[MUSIC PLAYING] LEIGH GALLAGHER: Welcome to this
Talks at Google virtual event. I'm Leigh Gallagher, and I'm
the director of external affairs here at Google. I'm very excited to
introduce today's guest, and I'm also a big fan. What an honor to have
her here with us today, and especially during
Women's History Month. Today I have the great pleasure
of interviewing Dr. Peggy Whitson. Peggy has had one of the most
illustrious careers at NASA. Let's just tick off a few
of her accomplishments. She was the first woman to
command the International Space Station twice, in 2008 and 2013. She was the first female
and first non-military chief astronaut. On September 2, 2017
Peggy set the record for the most cumulative days
living and working in space by a NASA astronaut,
at 665 days. Just think about that-- 665 cumulative days. She's had more space walk time
than any woman in this world, and her fellow
astronauts affectionately call her the space ninja. As you think of questions
throughout this conversation-- and we hope you will--
please be sure to add them to the live chat on the right. We also encouraged you to
invite your children to join us, so if they have a
question for Peggy, please add it to the chat. And we'd love for you to
let us know their age. We especially want to hear
from the young girls who might be watching. Dr. Peggy Whitson,
it is my great honor to welcome you to
Talks at Google. PEGGY WHITSON: I'm really
thrilled to be here. It's great to join you. I enjoyed my previous
talks with Google, and I think this
will be a neat event. LEIGH GALLAGHER: Good-- well,
we're so grateful for your time today. And it really is such an honor
to have you with us, especially during Women's History Month. You are a hero to so many. So first off, I'd like to
ask you, who are your heroes, and who do the young
Peggy Whitson in Iowa look up to for inspiration? PEGGY WHITSON: Well, I grew
up on a farm in rural Iowa. The closest town had
a population of 32. That's people, total-- no zeros. LEIGH GALLAGHER: Wow. PEGGY WHITSON: So
it was very small. But my biggest inspiration
was actually my parents. I never have met any
more hardworking people than my parents. And we didn't have
a lot on the farm, and it required every bit of
their effort every single day. And I think they were
very inspirational to me in terms of their work
ethic and dedication to making the farm a success. So they were definitely
heroes of mine, and definitely people that
inspired me and my work ethic, I think. But then the real, I would
say, inspirational event that made me decide I wanted
to become an astronaut was when Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon for
that very first time. I was nine years old, and I'd
been watching "Star Trek," and it seemed like a really
cool transition that this-- hey, this is real. And I kind of
thought I should be a combination of Captain
Kirk, and Dr. Spock, and Neil Armstrong all together. That's what I wanted to be. Of course, when you're nine,
you want to be lots of, things and you might dream
of other things. But I think I had some
key moments in my life that kept me really
involved in space, and exploration, and the
desire to be a part of that. So my role models,
at least initially, were Neil Armstrong, and
maybe the guys on "Star Trek." LEIGH GALLAGHER: And you've also
said that, in addition to that, it was also that your
parents specifically instilled in you that you really
could be anything you wanted, and you believed them. Can you talk about
that for a minute? PEGGY WHITSON: I did. I think my mom-- I remember her telling me
that I could be anything I wanted to when I grew up. And it was kind of
an interesting story, because my sister
and I were talking about the big question
in life-- what do you want to be
when you grow up? And I was only a couple
of years older than nine, and I didn't really
want to tell anybody I wanted to be an astronaut,
because it seemed kind of far-fetched, even to me. And so I said I
wanted to be a pilot. And my sister said, you
can only be the stewardess. You can't be the flight-- the pilot. And my mom said, no, you
can be anything you want. LEIGH GALLAGHER:
That's something. That's amazing that she said
that and really instilled that in you-- so important. I want to skip a little
bit and talk about when you applied to be an astronaut. When you first applied,
you were rejected, and you had to apply
for more than 10 years before you were accepted. So I think this is
really important when we talk about this notion
of rejection, resilience, and persistence. And you really
embodied all three. So can you talk about that? What did that repeated
rejection teach you, and what advice would you give
to young girls or young people in general who might be scared
to try something just out of fear of rejection--
which is so common? PEGGY WHITSON: Yes. So I really honestly
believe that, if you're afraid of failure, you're
never going to find out what you're truly capable of. And being raised on a
farm, I think I was-- I've seen people that-- my folks out there working
all the time doing things that I thought were
probably impossible to do, but they did it. And so I think I
just kept trying. I kept trying, and looking
back at it, I would say, I'm not sure why. I may be stubborn-- is part of that picture, but I
had a few people along the way tell me I was making the
biggest mistake of my life, for instance, or that I should
not try and be an astronaut. And those actually
probably motivated me to try even harder. And so I think the
rejection was just something that I had to live through. Now, in retrospect, looking
back at those 10 years, those 10 years taught me a lot. I was working in Russia on a--
with a small team setting up a science-- a joint science program
with the Russians. So I was getting
international experience and I was getting
leadership experience. And I was learning a lot
during that time frame, and that turned out to be why
I was capable of being selected as the commander on board the
International Space Station, and became the chief of
the astronaut office, because I had learned
some of those skills over those 10 years. So even though I
really, really wanted to be an astronaut
when I was 26, I was actually a
much better astronaut and better prepared for
what I ended up doing at 36. LEIGH GALLAGHER: That's
fascinating, and a great point. I think the lessons
there are you have to accept that failure
may be part of the journey, and it's not always going
to end up to be failure. And just because
you're told no, it just doesn't mean that you
can't do it someday. It's just not [INAUDIBLE] in
that first of those 10 years, or in the subsequent years. PEGGY WHITSON: Well, and to
remember that the path may not be a straight line-- it may be something
convoluted, but if you're learning from the
experiences that you're exposed to, if you're
taking away lessons, that it's not going to be a
bad thing, even if it takes a little longer. LEIGH GALLAGHER: So we have a
lot of parents watching this, so what advice do you have for
the moms and dads on how they can inspire and nurture their
daughters and sons to be whatever they want? PEGGY WHITSON: Well, I think
probably the biggest thing-- I find that young people don't
know what their passion is. For me, I saw it. I was nine. And I think young people don't
always know what it is that inspires them or motivates them,
and so exposing them to lots of different fields and showing
them that there are people like them-- whether it's
women, or minorities, or whoever it might be-- showing them that these
people are out there and exist as well, and they're
doing these kinds of things that you might be interested in. I think it will be
inspirational to them, and help them find
their passion. And it's OK if they don't know
what it is when they're nine, but you do want
to find something that, when you go to work,
it's not just work-- it's fun. LEIGH GALLAGHER: Exactly--
and you have actually said that you find
that age-- when you talk to a lot of
young people age, 8 to 12 in particular is when you can
make a particular influence on young children. Can you talk about that? PEGGY WHITSON: Well,
for me, I think that was the age group when
obviously I was influenced, but when I talk to
young people, they seem so much more receptive-- 8 to 12. They're asking questions. They're looking for what those
inspirational things were. What's that passion? And they're not afraid
to dream about it and to think it
might be possible. So I think, again, from
a parent's perspective, encouraging lots of
different ideas and thoughts for them to think about
and dream about is really important, and
ensuring that, if they need a role model-- helping
them find one that will motivate them even further. For me, I was lucky. When I got to NASA-- actually, when I
graduated high school, they selected the first
female astronauts. And so then it became
something I think it wasn't just a dream for me. It became, this is my goal. This is what I want to do. And one of those female
astronauts-- everyone knows Sally Ride was in
that group, but one of them was Shannon Lucid, and
she was a biochemist. And I happened to be interested
in biology and chemistry, and I already knew that's what
I wanted to go into in college. And I'm like, wow, maybe
I can become an astronaut. So it became something
that seemed realistic. So having those role models,
I think, is important-- so another way to maybe help
your young people understand that things are out--
there are options. LEIGH GALLAGHER: Yeah. If you can see
it, you can be it. So this idea of representation
is mentioned a lot. And in recent years, we've
had the first all-female space walk, and we now have the first
female launch director at NASA, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson,
who will be the first person-- she'll be the person to help
launch a woman to the moon. So why is representation
so important? It touches back to
what you just said, but can you talk about
that a little bit? PEGGY WHITSON: Well, I think
it's important for everybody to see a reality, see
something as being real. It was, for me, in
2007, when I was commanding the International
Space Station-- was when Pam Melroy, who was
commanding the space shuttle, arrived to the space
station and docked. And it was the first
time there were two female commanders of two
different spacecraft on orbit at the same Time. And I think it was really
cool, because it was a coincidence that it happened. It was just because the numbers
of females in the astronaut office had increased
to around 25-- a little more than that
percent, but around that area. And by the time the young ladies
did the space walk together, the percentage is now up to 35%
to 40% of the office is female. You're going to see these
things a little bit more often. And we had the first female
flight director in Houston. So the launch director is
different than the flight director. We've had female flight
directors in Houston, and in fact, on expedition
16, as the commander, I also had a female
flight director who was leading my mission
from the ground, and a female flight surgeon. And we actually took this
really cool photograph of mission control
with all the ladies that worked mission and
control that were female, as well as me on board. I thought that was one. LEIGH GALLAGHER: Very powerful--
flight surgeon-- all the things that you have to think of. And we'll get to
that in a minute. But Dr. Mae Jemison was-- in 1992, became the first
black woman to travel in space, when she orbited the
Earth for eight days on the space shuttle Endeavor. What impact did she
have, and how can we increase representation
from everyone-- from all groups in space travel? PEGGY WHITSON: And
Mae will actually tell you that she
was inspired also by "Star Trek,"
because there was a-- Lieutenant Uhura was
African-American. I think seeing-- that
seeing and being it is true, and doesn't even necessarily
have to be a reality to want to be something. And Mae was also very motivated
and just pushed to do that. But I think what it does
is it inspires people. And we've had numerous
African-Americans on board space station. We have one on board right now-- Victor Glover. And it's something that
makes it real to people, and I think it's important
for minorities to see that. It was important for me to
see a female in that role to make it real
for me, so I think it's important for
minorities as well. LEIGH GALLAGHER: It's often said
that, when women join boards, for example, or the
executive ranks, they bring a different style
than their male counterparts in a way that is helpful-- more consensus building,
greater empathy. I'm not just saying this. There is a school of
thought based on research around these attributes. In the context of
a space flight, are there attributes
or characteristics, leadership or
otherwise, that you feel that women bring
to the table that are uniquely helpful
and complementary in that particular environment? PEGGY WHITSON: Well, of
course, I'm biased, but yes. LEIGH GALLAGHER: Me too-- PEGGY WHITSON: I
not only think that, but I think our
astronaut office-- it was made up of pilots, and
engineers, and scientists, physicists, astronomers,
biochemists. And you have people from
diverse backgrounds. You have people
coming from a farm, like me, or living
in heavy-duty cities. And it's very different
diverse backgrounds that make people able to solve
much more complex problems by bringing all these different
thought processes together. And I think that's
really important. So I think diversity is
a strength on any team, because it's going to give
you different ways to approach a problem and solve-- come up with a new solution
or a unique solution by taking advantage of
all those team members. But yeah, I am biased. I think women provide more. LEIGH GALLAGHER:
We're just saying-- the photos we see
of you in space-- you are always
smiling and looking like you're having so much fun. It literally is a
look of pure joy. Can you just give us
a glimpse into what life is like up there, and
what makes it so much fun? PEGGY WHITSON: I
think part of it has to do with just living
in an environment that is so different than
the one here on Earth. On Earth, we have grown up with
the rule of floating in space-- or excuse me-- the
rule of gravity. So everything is
based on gravity. The papers lay on your desk. We sit in the chair. All these things are
based on gravity. And when you don't have
that, then things change, and we have to adapt to
this new environment. And it's fun to actually
learn to live in space. I was on orbit for
about three weeks, and I was hanging on the
wall in my crew station, in my sleeping bag. I woke up, and I was on
the computer printing off some of the messages that came
up from the ground overnight. And I was floating across
the laboratory, and I'm like, I live in space. And it's just amazing to
have this sensation that I have adapted to this place. It's mine. It's like my home. And it's so different, and
the novelty doesn't really wear off because the
new guys show up, and you want to play
little tricks on them. You'll ask them, throw me-- throw something
across the laboratory. Throw me the pen I
need, or whatever. And they'll throw it, and it'll
invariably hit the ceiling, because their brains are still
compensating for a gravity that doesn't exist up there. And then you return to Earth
and you try and throw something in the trash can, and
it drops at your feet, because you've forgotten
how to do that. You actually really do it that
much to this new environment. And I just find that novelty
interesting, challenging-- challenging at times,
but I just think it's so cool to be
in a new environment. LEIGH GALLAGHER: That's amazing. You have said zero gravity
is so much better than you anticipated, and that sort of-- you're giving a sense of
what you mean by that. So I also want to
ask you, related to that, the view from space-- we're seeing this
incredible photo. I think we're going to
have it shown up here. Can you talk about what
you see from this view? And what does that unique
perspective do to you? What does it tell you
about us and our place in the solar system? PEGGY WHITSON: Well,
when you think about it, we're living in space-- in a vacuum of
space, and there's-- we have to have a
whole life support system that keeps us alive. So we have oxygen
being provided, carbon dioxide being removed. We have water to rehydrate,
food to survive, and all of this is being taken care
of synthetically. But when you look
down at Earth, you realize, well, hey, that whole
planet does all that for us. It provides all our
oxygen. It even protects us from the radiation, with
the magnetosphere around it. And it becomes very
much our everything. Earth is our everything. All the living people
that we know about-- humans-- live down there. And so it's spaceship
Earth, really. And you see that thin blue
line, and that's the atmosphere, and you realize how delicate
and fragile our planet is. Without that atmosphere,
we wouldn't exist. And so it gives you this sense
of taking care of our place and this sense of
Earth is everything. But then you look
out to the stars, and it is just incredible, the
numbers of stars-- thousands and thousands and thousands. And you realize this is just
in our little solar system, and there are billions and
billions of solar systems and galaxies out there. And it's mind-boggling,
the expanse that we're talking about. And I just find that it's such
an interesting perspective, that you look at Earth
and it's our everything, and then you look out
and you're like, wow, I'm not even a grain
of sand in the cosmos-- not even. And so you get this
really cool sense of perspective and
appreciation for our lives and our place in this place. LEIGH GALLAGHER: And we'll
talk in a couple of minutes about whether more and more
civilians will have the chance to do that. But that's fascinating. And just getting back to
the sort of tricks you play and the fun you have,
you celebrate holidays. You celebrate Christmas. There was a picture of
you we don't have today-- but I saw it-- where you've done
the Santa hat and some socks, and you had presents. So you do-- you are
kind of replicating, to the degree you
can, the facets of life on Earth up there. PEGGY WHITSON:
Definitely-- building a team and a camaraderie
with your group by integrating, in our case,
all the international cultures, and different
traditions from those, is a fun way of sharing, and
joining together, and being close to the group of people
that you're with on orbit. So we would take turns on-- I would take up the
Christmas dinner, and somebody else would take
up the New Year's celebration, and then we'd have a Russian
New Year's celebration. And everybody was responsible
for a different meal for-- group meal so that we
could celebrate together. LEIGH GALLAGHER: That's great. PEGGY WHITSON: Yeah. LEIGH GALLAGHER: And can we talk
for a second about the space suits? So is it true that the
first female space-- all-female space
walk was scrapped because the suits didn't fit? Have they solved
that problem now? PEGGY WHITSON:
Well, we would all love to have a personalized
suit that fits us, because that would make
the job a lot easier. Inside the space
suit, you're working against a lot of
the pressure that actually is protecting your body
against that vacuum of space. And it's a very expensive
endeavor to build space suits, so we have three
basic torso sizes. They are medium,
large, and extra large. And at the time when that they
were going to originally do the two female space walks, they
had only configured one medium torso and one large
torso [INAUDIBLE] configured two medium
torsos, so that they could do the space walk with
the two ladies. So it's possible to do. It just hadn't taken the time
to configure the suits properly for the best fit of everyone. You can do a spacewalk in a
suit that's too big for you, but it's much more challenging--
and I've done a couple, but I'd also done
six previous ones before I did that, so
I had some experience to base my abilities on
doing those two space walks in a larger space suit. And it wasn't ideal. LEIGH GALLAGHER: Because they're
challenging no matter what, right? They're very difficult. PEGGY WHITSON: Exactly,
exactly, exactly. LEIGH GALLAGHER: In
addition to NASA, we now have SpaceX with
Elon Musk, we have Blue Origin with Jeff
Bezos, and Virgin Galactic-- Richard Branson-- as major
players and partners. What do you make of that? And do you think the future is
a joint partnership with NASA and private companies? And do we need to rely
on male billionaires to take us to the next level? What are the pros
and cons of this? PEGGY WHITSON: Well, if you
think about early aviation and how it came about
originally, it was a war effort, and then became a mail
service for the government, and then became something
that very rich people did because they could afford it,
and that was the only way it was initially commercialized. And now, of course, commercial
air travel is inexpensive, and many people
can experience it. And I think that we're kind of
in the same area of transition. I think real space
exploration requires a combination of
government, commercial, and international
partnerships that are going to sustain something
beyond low Earth orbit and-- hopefully the moon and Mars
will be sustainable efforts. But it's going to have to be
everyone working together, because space exploration
is very expensive, and so it needs to
be a joint effort. And so I do think having more
and more people get into space and have that same
perspective, that sense of wonder and awe of how
special it is where we live, how small we are
in this universe is important for more
and more people to see. And it will have
an impact, I think, on how we treat this
planet and where we go. The fact that it is-- exploration really is
important for our survival in the future-- LEIGH GALLAGHER:
And related to that, I was going to ask you, there
is a lot of buzz around space tourism, with surveillance
competing for a spot or paying for a spot. And what do you make
of these programs, like dearMoon and Inspiration4? These are planned
civilian missions. And should we be
putting surveillance in space with astronauts-- well, should we be
putting them in space while the astronauts
spend their whole lifetime training for this? You sort of touched on that
just now, but take it further. PEGGY WHITSON: I
think it's important. More and more people
have to see space to have that same inspiration
of being there, of-- to continue the exploration. So I think, for our
continued exploration, we need more people in
space, and to see it. I think there's lots
of ways you can do it, and the dearMoon mission
and the other one are really interesting
ways to do that. I know Axiom Space,
for instance, is doing it with--
using previously flown at NASA astronauts with a crew
going to the International Space Station. And so everybody's going to be
doing it slightly different, but I think it's
great that we're going to get more and more
people in space, because I think all of it will
inspire everyone more. LEIGH GALLAGHER: And
of course, in addition to going back to
the moon, we now have the Mars
Perseverance-- which, you mentioned, bringing us back
incredible pictures from Mars. How big of a deal is this? Put this in perspective for us. And when do you
think realistically we might be sending
people to Mars? PEGGY WHITSON: So
landing rovers on Mars has been actually
very challenging. And NASA has been
incredibly successful in the last few years especially. But so far, other people
have crashed on Mars, but nobody else has landed
there and had a rover there. They've had many
that have surveyed the surface from above. And so it is very challenging to
get to Mars, and getting humans there is going to be
even more challenging, with radiation levels,
and how are we going to keep people alive that long? So we have to have life support
systems that are very reliable. I think it's probably realistic
in another 10 to 20 years that we would have
people on Mars. I think going to
the lunar surface first is a great way to test a
lot of hardware and development procedures. One of the things, for instance,
they want to try and do is use the regolith, the lunar
surface or the Mars surface, to actually 3D print habitats. And using the
indigenous materials so that you don't have
to transfer all of that is going to be important and
key in making things like that happen. And you could potentially do
it robotically in advance, and have a habitat set up. There's some neat
technologies that can be explored on the lunar
surface that will help us, when we get to Mars. I would love to go. LEIGH GALLAGHER: You're
raising your hand. PEGGY WHITSON: [INAUDIBLE] LEIGH GALLAGHER: All right,
we heard it here first. Wow, that's amazing. And of course, a shout-out to
another incredible woman, Diana Trujillo, who led
the team of engineers that created the robotic arm
for the Perseverance Rover. She has her own
incredible life story-- immigrated from Colombia,
paid her way through college by cleaning houses. There's room for
amazing women in space. I think we're-- PEGGY WHITSON: Absolutely--
and it's always been interesting to
me, the diversity of different interests that
can get you involved in space. We have people who work in the
Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, a big swimming pool. They're divers
basically, but they're help-- they're technical
experts in helping you learn how to do a space walk. Females do that job. I had met one woman who was
heat ceiling the inner bladder of a space suit that
you do a space walk in. And her degree was
in fashion design. And so the diversity
of people who can be involved in
exploration is huge. And I really like to
encourage folks to explore some of the different avenues. You don't just have to be
an engineer or a scientist. There's tons of exciting
ways to be involved. And as we expand our
presence in space, we're going to see more
and more people who are needed with more and more
diverse backgrounds and skills. LEIGH GALLAGHER: Absolutely--
so I want to ask you-- we're sitting here in
the pandemic one year in, and there was a
lot of talk a year ago about how astronauts have
a lot of experience being alone and in one place for
a long time-- which, of course, is the experience
that many of us have now had. Of course, we can outside. We can do other things. But can you talk about how you
have dealt with the pandemic? And did your space training
prepare you for that? And if so, what are
some of the learnings that you can share
with the rest of us? Granted, we're almost--
hopefully we're [INAUDIBLE] PEGGY WHITSON: [INAUDIBLE]
excited about vaccines. I think the important thing
about spaceflight that applies to the pandemic is-- one of the things we have
learned with long duration spaceflight in
particular is skills of working well with people that
you're close to all the time. You don't get to
necessarily pick your crew when you're
flying on a space flight, and so you have to
have the skill set to make sure that you
can interact with them, you can successfully
work as a team, that you are responsive
to their needs, they are responsive to yours,
you communicate effectively. We call it playing
well with others. And I think that's
one key aspect that has helped a lot of
astronauts coping with being in isolation
during this pandemic. The other thing for me-- being on board
the Space Station, some people [INAUDIBLE] the
whole experience after a while, because things get
too monotonous. How many times you have
to clean the vents, or how many times do I
have to fix the toilet? But for me, I
maintain my motivation by reminding myself that
I'm helping keep the space station alive and I'm helping
keep space exploration moving forward. And I think for-- in terms of the
pandemic, my motivation was to try and
keep people healthy and have fewer people lose
their lives as a result of this nasty virus. And I think that was the big
motivator for me that kept me-- the big-picture motivator. LEIGH GALLAGHER:
Similarity there-- we're also maintaining
our own households, which is more work than
we ever thought it was. I want to ask you
one more question, and then we'll move to
the Q&A from the audience. How has the pandemic
otherwise impact space exploration, in terms of-- has it slowed down operations? Has it cut funding? Have there been any other
second-order effects, as there have been on so many
other industries, et cetera? PEGGY WHITSON: Well,
for sure, I think there's been impacts, but
largely, for those areas, like mission control-- was always 24/7. We had a crew of
a team of people working in mission control. We've maintained
people on orbit. And then many of the
rocket manufacturing and other facilities have
been considered essential, and the workers have been
allowed to continue working. But the majority of NASA
people that are in management and other positions that are not
considered absolutely essential for the space flight mission
directly are just working remotely-- just like most of the
other people in the world right now-- trying to maintain
their activities and get all their jobs done
on teams meetings, or Zoom meetings, et cetera,
just like everybody else. LEIGH GALLAGHER: Got it-- OK. And now I think we are ready
for the first question. I think it should just
flash up on screen for us. I just have to make my
screen a little bigger. I can't totally read it. You all probably can. Here we go. How did you feel when you first
got into the International Space Station? And this is from
Maggie, age seven. PEGGY WHITSON: So
my first trip-- I launched and landed
on a space shuttle. And I got up to
the space station, and actually even
just seeing the space station from the space
shuttle was pretty amazing. You could see it from
several kilometers away-- a light that got bigger
and bigger and bigger as we approached it, and
finally docked to it. But it was so much bigger
than the space shuttle. We had seven people, and
it was pretty crowded-- not even probably more than
your bathroom-sized place for seven people to live in. When we get to
the space station, you open up into
these modules, which are like school bus sized. And when I first arrived, there
were like four different school bus-sized modules, and so it
was a big space by comparison. And now there's up to
15 modules up on board the space station now,
so it's a big place. LEIGH GALLAGHER:
Great-- and I think we'll have to take the next
question-- should come up here in a second. From Katie Miller--
the Netflix show "Away" portrayed a woman
astronaut and her struggle being a leader on a
spaceship, but also being away from home and her family. Great question--
did you have to deal with similar struggles
while in space? PEGGY WHITSON: Well,
I think I'm lucky. And I think that "Away" was
based on a Mars mission, I believe. And the difference
is communication is much more difficult in-- on a Mars mission,
because it's going to take almost 10
minutes, 11 minutes to get one direction for me to say
hello to you on Earth, and then another 11 minutes for
you to say hello back. LEIGH GALLAGHER: Wow. PEGGY WHITSON: And
so that's going to limit communication and
change dramatically how you communicate. On board the space station, I
could use the internet protocol phone, and call home and
talk to family and friends. And so I really didn't
feel particularly isolated, but I do think that, as we
move further and further away, that those challenges of
communication and maintaining contact with your
family is going to be much more challenging. LEIGH GALLAGHER: And I think
you have said in the past that, when you were there,
you said you could call them, but they couldn't call you. So it was always
on your schedule. PEGGY WHITSON: Yeah. It was perfect, as far
as I was [INAUDIBLE] LEIGH GALLAGHER:
Another benefit. OK, let's see what
the next question is. From Kishor-- do you
have to learn how to fly a plane to fly a rocket? And that is actually
from Arisha, who's nine years old-- good question. PEGGY WHITSON: Yeah. And no, you don't have to be
a pilot to be an astronaut. What we do, once we are
selected as astronauts, is we get training in all
the fields that we might not have a lot of experience in. I did have my private
pilot's license, but I'd never flown in a jet,
and so I get training in a jet. And I had never run emergency
procedures for fire, and I had to learn
how to do those. But I knew how to do many of
the scientific activities, and other astronauts would
have to learn how to do those. So everybody gets trained up
so that they can do everything on board as an astronaut. LEIGH GALLAGHER: You do
happen to be a pilot? PEGGY WHITSON: I do. I did. I learned to fly-- I got my license when I was 20. LEIGH GALLAGHER: Right. Wow-- amazing. OK, let's see the next question. From Justin-- thank you for
being a national treasure. I'm an ex-space expert who
worked on both Dragon capsules. What was your favorite
care package in space? What a great question-- would you come out of
retirement to ride Dragon 2? Two questions there--
so let's take the first. What was your
favorite care package? PEGGY WHITSON: Oh, we
got ice cream one time. That was probably
pretty special for me. They sent up a freezer that was
going uphill empty, and coming home with scientific data,
and so they filled it up with ice cream. So that was the most fun thing
that we ever got in space. Yes, I would definitely
come out of retirement to fly on a Dragon. In fact, I'm actually
consulting with Axiom Space, and the vehicle that they plan
on using to take customers to orbit is the Dragon. LEIGH GALLAGHER:
Wow, that's amazing. You have said you'd go
back in a heartbeat. You're on record as saying
that, so that's great. OK, let's see the next question. Did one of your
friends go to NASA? This is also from
a Arisha, age nine. PEGGY WHITSON: So I
started working at NASA as soon as I finished my
PhD, so many of my friends were at NASA-- became my friends at NASA. I kind of grew up at NASA. So the only person that I knew
that already worked at NASA that I was close
to was my boyfriend at the time, who's
now my husband. So yeah, I had a little
connection there. LEIGH GALLAGHER: That's great. All right, let's see
the next question. From Edgar-- as a
biologist, do you think it will ever be
feasible to terraform planets and moons in the solar
system and beyond to replicate our biosphere? Terraform-- I'm
an English major, so you may have to
define that one. PEGGY WHITSON: Terraform means
to make it into a habitable or-- LEIGH GALLAGHER: [INAUDIBLE] PEGGY WHITSON: --for--
yeah-- vegetative place. So yes, I do think
it would be possible. I think many of those activities
would take a very long time. So I envision this
having to have habitats or other facilities
much smaller until we get-- until we can terraform
a large area. I think that might be
pretty challenging. But give us another 20 or 30
years, and some good scientists out there working on it. LEIGH GALLAGHER: Maybe
some of the young people who are listening
to us right now-- let's see the next question. From Grace-- thank you
for joining us today. After a visit to space,
how long does it typically take for you to adjust
to life back on Earth? Any daily activities
for you that take longer to feel normal? Thank you, Grace. Grace and I work together. PEGGY WHITSON: It's a
great question, actually. When you first get back from
a long-duration space flight, it's kind of
challenging initially, because you're not used
to gravity anymore, so everything's heavy. Your arm is heavy. Your head is heavy. And so it takes a bit to adjust. But within the first day
or so, you're like, OK, I'm back on Earth. But it's interesting to me. We do 45 days of
reconditioning, and it's largely to teach this small
balance muscles how to work again, like around
your knees and your ankles. So we do all these
funky exercises where we stand on
squishy surfaces, and throw weighted
medicine balls at the wall and catch them to try and
activate all those muscles and remind your
brain how they're all supposed to work together. We do two hours a day
of exercise on board the space station,
so we're actually very strong from just
the big muscle groups. But I just don't feel
particularly coordinated when I first get back. And then you have
that whole readapting to throwing something
in a trash can and having to readjust
for gravity again. LEIGH GALLAGHER: That's amazing. And why do they call you
American space ninja? PEGGY WHITSON: Jack Fisher, who
was on my last flight with me-- he decided, when I broke the
record, to call me the space ninja. He's got a nickname
for everybody, and so he came up
with space ninja. And he wanted the ground team
to call me the space ninja, so he was talking about
the ninja all the time. And eventually, the
ground team would refer to me as the space ninja well. LEIGH GALLAGHER: I love it. I think it stuck. So let's have another question. I think we have time
for one or two more. From Isha-- can you talk
about your experience with the Spaceflights
Experiments Program-- SSEP-- and how it fits
into larger STEM education initiatives? I actually participated
myself in high school. This is a great question. And we didn't really
touch on STEM efforts, so I'll let you answer that. PEGGY WHITSON: So there's a
number of different programs and STEM initiatives. So I even launched little
satellites from a launcher on board the space
station that were developed by different
high schools and colleges. I grew little plants
in small containers. They call them
cubesats or nanoracks, small experiments
from various schools. And I think all
of those are good, and we need to get
more and more out there so that young people can
actually directly participate in doing scientific research. It's not that I think everyone
should be an astronaut, because not everybody's
interested in that, but there's a lot of really
interesting research going on, and I'd like to encourage
as much of that as possible. And the engineering required
just to have a space station is pretty amazing as well. So I think it's important to
encourage our young people in all those fields of science,
technology, engineering, and math. And we typically
refer to it as STEM, but I think there is a
STEAM component to it, adding the arts as well,
because all of it is-- gives you a perspective
on space, and who we are, where we come from. LEIGH GALLAGHER: Absolutely--
let's take another question. These are really good questions. From Tammy-- have you seen
the TV show "For All Mankind"? And if so, what do you think
of its alternative version of history? PEGGY WHITSON: I actually
just started watching that, and I love it. I think it's interesting
to think about the fact that, if we came in second,
would we have tried harder? Would we have pushed harder? Would we have explored
more, done more? And it's, I think, a really
interesting concept for a TV show. But it also is
something you can think about when you think about, do
I want to fail at something? Well, sometimes, when
you fail at something, you end up being
better in the end. And so we can take it on
as a message to ourselves that-- don't let
failure hold you back. Learn from it. Make yourself better
because of it. LEIGH GALLAGHER: That's great. And let's take another-- think we have a few more. From Michael-- what is the
hardest part about coming back to Earth from space-- from Allie, age nine. And you touched on this a
little bit, but what would you say is the
single hardest part? PEGGY WHITSON: Gravity-- LEIGH GALLAGHER: It really is. PEGGY WHITSON: It really is. Gravity is-- makes you so heavy. It's the hardest part. LEIGH GALLAGHER: Wow, I just-- be so interesting
to experience this. It's fascinating. OK, there you have it. And let's take another question. From Komal-- oh, this is
from Araiya, who's seven. How did you become a
commander, and you-- did you always know you wanted
to be one great question? PEGGY WHITSON: Yeah,
it's a great question. I didn't know I always
wanted to be a commander. On my first flight, I knew I
wanted to go be an astronaut and go into space, and so I
was very interested in that. When I came back from
my first mission, though, I really
thought, I think I could command a mission. And I told my boss at the time
that I would like to try and do whatever job he needed
me to do to prove that I could command a mission,
and so he made me his deputy. And so I got to work with
him directly and prove to him that I had the right leadership
skills to be able to command. So it wasn't something that
I always knew I wanted to do, but after I had done
my first flight, I thought the next
challenge was being command. LEIGH GALLAGHER: There
is a real theme here, which is you followed
your passion. And [INAUDIBLE] to the adage--
when you do what you love, success will follow. If you do what
really just draws you and what you're super
passionate about, that success kind of
naturally follows. Can you talk about
that for a second? PEGGY WHITSON: Yeah, I think
that's probably very true. I do caution you to think that-- it was never a
straight line for me. I never got what I wanted
as soon as I wanted, and it was something that
required that work ethic, and that dedication, and that
determination to try and get to those final goals. And then, when you get to that
final goal, then you find, oh, there's something
else I want to try and do. And just continuing to be
drawn to the next thing, and working toward that,
I think, is important. But it's important to know
your passion and to follow it. LEIGH GALLAGHER: I think
we have one more question. From Leon-- can you
share a little bit about what goes
through your mind as you sit there in the
cockpit waiting for liftoff? Fantastic question-- what
goes through your mind in that moment? PEGGY WHITSON: Well, it's funny,
because on my first launch in the space shuttle, we
got to L minus 9 minutes, and then there's a-- what's
called a built-in hold. And that means they
stop the clock, just in case they need
to fix something or have a little bit of time, because
the launch window actually has to happen at a specific
time, so they build in a hold. And during that nine minutes,
a thunderstorm moved in, and it got within 25 miles, and
so we had to scrub the launch. And so then the next time
I was on the launch pad, three weeks later, and
you're waiting for it, and you get back down, and
the nine-minute clock starts counting down, and I'm like, oh,
I think I'm really going to go. For the first time,
I think I really believed I was going to
go into space, because you train so many years-- the basic training, once I was
selected, was two years long. And then, when I was picked
for a specific flight, it was another three
years worth of training. And after a while, you start
to believe that it's all just a training event, and you're
never really actually going to end up in space. LEIGH GALLAGHER: Even then,
your feeling is excitement. It's not nervousness. You're just excited, like
we're really going to go. PEGGY WHITSON: Yeah, it's
like, it's going to happen. It's going to happen. Of course, there's
huge exhilaration in the space shuttle. Six seconds before the
launch, the three engines-- which are the
liquid fuel engines on the back of the shuttle-- are ignited, and they
have to be up to 100%. And they get to 100% by the
time the clock gets to zero, and then the solid
rocket boosters ignite. And there is
absolutely no question that you're not going
somewhere at that point, because the acceleration,
the vibration is such that you
don't forget it. But what's amazing is you go
from 0 to 17,500 miles an hour in about 8 and 1/2 minutes. LEIGH GALLAGHER: Wow. That's unbelievable. That's amazing. So let me ask you--
now that you're retired from NASA,
what fills your time, and what do you want to do next? PEGGY WHITSON: So I'm
consulting with Axiom Space, and I've been assigned to
be the backup commander for the first flight-- commercial flight to the
International Space Station. So hopefully there will be a
future flight in store for me. LEIGH GALLAGHER: That's amazing. We will be watching. Since you're here at Google,
I think we have to ask you, is there a Google product
that you can't live without? PEGGY WHITSON: Oh, I
love the Google search engines and the maps. The maps are the my
favorite-- a lifesaver. LEIGH GALLAGHER: That's great. And then lastly, once
it's safe to travel-- regular travel,
not space travel-- which may not be as
exciting for you-- where do you want to go first? PEGGY WHITSON: I think I want
to see some of the friends that I've just been
talking to and FaceTiming with for the last year, and
just reconnect in person. LEIGH GALLAGHER: Yeah, I think
we all feel the same way. Well, Peggy, you
have given us so much to think about today, and so
much wisdom and experience. Thank you for your time and for
being here with us at Google. And thank you to all the
great questions out there, especially to all the children
out there who tuned in and who asked questions. Thank you so much. PEGGY WHITSON: We
really appreciate it. Thanks. [MUSIC PLAYING]
