Transcripts For CSPAN2 After Words Scott Kelly Endurance 20180224

Scott, how are you doing today . Guest im doing great. Host im not a big reader, but i was enthralled by your book. I found it to be inspiring, and exciting. I was wondering if you can tell me the way it was touched by your book if there is something that is similar for you that got you on the track from your wayward life. Guest i guess i will start to answer a question of it further back and that is when i was a kid growing up i was kind of the opposite case you would expect to become an astronaut because i was not a good student. I couldnt Pay Attention in class. Impossible for me to do that appear cry was the kid in the back of the room looking out the window or looking at the clock willing it to run faster. I did that more than anything else. I went to college because it was expected of me to go to college and i still struggled their. One day im walking across the school campus, but College Campus and i happen to go in the book store to buy film or something, not a book. I saw this book on the shelf and it had a red white and blue cover in a cool a title and made me pick it up and i looked at the back and was interested enough that i took my government money, purchased the book, lay there for the next three days on my unmade dorm room bed and read the story of the Fighter Pilots that became the original mercury jimmy apollo astronauts. The book was the right stuff by tom. It captured my attention in this creative nonfiction kind of way. I felt like i was in the moment and i also recognized like characteristics these guys had that i felt like i had, also. There was one exception. I was this kid they couldnt do his homework and i thought if i can solve that one problem i could be like them someday. Host one thing i found exciting about the book is its incredibly candid and very personal. Was a purposeful or did you did you start out that way . Guest yes. First of all, i think i have a bit of a reputation of it being a straight shooter, sometimes a little blunt some people might think to blunt at times, but i did that purposefully because what i found when i read other peoples stories and even some people but arent involved in the Space Program but write an autobiography they include the good stuff and you think do people actually is that what their lives are really like like you are always a straight a student, the best athlete and theres nothing negative at all in your life. I think this to tell a complete story, that would be very believable you have to include some of the cringe worthy moments of your life, some of the stuff that isnt the greatest and i think that helps validate the good stuff. Host i got you. You remarked that your high school principal, i guess, his name is mr. Turner zero. Guest yes. Host that he never gave up on you. Out of curiosity because i had teachers like that one thing is i did not go back and think them and i regretted that. Have you been in touch with him since getting into the Astronaut Office or to your launches . Tell us about your relationship with him. Guest he never did give up on me. Even though i was kind of a bad student in high school i graduated in the bottom half of my class and it despite that still nominated me to go to new jersey boy state because he recognize that this guy has leadership of potential. Some potential, not school work, but something so despite my bad grade to let me do that and i kept in touch with him and even my other teachers that im embarrassed to say i did not learn a whole lot from them, but for whatever reason i kept a rapport. It had everything to do with me, but i still kept a relationship with them over the years and some came to my launches host is he still a principal . Guest now, he became the School Superintendent and now hes retired. Host let me come back to your family. Your mother my mom and dad were teachers and inspired me, but your mom, you know you say was an inspiration and role model to you and your twin brother, mark. Would you do me a favor and take your book there and would you share with us a little bit that you say about her decision to get on the Orange New Jersey Police Department and what she had to do and pick and choose as you go. Guest this is great because people here the book in my own voice so they dont have to buy the audiobook to. Host i tell them to buy the audiobook. I found it was better than reading it. Guest which is not easy, by the way, to record an audiobook of specially when youre not a professional narrator and when i was about 11 my mother decided to become a cop and i will paraphrase a bit, but she was like regular mom and my brother and i were getting older. She wanted a career more like my father heard my father was a Police Officer in one of these stereotypical like new jersey cops like you see on tv during the day. I write a lot of male Police Officers would have felt threatened by the thought of their wives trying to become officers as well, but not my father. To his credit he encouraged her to my mother studied for the Civil Service exam, which took time and effort are kept her she passed that she needed a physical fitness test and the toughest part was a wall where she would have to scale 7 feet 4 inches. Knowing that my father build a practice while higher than the real one at first she could not touch the top. It to take her long time before she was able to jump up and grabbed the top of the wall. Eventually she was able to pull herself up and get a leg over and by honing this technique and practice sessions everyday, she got to where she could scale the wall in the first right every time. Of the day of the test she actually scaled the wall but are the most of them in and became one of the very first women to pass this test and that made a big impression on mark and me. She decided on a goal that seemed like it might be possible and achieved it through sheer force of determination and the support of people around her. I still havent found a goal for myself that would give me that same kind of drive, but i had at least seen with outlook like. So, my mother made a huge impression on me. She was quite the lady. Host how old were you at the time. Guest market and i were 11 and she had us when she was 18 or 19 host you learned a bit differently from most kids. You learned at an early age. Guest yes. Host let me ask you if you would share as you grew up and you finally decided you wanted to find a path in your life. Mark preceded you and going to kings point Merchant Academy and i read you decided to give it a shot and you went and i guess it was the superintendent and dean that with you. Can you talk a bit about your disappointment at being told no way. Guest i figured after i read the right stuff and started to figure out how to do my homework i was on my way so i went to my Brothers College and told him i am here. My brother has been doing great was gay and straight as. The guy sat me down, talk to me, looked at my record and basically said no way with these grades in high school in this sat score your getting in here and i was crushed. I dont think i started crying, but i was probably pretty close as i thought that was my opportunity to get into the navy. Then i pick myself up and brushed myself off and figured out some other options and eventually went to a school that was a perfect fit for me. For one, it was not as challenging as kings point academically, but also had a military environment that i needed. I needed that discipline. It was a place called State University of new York Maritime College in the bronx and i could not have found a better place for me to grow and develop and become eventually navy man. Host share with us i know youre impressed with the right stuff in the astronauts everything, what took you from new york maritime to the decision that okay, what the hell i will place a private master program. Talk about the road to that point. For me it was this thing i had in my mind since reading the book, but it wasnt something that was really a and even once i became a test pilot i served there for a few years as an f14 pilot pilot. Got pretty good at that apply to Test Pilot School and was surprised i was selected the first time i applied and went off to become a test pilot and then i was just going about my last thinking i would do this for a few years and going back to the navy and fly the f14 for a while and may be like 10 years down the road id might have qualifications and experience to become an astronaut and one dam sitting in my cubicle in past river and one of my mate cube mates is working on a stack of papers and i asked him what it was and he said my astronaut application i asked him when it was due and he said in a few days and i thought to myself what the hell. Im just going to fill out the opposite of his application and send it down there and hopefully i will get a call, but i was not expecting anything. Actually, i was quite surprised when i eventually got the call for an interview. Host during the week, can you talk a bit about your wardrobe for your interview. Guest you know my brother had a much different path than i did. When we were in the eighth grade are dread that a stab look, guys, youre not College Material and we will look into vocational training. My brother was like i want to go to college and immediately started getting straight as. I am the other hand had no recollection of this conversation because there was a probably a squirrel squirrel running outside and i was looking at it. So, he became a navy pilot and was a test pilot at the same time as i was even though i was playing catch up for a while and he got a call to be interviewed, but did not have a suit. He new line had a suit because id just been to a friends wedding so i loaned him my suit. He goes to houston and interviews and has his interview. Comes back and gives me my suit back in there like a month later nasa calls me and i tell my brother i was shocked, by the way that i got called kirk first i thought maybe they wanted to talk to him again and they called me and i told my brother i said you have to buy me a new suit and he said how ridiculous with outlook showing up at the same close and mark was a Navy Lieutenant and said something i dont think i can say on tv although this is cable tv. I wont say it anyway and it ended up with me wearing the same exact suit for the interview, which was actually some ways a blessing in disguise because i could i walked into the room and im sure you been on the board before and interviewed before, but you kindly get to tell your story and the first thing i said is i bet this looks really familiar. You have seen this suit before, so i have the only suit thats been selected to be an astronaut twice. Host you finally got selected and then go through the training and get side to your First Mission and its one i have a fond feeling for having left orbit, not the way it should have been. Yours was what the Third Service mission and having been a part of that mission and having become an official [inaudible] talk to me what you believe the legacy of hubble is. Guest its incredible. Its been up there he would know better than i host twentyseven years. Guest twentyseven years. Doing that kind of science on a daily basis and letting not only the scientists experience the data that they get from it, which is most of the stuff you dont see, but also the Public Engagement that is provided and let people kind of get a sense for where we are in the universe, which is pretty insignificant if you consider those images. I think its been a Great Success and it was a great First Mission for me. When i was writing the book, i realized that i read that book the right stuff and i was 18 years to the day 18 years later i was flying in space for the first time and not only that and i dont even write about this in the book because i never really thought about it much, but i was actually the First American of 35 people to fight and first kid that probably had add and could not do his homework. Thats pretty remarkable. Host it is. Guest i almost unbelievably self. Host im certain you probably feel okay now and have your first flight on your belt have to go again. However, we lost the columbia crew. Can you talk about the role you played in the post accident recovery and preparation for flight for the return flight crew to when that they happen, which was february 1, 2003, i was at home watching the landing on tv and on those low inclination flights im talking to go into much detail of what that means, but it with men that shuttle is coming home it has a likely possibility to fly over houston and where you can actually see it depending on the time of day you could see that shuttle reentering earths atmosphere and i looked outside and saw a flash of light thinking that was probably some atmospheric and went back inside and quickly realized we had had a tragic tragic accident for the second time and three of my classmates were on that flight. Seven of our colleagues and former colleagues in within a couple of days i was along with my other coworkers, many of them in the area of the crash, which was in eastern texas and how ironic it was of all the places the Space Shuttle could crash it crashes within like a twohour drive up houston where the cruise live. It was a tough time. It was sad. Had to write a back with remains to the air force base. Host the escort. Guest yeah, i was the escort. Very moving, but just out trying to recover whether its remains or host what about the response from the public . You mention in the book the people who came out wanting to volunteer. That must have been a positive impact on your opinion about people. Guest so heartwarming to see the support that the people in that area, but also in the nation and around the world gave us in that accident occurred and not a christmas goes by where i dont put money in the Salvation Army pot, kettle because after the columbia accident i realized the great work they do, i mean, they just showed up immediately and it was like taking care of the feeding people and giving them coffee and places to sleep if they needed it, i mean, all kinds of support, not asking anything in return. Host we lost challenger 10 days after i landed from my first flight and i remember what went through my mind. Did she think about leaving the office after that accident . Guest i never did. I always felt like even after challenger i had a friend of mine that knew i wanted to be an astronaut and he said will this change your mind and i thought i believe in nasa. I believe in our ability to do incredible things when we put our mind to it. I know this is risky and its a tragic accident especially for the people that were directly involved, the families, but i do believe in nasa enough to know that we can rise to the occasion. We can make this a saber when it was when they flew. It will never be perfectly safe, 100 reliable, but never crossed my mind wants to leave. Host anyone who may be watching that they should have to do everything right all the time, can you go back, i mean, be on the test pilots doing that and your young pilot with the you are not the ace of the base. Can you share some things you just said how did i get here. Guest initially and my brother tells and i will share some words he says and its how good you are at something when you start it is no reflection on how good you can become with hard work, perseverance and never giving up. Thats always been the case with me. I was not the best students in the beginning, but i became a really good student eventually. I figured out how to deal with whatever issues i have. I was not the best pilot at first, but eventually especially in those days i think there are more close calls maybe people were a little more careless at times and i certainly was not immune to that, so i had a number of occasions where i almost killed myself and my back seater. A few wakeup calls, i mean, certainly despite the fact that i have thousands and thousands more hours flight time now than i did then, there are things i did then that i would never do in a million years now in an airplane. I had those cases of almost flying into the water, flying around the ship at night and getting disoriented and distracted and having that guy in the back just yell pull up and you pull back at domestic and you look at the altimeter and the vertical speed indicator showing us how quickly we were descending and realizing we were less than about 15 seconds from crashing into the water and being one of those guys, so i was definitely not the best at things, but i was able to get pretty good at the end. Host perseverance and persistence. A career naval officer, career pilots, trained it to take on any enemy that may come. You have phone all of the world, persian gulf, asia. Your second flight actually sent you to the International Space station, taking your crew up there were all of a sudden you will be working with these guys that i trained. What were some of your early thoughts about going to station working with the russians . Guest my early exposure was even earlier than that because i was the head of nasas office in star city for about nine months and then i trade as piggies backup on expedition five, so i had exposure to working with russians before. What i always found is that First Impressions are often not correct. With working with the russians, i have a few observations. One, that despite their kind of gruff exterior, which i think i may be a victim of having a similar thing at times, when you become friends with them its much easier to become very very Close Friends with a russian person and happens quicker than it does i think in our culture. Friendships seem stronger and more just more rich. It is odd when doing this with a person that you used consider your enemy and as i spend more and more time in space with cosmonauts and more time working with the russians in the Space Program people often say to you ever let in the conflict like that we have now in our country on earth that is between us and russia, does that ever affect our ability to operate in committee in space in the answer is absolutely not, i mean, we rely on each other as friends, colleagues and in some cases literally rely on each other for our lives and that supersedes any political discourse that is going on on earth. We would talk about these things at times, but almost like you talk about it in an abstract way into other countries like china and germany versus our own. Host because you mention in the book, pretty sensitive and people may think im being crude, but you mention your marriage and the difficulty of the entire time it lasted. When you finally decided that okay the right thing to do is end of this, he had cement and charlotte. What was the impact on them and how do you deal with that to try to help them work their way through . Guest it was very hard and i sort of struggled with even talking about that in the book because its very personal, not only between me, but also with my kids and my exwife. I came to the conclusion again that i didnt want i have this 17 year marriage and two children. You cant kind of make believe that not happen and i think you need to be fair to the truth, so the way i handle i hope i handled it well. Im not sure how hopelessly feels about it, but i hope she thinks it was fair in this description. I talk about her in the credits and hopefully anyway that she might appreciate and you know i understand it does hurt at the kids the most, absolutely. Host you talk about someone else that came into your life and made a tremendous difference, not just for you but to the girls, i think. Can you talk about her and what effects shes had on your life since she came into it as your partner. Guest after my divorce with leslie im in a relationship with me go counter who used to work at nasa and Public Affairs and she was therefore 20 years and we started dating in 2009, 10 ish. Weve been together ever since and now, we are engaged and she was a very big part of my last two fights, which is 500 days of my 520 days in the space she was there with me and she definitely made it a better experience. I think i was very lucky to have her especially because the whole social media thing is becoming such a big deal and. Host huge, huge. Guest it allowed me to work on something with her that was fun in space that had like realtime feedback and i think especially for the yearlong fight it like really helped my it was a large part of my psychological support to have this project i could work on with her together. Had kind of like real consequences and feedback schema host when the piggyback on station and talk about another trying time in your life. You are blowing on in your first longduration mission and you get a call from the ground that breaks the news to you that your sisterinlaw, congressman eq furred has been shot in a shopping mall. What went through your mind . How did you deal psychologically, because you were coming home for the next what kind of challenges that for you . Guest its challenging when you hear your brothers wife, someone that is important to me as well was shot in such a violent i mean, most shootings are pretty violent. I dont know that you can have a shooting thats not violent, but to be a victim of such a violence, senseless violence were six other people were killed including a 10year old girl, others injured and she sustained significant injuries and then later i was told checks the past away when i was in space. I immediately got on the phone with my brother and talk to him as much as i can and try to support them as best i could. Took some time for myself, but i was the commander of the space station at the time and i had a job to do. Eventually i try to compartmentalize, separate whats going on on earth with what my responsibilities in space and try to focus as much as i could on that, but at the same time take care my brother. It was actually i wouldnt say there was anything i wouldnt say like a serendipitous kind of thing, but a good time to allow me to cut the cord of it with my two fellow crew mates that were up there and let them kind of run with some of the stuff because they had been there for a couple of months at that point and i was going to leave them a couple of months later, so i guess that was a bit of a good thing that allowed me to set them free little bit, but its not easy. Thats the worst part about being in space bar longtime. Its not your personal risk or worrying about what could happen to you , its what could happen to your family on earth with a been no way to come home. Host in the book you mentioned briefly the fact that mark was also trained and assigned it to be a commander and the decision had to be made i think i was in washington. You wisely said mark is the person who will have to make the final determination to his fitness to continue training for this mission if he really wants to do that. Did your experience on the station absent not being able to do anything, did it allow you to help them at all in making that decision or did that not even play into it . Guest we talked about it. We talked a lot of things about it, but in the end i think it was up to gabby. I think gabby really, i mean, she said despite her injury, i mean, she recognized this was his last opportunity to find space. Its important to his crew he had been training with because otherwise they start all over with a new commander and i think at the end clearly he was on the fence about whether it was the right thing to do and in the end it wasnt his decision. It was hers. Host i call it a National Tragedy in fact the interNational Tragedy. You got a call from president obama declared a day of mourning i think the monday after and you got a passage in your book where you actually prepared and read a message to the world about violence. Would you mind sharing that . Guest first to mention about something you said. I did it was not a call from Vladimir Putin we actually had a conference is scheduled next day for all three astronauts and all three cosmonauts and i was moved a little bit that he spent most of the time talking to me and saying hey, we support you. The russian people are behind you. This is a terrible tragedy and he dedicated most of the conversation to checking on me and making sure i was okay. Yeah, i will read a bit of what i said after she was shot. This was during a moment of silence, National Moment of silence and i send this over the radio to the control center and whoever else was listening. I would like to take sometime this morning morning to recognize a moment of silence in honor of the victims of the tucson shooting tragedy. First, i would like to say a few words. We have a unique Vantage Point aboard the International Space station. As i look out the window i see a beautiful planet that seems inviting and peaceful. Unfortunately, it is not. These days we are constantly reminded of the unspeakable act of the violence and damage we can inflict upon one another. Not just with our actions, but with our irresponsible words. We are better than this. We must do better. Then i go on to just talk about the moment of silence that we had and its interesting how i said this in 2011, january 2011 and some of what i said here is so much more applicable today than it was back then. I guess we havent learned much. Host i found the same. I keep talking about your bumps in the road. You come back from your First Mission and do some more things and then you get word that we will do this with some people thought was crazy when your mission and you are finally selected to fly that mission, but you have something that you have been working with the dog and you have high tsa and in your diagnosed with Prostate Cancer and the medical guys in their wisdom decide you are not medically qualified to fly this flight and we will take you off the crew. Much when three your mind and what pushed you to fight and appeal that decision and get yourself put back on the crew are you so admirably served . Guest so, i had Prostate Cancer between my last shuttle fight in 2007 and when i started train for my first longduration flight and as you know nasa does test young and someone might wonder, you were young to have Prostate Cancer. Really what it is is that we get the test so young, but there are bunch of astronauts that have had Prostate Cancer at a young age because we are tested for it. I went through the process of having my prostate removed, which is not fun, but very effective. It worked so well that i went on to fly in space 500 days after i had cancer. Before that, 20 days after two longduration flights. It was challenging to get the russians approve that, but they finally did. I think what youre talking about specifically is more the case that i was assigned to this yearlong fight and the very next day i was on the signed and it had to do with my vision i come home and i say to her, that did not last long and shes like what and i said yeah, they took me off the flight and shes like and why and i said i have this colloidal gold and effects of my vision from the previous one and they thought that it was too risky. We are going to assign someone that had no affects on their eyes and she said well, are they trying to learn like more about this, isnt that one of the reasons we are doing this and i said yeah and it she says well why would they have someone thats me into it then. If that person is immune to it you wont learn anything from them and i was like thats a pretty good point. Then she said ive never seen you so easily give up. I spent the whole night that night going through all of my medical records which i had a stack of this i because id recently retired from the navy and they give you all of them. I went through and look to my eye stuff and went and did research in went the next day made my case. To my shock, nasa said you got a very good point. Okay, you are back. Host good. During the time you are on station you talk a lot about crewmembers, individual crewmembers and you can pick as many as you want, but to that really seem to stand out with your respect and immigration for them were both nonamericans. Can you talk a little bit about each of them, but made them so uniquely distinct and what was it about them that made them stand out in your estimation . Guest i had a great experience with everyone on the crew and which has really been my case. Ive been lucky. I have flown in space with 40 people and got along with all of them and everyone stood out in their own way. Samantha, her Tactical Mind combined with the ability, this incredible ability for languages and usually it seems like people of one side of the brain or the other. She also stood out in the fact that she was the only woman on space station for the entire year i was there, which when she is leaving and you realize you wont be around a woman again for nine months its something im not talking about in some weird way. Its just something you recognize. And then he is such a professional and so nice , such a nice guy. Kind of like hes kind of like the elder statesman of, you know, the cosmonaut office at the time and was different than some of the other guys in some ways and his perspectives on things. I write about in the book about how he went down to visit this memorial for this person that was killed in russia and the guy was a political enemy of Vladimir Putin. I just had a lot of respect for him because say neither had respect for that guy and i will show that by visiting this memorial, but like i said all the people i flew with her great and real. Thats the best thing about flying in space for a long time. Its about the experience. Its the people. Host in your two longduration flights you got an opportunity to see a lot of vehicles come and go and generally many of those vehicles were commercial. The new breed, if you will, although i hate the term new space, but represents what some people call no space. What was your impression and how did you come away in terms of the future of our exploration and the role that commercial space will play, that the private entities will play in the future . Guest i think how the Companies Like boeing and particularly space x bats flying to the space station now how they are developing this kind of ride along with the plans for commercial organizations to take over access to orbit sunday and hopefully they will carry people soon and that will free up resources and funds for nasa to do other things to further explore our solar system. I think its great. I was originally skeptical when elon musk said he would land that first one on a barge and i think i said Something Like he i will never say that it began about him. I might say hes ambitious, but i will never doubt him again when he says hes going to do something, but i think its very exciting. I think we are on the cusp of a real moments in Human History where access to space is going to become much more available in the coming years. I was recently on blue origin and those guys are not kidding around. That is a Serious Business and they are serious about fine in space and i suspect they will have a lot of success, also. Time moves on hopefully that will get more people in space. More people have this incredible experience, industries and space, nasa beyond the path of doing great exploration. Host you talk a lot or maybe not a lot but you talk frequently about challenges, technical and otherwise during your time and space, can you talk a bit about what you feel are the greatest challenges on the station itself. You mention like high co2 levels that we have tolerated through the years, fitted physical and mental stressors, but toilet. Do you have top five things . Guest onboard lifesupport systems we have to focus on them more because if you are going to mars in the toilet breaks and you cannot fix it and can no longer process your werent urine into what are you wont and i think we need to use the space station as a platform to test this philosophy. How long can we make that go with just this volume of spare parts. I think the co2 needs to be when its as low as we can get it, i think thats acceptable, but the problem is it fluctuate greatly and it gets pretty high and i think nasa is looking at new technologies and how to improve that, but i think a lifesupport system equation of going to mars is something we need to focus on and think about more especially while we have the space station to practice it. I think the psychological the human side of it, i think we have a lot of this stuff figured out, certainly radiation is going to be a challenge that we need to solve my problem. From a psychological perspective and we were talking about this one day at dinner and the russian segment how if we were on her way to mars you would not be able to look out the window and see earth and it would be daylight all the time for months and months and months and thats going to be a whole different psychological experience for the people that do that. Host your girls are now a lot larger and older, but when you talk about that particular psychological stressor, something i think about frequently as you leave the planet and you look back and every day earth becomes a smaller and smaller. Dot. And your ability to talk to people back home becomes increasingly difficult. Guest eventually goes away. Host how do you think had we train ourselves to deal with that . How do we condition ourselves to be ready for that . Are we doing anything on station now . Guest we had talked about it. I have never done an experiment like that, but we have discussed it of a talked about putting us in one module if the russians got their Second Laboratory module and my close the hatch on us for a whole year. I wasnt too keen on doing the, but i think its going to come down to picking the right people. People that can deal with stress and adversity and i think having flown in space with a lot of people on the space station, there are certain personalities that are good for like a shuttle flight. Everything has to be perfect all the time. You cant make your bidding perfect all the time on a space station flight in six months or year long so a different personality where you are able to prioritize a little differently, focus on the stuff thats really important when asked be in the stuff thats not as important maybe be able to let it go here guy think that trait will be very helpful to people that spend a lot of time in space. Host pilots coming out of the shuttle program. When you came in like i did pilots no way they let us go outside, only two of us, but now everyone does. You did a number of them in your times. Can you talk a bit about what surprised what were the difficult parts that may be use and would be a piece of cake and all of a sudden boy, this is really hard. Guest you do this training in the pool and its not exactly like space because gravity still affects you in the pool. You are still affected by gravity in the suit, which makes things harder. The friction with the water makes the suit harder to like move, but makes it easier to stop. In space, you clearly we dont have gravity affecting us in the same way so you are floating within the suit and that makes it a bit easier, but the magnitude of what youre doing and the intention that every action requires for that length of time and the physical aspect of it. I thought it was harder than the training you doing the pool and i would say that they need to bump up the pool training in notch because at least the first two i did were really really challenging and i was surprised how easy you can kind of get lost on the outside of the space station when its dark. Its a pretty big. I was a surprise how incredible the earth looks from the suits, much more impressive than when youre looking through the bulletproof class of the windows of the space station or the Space Shuttle. How hot it is outside or cold when you are touching things even through those gloves you feel the heat on the metal or you feel just the deep cold of it and the contrast of that as the sun goes down or comes up is just shocking. A lot of damage on the outside of the space station even like bullet holes and handrails how it gets it all the time. It was just kind of like almost an overwhelming experience. Host between spacewalks was there sufficient time like fingertip stuff like that that bruised enough and sufficient time to let them heal up or did it seem like they were perpetually soar . Guest i would say definitely between my first and second eda which i think was only a week, you are still a bit sore and places, but it was good enough. Im fortunate i dont have what some guys have for their fingernails like fall off and never grow back because of the difficulty working in the clubs, which is quite a challenge. Host you mentioned lessons learned, now that you said im never going to go back never say never, but now that you dont have any immediate intention of going back to space here are some things i learned or here are some things i miss to work things i learned to appreciate. Can you run through rate short list of some of those things you learned and loved . You can use the book if you want. Guest im trying to think of the really important ones, which i will call because i know we dont have much time, but just the importance of diversity and team. I came from the navy that was basically a bunch of white guys and it wasnt until i went to nasa that i started working with people from other ethnicities, other genders, other countries and just having a group, a team with all of these different backgrounds and experiences and perspectives whether those are perspectives that were from cultural perspective or from the fact that they had eight different major in college, whatever. Its just provided us a different way to look at things as a group and made us stronger at solving problems, coming up with solutions and that is something that i learned over my 20 years at nasa. The International Partnership with the space Station Program is so important and valuable at the same time, i mean, it gives us something that is important for us to work on as a group rather than something negative to be arguing about all of the time. It just seems like we often do. I appreciate earth more in the environments, being able to look at earth for a really long time from space makes you think about how fragile the atmosphere looks, how some parts are polluted, how this is the only planet we have your crime not a believer that mars is our lifeboat. I think for our civilization to grow and develop and expand we will have to have People Living other places, but thats not because we will destroy this place and run their. We had to take care of this planet. I learned about like the experts are and if you want to know something about Rocket Science, you ask a rocket scientist. If you want to know something about Climate Science you dont ask a lawyer, you ask a climate scientist. Those kind of things. You in no appreciate people and be more empathetic for the planet because we are all in this together. Host before we run out of time i want to get to im sort of a mars fanatic, but lets pretend im not. If we want to go to mars , so i will put my biases away because i am a mars fanatic, but if we want to go to mars would we need . What things what will it take for us to go to mars especially in the time schedule we have laid out for ourselves. Talk about getting their. Guest when i was on the space station a reporter said to me, now that nasa has determined theres absolutely liquid water on mars during some time of the year, is that going to help us get there sooner and i was like i dont know, maybe. Now, if we found money on mars than we get the really fast because thats really what we need. I think technologically i think we can do it. There is some i think we need a little bit better understanding of some of the physical stuff with our vision may be, radiation or ask and we need to shield the crew from radiation and whether we do that with a Magnetic Field or water or some kind of or just get there really fast, thats something we need to think about, but i think the biggest challenge to is going to mars is not and i will use what my brother often says, its not about the Rocket Science , its about the Political Science and about having voters elect members of congress that are science minded people that see the value in doing Something Like this and put the resources behind it and whether we change the laws are maybe we just get an administration that recognizes that nasa can be changing directions and changing plans every time we get a new president , that will be very helpful to us going to mars. [inaudible] host im asking for my granddaughter. Guest like saturn . Host yacht. Guest we are not going to be innocent people always say why not venus, venus would be too hard i think because of the sulfuric acid, rainy clouds and crushing pressure, but maybe tighten one of those places. Host water places. Guest a place with water. Host you mention in your book when you talk about your realization of how awesome water was and theres nothing like being immersed in water. What did you mean when you said that . Guest when you dont take a shower for a whole year becomes a very important and we were always talking about man, cant wait to go swimming or get in a bathtub and both of us as soon as we got home like the first thing we did i just walked into my front door and out my back door and jumped in the pool. Host no change of close . Guest no. Even though the pool was he did when i got out i think my body went into shock a little bit because i had not had that experience in so long. Really cold, but a lot of things on earth we take for granted. Host would you like to go back again . Guest i would go back, yeah. Host what would you if you have an opportunity to pick your crew, not names, but what kind of crew would you like to put together . What types of talent . Guest i would pick them from the group of people i spent a year in space with and people that are helpful, but not too hopeful. You cant have someone up there that you think is always going to help be there to help you do your work. I think to let people do their own thing, but no there are times to help in times that are. You have to be technically confident because its a very complicated to think working space has a lot of risk. Then, after those two things i would just say like that people that are easy to get along with that dont get too stressed out over things , that you can trust you mean on the space station you have to be able to trust people you are up there with because there are sony things that that can go wrong. So, trustworthy, confidence, competence, someone who is emotionally very stable. A lot of the traits that we often dont see in government today. [laughter] host you said it, i didnt. You can say it. We both can say it, as a matter of the fact. What can they do to us, send us back to space . [laughter] you dont have to do it quickly. We have time. You talk a lot and i think you are as passionate about it as i am. Hopefully there will be several thousand students who will see this at some point in their academic life. Give them a few words of wisdom, go all the way back to scott kelly, the kid who would never do the right thing who did not know how to study or didnt see the need to study. To the scott kelly today , that people many of us admire. Guest so, if i was to talk to myself back then, what i would say is you need to find some inspiration. You could have beat me over the head with a two by four and i was set going to be able to do my homework, so i think inspiration is key and kids get inspiration from different people. Different people are inspired by Different Things and for me i know it was absolutely impossible for me to be a good student without inspiration in the inspiration i found was from a book and it said, hey, if you want to do this you got to do this, this and this and this requires homework and thats what helped me. For kids that went to work at nasa i tell them to pick something thats qualifying, but something you are interested. Dont become a pilot because we were pilots become a pilot because you want to fly airplanes, but if he would rather be a chemist, be a chemist because you will be a better chemist. Its good to have a job that you like and you will do better at it. Guest im working on a young reader version of this right now on a picture book. Host scott, its been incredible pleasure for me to have the opportunity to sit and talk to you today and for anyone looking and wonders whether to get the book or the audio, get both your car, boat and they give you as you set a different perspective. When you are reading it and when youre hearing your voice, but you have been incredible today and thank you for your service to the nation and to nasa and best of luck from here on out. Guest thank you. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Sunday night on afterwards, author tara talks about growing up with survivalist parents in the hot home out in her book. Shes interviewed by author and journalist susanna. A lot of people seem to have taken to heart this i did that to learn something you have to have a degree and you have to have a whole institution in place to teach it to you and im grateful for my parents that i was not raised to think that, so when i decided to go to college at 16, it felt like something i could do, not because i had a informal education but because i needed to learn algebra. I will buy a book and learned. I kind of barely got into the university, but i kept going with that and i think my parents took it too far. I arrived at university under prepared and i once raised my hand in class asked what the holocaust was and people thought i was being anti somatic and denied i wasnt. I never heard of it before so i would not fit with the ideal education. Afterwards at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. Cspans washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact to. Coming up this morning, founder and president of james okeefe discusses his new book. Politico talks about the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence on politics in washington. Matt thorne, president and ceo about serve sld and on the pentagons transgender troops policy. Be sure to watch a cspans washington journal live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern saturday morning or join the discussion. And this weekend on afterwords Tara Westover talks about her survival in the ohio mountains and her introduction to education at the age of 17. Fox news media host howard kurtz discusses the relationship between the media and the trump administration. Emily chang describes the culture in silicon valley, White House Reporter paul brandis offers a history of the presidency and the panamerican literary awards given annually since 1963 recognizes books in a range of categories from biography and science writing 2 essays. That is this weekend on booktv. 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors, television for serious readers. For a complete schedule visit booktv. Org and follow along in our social media accounts, facebook, twitter and instagram as booktv. We kick off Indiana University Law School Professor gerard maglioccas history of the bill of rights. Hey, you guys. [appus