560 --> 00:15:41.940 Like, we just all had these gems. 00:15:42.060 --> 00:15:43.300 A minute and a half into flight. 00:15:44.680 --> 00:15:46.840 Jeremy, we're still on powered flight. 00:15:46.980 --> 00:15:48.780 Jeremy just goes, this is so cool. 00:15:49.080 --> 00:15:49.380 It is. 00:15:49.600 --> 00:15:49.600 And 00:15:49.600 --> 00:15:50.820 when we lifted off off the pad, 00:15:51.100 --> 00:15:53.060 the first thing that Christina said was payekali, 00:15:53.180 --> 00:15:55.520 which is what we say in Russia when we launch on a Soyuz. 00:15:55.660 --> 00:15:56.860 It's like a long tradition. 00:15:57.040 --> 00:15:59.120 We are going kind of thing. 00:15:59.320 --> 00:16:03.780 The fact that the crew is on this elevated level of situational awareness and comradeship 00:16:03.780 --> 00:16:08.380 the whole time, it was just, it was just, it was truly surreal. 00:16:08.680 --> 00:16:10.700 I just can't believe how that all played out. 00:16:10.880 --> 00:16:12.700 There's so much job love that you're. 00:16:13.790 --> 00:16:16.110 Moon joy, job love, all of it. 00:16:17.310 --> 00:16:18.810 Okay, so let's go back in time. 00:16:19.090 --> 00:16:20.750 Let's go back to 2009. 00:16:21.390 --> 00:16:26.930 And if today's read could spend five minutes with a read who had just been selected as 00:16:26.930 --> 00:16:30.850 an astronaut, is there a particular piece of advice you would give him? 00:16:32.970 --> 00:16:37.990 Well, when we take this question all the way back to like teenage years and youth, 00:16:38.170 --> 00:16:39.690 I always say, dude, chill out. 00:16:39.890 --> 00:16:40.830 That's what I would tell me. 00:16:42.430 --> 00:16:43.790 I think... 00:16:43.940 --> 00:16:48.800 And this might be an odd answer, but especially coming from the military, 00:16:48.980 --> 00:16:49.740 you move around a lot. 00:16:49.860 --> 00:16:51.260 You know, you're always moving jobs. 00:16:51.620 --> 00:16:53.080 There's people are always coming and going. 00:16:53.620 --> 00:16:57.960 And you get super attached in the military because you're just in this highly operational 00:16:57.960 --> 00:16:58.340 environment. 00:16:58.340 --> 00:16:59.620 You have to be attached to everybody. 00:16:59.620 --> 00:17:02.300 But those people that you go to attached to, they leave quick. 00:17:02.960 --> 00:17:09.540 In the astronaut office in 2009, I didn't realize at that time, I should have, 00:17:09.640 --> 00:17:11.980 but I didn't realize that I would grow old. 00:17:12.600 --> 00:17:14.180 with my peers now. 00:17:14.320 --> 00:17:16.160 I would grow old with my fellow astronauts. 00:17:16.180 --> 00:17:20.060 I just went to the wedding of a daughter of a fellow astronaut. 00:17:20.460 --> 00:17:22.540 I mean, our kids are getting married. 00:17:22.540 --> 00:17:28.780 I've watched us all get wrinkles and gray hair, and we just press through life together. 00:17:29.140 --> 00:17:33.820 And I think if I could go back in 2009, I would just tell myself, 00:17:33.980 --> 00:17:40.140 it's more important to know the names of the kids of your classmates than it is to ace 00:17:40.140 --> 00:17:40.580 a test. 00:17:41.050 --> 00:17:42.830 I think that's the advice I would give myself. 00:17:43.350 --> 00:17:44.770 That's really good advice. 00:17:45.010 --> 00:17:45.590 I like that. 00:17:45.690 --> 00:17:46.230 It's very humble. 00:17:46.770 --> 00:17:47.370 Thank you. 00:17:47.510 --> 00:17:50.350 So you talked about switching many jobs. 00:17:50.650 --> 00:17:51.870 You've had a couple of lives. 00:17:51.870 --> 00:17:56.170 You were a fighter pilot, a test pilot, an astronaut, chief astronaut, named commander. 00:17:56.750 --> 00:18:02.580 So which of these roles, these titles, changed you the most as a person? 00:18:03.700 --> 00:18:08.990 Oh, I was going to totally bridge that question into my daughter selling Katie, 00:18:09.050 --> 00:18:10.330 but I will honor your question. 00:18:11.360 --> 00:18:13.940 For sure, being the chief astronaut changed me the most. 00:18:14.460 --> 00:18:18.490 That was where Brene Brown came and talked to us. 00:18:18.970 --> 00:18:22.650 She's, I don't know what you would call her, like a mentor, a self-help philosopher. 00:18:23.470 --> 00:18:27.250 And I've heard this phrase before, but it really hit home with her, 00:18:27.310 --> 00:18:29.090 which is you got to be in the arena. 00:18:29.230 --> 00:18:32.070 I was at a softball game for my kid when they were really little. 00:18:32.270 --> 00:18:34.530 And there was a big metal sign on the backstop. 00:18:34.690 --> 00:18:37.010 And it said, have a complaint, question mark. 00:18:37.290 --> 00:18:39.030 Have you volunteered, question mark. 00:18:40.100 --> 00:18:45.260 And that's kind of the same thing to me with being in the arena is the chief astronaut. 00:18:45.260 --> 00:18:48.780 I have never served in a position that is more thankless than that job. 00:18:49.300 --> 00:18:54.040 Every decision you make, you're leading 50 peers, accomplished humans. 00:18:54.300 --> 00:18:55.900 Many of them were older than me. 00:18:56.040 --> 00:18:57.200 They were more experienced than me. 00:18:57.280 --> 00:18:58.660 They were far smarter than me. 00:18:58.800 --> 00:19:00.840 And I'm just trying to do my best every day, 00:19:00.980 --> 00:19:05.220 just peddling as hard as I can to make the right decision for the program and for the 00:19:05.220 --> 00:19:05.980 astronaut office. 00:19:06.340 --> 00:19:07.600 But even more importantly. 00:19:07.990 --> 00:19:08.690 for the astronaut. 00:19:09.010 --> 00:19:13.870 And sometimes the right decision for the astronaut from their eyes is definitely wrong. 00:19:15.570 --> 00:19:17.530 But as the chief, you're trying to look and go, 00:19:17.630 --> 00:19:24.270 I know this is wrong for you from your eyes, but this is right for you from the umbrella. 00:19:24.470 --> 00:19:26.870 And that's a horrible thing to have to try to navigate, 00:19:27.030 --> 00:19:29.330 but that is how I tried to navigate that stuff. 00:19:29.450 --> 00:19:34.250 So I developed more when I was the chief in that two years than in any other job. 00:19:34.410 --> 00:19:37.410 It is just a very challenging job. 00:19:37.720 --> 00:19:41.200 Sounds like it stretched you in ways that you didn't think you could be stretched. 00:19:41.660 --> 00:19:44.240 And I did, just going back to my last question, 00:19:44.560 --> 00:19:50.120 as I said the question to you or asked it to you, I thought, husband, father, 00:19:50.560 --> 00:19:51.600 so many titles. 00:19:52.140 --> 00:19:55.000 So I want to take a moment to... 00:19:57.500 --> 00:19:58.140