commander of the international space station. he joins me now from toronto. great to you on the show. i do want to get your take on this journey, this mission. what are your thoughts this hour? it was such a delightful relief to see them safely come back down through the atmosphere, to see four parachutes open and to have that beautiful close-up view of them splashing down into the atlantic. we haven t landed a spaceship in the atlantic since apollo 9 when rusty schweiker was flying. really nice to see, and the crew looking so healthy. it s a really lovely, perfect finish to a real demonstration of some amazing new technology. this is just one trip, one space mission. but what does it indicate in terms of where space ex-plorgs is going? when i was born, this entire human capability is younger than
heroes of the mercury 7 astronauts who made us sit up and pay attention in school as their test flights occurred one after another that got us on the way to the moon. if there was anything that epitomized the role of an astronaut, this was the guy, john glenn. he and the colleagues were the people i emulated or wanted to rub shoulders with some day. i think one of the measures that the country and nasa gave me in my astronaut career was meeting people like rusty schweiker and john glenn. it was a real treat for me as an astronaut. what makes it all so remarkable is that both of you and the other select few astronauts on the planet, you belong to a special tra fernity. you experienced something that so few of us have done and it s extraordinary to be part of something so very special and be
is also a former astronaut flying four shuttle missions and spent about 53 days in space. he is someone we turn to often for anything related to space. it s a pleasure to have you here as well. you re also the author of ask the astronaut, a galaxy of astonishing answers to questions on space flight. i know john glenn was also a big reason for you to get involved in space as well. is that not true? it s just a treat, uma to be with you today because i get to talk to one of my other heroes, rusty schweiker. even before i thought about rusty, i thought about john glenn when i was about 7 or 8 years old when john flew his 1962 flight and i bought a book from school called americansor he was one of the myth thick
accomplished in his extraordinary life. i want to bring back rusty schweiker and astronaut tom jones who have been sharing their thoughts and reflections about john glenn. i thought it was very interesting that president kennedy and his brother, robert kennedy, wanted john glenn to run for public office, run for senate shortly after his first mission, but apparent wli john aid he thought it was too soon after his historic flight and he thought his duty was to nasa and he turned the offer down, tom. he thought he would be viewed as cashing in on his celebrity. he had the most celebrated ticker-tape parade in new york ever since charles lindbergh or the end of world war ii. he didn t want to be viewed as a guy cashing in on his nasa celebrity. he waited a while asking for further flight assignments.