Mike Massimino: Why Failure Couldn't Keep this Astronaut from Outer Space [From the Archive]

[00:00:01] This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. Presenting the Archive, classic episodes that remain timeless. The raw unfiltered conversations from the early days in which people shared their failures and showed us exactly how they rebuilt

[00:00:24] everything from the ground up. So we're trained so well and there's so much support and you have a certain way of doing things by the book, by the checklist and your days are kind of planned around that and it has some sort of simplicity to it that we don't have in normal life. Just doing regular things you know in life sometimes can be, I find can be really tough. They're not

[00:00:50] people who never fail, they're people who never let failure stop them. The qualities for success is not always being the smartest or the best even at something but certainly I think it's in our game as astronauts it's the ability to work with other people and maybe more importantly not to give up and I think people discount that but it's really important not to give up and if you get disappointed it doesn't mean you can't do the job it just means that maybe you need a little extra work

[00:01:16] or maybe you were unlucky or maybe it wasn't your day and you shouldn't give it all up you should keep trying. So I've got Mike Massimino on the podcast, did I say it right? Nah, you screwed that up man. I don't even want to try your last name. I listened to him over and over on StarTalk saying your name, I thought

[00:01:44] that's how he said it. Really? Yeah, how do you say it? Massimino. Massimino, Mike Massimino, a two-time shuttle astronaut. You also recently wrote the book, Spaceman, An Astronaut's Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe. Great book. I read it. I highly recommend it. Thank you. Also watched, you were on StarTalk a couple times with Neil deGrasse Tyson. You've been a guest star on The Big Bang Theory. That was fun.

[00:02:11] And you even say in the book that's almost like for you as big an accomplishment as going into space. Well, I don't know if it was almost as much fun. I don't know accomplishment-wise probably going into space was maybe a little more meaningful but The Big Bang Theory was right up there and it was a lot of fun. I think what the point I was trying to make in the book, I think people know me more for that. Right. 20 million people watch that. They watch that show. So a lot of people have seen me. I've been on that show six times and

[00:02:38] I guess that's enough so that people who watch the show have seen me there and they love the show. Once in a while, not so much on a, you know, in New York City people don't usually stop you on the street unless there's something wrong. Yeah. You know, the policeman, someone has a badge, maybe stuff. But sometimes people come up to me and say, yeah, I really love you on The Big Bang Theory and they want to know something about the show or the actors or something like that. So before I get into more the book and kind of your path to being an astronaut, as you say,

[00:03:06] your unlikely journey, there's something that just happened that I wonder if it totally annoys you. So you came in here and as many guests do, first you want to find out where the bathroom is. Right. Very important. And you said, is it a mile away? And I made this stupid joke. If you could go into space and fix the Hubble telescope, you can find your way to the bathroom. Does everyone make that joke to you? Like, are you sick of that joke?

[00:03:34] No, I'm not saying that. I think that it's an interesting point. But I think what it brings out is people don't, not that it was easy fixing Hubble, it was hard, but you get a lot of help. You know, you get, and we're used to, I'm probably going in maybe a direction you weren't thinking, but, you know, I think about this a lot in my new life now at Columbia and, you know, writing the book and doing things. With NASA as an astronaut, you kind of knew what you were supposed to do all the time and there was a checklist for it.

[00:04:04] You know, I was joking. I was talking to a friend earlier this morning and saying how, you know, I needed to go get some stuff at the grocery store and how that's complicated. And they go, well, how did you know, how did you do it? I go, well, you know, for me, like doing that sometimes is, you know, it could be, how am I going to do it? How am I going to get there? What am I going to do? You know, it sounds simple, but you got to think about it. Even though what we did on Hubble was fairly complicated, we practiced and we knew how to do it and it was a team to help you. We had procedures.

[00:04:30] If we had an engine fire in a jet, like we knew what to do. And so a lot of it is knowing what to do. And so we're trained so well and there's so much support and you have a certain way of doing things by the book, by the checklist, and your days are kind of planned around that. And it is some sort of simplicity to it that we don't have in normal life. And just like walking around, you know, just going, just doing regular things, you know, in life sometime can be, I find could be really tough.

[00:04:59] I wish I had a checklist on how to get to the airport in time, you know, stuff like that. Well, it's interesting. There's a lot that you just said in there that's worth unpacking. So what you say is, I am sure is true. Like once you're out there, there's so many checklists for things that can go wrong. And in fact, in your walk to fix the spectrography tool of the Hubble telescope. Spectrograph I say everything wrong. The spectroscopy, it's good. You're good. I'm going to keep on saying this. You're using some big words, man. I know. I got to prove my vocabulary.

[00:05:28] That's good. You've got it. But things did go wrong that weren't on your checklist. And we'll talk about that in a second. But it's interesting because on any endeavor, which is high risk and obviously going into space and being and sort of the loneliness of it, there's high risk. But it seems like the preparation for many endeavors like that is to mitigate the risk as much as possible. And that's what you did in the years. That's why it takes two or three years sometimes to plan these missions. Right. Yeah.

[00:05:53] They have the largest swimming pool in the world that you practice in. And there's a space shuttle in it. Correct. And a Hubble in it. Right. And a space station in it as well. It's a full scale mock-up. How big is the pool? It's 100 feet wide. It's 200 feet long. And it's 40 feet deep. It's the largest pool in the world. Is it the largest pool because of the depth? Just per volume. I think it's an interesting question. There may be pools of those dimensions,

[00:06:22] maybe even more in just the perimeter of the pool. But as far as the volume goes, yeah, 40 feet is a pretty deep pool. And I guess... It's the most water of any pool. And so you're wearing your space suit in there and simulating spacewalks. Yeah. Tools and everything. This is really off to the side of where I want to get to. But how close are those experiences there to the actual spacewalk? For the turning of the wrenches and working together as a team, both with your spacewalking buddy,

[00:06:51] because you always go out in twos. And with the crew that's inside, your astronaut friends who are inside helping you out, supporting you from there. And then the bigger team down on the ground, coordinating all that teamwork and learning how to use your tools and where you're going to translate, meaning where you're going to move to, how you're going to do everything. Figuring it all out, it prepares you extremely well. But a big surprise when you get to space. And you know, it's not really a surprise. You know it's going to come. But when you see it,

[00:07:17] though it's so overwhelming, at least for me, was the view of the planet around you. The view of where you are and where you are working in that environment, working in the vacuum is such a different experience that it's a bit overwhelming for me visually and just moving around. But as far as doing your job, you're 100% ready to go. I want to get to something you just said there, which is you mentioned quite a lot,

[00:07:42] the word team and friends that you're working together with. And I want to kind of relate that in many ways to what it means to be the right stuff, to be an astronaut, because you refer to that a lot in the book. But on your last point about looking at the planet or looking at the Earth, you say on your very first spacewalk, when you got back into the shuttle, the first thing you said

[00:08:07] was, the Earth is a planet. Which, of course, sounds obvious. But if you think about it, when we're sitting here right now and looking out, you kind of have to either theorize or scientifically prove that it's a planet where you actually saw the curvature of the planet and that it's just this round ball in space. We don't really see that from our viewpoint here. Yeah. And our interaction with our planet, with our world is, it's three-dimensional,

[00:08:37] but you're kind of dealing on the, you know, you're working on the surface. You're kind of on top of it. You're getting in a car or a train to go to work, or you're playing with your kids, or inside your apartment or in your house, or wherever you might be. Or you go on vacation or whatever. That's how, go to the grocery store, go to the office, ball game. You know, these are how we interact with the Earth. I kind of feel like it was a safe home before I went to space. And then

[00:09:04] I got to space, and I had a different relationship with the planet as I'm looking down on it, sort of, or up at it, depending on your point of view. And I felt away from it, and I could see it. And then I could turn my head, and I could see the rest of the universe out there. And I realized that it's not this safe haven that we think it is. We are all the, we are all space voyagers. And it's the Earth that is keeping us alive, our atmosphere and our ecology keeping us protected and safe from the

[00:09:34] hazards that are out there that we worry about when we're out there. And the Earth and our atmosphere protects us from that. We don't have to think about it. How do you translate that feeling when you came back here? Like, did it change your perspective on life itself, family? I really think that we're living in a paradise. I think this might be as good as it gets. It's a wonderful place. It is so beautiful. I can't imagine any place being more

[00:10:00] beautiful. Do you think that there's, the odds are there's life on other planets? Or are things so particularly, perfectly set up here that those odds couldn't be replicated? I can't imagine that there isn't life somewhere else. If you look at what Hubble has shown us of all the possibilities, and one more recent Hubble discovery in the last couple months was that there are 10 times as many

[00:10:25] galaxies as we previously thought. We already knew there were a lot of them, you know, billions. And now we're only, the calculations we're now, we've only seen about 10% of them. What the heck? So there's so many possibilities, billions of galaxies with billions of stars in those galaxies. And each one of those stars, like our sun, probably has planets around it. Most of them have planets orbiting. To think that we're the only ones, the only place where there's life, I don't see that. I

[00:10:53] don't think we've ever been visited. I don't think we've, we haven't found anybody yet, and no one's found us yet. But we need to keep plugging along and getting smarter until someday we can make contact, which I think we eventually will do. One thing worth mentioning is that, so the Hubble telescope is the main vehicle by which, because it's outside of all the distractions of the Earth's atmosphere, it can take the most clear

[00:11:18] and intense pictures of, like you say, tens of billions of galaxies that are, you know, billions and billions of light years away. And the only reason we can do that is because of the person sitting right across from me right now, you, you fixed it. With a lot of help. I know you're going to say the team, team, team. But you went out there twice on two Hubble missions,

[00:11:42] and, you know, you fixed, you were involved in kind of the discussions and the operations of fixing the telescope. So yes, you and your team fixed it so we can all see these amazing, we've all seen the pictures now. Everybody, even if you don't think you have, you have. Right. James, they're out there. Pearl Jam had an album cover, dating myself maybe, but a while, many years ago, one of their album covers had the Cateye Nebula on it. We see them everywhere.

[00:12:06] Almost every really beautiful photo image of the universe, many of them anyway, not all of them, but many of them are Hubble images. And we see them on magazine covers and advertisements, on rock album covers, everywhere. They permeated our society, our culture. I mean, the one I remember the most that I've seen recently, maybe I even saw it in the photos in your book,

[00:12:30] it's the one with, where every galaxy is almost like a dot, so you see how many galaxies there truly are out there. Yeah. And it's amazing that this one camera can essentially take that photo. Yeah, and I don't know if this is the one you're talking about, but there was one famous Hubble shot that's called the Hubble Deep Field. Yes. And there was a part of the sky that they thought was just black. They thought there was nothing there, right? It was a dark part of the sky. No telescope ever pointed at this part of the sky,

[00:12:59] ever saw anything. And so the idea came up, well, let's point Hubble there. And Hubble was pointed there, and there was many galaxies there. And they were just too far away for us to see in this one section of the sky. And it's called the Hubble Deep Field, and you see all these galaxies that showed up in this small section of the sky. It was kind of like looking through a straw from Earth, like that size, very small piece of this section of the sky. And there's nothing out there for a

[00:13:27] very long ways. But once you see what is out there in that part of the sky, you see all these galaxies appear. And that's what Hubble was able to see. And it's because, as you said, it's above the atmosphere. It's not, the light is not distorted. It's kind of like if you're looking, if you're in a swimming pool looking up through the water, looking at the sun, it looks pretty blurry. And if you get out of the water and you look directly in the sun, it looks much clearer. That's kind of the effect that the atmosphere has on our eyes and on telescopes that are on the Earth. Once we get above that,

[00:13:54] you see the stars more clearly. We're not much closer to them with our human eye to see them. So you don't see it all of a sudden, you know, it's a lot bigger, but you see them more clearly. There's no twinkling of the star. And when you put a telescope up there that has the power to magnify, it can see very, very far away and very, very clearly. So I want to rewind a little bit and get back to the unlikely journey part. So you start off, you're a little kid afraid of heights. Yeah, still am. I don't like heights. I don't want to look out that window right now. We're like the

[00:14:23] ninth floor. Right. Ninth floor. Yeah, a little scary. And seven years old, 1969, Neil Armstrong, two things happen. Neil Armstrong walks on the moon, the New York Mets win the World Series. Yeah, it's big. Yep. And you kind of make the point that seven years old, or I'll generalize it a little more, like around that age, when you're a young age, this is where dreams are kind of like, kind of implanted inside of you, lifelong dreams. And so you had this dream of being an astronaut.

[00:14:52] Did you think at that point that it was a possibility? You had bad vision. I did not think it was a possibility. It was something that I really was interested in. It was something I wanted to do. But I think reality sort of set in, or at least my perception of reality as an eight or nine year old. I was six when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. And by the time I was eight or nine, I think I realized that the space program

[00:15:18] was very interesting. And the astronauts were the coolest people around. But I also kind of started getting the sense that that ain't me. You know, I would never be able to... I just saw them as superheroes. And growing up where I grew up, it was okay to dream when you're a little kid. But as you got older, I felt like, nah, that can't happen to me. You know, it's impossible. I couldn't become a test pilot. I couldn't be as cool as Neil Armstrong

[00:15:47] and these other guys. It's just, they're really cool. And they're superheroes. And I'm just a little kid. And it just, it just was, you know, it's kind of like being, I want to grow up to be, as I say in a book, it's like, I want to grow up to be Spider-Man. How the heck do you do that? That's, that's what I saw the likelihood of becoming an astronaut. It's impossible. It's something other people do. Not anybody I knew, not anyone from my neighborhood was ever going to grow up to be an astronaut. That's the way I felt about it. Impossible. So let's look at the other dream.

[00:16:13] Do you think you could play for the New York Mets? No, that was, no, I enjoyed baseball, but that requires a special talent that became pretty obvious I didn't have. I love baseball. I still, there's still my passion. Space and baseball is still my two biggest passions. That I realized I was going to be a fan. I wasn't going to be a player. It's funny because not everyone listening to this thinks to themselves, well, I had a dream at the age of seven and I achieved it.

[00:16:39] Like some people maybe, maybe they kind of, I don't want to say they gave up because that's a strong word, but somehow they, you lose touch with what you really desire deep down at the age of seven. And I feel like you stuck with it against all odds on many occasions. Like for instance, you go to Columbia, you get, you go to MIT, you get a master's degree, and then you're going for your PhD and you failed the first time you tried to qualify for the PhD. Now here's the difference

[00:17:07] between one, one of many differences between you and me, for instance. I failed also my first time trying to get a PhD. Yes. And I left graduate school. You did. I did. You went back and kept going and then you got it. Like you, you, again, your professor even told you to drop out and you got it. He was trying to be merciful. Right. Yeah. But you felt like, okay, if I'm going to be, one of the things you thought, I guess, is I, if I'm going to ever be an astronaut, I need to kind of keep

[00:17:36] going at this. Yeah. Well, I, you know, I knew there were other ways. I mean, a lot, there's a couple of things there. I think, well, you, there's something you mentioned about earlier, a minute ago. I'm sorry that I wanted to reflect on that. I thought it was really good. What was it that you said you were telling, you were asking me about, uh, um, the dream at seven. The dream. Yeah. I'm not, okay. Oh yeah. This is what I want to, uh, there was two points that I wanted to comment on. That's all right. And the first one is, I think James, it's really hard sometimes to be

[00:18:01] honest with yourself about what you love. And we, I think a lot of times we, we, I anyway, sometimes we'll have a tendency to say, nah, that really is not that important to me. If I think it's hard to do, I'll say, well, you know, I don't, that's not that important or that's not, I really don't want to do that or whatever. And sometimes you're actually telling yourself, it's not worth it to me to put that time in to get it. But other times I think we, you know, that if it's something that is really important to us, you need to be honest with yourself that that is

[00:18:30] what you really like. And that's what you really love. And maybe that's not what you're good at, or maybe you're not suited to do it or you don't think you are, but who knows, maybe you are. So I think what it came to me was, is that I kind of realized that, well, me becoming an astronaut was impossible. And even as I got older and I was pursuing it, I knew that it was going to be very challenging. If I ever got the position to do that, it was going to be challenging for me because I am afraid of heights and I didn't like the water and I wasn't a thrill seeker. And this was kind of

[00:18:56] the ultimate thrill seeking profession that I would have to do. But I also knew that it's something I really wanted to do. And that was the honest truth of it. And so I was going to have to figure out a way to withstand these uncomfortable things or these challenges or whatever was going to be in the way. It didn't matter. I was going to have to try because when I really was honest with myself, that's exactly what I wanted to do.

[00:19:21] How do you think people develop the discernment though, to decide this, I have these dreams. This one's not worth it. This one's not worth it. This one's not worth it, but this one is worth it. I think, you know, I sometimes can tell for me just what like my motivation is. Like you mentioned the big bang theory, right? And I really enjoyed doing it, but I kind of stepped in that one. They contacted NASA. They wanted to talk to an astronaut about sending one of their guys into space. The guy at NASA headquarters knew me as being kind of like one of the funnier astronauts, I guess. And he thought I

[00:19:49] would fit in with these, with the writers. And I did, and I enjoyed it. And they asked me to do a cameo. And so I got to do six big bang theory shows, right? And it was fantastic. Are you like in the Screen Actors Guild now? I am. I had to join the Screen Actors Guild. I didn't when I was with NASA. I did most of the shows. I was at NASA and I couldn't, it's another story, but when you're with the government, you can't accept any extra money. It's part of my, I could not do it. So I did not have to join. But after I left NASA and I was on the show, I joined the Screen Actors Guild, for example. So

[00:20:16] I was speaking to a friend of mine who's an agent, right? In Hollywood. And I was like, well, you know, maybe I could do more acting. And he goes, well, if you want to do that, you need to probably, you know, you're in New York or LA and we can help you get auditions. I go, auditions? I got to go on auditions? He goes, yeah. And I'm like, ah, forget it. So to me, it was like, I don't want to, I don't want to pay that price. I enjoyed the shows that I did with the Big Bang Theory. I mean, I'd like to do some more acting and some more shows that came up. And I don't know if I want to go, if I, if I'm ready to eat the dirt that you need to eat in order to become a successful actor, right? I think I'm going to, I may,

[00:20:45] I may try a little bit, but, but that's not so I wasn't sure. With the astronaut job, I was willing to do almost anything that I would have to do. I mean, within reason, I wasn't going to do anything illegal. I wasn't going to do anything that would compromise the way I felt about the way things should be done. I wasn't going to do anything like that, but I certainly was not going to give up. And I think that for me, I can still find things like that that I want to, that I want to do. And it'll just click with me. If the Big Bang Theory wants

[00:21:14] me to go on the show again, yeah, I'm going to do whatever I can to do that. If another opportunity comes up and you think you feel internally to me, it's like, yeah, I'll do whatever's required to do that. And other things I'm like, well, I'm not that as interested in that. I think the things that stood out for you, at least from what I see in the book and in your life are the things where you ascribed additional meaning. So being an astronaut was not just about you. You always kind of had this thread running through your mind that it's about increasing the knowledge of the human race and

[00:21:43] achieving that further frontier for the human race. And just like teaching, right now you're a professor at Columbia. Teaching is maybe the young people you're teaching can also contribute to that, our understanding of life and society and so on. I agree. Yeah. And you're right. I mean, that's another thing that I think I discovered. I think I kind of knew it, but I think I discovered it writing the book. It's interesting writing a book where you learn about yourself, right? And, and,

[00:22:10] you know, when I was speaking, I had a co-writer, Tanner Colby helped me formulate the book and get it down. And, you know, we worked together along with our editor, Kevin Doughton over at Crown Publishing. We worked, worked together. And one, you know, we, as we were writing, you know, I was like, what, you know, what is the book about? And one of it is, is there's three things in there we decided. Two of them are kind of obvious, follow it from the, anyway, following your dreams and never giving up. And another one was how cool it is to fly in space. But the third one that emerged was,

[00:22:38] and in the importance of doing something meaningful in public service. And I was like, what? I don't know, I've done anything meaningful or useful to the public. But then I realized, no, I certainly have, but it was more than that. It's a sense of, of that being important. My father was an inspector for the New York city fire department. And I was around him and his colleagues and firefighters, firemen are my heroes, right? I'm a New York city firefighters. I'm an honorary New York city firefighter. They gave me a shirt with my name on it a couple of years ago. So I'm down there. That's a big honor. It's a huge honor. Those, those are, I think the true heroes of New York

[00:23:08] city fire department. And, um, but it's that sense of doing. With, with higher meaning. With higher meaning. And I think that even as you mentioned, as we're joking around here with the big bang theory, the reason why I like doing that show is because it shows science and scientists and engineers as a community working together and having fun. And I think it's done a lot for science STEM education and for showing people who might be a little bit different, maybe, you know, in our normal school system or any school

[00:23:36] system when you, as you're growing up, but they have interesting, fun lives. And, and I, I like the way it depicts the space program and science. I mean, there's other messages there too that make it funny, but it's a worthwhile program. If you look at though, why you weren't willing to put in that extra eating dirt, as you say, to do the auditions, maybe because acting or even just appearing on the big bang theory didn't give you enough extra meaning. No, that, that it did. The big, the big bang theory did. And if it was the right way to

[00:24:05] participate, you know, you mentioned some of the other shows I've been on, you know, those are the right ones. I don't know if I'd want to go out and do a soap opera. Not that I know in offense to that, but I wouldn't, I don't know if I would find for me the purpose center, but a space related program. I like it. An education related program. I like it. You know, something that had, you know, sent the message was inspirational. That's something I find to be interesting. You know, for, I think for me, if, cause for me, things are generally hard, right? And I knew that if, if, no matter what I'm going to do, it's, I'm

[00:24:33] going to have, I'm going to have a tough time doing it well. And so I need to make sure that I don't know if it's true. Well, I know it is. I think to do something well, it's not, it's not easy. And so I think you have to find something you really love so that when you're putting the time and you're doing, you feel like you're spending it well, you know, and I guess I felt like, for example, we talked about grad school, you know, I knew grad school was going to be difficult and getting my PhD was going to be difficult. So I really wanted to do something that I was interested

[00:24:59] in and something that I felt was going to be worth the time and the effort I was going to have to put in. And that's what I feel. Any job I think takes you away from your family. Every job has sacrifices in it. So I wanted a job that I knew that those sacrifices were worth it. And for me, that was working in the space program. So I wanted that, that, that meaning. And I think, I think you're, you're right. It's that it's having, it's not just, it's not doing something, but doing something that has meaning to me. It's like a job versus

[00:25:25] what do we, you know, when you, when you, when you have a something you're, you're, you're very meaningful to you and you're in your work. I'm searching for the word. I can't think of it. Um, well, so it's sort of like, but you know, something that's important to you. It's not just your job. It's, it's very meaningful to you. And like, I, I, like people have many interests. Like, so you were, you know, you mentioned astronaut education, I'll throw out baseball again, and, or you could have worked at IBM, like you could have done something with

[00:25:52] your mechanical engineering degree or whatever, but it seems like you kind of look at your interests and you say, okay, interests are one thing, but if, if I can also interest plus meaning equals the thing I'm going to pursue. And that's what you basically did. And so even when you got your, your PhD and again, this was just, you still are, you know, miles and miles away metaphorically from being an astronaut, just because you have a PhD doesn't mean you're going to be an astronaut.

[00:26:20] Yeah. You did it specifically on the topic of how to control a robotic arm from a great distance, like a robotic arm on Mars. Right. That obviously puts you in the radar of people who are building spaceships. Hopefully, yes, that was, but it was something that I, that I was interested in doing. And it was hard to know the other point that I wanted to get back that you mentioned earlier, it was like, it's hard to know what to do to get to where you want to go. And so, for example,

[00:26:47] you know, failing my qualifying exam, what I would, you know, something like that happens, I thought about it. Well, maybe this isn't my path and maybe it's not even my path to being an astronaut. I don't know. Maybe it's better for me to, you know, leave with my master's degree and go work at the Johnson Space Center or somewhere else and, and get experience because plenty of people have done that too. You know, a lot of my friends, one of my colleagues are not, are not PhDs, particularly the military personnel. You know, it's rare to have a PhD and be a

[00:27:14] military test pilot. There are some, but most don't. And, and there are some astronauts who don't have a medical degree or PhD or doctor's degree. So I thought maybe that's my path. Maybe I'm supposed to get out of this place. And, but then it was more questionable. You don't know exactly what the path is for you. And I think for me, what it was is I felt when I really thought about it, I felt in my heart and my soul that it was important for me to try to get through that PhD program. It was a few more months of trying again. And if I failed the second time, I would have been

[00:27:43] prevented from continuing more or less thrown out. All right. And for lack of a better word, and then I couldn't continue, but I thought it was worth that investment of another six months or so to give it another try. And I really felt like at that point, that that would be a great way to write that story. You know, that if I failed the first, not that I was thinking of writing a book at the time, but just the story of my life of, I gave it a really good effort and I failed and I failed miserably, but it would be really great to come back and pass that second time.

[00:28:13] Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I'd really, really appreciate it. It means so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me at altitra at gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks. We've been using story blocks for years because as you know, I'm always making podcasts, videos,

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[00:29:36] plan. And that discount is only through my link story blocks.com slash James. Check it out. It's become essential to my workflow. Talk soon. I think because you always feel you're not as good as your cohort, you know, all the people around you that you kind of have to do all of these extra

[00:30:02] things. You felt like you had to get the PhD as opposed to going this maybe perhaps more difficult path with less qualifications. And then the other thing is when you're at that low point, like you just failed the qualifying for the PhD, how do you kind of just the next day wake up and say, okay, I'm going to put that behind me and move forward? Yeah. It's not so easy to do that. And the other thing too, is that I, when I was there,

[00:30:28] you know, you said, I felt like I maybe I had to work harder or wasn't as up to speed with some of the other students or people around me, but I had an opportunity to study at MIT, which is just an undergrad, I was at Columbia and I am so happy that I had a chance to be in these places. And so, you know, the opportunity to continue and get a PhD from MIT, whether or not I became an astronaut, I just felt was an extraordinary opportunity that I would regret if I didn't give it my full shot. So that was one thing, whatever I was going to do in life after I wasn't sure, but I thought that

[00:30:58] was great. As far as failing and waking up the next day, that's pretty bad. I see, you know, I still, it's not, it's not fun. It's, it was, it was disappointing. You know, I felt, I felt very bad about it. I have a friend of mine who I mentioned in the book, his name is CJ Sterkauer, Marine pilot. He used to say that you give yourself 30 seconds of regret and then move on. He used to say it's like in a simulation. If, if you make a mistake, you know, give yourself 30 seconds of regret and then you have to move on. Well, it was probably more than 30 seconds of regret. It was

[00:31:27] more like a few days of regret of feeling poorly about it and what was I going to do and so on. But I think eventually you have to get back up and, and, and try again. I think that that's a really important lesson. What I found is with people, whether it's people that I've met who are successful in business or people, and I've been lucky to meet a lot of really cool people, right? Or musicians, rock, rock stars who were really successful or people in Hollywood where, you know, actors or,

[00:31:51] or writers or producers or whatever it might be, or athletes or scientists or anyone who is at the top of their game, or very, what we can see to be the most successful people in the world, politicians, whoever you want to list there. They're not people who never failed. They're people who never let failure stop them. And you can be sensitive to it. I'm fairly sensitive to when I fail, I feel bad about it. Some people maybe don't have any regret. I don't know when it doesn't go. I

[00:32:18] think most people have a little bit of regret with when something goes wrong, but you can't let that stop you from pursuing your dream and, and moving on. Is that something you can almost practice? Like how you like, because I imagine the first time someone fails in a big way at something that's important to them, they're lost. They don't know what to do to come back because they haven't developed that skill. It's, it's not like a talent one's born with, and maybe there's a little bit of nurture and nature in there. But how do you build that skill to come back?

[00:32:46] I think it's just keep trying things that are going to challenge you. Failure will naturally happen. I don't think you have to plan it. Right, you can't avoid it. Yeah, I don't want to plan it. I mean, it always sneaks up on you. You know, I think that disappointment and failure happens all the time. That's one thing we don't have to try to find. Right. It's going to find you easy enough if you're trying, if you're not, if you're not trying. So I think the idea is to try to challenge yourself and put yourself in positions, you know, and for me, wanting to be an astronaut put me in positions where I did things I would never do if it wasn't

[00:33:14] because I wanted to fly in space. And so it put me in these uncomfortable situations that I, that I was able to overcome because I had this motivation to want to do that. And a sense of meaning to it. Yes, and a sense of meaning because I knew this was important. So I was willing to take it. And I think that, that, that's maybe what, what, what maybe people might want to consider is that there are going to, you're going to take your lumps. If you're going to try to be successful in anything, I think eventually you're going to, you're going to have setbacks. You're going to,

[00:33:43] you know, I wrote in a book that I was told by my advisor, Tom Sheridan, my advisor at MIT said to me one, one day, that's interesting. Some people say things to you and I don't even know if they really think that they're trying to influence your life, but somebody, somebody's things sometimes stick. We were just talking about something. He says something, well, you know, if you can, if you can learn to deal with indignities in life, you can go far. He wasn't talking about me. He was talking about in general, of learning. Indignity was, you know, making, you know, feeling, getting knocked down and, and feeling like, you know,

[00:34:10] you're just, just failing at something or not doing well or being told you're not good enough. If you can learn how to deal with that and use, you know, put that away and, and not let it stop you. If you can learn how to deal with that crap, you can, you can go far. And I think that that's true. And so that's the key is figuring out how to learning, learning how to deal with that. I think it is a lot of it, you know, for me, it happened naturally because I always found, I felt like I was in these places where I was in a bit over my head. You know, I felt like I'm a little bit over my head here, you know, and whether it was,

[00:34:39] even in, you know, in high school, you know, trying to take some of the harder classes, it wasn't easy. You know, you just don't learn this stuff because you're bright. You need, you need to, you need to study. And so challenging myself to take harder classes in high school even was, was one thing. Going to a college where, you know, it was, it was tough for me to get in and I got in. And I remember thinking about Columbia, you know, you think, well, it's no brain. You got in and you should go. It's just school of choice. But it's like, I'm going to have to work hard in this place. You know, if I go here, I'm going to be challenged. There's some smart people there. And the same

[00:35:08] thing at MIT, you know, like, Ooh, you know, now this, you know, this is like another step up here in graduate school there. Now it seems like in retrospect though, like you did get the PhD at MIT. Yeah. You did go into outer space. Yes. And you're a professor at Columbia. Right. So in retrospect, it probably wasn't as hard as you thought. No, it was hard. I would never do it again. It was hard. Well, let's get then to the next level. No, it was hard. No, this was not, this was not easy stuff. There's no way to sugarcoat it.

[00:35:36] There's something even more difficult that you did though, on the very next stage of your process of becoming an astronaut, which is you, I don't know anyone else on the planet who has ever done this, but A, you, you, you failed at your medical exam because your eyes were bad. Yeah. And somehow you corrected your vision. Right. Like you can't correct your, you're not allowed to artificially correct your vision. Now you can. Now, now they accept LASIK. Yeah. James, you got to remember this was a long time ago now, right? This was, I was a young man.

[00:36:06] No, this was back, you know, I was in my early thirties. I was 31 years old when this happened. You know, it was over 20 years ago. But after failing the medical exam on something that seems impossible to fix, why did you even have the gall to think you could fix your eyesight? This is, this is interesting. It's an interesting point. And it only, it came out when I wrote the book, I wrote it and showed it to the, you know, we, you know, we wrote up the draft and showed it to my editor and he was like, holy cow.

[00:36:32] And the first thing he said was, I cannot believe that you never gave up. But even when you failed your eye exam, you just figured out a way to see better. And I was like, yeah. And then, and then I thought about that and it's like, wow. Yeah. You know, that is not, that was a little unusual and that resonates with people. It's interesting because I never, I didn't really talk about that. After I got by the eye exam, I didn't tell that story very much to people unless I ran into someone who was having trouble with a medical issue, trying to become an astronaut.

[00:37:01] And then I would share that story with them. But it's been an interesting topic for, you know, never giving up. And what happened is, as you said, is that I applied for astronaut four times. I was accepted on my fourth try. My first two tries, I just got a letter back from NASA after, you know, saying no. My third time I got called in for an interview and part of the interview process was a medical exam. And in the medical exam, they discovered I could not pass the acuity exam.

[00:37:27] It's a bit of a long story that I try to describe succinctly in the book. But I had tried to change my vision with something called orthoteric keratology, which was sort of acceptable. It wasn't surgery, but it really wasn't a very practical fix. And what it was, it would flatten your eyeball with the contact lens to change its optics so it would allow you to see better for a certain period of time. But then the eye would respond and go back to its initial shape.

[00:37:55] So you're trying to change the shape of the eyeball with these hard contact lenses. It wasn't really a good, smart thing to do. But I tried that. It didn't work. And my unaided acuity was beyond their limits. And I couldn't, there was no procedure that was acceptable. I wasn't alone in this. I mean, that was the number one reason for people to be disqualified. There was one test pilot who was interviewing with me who failed the eye exam. And it was because his acuity, once they dilated your eyes as well, you had to be able to see well dilated.

[00:38:24] And apparently his acuity changed. I mean, he was a fighter pilot, right? A test pilot who had perfect vision on every one of his eye exams. But the way they dilated his eyes at NASA, he wasn't able to read the eye chart exactly the way what they needed. And he failed. So people were failing this thing. And they were, you know, they were, everyone was upset about it. And I was upset about it too that I failed. But I didn't want to give up. But, you know, they didn't want to give up.

[00:38:49] I mean, there are two ways to deal with the stress that probably you've experienced and stress and disappointment when you failed to be an astronaut because of something as silly as an eye exam. Not silly, but something as insignificant. One way is to relieve the stress by saying, okay, it's not my fault. It was just this eye exam. And then you move on with your life. But that's an easy way that 99.9% of people would relieve stress.

[00:39:14] You took the .01% of saying, well, there's another way. I'm going to still be an astronaut. And I'm going to relieve the stress by doing something positive and trying to fix my eyes. That's a really good point. You said, I wish I had said that. That was perfect. No, that's great. No, but it's perfect. I mean, you're right. Because that went through my mind too. You could say, well, I tried and I was medically disqualified. What are you going to do? End of discussion. I could not live a life like that. I realized for me, people said, how did you not give up?

[00:39:44] And I said, how could I have given up? I would not have been able to continue with anywhere near a happy life if I would have done that. I really would not have. I figured that I had to keep trying. I could live with them telling me no. I could live with them telling me I was medically disqualified. But I could not live with me giving up even if they kept telling me no. Even if they told me I was medically disqualified. I could not accept it. I would not accept it. And I just looked at it as another obstacle to overcome.

[00:40:12] Interestingly enough, at this point, and I write about this in a book, I had made friends with astronauts at this point. I was working at the Johnson Space Center. They were all your neighbors. A lot of my neighbors, kids the same age. I got to know them at church or around the neighborhood or at work or wherever. And different places you run into them. And I got to know them. I was working with them. And what I found was is that a lot of them who were successfully accepted into the astronaut program also had issues, whatever, you know, with medical issues. Maybe not the eyesight but other things. And that I wasn't alone in. It was just another obstacle.

[00:40:42] And then all of a sudden it became different. It was like, okay, it's just another obstacle. I just have to figure out a way to do it. The way to do it was near impossible. I had to train my eyes to see better naturally without having any procedure, which was not easy to do. But there was methods. There was a book on it that I found that talked about it, that wrote about it. I found a doctor who had trained little kids. They do a lot of work with little kids to help them with their vision when they're little. And they're still growing.

[00:41:11] Doesn't usually work very well with adults. But she was willing to try. Dr. Hopping was willing to give it a try to help me. And it worked. I was able to get a better acuity reading on the eye chart. So finally then, you get accepted as an astronaut, which must have given you this huge, like, oh, I did it. I've got the astronaut suit. I've got the label. Right. All the patches. Yeah. The cool sunglasses. I've got the comma astronaut. Big watch. After my name.

[00:41:38] But, of course, there's the next thing, which is you have to get into space. Yeah. Which is, you know, there are many astronauts who don't ultimately get into space. You had to work hard for that. Yeah. You did get into space. You went on the Columbia. And then there's more disappointments to come. Obviously, after the next Columbia exploded, which, you know, was obviously must have been incredibly depressing and sad. And your friends were on the... Worst day of my life. Yeah. I'm sure that must have been horrible.

[00:42:07] And then it looked like maybe they would close the space shuttle program down or delay it. But still, the Hubble needed to be further fixed. And then you're in line for the next mission, finally, to get back to the Hubble. And you're not going to be... They tell you you weren't that great as a space walker. And so you might not be on the mission. You also say that's the lowest day. That was bad. I think four times in the book, if you search, you say it's the lowest day of your life. Really? Yeah. Something like that.

[00:42:37] The lowest day or some analogy of that. Probably right. You know, it goes to show that no matter how many achievements... Like, you had achieved your initial goal of going into space. But still, there's always the next. Yeah. You know, up to a certain point, I guess. Right. There's always something else to do. And there's always... I think there's always... There's always disappointment. There's always... If you're trying to do something, there's always going to be setbacks. No matter what. They're going to keep coming throughout life. But that's okay.

[00:43:06] You just got to keep going. So I agree. There's always the setbacks. But, A, when do you say, listen, I got into space. I have that for the rest of my life. I'm just going to... I'm not going into space anymore. I'm just going to stay home. Well, that's what happened to me. After the shuttle program, when the shuttle program was winding down, I called it that I had had enough. I felt satisfied after that. And I think that that's a very difficult decision to make.

[00:43:34] I think every astronaut at some level has wanted to do this job more than anything. I don't know of any astronauts who were like, ah, I just figured I'd become an astronaut for the heck of it. You know, I was either this or do something else. I mean, it's usually something that is very, very special and very much appreciated. And then it runs its course. It has its phase in life for you. And then it's time to do something else. That's what happened to me. I felt satisfied at a point that I'd had enough and it was time to try something else.

[00:44:03] You mentioned when you were a rookie astronaut and you used the phrase imposter syndrome. Like you felt like you didn't necessarily deserve to be out there with all these expert spacewalkers and pilots and commanders and so on. And do you think it's when the imposter syndrome finally wears off that you say, okay, I'm not an imposter. I did it. And now I'm going to go to the next thing where I might be an imposter. No, no, no. Do you feel an imposter as a professor at Columbia? Yeah. Don't tell them. I'm working there now. They'll get nervous.

[00:44:32] No, not as much, I guess. Like what is imposter syndrome? Like how do you get over it? I think it's, I think you get over it with age maybe. You know, I certainly feel that way any longer. I think it was more when I was younger. Particularly, I think at, you know, at MIT and even when I was applying to be an astronaut, I just looked around. I was like, I know these people are all great. I think I always have that feeling. I think even at Columbia, I look at some of my colleagues up there and like, wow, these guys are really smart. Certainly these men and women are terrific.

[00:45:01] But I think maybe by this point, I've gotten myself used to being kind of part of a team. And, you know, I think it's maybe become more comfortable with who I am maybe. I don't know. This is interesting. Do you charge of this therapy session here? Yeah. Well, you're making me think. Actually, it's really interesting. Your question is because you're making me think in ways of things that I haven't really thought before in any other interview, which is interesting. But I think part of it is that you kind of get accustomed to what you're, you know, what you can do and what you can't do.

[00:45:28] And I realized that there were certain things that I wasn't good at, but there were also things that I was good at. And I think the concept of being on a team, I think is, to me, is the way I make sense of it. And so, for example, on my space shuttle missions, you know, there were things that other people could do a lot better than I could. And if I tried to do what they were doing, I couldn't do it at that level. But there were other things that I could do pretty well that maybe I personally didn't think that they were as valuable because I was good at it.

[00:45:56] But that doesn't mean that they weren't valuable things to do. I think now at Columbia, you know, I realize that I'm not going to be able to go teach quantum physics like some of these really smart professors who are. But I can teach other things that, you know, I mean, through my experiences as an astronaut that no one else can teach, you know. And so I think it's getting used to who you are and feeling, for me, you know, being part of a team. Not that I have to do everything. I have to do everything. But I can contribute as part of a team. Well, this leads to the final two directions that I want to go because they're there.

[00:46:24] And one is you mentioned the three themes that you and your editor and co-writer thought about the book. And it seems like there's actually a fourth theme, which I'll get to in a second. But first, there's this element of, and you mentioned it was your favorite movie growing up, The Right Stuff, you know, based on the book by Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff. And I always get this impression, at least visually, that The Right Stuff means these kind of like tough and hardy men with like Western draws. Badasses.

[00:46:54] Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you really kind of change the meaning in the book. And you have this great line. You say, there are no jerks in space. Very few. Maybe that's true. So maybe it's changed slightly. But it does seem like a big part of what you've done is leverage your ability to work with a team, which is an ability. And that's what's really kind of propelled you from each level to the next is, you know, you mentioned in your lab at MIT specifically, three of those people in that lab became astronauts. Right.

[00:47:24] And so if you were just like hanging out in a bar, it's not like three of the people at the bar are going to become astronauts. So it's really this saying, you know, you're the average of the people you surround yourself with. And you surrounded yourself and forced yourself to be on a team with the best people you could be around who would also fit your dream that you wanted to accomplish. And that's a good point. And I remember one of my friends I talk about in the book, Kevin Kriegel. You know, this is this was not in the book, but I remember talking to him about it.

[00:47:53] I knew him before I became an astronaut. We met in Houston, but he's from Long Island where I grew up. And we became like instant friends when we met. And after I got accepted as an, you know, he would, he had been there. He'd been in the astronaut office years before I was and was a Air Force officer before test pilot and so on. But one of the things he said to me was that, you know, most of us are just, you know, when you get in here, most of us are kind of at the same level. You know, certain things we can do, certain things we can't. He says, there are some people that are way up there.

[00:48:21] You know, there are some people that are still, you know, and he gave the example of another guy I talk about in a book, Charlie Precourt. But, you know, Charlie Precourt is a little bit different, maybe. You know, he can speak many languages and he's a great pilot. He's really, he's kind of like a cut above, maybe. But the rest of us are pretty much all at the same level. We're kind of a part of this big bubble. And I think that that's kind of it. But when you're with a bunch of high achieving people, it's pretty good to be average of those types of people is, I think, is okay.

[00:48:49] But that's sort of the way it is. It's kind of, we're all, we're all, all have something we can do. We all can contribute, but it's the sum of us together, which is, which really makes it powerful. And the sum is something you have to actively work out at to be in that, to be involved in that equation. You know, the sum is an equation. So, so, so that's what I wonder. Like, so let's say I'm listening to this and I'm driving to work and I'm wondering, okay, well, how does this apply to me?

[00:49:16] How does somebody in their daily lives become the right stuff? Not necessarily an astronaut, but like just move a little further in that direction of what the right stuff is. For me, the right, the right stuff was, there's a certain, and when, you know, people ask me, what is it about? How do you become an astronaut? What was different when you got picked? And what are you looking for, for astronauts? How do I become an astronaut essentially? And you can look at the requirements, the, you know, the, there's medical requirements that we've, you know, that have changed since I was there.

[00:49:43] But, but there's also, you know, the education experience and so on. But there's a certain quality and that's what I think this right stuff is. And that quality is that, how do you feel about this person? Is this someone that you would trust with your life? Is this someone you would trust with your family's life? Does this person have this character where if you need their help, they're going to give it to you? And if they need help, they're going to come to you for it.

[00:50:06] And it's, it's a, it's sort of being, what I would say is being a really good person, a good man or a good woman. Someone that you can really trust. And that's the way I feel about my crewmates. I mean, I feel like I can share anything with them. So as opposed to like their physical prowess or mental prowess. Yeah, that doesn't matter. I mean, that all comes with it. You know, you've got to be physically fit to do the job. And people have different areas of fitness, you know, there's different levels. People have to be smart enough, bright enough to do the job.

[00:50:35] You need to have the right credentials. You need to have those things. But there's that certain element when you're interviewing people, for example, to be an astronaut. There's a certain element you're looking for. Is this person going to have my back? Is this a person I would want on my teammate? Is this someone that I want to share my life with more or less? Is this someone I can trust with my life? To me, that is the right stuff. Being able to work together to achieve this type of goal that we do in space flight.

[00:51:04] And it's interesting because you put yourself in many situations where you could demonstrate that you had the right stuff even before you were taking the astronaut exams. You became neighbors with the astronauts. Because you got the PhD on the robotic arms, you were working with them on robotic arm projects. Like you put yourself in lots of situations where you could consistently demonstrate, hey, we're on the same team together and working towards the same goals. Even if I'm not an astronaut yet. It's true. I mean, that was, I don't know if that was really planned, but it worked, you know, it worked that way.

[00:51:33] That what I was interested in working on human operator control of robot systems was something he did in the space program that I thought was really interesting. And as a result, when I started working in that, particularly when I went and worked in the space program after graduate school before becoming an astronaut, it naturally led to me working with astronauts. And I found that I really liked them. And I was down here in Houston and met a lot of them and I really liked them. These were the best people. Which just made things worse if I wouldn't have gotten selected. Because I would be around them. I remember going to some training sessions.

[00:52:02] Yeah, no, I just would be like, oh man, this is so great. But the more I found out about them, the more I liked. They were just the best people I've ever met. And I'm not saying that they were the fastest runners or the smartest people. I'm talking about the quality of human being I found with that group of people was the best people I've ever met. As an organization, and I'm biased, of course, but I think even objectively speaking, I realized, I felt as an organization, I thought about this when I first started meeting them and I saw the way they worked together.

[00:52:32] I felt as an organization of people, this is the best organization of people in the world. It's not just the astronauts, it's also the trainers, the instructors, the flight controllers. Let's call it that space team down at the Johnson Space Center, for example, or at the Goddard Space Flight Center. But let's make it small. Let's just deal with the astronaut office, okay? I'll put up that group of people against any group that we admire, whether it's a sports team, I don't know, Congress, if we admire them, or whatever you want to think of a great organization, a collection of very interesting people.

[00:53:02] Whatever it might be, I would hold that, the quality of the people that I got to work with, that group of people, I think is the best group of people. In the world. I don't think you can find a better group of just human beings in the world. They were just good people, very team-oriented, helpful, down to the core, good people. For me, it was so much of a privilege to be part of them.

[00:53:26] John Glenn, we lost him just a couple weeks ago here by the time this thing airs, right? But recently, we lost John Glenn, and I think he epitomized in our imaginations of what we would think the ultimate American hero would be. At least he did for me, and I think for a lot of people. And that, I think, was the kind of qualities that it wasn't just him. There were other people like that that I got to work with.

[00:53:52] He might have embodied him more than anyone else and been the most visible of any of the astronauts ever because of who he was and what he did and what he accomplished. But that type of character that he had, I think, embodied what we have and what we still have in the astronaut office. You know, and it sort of also brings me then to what I think is the fourth theme of your book, kind of the undercurrent of a lot of your career success,

[00:54:22] is not just that, oh, I fixed my eyes and I had that ability and I passed the test. Then I got better at spacewalking, and so I went on the second shuttle mission and on and on and on. And I think it became clear to me when you did the first tweet from outer space, you started building the social media following. Then NASA, realizing the audience you were getting, started putting you out on speaking events and the Big Bang Theory asked you on.

[00:54:48] Made me think, you know, obviously, you know, maybe I'm wrong, but you're not an actor, right? No. You did go on the Big Bang Theory. Right. And you thought you weren't the best spacewalker, but you walked in space twice. Four times, actually. Four times, which is more than like eight billion other people. And you fixed, you were on the team, you fixed the Hubble Space Telescope. You thought you weren't the smartest guy at MIT, but you got a PhD.

[00:55:18] You just said you're not the smartest person teaching at Columbia, but you're a professor at Columbia. So what happens is, is that you get pretty good at a lot of things, and they all are kind of working together. Like, if you're a pretty good astronaut who's pretty good at tweeting, suddenly you're the only guy that NASA is going to send on the speaking tour. Yeah.

[00:55:42] It's kind of these various combinations of things that really makes you kind of the best at that combination in the world. You know, that's what made you the guy. That's good at a book. I like it. That's what made you the one guy out of eight billion to fix the telescope. Yeah, that's interesting. You get to the list now, I guess, author, you know, writing a book. You know, it's not the greatest book ever, but it's good, and it's done well. It made a New York Times bestseller list, and that's pretty awesome, right? So we got that going on too. Look, 2.2 million books were published last year. Yeah.

[00:56:11] And, I don't know, 50 or 60. So we're very happy to be there. I think it's just maybe these combination of things. And I think that imposter syndrome is what forces you, tell me if I'm wrong, it forces you to try to get better at combinations of things. Well, maybe I won't be the best space walker, but I'm going to realize my place on the team and how to work together. So then the combination of the two makes you the guy to be the one to, you know, screw in the last screw.

[00:56:40] You might have something there. It might be the combination of things. A couple things you said were interesting. One is that it's relatively speaking, right? And I remember having a conversation one time in the office about how many flights people were going to get. And someone says, well, you know, maybe you get three or you can only get two. And then someone said, yeah, but that's pretty good when you consider everyone else in the world. You know what I mean? Like, oh, okay, I'm going to get two space flights or one or two. Who's going to get space? I was like, yeah, but that's because we're just in this room amongst us, right?

[00:57:08] So maybe you have more space flights than I do, and you have more time doing this than I do, and I have more than you over this. But let's look outside of the building right now into all the millions of people that are out there. You know, just in the city of Houston, we're doing pretty good compared to the rest of them space-wise. And so I think that's part of it. It's relative. When you're dealing with these groups that are specialized like that, you might not, you know, within that group, you might not be the best one. But compared to the rest of the world, you're doing pretty well. I think you're right.

[00:57:35] I talk about it in the book that I might not have been the best person for the job to fix Hubble because of my ability to spacewalk or to figure things out or whatever. But what was more important, I thought, for those missions, and I realized that after my final spacewalk and I write about it, is that I was the right person because I was the person that wasn't going to give up. And we talked about that earlier, not letting any obstacle get in your way.

[00:57:59] There were problems we had throughout that mission, particularly I write about this final spacewalk that I have where it seemed like all was lost. And I was going to go – I felt not that they would write it this way, but the astronomy books could point to me and say, we wouldn't know if there's life on other planets, but Mike broke the telescope. And that's the way I felt about it. But I didn't give up, and neither did the team around me, and we were able to work things out. It was very much a teamwork thing. It was. It was.

[00:58:23] Even though you were going back and forth with all the tools, and it was people – I forget if it was either down on the ground or in the ship who were kind of coming up with the idea of pulling the whole handrail off. And then there was also kind of the confidence boost that Drew gave you with the thumbs up. Right, my buddy. Right. So – So everyone pulled together, and those things I think are more important. There are MIT professors who applied to be astronauts who had me in their classroom and probably when I got selected were horrified because they're like, holy cow, how did I –

[00:58:51] So it's not always – the qualities for I think success is not always being the smartest or the best even at something, but certainly I think it's – in our game as astronauts, it's the ability to work with other people and maybe more importantly not to give up. And I think people discount that, but it's really important not to give up. And if you get disappointed, it doesn't mean you can't do the job. It just means that maybe you need a little extra work or maybe you were unlucky or maybe it wasn't your day. And you shouldn't give it all up.

[00:59:21] You should keep trying. And when I thought about this, even when I was in graduate school, I remember watching the television and there was a space shuttle flight was up. And I was working hard in grad school trying to get through MIT wanting to be an astronaut. I was already ejected once at this point. And I remember seeing that and those astronauts on television floating around doing this interview. And I thought to myself, that's what I want to do. That's what I want to do. And then the thought that followed it was, but you're never going to get a chance to do that.

[00:59:50] You'll never do that. Because I knew it was, I thought, close to impossible. But it really wasn't impossible. It was just improbable. And the probability might have been really low. Like you said, 0.01. It probably was more like 0.000. Lots of zeros and a one at the end. But there's that one out there. And sometimes I think about that, that when you're trying to do something that's near impossible, it really isn't impossible. There's always a chance that it might happen, right? We find out about that in a lot of different areas. That we think this can't happen and that can't happen, and it does.

[01:00:20] Because there's always a possibility. And the only way the possibility turns to really, truly be zero, where there's no one at the end that says zero, is if you give up. If you don't give up, you still have a chance. In order to not give up, you have to kind of, A, get better at the obstacle. B, build other skill sets to kind of work with the initial skill set that you might not be the best at. Right. And then just persistence, building the team, being around the good people. Figure out what works for you. And keep trying.

[01:00:50] And just don't surrender. So, you know, now that, obviously, the American space program has almost kind of inverted in on itself since you were there. Do you think the rise of private companies, but let's just use SpaceX as an example. Do you think this will kind of create a new era in space exploration and many more opportunities for manned spacecraft to go out there? I really think so.

[01:01:14] I think our space program is going to be kind of, I wouldn't say two directions, but two themes and hopefully in the same direction. And one is that we still have the NASA program going on. People, you know, kids can still grow up to be NASA astronauts, working for governments, in other words. So you have the Russian space program with their cosmonauts and countries of Europe and China has astronauts and Japan and Canada and all these different countries. I guess Russia and China now have two still manned space programs, right?

[01:01:42] Unfortunately, we're not working with China. It's kind of on its own doing its thing. But we certainly work very closely with the Russians on the International Space Station. The United States, Russia, the countries of Europe and the European Space Agency, Japan and Canada all participate, work together very closely on the International Space Station program. So I think that is something that's going to be, the International Space Station is going to be going on for a while.

[01:02:05] Well, we're building, NASA is building a big rocket called the Space Launch System to take astronauts below and low Earth orbit and a spacecraft to go on the top of that called Orion. They're also working with SpaceX and with Boeing to build a crew vehicle. It's called the Commercial Crew Program where astronauts will be flying on these vehicles that are a little bit of a different model of the traditional NASA paying a government contractor to build something. These companies also have more skin in the game. They want to use it for commercial purposes.

[01:02:34] But they're working with NASA to send astronauts to the International Space Station. That program's done very well. But that's kind of like our traditional sort of, let's plump that as sort of your traditional astronaut going into space in the John Glenn, Neil Armstrong kind of genesis, right?

[01:02:49] I think the newer thing is now what we maybe can say is, you know, if you had like military flying an aircraft and then we have commercial aircraft, you know, maybe we can look at the same way in the future, hopefully in the near future, where we're going to have these private companies flying, paying citizens or scientists. That's how I'm going into space. That's where I'm going back. So that's my, that's my, I'm going to try to get a job as a flight attendant if I can.

[01:03:14] I don't have to necessarily pay this big money, but I would like, I do think I will, I want to go back to space again. I'll take those blue chips if you're the, you're the flight attendant. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, what would you like? I will serve you your drinks and refreshments. You got it. Yeah, I don't know if you want to do that. We'll have to talk about it. Wait, let's just, that might not be the best thing when you first get there. That's a good point.

[01:03:45] I'm not going to be the best thing. I'm not going to be the best thing. I'm not going to be the best thing. Like you mentioned SpaceX, Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos' company, and another big player is Virgin Galactic with Richard Branson. And there are others. Have you ever thought about like consulting to any of those companies? They don't want my help. No, I have. You know, I'm very happy what I'm doing at Columbia. If I get asked questions, I answer. But they have a lot of my colleagues working at each one of those places. So they're pretty well covered. I'm happy with what I'm doing. I thought about maybe trying to join one of those companies.

[01:04:13] And I'm more, more, I'm happier, I think, than I would be doing that, doing what I'm doing at Columbia. But I think that's great what they're doing. And I hope to maybe work with them more in the future. And that would be great if I could help. And I would love to go on one of those spaceships someday. So I think we kind of have these two things going. And I think there is some overlap there. I think it's very exciting that we still have a government program with the International Space Station and hopefully beyond. That is doing well. Maybe we'd like to be doing more, but it's doing pretty well.

[01:04:41] And I think the new exciting thing are these private companies. I think it's these two things going on that we need to keep an eye on coming up in the immediate future and for a long time. Well, Mike Massimino, did I say it? Massimino for Pete's sake. Massimino, I can't. I'm so bad at that. That's right. Just why they call me Mass. Just call me Mass. Mass. I've been calling Mass. I talk about it in the books since I was a little kid. And it's because of that name. So it's tough. I was thinking of calling you that, but I figured that was your astronaut call sign.

[01:05:10] No, it's my name because I was a little kid. No, yeah, no. It's my everyone. Feel free to call me that. So not only author of Spaceman, An Astronaut's Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe, but a frequent co-star on the Big Bang Theory. And, of course, you fixed the Hubble Space Telescope and flew into space a couple of times and Professor of Columbia and all sorts of other things. Thanks so much for coming on my podcast. The book was excellent. I really do think you say you always are self-deprecating.

[01:05:39] You say, maybe I'm not much of an author, but it's a great book to read. I highly encourage people reading it. And thanks so much for coming on. Well, thanks for having me. It's been a very interesting conversation this morning, and I appreciate you having me. Thank you. Thanks. Hello, and welcome to Pluto Phone.

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