A Conversation with NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly

well good evening everyone welcome to what promises to be an extraordinary evening on behalf of the trustees the staff the volunteers and all of our benefactors it's a pleasure to welcome you here this evening for what should be an extraordinary event it's an honor for us to welcome commander Scott Kelly who I'm sure is going to thrill us with stories of his escapades in space we're grateful for his service to our nation and we're looking forward to his talk tonight with great anticipation it's hard to believe but in a few years we're going to celebrate 200 years as an institution here in Philadelphia and our mission refined over the years since the legacy of Ben Franklin took root is to inspire a passion for learning about science and technology this speaker series has been a tremendous success for us but I can't think of a better event to bring all of these things together it's great to look out in the audience and see so many young kids it's hard to believe but next year will be the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing in July of 1969 so we've got a little bit of a generational divide between those of us thrilled by the exploits of the Mercury to Gemini and the Apollo astronauts through the shuttle program to the space station today and the kids who haven't had a chance to see some of that it's just not covered the way that it used to but if you reflect a little bit on what the space program has done for us from those early days until now your GPS your cell phone remote sensing satellites communications weather prediction all of those things came to being because of the space program you've got advanced manufacturing advanced materials propulsion robotics all of those things germinated during the space program it was something in search of multiple solutions that came to fruition and it's an extraordinary story tonight we're pleased to host this event in cooperation with our partners at the world events council or I'm sorry the world affairs council those of you to know there's great venerable institution for 70 years it's been the center for policy discourse in Philadelphia offering nonpartisan educational programs for people of all ages and indeed it's an honor to host this with them their motto democracy deserves discourse I think speaks volumes especially in this environment and speaking of inventions out of space who could get through life without velcro yes it's true velcro did come from the space program so welcome it's going to be an extraordinary program with that I can't think of a better person to talk about science communication than our own chief astronomer Derek pets so help me welcome Derek to the stage [Applause] Thank You dad [Applause] well good evening everyone and welcome to our program tonight as you can probably well imagine I am somewhere between geek town and nerd Ville I'm telling you what a day it's been we're very very pleased to have our guests with us here tonight I'm just gonna take a few moments to talk about spaceflight because I really want to devote as much of the time this evening as possible to Commander Kelly on stage here presenting his adventures to you when you think about spaceflight when I think about spaceflight I think of it as the most imaginative exhilarating and perhaps the most dangerous exploration taken on by humans we've always dreamed of what it would be like to float among the stars and planets of our cosmos and beginning in 1961 with a flight of Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin we've been stretching our reach beyond the planet and out into the solar system uncrewed spacecraft have now visited every planet and even a few dwarf planets a particular notable one hopefully will come back to the fold sometime in the not-too-distant future and this has been helping us to better understand the nature of our celestial neighborhood but the real adventure came when in 1969 three Americans set foot on the moon opening the door to a new realm of exploration the trip to the moon is a relatively short one actually just three days out and back but still more challenging than almost any other human endeavor and the chance to return the moon and perhaps to go further is tantalizingly closer now than ever before but it will take a lot of ingenuity and courage to start again and tonight we're honored to have someone with us who has made an enormous contribution to taking that next step during his record-breaking year in space US astronaut captain Scott Kelly captivated commander Scott Kelly captivated the world while laying the groundwork for the future of space travel and exploration an American hero whose contribution to humanity is as far-reaching as his out-of-this-world adventure he now reveals what he learned during his 143 million mile adventure including lessons on leadership and teamwork personal stories of perseverance and the path that led him to secure his place in history from u.s. Navy fighter pilot to record-breaking astronaut Kelly draws from his experiences to deliver unparalleled life lessons fascinating stories and candid commentary on his epic journey all sure to provide us all with a new appreciation for time and space if you haven't read the book yet wait until you do talk about fantastic stories the book is chock full of them so join us now while we watch a short video prior to welcoming Commander Kelly [Music] throughout history people have done things that are risky even though it is a risky thing to be doing and I think it's a lot more risky than some people might think I still think it's worth it astronaut scott kelly will try something no American has ever done before this spring he will leave for a mission and spent a year in space his twin is former astronaut Mark Kelly genetically the brothers are almost identical so scientists will be able to measure how Scott and Mark changed physically and emotionally as months pass warm up a little bit this little ones up in the Hail Mary here we go [Music] [Applause] Scott Kelly has been working toward this mission his entire career he's been working toward this mission his entire life in some respects I decided that the challenges staying in space for a whole year presented it was appealing to me even considering the sacrifices the human body was made for living in gravity strange things happen to us when we spend long periods of time without it but that never deterred the former Navy test pilots from dreaming of becoming astronauts pretty much anything we've ever put our mind to we've been able to accomplish doing pretty good I do feel like I've been up here for a really long time and I look forward to getting home soon interesting to watch what a great story great story and the fascinating experiment space is still the most exciting thing I can imagine and talking to someone in orbit still is it's like I am an astronaut right now are you concerned about the the toll the physical toll that this will take on you I do think about the effects of radiation you know the reason I'm here is to learn more about it so someday we can travel further from low-earth orbit than we ever have before a year is not short but it was very rewarding it was enjoyable it was something that I feel privileged to having got to do [Music] ladies and gentlemen please welcome to the stage commander Scott Kelly and Craig Snyder president and CEO of the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia hello commander thanks so much for being with us somebody doesn't just one day wake up and get asked to go spend a year in space people have a lot of people here haven't had the opportunity to read the book tell us the path you took the previous missions how did you end up in this experiment yeah I'll tell you that in a second but first I'd like to say it's it's great to be here in Philadelphia actually it's great to be anywhere with gravity on this on the space station I changed position so many times you would thought I thought I was running for president Hey [Applause] so anyway for those of you in the audience that do not appear to be space aliens like to say good evening to the rest of you I come in peace so to answer your question I'm a very atypical kind of person that became an astronaut because when I was a kid growing up I was a really really bad student I was the kid that you know sat in the back of the room didn't pay attention looked out the window wondered what was going on outside or you know looking at the clock trying to just make it run faster so I can get out of the classroom and I know there are kids here so don't listen to me because it's hard to recover from being a being a bad student and not being able to pay attention but that was that was who I was as a kid and I struggled through middle school and later high school graduated in the bottom half of my high school class went to college because that was what was expected of needed to do but actually went to the wrong school I don't mean I went to like this school over here thinking that this one was a better fit for me what I mean is I applied to and showed up at this college thinking I was going to this other one over here I am quite possibly the only person that has ever really gone to the wrong college and I'm there my first week and I say like hey when's the when's the football game and they're like we don't have a football tournament it's at other school in Maryland and I was basically doing the same thing I didn't in high school I couldn't pay attention I didn't know how to study eventually I'm not really even going to class anymore basically on the fast track to uh you know first year college dropout and one day I'm walking across the college campus and I just happened to go into the bookstore to buy gum or something not a book there's not a big reader at the time but I go in there and I see a book on this shelf and it's got this really cool cover and a cool title and a you know just made me pick it up and I looked at the back and I read the back and I was interested enough that I bought this book which turned out to be the right stuff Tom wolf and it really just spoke to me and I recognized you know these guys had certain qualities in them that I felt like I had myself but with one huge exception and that is I didn't know how to learn I couldn't study was not a good student and I thought you know if I could just fix that one thing about myself become a better student learn how to learn maybe I could be like these sight guys someday and fly airplanes in the military maybe even become a test pilot and possibly an astronaut someday and you know what you're thinking you know eighteen year old kid you know he or she reads a book decides that they're gonna become an astronaut that's a giant leap but really what it was was a bunch of you know smaller manageable steps to get there one built on top of the other that started with something that was really hard for me which was teaching myself how to become a better student but then you know always got a little bit easier fabulous okay so let's jump ahead to the year in space that's a big leap to big leave space programs known for that yes jump no just jumped over like thirty years of my life that that's okay that's not interesting they only gave us 20 minutes so okay the question I guess that boils down in terms of of your year in space is to me what did you manatee learn and what did you learn well I'm not humanity so I don't know what they learned I appreciate you manatee humanities a tough tough audience sometimes but what I learned is it's something I'm gonna share with you at the end of this talk today I don't want to steal my own material but the purpose behind us going into space on this mission which was longer than any other flight to the International Space Station before it generally we fly six months on the space station and we were gonna fly for a year me and a Russian cosmonaut because someday we want to go to Mars Mars is really far away we it's gonna take seven months to get to Mars you'll have to spend a year on the surface seven months to get home and we're we're when we are in space bad things happen to our our physiology we lose bone mass at 1% a month so you know if you didn't do anything to prevent that after 100 months you'd have no skeleton left we'd all be like Gumby maybe kids might not even know what Gumby is Gumby's a little dated like us yes we lose muscle mass effects on our vision or immune system and then the radiation we get in space which is anywhere from 10 to 20 chest x-rays every single day and what and what is that effect on our physiology so in March of 2015 me and a Russian cosmonaut left the planet to spend a year on the International Space Station to learn about these things and other things and we did learn and we learned a lot but it's a lot of science that was done over 400 different experiments some of those you know I was the scientific guinea pig the subject of the experiment but there were for many others tell us about your return and the readjustment you know both physically and emotionally what was it like mm-hmm so if we go to the end of the mission it's probably no questions left assuming this is chronological yet some stuff you the readjustment so going to space there's an adjustment when you first get to space people are if it's your first flight there's a little bit overwhelmed of the experience you're shocked for one thing that you're actually in space I was shocked more than anybody else on my first flight because it's not a place I ever expected to be in as you know an 18 year old kid struggling his whole life to to become a serious learner and then and for me fast-forwarding 18 years from basically the day I read the book the right stuff 18 years later I'm flying in space for the very first time almost of the day from when I read that book and you know I had the privilege to fly four times spent a year on the space station and you know like I was saying you know adjustment to being in space takes some adjustment a lot of people don't feel very well at first but for me coming back after spending a year in space was even much worse than the adjustment that takes place getting used to living out outside of this you know gravitational field that is very helpful to us actually in a lot of ways but when I got back after being in space for a year you're tired you'd only without gravity all the fluid in our bodies redistributes itself so in space we get rid of that fluid and when you come home it replenishes itself pretty quickly your blood volume replenishes itself but it doesn't replenish the red blood cells so you're tired for a couple of months you're sore you're stiff hard to stand up when I would stand up I blood would rush out of my head and my legs would swell up like water balloons and I'm like this is not good I had hives and rashes anywhere my skin it touched it was touching anything did not had not touched anything for a really long time some good things actually physically that happened to you while you're in space and that is actually there's only one good thing I think one good physical thing and that is when you uh when you don't use your feet the four months that all the calluses just kind of go away it's a little disgusting when you take your you take your socks off and you get this this big like cloud of foot stuff if you're ever in space for a really long time don't ever take your socks off around your crewmates very bad manners but eventually you have baby feet faintly baby feet and after my when I was on the space station for six months I would no one knew I was up there I went to to get a massage and you have to at the end of the massage they rub your feet the masseuse was like she goes you're the softest feet I've ever felt entire like all I said there was thank you very proud of them and I just left she's probably still talking about that bald guy with the really soft feet want to go to a couple of space policy questions if we could so when this guy right over here on the end he's gonna love that space policy question I get a little guy in the blue I get might actually wake him up I think I think when the Apollo flights were taking place Charles Lindbergh was still alive we went from flying across the Atlantic to going to the moon in a much shorter period of time than it has now been since we went to the moon does that mean that the future is is the future is the past or do we still have a future in space that can be as bold and exciting as Apollo and if you believe that why has it taken so long well I think we do have a future in space I think space is our future it's a you know it's just outrageous goal and destination that I think as humans we need you know we need we're explorers we need a place to explore we've explored most of Earth now granted we could explore the oceans a little bit more and I think we should but you know exploring spaces is absolutely part of our future why is it slowed down it seems well you know the Apollo mission was not only about exploration and technology it was also a you know a political race for demonstrating that you know our political system was better than somebody else's so that motivated us we don't currently don't have that kind of motivation and I will share something that my my my brother says about this very subject that I agree with I think it's probably one of the best things he's ever come up with and that is he goes you know going to Mars not about rocket science it's about political science meaning that we need the the support from the public to elect officials in to our you know our government that are science minded people that want to do these things so the question is really not do we have the technology to go to Mars or elsewhere it is really a question of do we want to and then can we afford it because it is gonna be very expensive we have a lot of priorities that all the admit are more important than going to Mars and it's just you know finding the proper balance between you know what we want to do and what we can afford there's there's been this change in the in the nature of the space program to bring in the private sector if you go to the Cape today you see the emblems of the Corporations do you think it's a good thing do you think that it's going to help advance our role in space or do you think that NASA should remain the primary focus of the effort I think it's great I mean when you have guys that have a lot of money that want to invest their own money in the space program to give us a different way to a different mechanism to get to space and do things like promoting space tourism I would love if I could share this this privilege that I've had of going to space you know I think I'm gonna go back there and help them with the dishes then I'd be right I don't know if you guys can hear that but but maybe they heard me anyway I completely lost my friend what was your question space tourism all the space tourism guess so I think it's great I mean SpaceX does things differently than NASA does does different mean it's better I don't know I think time will tell if SpaceX is able to put people into space reliably and safely at lower cost that will be a great thing you know someday are a few the future of aviation around the globe will involve spending a short time in space I mean when we can get from here to Australia in 45 minutes that's gonna be a great thing and I think there is a place for those companies my wife amiko and I but we visited blue origin which is Jeff Bezos his company about a year and a half ago those guys are absolutely serious not getting around they will be flying people in space someday here pretty soon and you know his eventual goal is to get to an orbital capability and you know we'll see what happens from there but I think it's a great partnership Elon Musk's Mars plan your thoughts well Elon has a very ambitious plan to go to Mars involves many different spacecraft launching at similar times putting a lot of people on the surface of Mars to eventually I think he believes we can terraform the the planet Mars and make it you know in more habitable like maybe a little bit like Earth when Ilan said he was going to launch a spacecraft into space and land the first stage of the rocket on a barge and then on land and then reef lie it I thought he was nuts and then he went and did it so I will never say his plan is crazy I will say it's a little ambitious but I think if anyone can pull it off it'd probably be him in addition to being an astronaut ously you've been a you've been a military man there's a debate going on now about president Trump's proposal for a space force as a separate branch the American military like to ask your opinion about that and more broadly it seems pretty clear that space is being militarized that both the Chinese and the Russians are pursuing capability to disrupt American communications and so on do you believe that space is going to be a theater of war you know the first rule about space force we don't talk about space forces you know we have a great military the greatest that's ever existed in the history of our planet and despite being a navy I I have to admit the US Air Force does a pretty good job Airport our Department of Defense is also probably the hugest bureaucracy that's ever existed and you know adding a seventh arm to that and the you know the overhead that it's going to take to you know start up a new branch of the Armed Forces is gonna be billions of dollars is it is that worth the money for a capability I think we currently have I don't think so perhaps somebody could make the argument that that it is will space be a battleground for future warfare probably at some point I think humans have demonstrated that over the course of our history we will find new ways and new places to go and fight one another I think that's pretty clear I hope it's not for a really long time now the US government is part of various treaties to try to prevent that so I think we should probably as the leader of the free world set the example we don't want to do that but at the same time we have to understand you know there are threats to our national security that come with you know defending the infrastructure we have in space so I just think it whether we need a space worse or not I think is a much longer discussion that we need to have rather than just like you know right now to check for this now having said all that if they get the lightsaber I'm in with that I'm gonna invite you to the podium to walk us through some of these wonderful photographs thank you yeah [Applause] looking for the clicker and you always use the lose the remote control there we go I'm gonna show you a little cute just a few slides and just talk to him for a few minutes from my new book not the book that was given out here but this picture book that is weighs about 40 pounds so they didn't want to bring too many of them in here I guess we skipped ahead maybe I push the button by accident but this is a Soyuz rocket we used to fly on the space station now we fly on the Soyuz from Russia which is of conventional more of a conventional rocket and all these pictures are from the the picture book I'm not even pushing these buttons is someone changing this for me it's a movie it's on movie you must be some kind of expert on this can you come up here can you come up here and help me because I cannot figure this out it's got two buttons instead of just the one I'm used to anyway this is the Russian you know Russian Soyuz spacecraft so this picture is in my my book and I clearly didn't take it because I'm at the top so I put this photograph in the in the picture book in the beginning to show me looking at planet Earth this is the cupola module on the space station a bunch of windows that look down on the planet and but when you're in it it's like you're looking up at Earth and earth actually looks like some alien planet in some science science fiction movie when you're looking at it this is my Russian brother from another mother Mikhail Kornienko and I floating through the hatch on the International Space Station day one of a year in space and I get inside the space station and I'd been there for years prior and the place looks the same sounds the same smells the same day one of a year I'm thinking man this is a stupid thing to be doing spending a year in space after spending six months here you can't get out you know you can't come home if you want to it's no burr not yet anyway someday someday we'll have over space you know I put this this photo in the book to demonstrate the National aspect of the International Space Station there's in this photo alone there's there are four cosmonauts one guy from Kazakhstan a guy from Denmark two Americans and a Japanese guy over the course of the year I was there we also had an Italian woman on board a Brit and anybody else I think that's it a couple more Americans but this is the Russian segment the Russian service module the space station is broken up into two parts really big weighs a million pounds has a US side that has modules that are kind of you know big and bright and a little more inviting and then there's the Russian side a little darker a little smaller a little more sinister looking you know I joke about our Russian colleagues a little bit but they have been great great great partners in space great partners in space with us people are often curious you know to any like earthly conflicts trends transmit to space and I honestly say they do not when we're on the space station we are crewmates first we are partners we rely on each other you know literally for our lives in some cases this is the u.s. laboratory module very busy if you had OCD you'd be probably be hard to live there for a long time but I wanted to contrast this picture with the lights out on in the u.s. lab module you can see all the little green glows of the little LED lights and other you know lights that are in there including the pink lights that are in the front of the space station which are these from these glow lights grow lights that are part of a plant growth experiment so it looks kind of like a nightclub in there and you put the lights turn the lights out I took a lot of pictures of the earth this book is about mostly about taking pictures of the earth including trying to get all the NFL stadiums I was able to get the your stadium here is a so-called better understand okay I'm not sure they would let me take a picture of Veterans Stadium and is it still there I don't even know okay that's probably why the only thing I know about Veterans Stadium is the court that they had in the basement not that I was ever there but this is the 49ers stadium during the Superbowl so I actually saw the Super Bowl from space with a really long lens and then so I had decided to have a Super Bowl party and because I was on the space station with a bunch of Russian guys that never even heard of the Super Bowl nobody showed up this is our nation's capital and I included this picture in this slide presentation there are many many more pictures in the book only to demonstrate the fact of the the lights on the planet have you know distinctive appearances here you can see that the Washington DC definitely stands out for a lot of reasons but also because of the lighting it's just a different you know made with a different chemical the light bulbs and that is a case of the case around the world there are times when you look out the window and you can almost tell you know where you are just based on the color of the lights over the plant this is looking out the in the cupola but towards the back of the space station in the Russian segment with some aurora on the horizon this is looking towards the front we were capturing a Japanese cargo vehicle we use that robot arm for for a lot of things the most important thing is to grab our cargo spacecraft and attach it to the space station space selfie but I took this in the subsequent picture to demonstrate the the earth shine that you see from space if the window covering is closed and you can't even look outside but light still seeps through after being in space for a long time you can actually tell where over the earth you are from the color just the color of the lights not always but sometimes you're like you know that looks like Australia the glow of the lighting from Australia or the deserts of North Africa so that first picture is over the Mediterranean Sea a little blue just a few seconds later over the deserts of North Africa and you can see the yellow glow New York City home of the New York Giants you guys Giants fans now Jets fans then I heard about you guys and how dedicated fans you are you're alright what's that I can't I'm not sure what you're saying this is looking back over from the basically the West Coast the United States towards Texas and back over Europe you can see on the top there that's the boot of ill Italy and I think we're over Macedonia I've never been there I need to visit the mountain of the Himalayas I'm going through these fast because there's there's a lot of them and you guys have great questions that I wanted to get to but you could see this was late during the day because you could tell I knew it was late during day cuz I took a picture but you could tell from the shadows over the mountains that it was either in the morning or in the evening and then I you know these earth art pictures my mother was a an artist amateur artist and I dedicated this book to her she's no longer with us but a third of this book is me taking pictures close-up pictures of the earth with a really long lens then enhancing the color I didn't add any color to him but I enhanced the color using a software program that makes these pictures look like something you could actually you know hang on your wall that is a wall worthy piece of art and the rest of the photos in here like that these are some you know semi dry lakebeds probably and I ran somewhere and then we have you know there's some other really pretty pictures of the earth which are really challenging to get when you have this really long lens 800 millimeters you're looking at a very small spot on the earth and you're traveling at five miles a second so you can really can't take these photos unless you've been in space for a long time and developed a good technique to to track the earth but the earth is just a really an incredibly beautiful place and we'll continue to scroll through these slides while I'm I'm doing the the Q&A which i think is probably yeah yeah why don't we go to your questions and if you guys in the back can just fast-forward through these slides occasionally or switch through them we can sit yeah let's sit down let's do that why not why stand when you can sit I notice you're having some trouble with the cochlea clicker there yeah I'm technically challenged two buttons there I understand the Soyuz has a few buttons the Space Shuttle has 2,000 switches and circuit breakers go some of which when you like throw the switch or push a button at the wrong time you can blow the thing up the wrong time yeah so let's let's start out at that point at launch point you're you've climbed into Soyuz you're all packed in there nice and tight I understand it's sardines have a better life and a can than you guys do inside so I use your pack so tight what are some of the thoughts that are going through your mind as you're sitting there waiting for them to hit the big red button well I'm not sure if there's a button in Russia there might be right that's what I'm thinking about right probably a big big red yeah when you fly in space for the first time you actually you actually think about it and the risk involved beforehand that was definitely the case on my first first space shuttle launch you know you know you've never done this before it's something new and you you feel you know you feel like hey this might be the last thing I ever do so you think about it but then when you're in the spacecraft and you're busy or you're focused on your job you know those thoughts are kind of out of your mind and then you're sitting there in the Soyuz which is particularly uncomfortable for some people and it's rather painful but you're there's no countdown clock in the Soyuz that time is just passing the Space Shuttle eyes is very distinct countdown clock the Soyuz doesn't have that after a while you're like hey what time are we leaving it's not like Moscow time or Baikonur time they sent the text up to let you know when they're gonna launch her now eventually just somebody comes up on the radio and says ignition ah and you're off okay great it's a short ride to space right doesn't take long in some instances it's a short ride to space you've spent a couple of days just orbiting in SOI is heading to International Space Station yeah sometimes we've taken 48 hours to get there other my last flight it was a 6-hour rendezvous but you know spending that time two days and that small capsule it's a it's a tight tight fit incredible experience especially on the space shuttle so we used lifts off slowly more traditional rocket Space Shuttle has those two giant solid rocket motors and when those things light you get the feeling you're going somewhere you're not sure where you're going but you know you're not coming back to Florida so why here's here's one of the questions you know people of course are very much interested in your experience being on board for a year and and they'd like to know can you share what you and NASA have learned to date since coming home from that mission no so what's that so what would be the biggest thing that stands out in your mind that you think is probably of the greatest value yeah as a result of the time you spent on board so this is the the kind of the question I want to finish up with at the end just kind of back to the summary thing so I don't again I don't want to steal my own material because I don't have much so have you had a chance to meet with any of the apollo gemini or mercury astronauts yeah I've met met a lot of them um you know unfortunately the lot of those guys are no longer with us and they're they're less and less but yeah I got it I got to meet most of them actually over the course of my career at NASA I was selected to be an astronaut in 1996 started in 96 when I showed up at NASA pretty soon John Glenn came back to NASA to fly on the space shuttle and he was there for probably about a year as an astronaut you get a part once you get assigned to your first space flight get a parking spot which then you then keep for the rest of your your time there and when I write when I got assigned to my first flight was right after John Glenn got back from his second flight when he after he retired from the Senate and I got his parking spot so that's my claim to fame I had John Glenn's parking spot for my whole time at NASA that's the best so what does that put him like right at the top of your list for astronauts former astronauts I mean if you if you could pick out one that you think was really an on Young John Young okay which a lot of you may have never heard of he was a very you know quiet yet serious guy he flew on Apollo 10 around the moon actually before that he flew you a couple of Gemini flights was the commander of the first flight of the space shuttle which as far as space flights go and you know and risk and seriousness of what you're doing you don't get much serious more serious than that him and Bob Crippen were the mote the only guys ever in the history of our planet to fly on a spacecraft that was not previously flight tested with nobody on board when the first space shuttle launched that was the first launch period and there was two people in it including him so he is I think if you asked most astronauts who they respect most as far as their astronaut skills and dedication clearly John young he never left NASA continued into his 70s before he retired then he you know passed away recently within the probably about a year ago right well you you really hit some you call them not landmarks but you've really hit some incredible superlatives in your time in space and the work that you've done about your brother mark marks an astronaut has spent considerable time in space does he feel woefully inadequate having spent so little time in space that's a good question whom sent that question what do you mail address I'm not gonna I'm not gonna out him yeah I saw that email address up there you could send questions when I was sitting over there I sent to that question that's like the best question right isn't it what'd you expect ma'am so do you think that maybe the motto my brother has only flown in space for like 50 days compared to my 500 so actually though he does he you know he's flew in space four times he's you know I'm proud of his accomplishments he flew twice on the as a pilot of the space shuttle twice as as the commander of the space shuttle and you know I just had a different career than I did and then you know went on to retire after his wife Gabby was shot she was a member of Congress and was shot in the head in 2011 so after his last flight he had retired you two together have quite a data package for NASA in terms of the effects of space and what we can learn from that your time onboard International Space Station certainly provides a huge mountain of data that people can learn from what would you think is the next kind of work that NASA needs to do to push the envelope of human space experience well someday like we were talking about earlier we want to go to Mars and you know besides the political science political challenges there are some technical challenges that I think you know we need to figure out one is the radiation and the amount of radiation we get is much less in low-earth orbit than it would be on a mission to Mars so that's that's a that's a challenge that we're gonna have to figure out whether it's protecting the crew with some kind of magnetic field on the spacecraft or just getting to the planet quicker is also a solution but I think once we figure that stuff out maybe the life support systems and life support systems are really important to have them reliable if you're are if you're on the space station in the toilet breaks and you can't fix it you know game over you're not gonna survive and so these systems that keep us alive are very important on the space station currently we turn our urine into water which we then drink then we turn it into urine again then we drink it again actually we drink it again after we turn into water I know what you're thinking drank is pee for a whole year actually I drank everyone's pee it's all mixed together but it does taste better than the water in Florida but all these things are important I mean if you can't you know turn your you know your urine into water you're not gonna make it so understanding the life support system scrubbing the atmospheric carbon dioxide all these things once we get this figured out air I think our next destination should be going to Mars of course if we had an unlimited amount of money then maybe back to the moon first but you know money's always always tight in the government and elsewhere and maybe we don't we can't afford that do you think the movie the Martian I'm making because I was talking about water I think that's what did it I'm sure that's what did it do you think the movie the Martian was a good depiction of what Mars is like Marshall was pretty Martian technically was pretty accurate there were only really two things that technically I would disagree with one was the how the crew called the commander commander all the time we're more on a first-name basis and then you know at the end when he was drifting away from the spacecraft II I think he cut a hole in his glove or took his glove off and you sense away - yeah I'm stuff around probably wouldn't work but I'd try it if I had no other other choice at least it would like you know get you to the end quicker maybe then but anyway yeah I thought the Martian was was a pretty accurate depiction of living and working in space we watched gravity on the space station that's pretty daring yeah yeah it's kind of like how'd that go over it's kind of like watching a movie of your your house burning down while you're in it but I mean the physics was all messed up but other than that it was pretty good living space station actually looks like it does in the movie it's pretty close it was a good very good so the question then about the next question about Mars of course is would you go it would depend so there's this group called Mars one that is the ideas you get a bunch of people together that are very motivated to go to Mars and you can do this cheaper because you have no intention of bringing them home I wouldn't do that you know having spent a long time in space I wouldn't want to live in a module habitat for the rest of my life I know some these people seem like they would if they ever had the opportunity they would go do that I'd watch that on the reality TV I think it'd be a be like Lord of the Flies in space maybe yeah so I wouldn't be interested in that but if it made sense if it was a you know if it was the right mission the right objectives this it was reasonably you know safe as far as how safe going to Mars could possibly be but if there were reasonable safety precautions I'd probably do it and do you think that the moon is our next step is is the correct way to go you know I think if we had unlimited funds it seems like the moon is a perfect place to not to learn how to go to Mars it's you know two or three days away instead of seven months it's 1/6 of the size of Earth so a sixth of the gravity versus a third has no atmosphere versus a little atmosphere in some ways no atmosphere makes certain things easier but you know it's all about the money so if we can only do one thing I would say we should go to Mars instead of back to the moon but still there's a lot to learn what's going to the moon okay all right let's switch gears a little bit question from the audience is if there is other intelligent life out there do you think humans should try to communicate with it or should we just lay low hmm I'm all about the communicating with them okay all right bring it on yeah you know I think having a dialogue is always better than not and I would want to communicate having said that I don't think aliens visit this this planet thank you only because you know why did they stop coming as soon as we got all got the cameras in their pocket I never understood that right Yeah right the cells the space selfie would be the the best one ever would be the Delian selfie right that's right than the space cell so speaking of that same thing though have you heard the story recently about the the space currently I should say this is our thing that big cigar thing Oh mwah mwah that's come into our solar system some speculation from people that they think this might be an alien spacecraft of some sort yeah what do you take away from that sounds fine to me I don't know somebody from Harvard wrote a paper from Harvard right you know the interesting thing about that spacecraft though is most of the stuff in our in our galaxy you know we have a spiral galaxy it's all in one plane that thing came from the top yes or the bottom whichever depends on which way you're looking like I don't know I don't go in djenne into the galaxy yeah which is very very unusual yeah and it came from you know deep space so heading back out again I won't be back yeah yeah did you while you were on board ISS a question I'll ask you about looking out into space what did the sky look like looking out from ISS so if you're on the the side of the earth that has the Sun and the Sun is in the in the sky if you look at space its I wouldn't say it's black it's more of I would say a grayish look to it you don't see any stars but on the dark side at night you can see more stars and you can see on earth there a clearer it's absolutely spectacular now if you were going to Mars you'd always have the Sun in the sky right sure so I don't know how much you know how much of the stars and planets you would actually be able to see yeah I've always imagined if you're looking away from the Sun you're on the nighttime song of the earth and yeah ISS looking out you'd probably have a nice nice view of the night yeah yeah clearly if the Sun is on the other side of the earth you got a great view of the of the stars yeah so on board ISS what was a day like today's long I mean you you wake up you're at work you get up about six o'clock in the morning I you I would usually get up around thirty minutes before I had to do something which is generally the same thing I do on earth but it's a long day you spend a third of your time doing science experiments a third of your time just taking care and doing the stuff you need to keep the space station operating and then about a third of the time repairing hardware the space station for kids in here I don't know a lot of the kids realize but they have never been on earth with all the people at one time because we've had people in space for 18 years yes yeah and the space station has been there since the first modules launched 20 years ago so takes a lot of care and feeding of the systems but we've been pretty good at keeping the space station operating so you spend a lot of time doing that generally you finish your workday about 12 hours after it starts you know a few hours in the evening to do some personal things whether it's you know communicating with your family watching TV or a movie or something or taking pictures of the earth and then you go to sleep you're still at work you wake up again you do it all the next day what's your favorite part of the day in space yeah your favorite part of the day in space probably in the in the evening when I was done with all my work and I could get on the phone and talk to amiko or some other people and you know finish some personal things spacewalks were certainly an incredible experience but they are challenging they're physically and mentally they are what I call type 2 kind of fun type 1 fun is the thing that's fun when you're doing it like a roller coaster type 2 is the thing that's fun when you're done [Music] yeah yeah and you spent considerable time out in a spacesuit comfortable in a spacesuit it's not comfortable not comfortable okay yeah it's you know the joints don't really work like our joints you're always working against them so causes a lot of a lot of my astronauts have shoulder issues and elbow issues because of the the spacesuits the suits pressurized at 4 psi so you're always working working against it it can get hot in the suit even though you have a cooling system sometimes it's easier to just get hot or cold than it is to take the effort to adjust the cooling on the suit if you're tired so there are a lot of lot of challenges but again you know I do kind of fun just just so everybody knows about this one of my favorite space facts is that International Space Station flies over Philadelphia between 4 and 7 times every day at least four times a day and as many as seven times everyday and so there are times when you can see it but when it is visible you can see it naked-eye with no problem at all I've seen it in downtown Center City Philadelphia probably 40 or 50 times without any problem whatsoever so I encourage you to look up online that's available so you can go out and see it and wave at the astronauts as they go by I think it's the the third brightest thing I mean clearly the moon's brighter I think Venus is brighter this is but it's the next brightest thing after Venus so it's fair own the Sun we got there is that fourth brightest so so what's next for a guy like you you've had amazing experiences as a pilot as a flight engineer as a commander of Space Shuttle missions the most complex machine ever built now this 1 million pound football-field-sized object in space carrying astronauts from all over the world doing fabulous experiments you spent longer in space at one shot than anybody else what do you do now well tomorrow I'm going to New York and then on Saturday we're going to Hershey Pennsylvania Wow great not as Taurus I was gonna say they measure right up there I don't know you know I've been really busy since I got back almost too busy to think about doing something else with writing you know a few books and the public speaking I do I did a little film the TV commercial research recently that'll be on that'll be interesting to see how what people think of that um no I'm not gonna say but I might not be allowed to okay I don't know right feels I may see it and then you know some little odds and ends I'll figure something out here eventually though okay so let's see while you were on board ISS spent all this time lots of different experiments all sorts of experiences is there anything you now that you're back is there anything that you wanted to do that you didn't get to do leave anything on the table that you wanted to do not really professionally but certainly personally in space especially once you get back you're like man I wish I would have filmed this or taking a picture of this or called this person you know just take advantage of the unique opportunity but from from a professional perspective I mean I felt really really lucky I was at NASA for for 20 years almost always a scientist something whether it was a space shuttle mission or being the backup of the space crew to the space station got flying this shuttle twice as the pilot and the commander my first flight was to Hubble so I got to go see the Hubble Space Telescope then my second flight to the Space Station through twice on the Soyuz lived there for nearly a year on my second flight got to do three spacewalks spent I've been in space with 40 different people which you know the people are what makes this experience even more enriching that you get to do this as part of a team with you know people that you enjoy with so nothing nothing on a professional level great what's it take to be a good astronaut team work attention to detail you know the technical be able to operate technically complex systems on the space station you have to be able to do a lot of different jobs you know it's not only about being a scientist or an engineer it's about being the plumber you know the IT guy or girl the electrician the doctor the dentist actually repaired people's teeth in space well just kind of have to be sort of a jack-of-all-trades but the most important thing absolutely is being able to you know play well with others and you know work as part of a team you know spaceflight I say is the biggest team sport there is so what did you feel was more challenging to you to deal with when you were in space the physical hardships or the mental hardships I don't know which I would say for me personally it was I don't know they're different the physical stuff of living in space is the fluid shift that occurs in your body in gravity gravity is pushing all of our blood down to our feet and our hearts and our cardiovascular system are trying to supply our organs including our brain with with blood so we have more blood than we really need in the absence of gravity and when you go to space that fluid redistributes itself if you get it your head swells up you're congested it feels weird and it never goes away completely even after a year the carbon dioxide on the space station when it said its Lois is ten times what it is on earth that's uncomfortable for for some people and then the you know the psychological challenges are nodding insignificant my my two worst days I ever had in space were when had to do with issues with my family members on the ground first one was when Gabby was shot and I was in space I still had three months to go couldn't come home and my my worst moment on this year in space was getting a call from the control center in Houston and the they say hey you need to call your daughter Samantha immediately it's an emergency so I go down to my crew quarters I get on the phone and then the comm gets cut off for like 20 minutes well thinking like what is what's going on not able to talk to anybody eventually I get the satellite link back I call her say Samantha what's wrong and she says well dad ah my Uncle Mark and Gabby's house which was in Arizona she's there visiting them she was I'm in their house and they won't they both went out of town her cousin's Claudia and Clair went out with their friends she says I'm in the house all alone and I'm lonely I'm like what wait a minute what she goes I'm lonely I'm like like Samantha I'm in space for a year and the emergency is you're lonely like there are seven and a half billion people down there go outside and find one of them this is my 21 year old daughter not a little kid so as we as we mentioned a little bit earlier you know this is this season right now for students that are participating in the first lego team workshops and things of that sort and so we do have a question here there's a first lego team that would like to send a therapy pet into space as their project how do you feel about sending a therapy pet into space it's a good question not a question I've ever been asked thank you couple of things well first of all there's this LEGO League I didn't know anything about this until this year their project was space and they suggested that they go find an astronaut and ask them questions I get like 10 emails every single day from these robotics leagues around the world and you can't answer all of them and some of them I got one like a month ago and it was like some kid in the rainforest and in the Amazon he's like hey can you answer my question and by the way can you do it quickly because I had to walk 10 miles to get to a computer and I'd like you to like answer it before I get back so I get these questions all the time for from you know from kids around the world to help with their their projects and it's really unfortunate I can't you know answer all of them but I will answer this one and that is what kind of pet I mean can you like the mini horse that you see on airplanes sometimes maybe a little smaller than like a cat maybe no giraffe there's a snake you know we had mice on board and that we did some experiments with we had 20 female mice and you know at first they kind of look like us they don't look like they're feeling good they're like sick they're you know their fur gets all messed up oh wait wait I'm sorry they're suggesting perhaps a bearded dragon is that a lizard I think it's a lizard yeah man yeah I think there are probably better ways to deal with that stress I think if you I think if you had an astronaut that needed a therapy pet you should probably just get a new astronaut no offense here Roger just keeping it real so I think we do have to ask a couple of questions you know Franklin Institute as a place where we pride ourselves on providing a comfortable and safe environment for people to learn about science and we strive to inspire curiosity about about STEM subjects what do you say to kids that are curious about pursuing a stem career stem as a big part of space exploration and you know we're having huge challenges in this country right now around STEM education you have some thoughts about what we might be able to do about helping kids become more interested in instead topics well you know the STEM fields are incredibly important to our country our national security our economy the sciences engineering math I mean you those are the fields that you know create things of you know technical things and build the things which are incredibly important but what I you know being a kid myself that was not motivated to study I could not find any motivation was really not even possible for me you know every every year I would show up in school and I'd be like I am gonna get straight A's and then you know day three I'm three days behind on homework so for me what I tell kids is you know find what you're passionate about to find the thing that inspires you this spark that you know motivated me was the book the right stuff so I think you need inspiration and things that and you know let you discover the thing that you want to do in life that is important to use I think it's very important we encourage kids to study STEM education but also everything you know let them figure out what they are interested in and I think if someone's interested in something they're gonna do better at it so in your time onboard space station you saw lots of astronauts come and go how does NASA choose astronauts and which ones are gonna stay and which ones are going to go on Space Station and that sort of process that goes into figuring out who can who can be there for those periods of time I've been part of the astronaut selection board as you know one of the people that decide who becomes an astronaut and that decision is you know we're looking for people that are qualified that have the the skills and the ability in the background to do the job but also people that you know work well as part of a team but really when it comes down to it the people we interview are all qualified really comes down to who would you rather spend time and space with who do you really like and think there would be better office mates or work mates that's kind of really what it comes down to as far as assigning people to particular missions I've never been in that role to decide who who who gets to go launch when what what they do it's generally in the u.s. up to the chief of the astronaut office has a lot to say about that they have different things that are important to them most of the time though especially on the space station crews there's so many moving parts who you show wind up being up there with is somewhat random actually it's which is kind of you know kind of odd you would think you'd think there would be a lot more thought put into a space station crew making sure that these people can work well together as a team it's actually more like you know this whole group has been vetted therefore we should be able to put all of them together and they should work it should work out fine right I was gonna ask that question about do you just trust the judgment of the astronaut office as to who they've chosen to be there with I mean you're locked up I mean I sort of think about this like you're going on an extended vacation with your family and the station wagon you're all locked in there together and the trip is six months yeah necessarily a good outcome could be could be okay we've been pretty lucky so far I've never really seen much conflict in space I've heard about you know people having like personal issues with their fellow crew mates but I've never I've seen a little bit of that firsthand but I've never really experienced it like myself we do a pretty good job of vetting people for this job so right on the heels of that what was the scariest moment you ever experienced well if the worst moments were the two I talked about you know things with family members on the ground scary in space I wouldn't say anything was ever like boo kind of scary you know but you know there's certainly moments that get your attention I was my second spacewalk I was outside it was the end of the spacewalk we could we were really tired the control center asked me to go does area on the back of the truss which is the part that holds the solar arrays I wasn't too familiar with the Sun Goes Down and then I kind of get turned upside down and I kind of get lost space not too scary no took a while thousand five hundred miles an hour 220 miles up now took me a while to figure out where it was and so a little bit apprehensive he probably even more just embarrassed right you have a little fess up of that I don't know where I am so speaking of crews a little bit more you there must be a special bond that that you've that you have with people you spent time with on Space Station what's that like do you ever get to see those folks these days your your companion Mikhail hopefully you've seen him since then and how would you compare how the two of you have sort of react limited to being back on earth so the like I you know the one of the greatest things about this job is you know the people you spend time in space with and them and the people you get to work with on the ground and those you know having this shared incredible experience really makes those bonds very strong I've seen Misha a number of times he will be my friend for the rest of my life we saw him a couple of months ago and in Minsk in Belarus I'll see him next summer hopefully I'll see him before then so yeah you you form very strong ties with these people once you get back though you don't get to see him that much anymore unfortunately yeah that's too bad right so we've had plenty of questions from our audience I'd like to give you some time for some closing comments thank you very much great questions by the way and I just wanted to leave everyone with just one last thought before you guys head off home here not too late but just one last thought and that is when I was when I was leaving the space station for the last time and keep in mind this is a place I've spent five hundred days of my life on and I'm in the Soyuz and we're backing away looking at the trust the part I could see out the window I'm thinking you know we built this million pound structure the size of a football field while flying around the earth at 17,500 miles an hour in a vacuum in extremes of temperatures of plus and minus 270 degrees built by an international partnership of 15 different countries different languages different cultures different technical ways of doing things putting these modules together some of which had never touched each other before on earth put together by astronauts and cosmonauts and these incredibly difficult suits to work in that this space station this is the hardest thing we've ever done I think harder than going to the moon and if we can do this we can do anything if we want to go to Mars we can go to Mars if we want to cure cancer and we put the resources behind it we can do that if we want to fix our problems with the environment challenges in our country which clearly we have many right now you know challenges in your you know professional or personal lives after spending a year in space I was absolutely inspired that if we can dream it we can do it if we work together as a team thank you very much ladies and gentlemen thank you thank you

Channel: The Franklin Institute

Views: 17,817

Rating: 4.7719297 out of 5

Keywords: scott kelly, astronaunt, nasa, astronomy, the franklin institute, world affairs council, philadelphia, international space station, derrick pitts

Id: X2aI6jmzt30

Length: 77min 21sec (4641 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 08 2018