The Secret to Overcoming Impossible Odds | Mike Massimino

[00:00:07] Always so great to talk to my favorite astronaut, Mike Massimino. He has a new book called Moonshot. This guy has been through so much stuff. He is a case study on achieving your dreams. Again, his book is Moonshot and he's an astronaut. So such an interesting conversation.

[00:00:25] Here's Mike. This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is the James Altucher Show. I appreciate so much you coming on the podcast again. I appreciate you having me back on. It's just good to see you. Thank you. And great book.

[00:00:54] I really enjoyed it. This was different from your earlier book that we spoke about, which is more like autobiography and this is more what you learn from all these different experiences. And there's a little bit of overlap, which I want to talk about, but you know, this

[00:01:06] book Moonshot, it's very interesting. The idea that, you know, it's almost like you personally have like leaned into the things that are most difficult and impossible. Like there was one story in the beginning that had a lot of impact on me, which was you

[00:01:21] talked about the guy who applied for the astronaut program and they said no, and he didn't want to apply again because if he had, ah, they'll just reject me. And you got accepted like on your fourth or fifth time applying and you went through all this stuff.

[00:01:35] So I wanted it was interesting though how like that almost inspired you, the fact that that guy wasn't going to apply again and explain that. Yeah. And I appreciate you, you're bringing up that story and what it was is that I had been rejected at this point.

[00:01:52] It was my third time. I was medically disqualified on top of it. That when I might, so I got rejected outright twice. And then my third time I got an interview, but then I was medically disqualified

[00:02:02] through the revision issue that I was trying to clear up because I didn't want to give up. And the time it didn't seem hopeful. I took a job at Georgia Tech after that third rejection.

[00:02:12] I was still going to keep trying, but moved to Atlanta and there was a guy at Georgia Tech when I arrived, another young professor there who had interviewed and did not get accepted. And I reached out to him.

[00:02:25] He invited me over for a barbecue with my family and I asked him during that afternoon that we were together. Are you thinking of going to try again? And he just looked at me and said, no, I don't think I am.

[00:02:37] And I was shocked as this guy had it all together, man. He was really smart. He was able to talk to me, flip burgers and supervise his kids at the same time. So he was a multitasker. James, I thought this guy was really good.

[00:02:48] And I was like, wow, they're not going to pick him. If they don't pick him, they're never going to pick me is my reaction to all that was getting to know him. And then when he said, you know, he's not going to apply again.

[00:02:57] And I said, why not? And he said, as you said, well, they just they turned me down before. I just figured a little turn me down again. And I hate to tell you, James, I gave him no encouragement.

[00:03:07] I know usually I would say, oh, you can do it. But I just was and I just didn't say one thing or another. And it just like kind of shook me that someone would give up that dream.

[00:03:16] But I think what I hope what it showed for his case was that maybe it's not for everybody. And I'm sure he had a great career as a professor. But from my perspective, I couldn't imagine trying once getting told no and giving up.

[00:03:32] I wonder if that suggests that there's almost two types of success. There's kind of the normal path where if you like get a grades in college, get do a good PhD thesis, get published in a lot of places. Then you'll get a good job as an academic.

[00:03:50] You raise fund for your projects, you know, money for your projects and stuff. So now you get tenure. And that's like kind of I don't want to say a normal path because there's you could be a lawyer or also or a doctor.

[00:04:00] But but that there's like a formula where if you kind of just check these boxes, you're going to do well. And then the other type of success is OK, I want to be an astronaut, which the first reaction everyone's going to have is you're insane.

[00:04:13] And and then you say no, no, and I'm afraid of heights and my eyes are bad. Yeah. Now you're really insane. Yeah. And then you just you just push it, which means you do everything you did.

[00:04:26] Like you get to know all the people you move to the neighborhood where all the astronauts live, you you do all these weird exercises to improve your vision for the vision test. Like and then, you know, somehow or other, there must be math to this.

[00:04:41] Like the odds eventually flip to your side. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of truth to that. Where you know, and the first the first chapter in a book when I talk about this is it's one in a million is not zero.

[00:04:52] And that you you know, you're you're up against it. It's very unlikely, but it's interesting the way you put it. There, James, is that as you continue to do things to hopefully improve your chances to get closer to that goal,

[00:05:05] the odds start to tip in your favor or at least get better. So I think that's that's definitely true. And the odds also get better when other people drop out like in the case of that other guy. So yeah, but it's just I think it's it's having

[00:05:19] in my case, having a passion for something that totally overmatched anything else that I was interested in. It was the space program to me as a from as a little kid. Was what I was interested in and it still remains that for whatever reason,

[00:05:36] whether it was what I was watching the alarm shone on the moon at age six. Whatever happened to me happened to me and it was it was there in my heart and my soul and I couldn't give it up.

[00:05:45] And so the thought of not at least trying and I went in with with full knowledge that this was nearly impossible and probably was not going to work out. And it was a bit of a miracle that it did.

[00:05:58] But you give yourself a chance by trying and not giving up and doing what you can to try to improve your chances and keeping that goal in mind, fully realizing that it may not ever happen.

[00:06:10] But I felt like I would be OK if it never happened as long as I kept trying. But if I didn't try, if I didn't just keep trying and I gave up, then I don't think I would be happy with myself.

[00:06:22] Well, how I mean this leads to a bunch of questions. But how much more would let's say that last time when you did get accepted? Let's say you had failed. So let me get me even make it more specific.

[00:06:35] You ought to take the exam twice because it was three weeks apart. And so they just by whatever rule they needed to do it twice. You passed the first time and then you passed the second time. But let's say you did not pass the second time.

[00:06:49] It was that close that you just between the yes and the no of you becoming in the astronaut program. Would you have tried again? Oh, yeah. There's no doubt in my mind. How would it just kept trying?

[00:07:02] I felt like it as it turned out, I was kind of on the young side. You know, I was I was 33 when I showed up for work almost 34. And the average age of at the time of selection for astronauts, it's typically late 30s or so.

[00:07:16] So I probably had a couple more selections where I would have been competitive. As you get older, you're not you're not ever ruled out for age. It just gets, you know, as you get older, it seems less likely maybe,

[00:07:27] but not not because of your age, but you know, your health and so on things. They start finding things, I think. But but no, there's no doubt in my mind. I keep I would keep trying to this day. I would never have not tried.

[00:07:39] So, you know, I wonder part of it is so the very first time you tried, you knew what the odds were. It's one in a million. Yeah, but let's fast forward to when you got accepted.

[00:07:50] At that point, I mean, I lost count of the number of people who are astronauts or involved in the space program who were saying to you, don't worry, Mike, you know, you got it and like they were encouraging you.

[00:08:03] But what was interesting to me is not that they were encouraging you. Is that you even knew them? Yeah. When you first applied, you didn't know anybody, of course. But now you were like almost like part of the community. Yeah. They were your buddies.

[00:08:16] So that increases the odds a lot. And what it makes me think is that the act of applying increases your chances because you have to become a better person. You yourself have to improve. It's not the same person each time was applying.

[00:08:30] You yourself had to improve, not just physically with the eyesight, but your mentality, your knowledge. You got a PhD in between failures of applying like, you know, you became a better person in every way to in order to not necessarily improve

[00:08:45] your chances directly, but just the process of applying over and over again forced you to become a better version of yourself. This is good, James. I wish I knew you back then. You've been very encouraging, but you're right. I mean, I kind of looked at what I had.

[00:08:59] I took more or less stock of what I had after college and I was working. When I decided I wanted to try to do this and I realized, for example, an advanced degree was going to be necessary for me.

[00:09:09] I was a civilian. I wasn't going to join the military yet. You know, I'm so much respect for all of my colleagues and all the people serving in the military, but I just didn't feel like that was the right way for me to go.

[00:09:19] I took the academic route and the engineering route and thought for that I needed at least an advanced degree of masters and most likely a PhD. So I pursued that and that made me a better candidate.

[00:09:29] And then I thought in my case, I thought going to the Johnson Space Center is something I wanted to do anyway. I wanted to work in the space program down there where mission control centers where the astronauts are, where they train.

[00:09:41] I wanted to be a part of that first hand, even if that was only there for three years and I went to Georgia Tech as the way it turned out. So for me, it was I wanted to get that experience

[00:09:50] after grad school down there anyway, and it also gave me the opportunity to meet people. So I got to meet them around in my neighborhood. You know, I met Kevin Kregel going to the local church and he was actually

[00:10:02] I met him first giving a talk at University of Houston. He was taking a class. Kevin was an astronaut who was very encouraging to me. I got to meet him. He was having to be from Long Island and serendipity takes place here.

[00:10:13] Once you put yourself out there and you get in that area, you know, where at MIT even, I, you know, there was so many people that wanted to be an astronaut up there. Two guys from my lab, which was a small lab.

[00:10:24] We only had about eight or nine people in the lab at any one time. But two of my lab mates also became astronauts. My friend Greg Shametoff was a very good friend of mine at MIT. I just saw him last weekend.

[00:10:36] We were up, we're up at a, our kids go to the same college, which is amazing. So I saw him there reconnected with them and he was also my friend. So you kind of go to these places where it's not wacky anymore.

[00:10:48] If I would have stayed in New York kind of working at IBM where I was, there was no one else that I knew trying to be an astronaut there. But up at MIT, there were a lot of people wanting to be astronauts.

[00:10:57] And then when I got to Houston, there were astronauts there. And I felt like that experience was going to help me. And let me, let me go a little further maybe when I really think about it. Sure.

[00:11:07] What I felt like was that if they got to know me, they would like me. And I, you know, just because I felt and what I found interesting is because I had such a passion for the space program.

[00:11:17] And what I found interesting is that the more of the astronauts that I met, the more of flight directors or people involved with the space program, I really liked these people. And I really felt like I fit in with them. And I understood what their job was.

[00:11:32] It was more than just flying in space. It was, it was the engineering part of it. It was the long hours. It was helping other people fly in space was most of the, you only spend a few days really, even if they're for, you know,

[00:11:43] NASA for a very long time and you have long duration place, like my friend Peggy Whitson has over 650 days in space. She's the American record holder, but she was there for 20 years. So, you know, that's the most of your time is going to be spent

[00:11:54] on the ground helping others go to space. And you need that passion. And I think getting to know these folks made me feel like I could be, I could be part of this. I fit in well. I think the concept of teamwork and taking care of each other

[00:12:07] and just their personalities, they were fun people. They were kind of doing good people. And I wanted to be like them. And I felt like in my best days, I was. And if they got to know me, that they might feel the same way. And they did.

[00:12:21] And so I felt like for me, it was a smart move to try to get to meet them. And get to know as many as I could. And that would help me. That's what I felt. But do it in a way not like you're trying to force yourself

[00:12:37] to become friends with people, but do it on a professional level working with them and then they get to know you. And they're like, yeah, they were very supportive. So I don't think I realized all this at the time, James. You're bringing, this is great, man.

[00:12:49] You're bringing this all out. You're awesome. Well, I actually refer to your story often when I'm giving talks where because like there's one thing you mentioned, well, you just mentioned it and you talk about this story in your first book where these two members in your class

[00:13:06] and at MIT also became astronauts. We also know it's a one in a million chance to become an astronaut. So so it's a perfect example of the cliche of, oh, you're the average of the five people you spend your time with.

[00:13:18] So I always say in a talk, if Mike spent all of his time in a bar, probably there would be no one who would be an astronaut from hanging out in the bar. But you were spending your time in this MIT class on robotics in Mars

[00:13:33] and, you know, three people from the class became astronauts. Yeah, that's three people from my lab. And that was the way you're absolutely right, James. And I think it's like if you want to surround yourself with a community of like-minded people, maybe is that a good way

[00:13:47] of saying it? Maybe. Yeah. People. And like if you want to be an actor, maybe you go to Hollywood or you go to Broadway and you hang around with other struggling actors and you figure out how do we do this? And you exchange ideas.

[00:13:59] And MIT was like, was if you want it, it's like going to Hollywood to be an actor, you go there not to be an actor. You go there to be an astronaut or to be a scientist or a Nobel Prize winner or whatever you have in mind.

[00:14:10] That's a good place to go as are many other schools. MIT is not the only one. I know it happened to be the place where I was fortunate enough to get into. But it was not a nutty idea to become an astronaut.

[00:14:19] There's a lot of people that became astronauts. I went to MIT, even a lot of military people went to grad school at MIT. There was one guy named Richard Batten, Dick Batten taught astrodynamics when I was there at MIT. This guy, the 12 people walked in the moon.

[00:14:34] He had five of the moonwalkers in his class. OK, that's five moonwalkers, including Buzz Aldrin and Dave Scott, Charlie Duke, all these guys were in his class. Five of the 12 guys that walked on the moon took his class in MIT.

[00:14:46] So not to say that is the I don't know if that's the best place, but it was certainly a good place for me to go to not only get an education, but to be part of that community.

[00:14:57] And there were people, you know, there are astronauts coming to visit there that I met along the way and people who went on to become astronauts from MIT and I happened to end up getting into that category too. So yeah, what you're saying, you know, that's really good.

[00:15:11] Surround yourself, surround yourself with the community of like-minded people. And that was very helpful for me. Yeah, but it's not just like-minded because you're all working on yourself. Like, and there's a lot of stories in this book about people who even when

[00:15:26] they're like nine tenths or 99 percent of the way there, they still needed to like almost keep carving their faults and traits to not perfection, but for excellence. So you mentioned that I actually don't mention this person's name,

[00:15:56] but someone who already was an astronaut, I guess, who had was flying up a plane and skidded off the runway, but didn't tell anybody. Right. And they found out the next day because they could see the rocks and the tracks and stuff.

[00:16:09] And he was, and because he didn't tell anybody, he never went in space again. I guess he was a little embarrassed about it. Like what happened? The point of all that in this particular case, and this, you know,

[00:16:21] I don't mention the guy's name, it was more like it happened, but it was kind of a cautionary tale of what not to do. And we had a culture there at NASA where if you make a mistake

[00:16:33] and yet what we call a close call, close calls could happen where, oh, man, this happened and I lived through it. Let me let me share that. So the next person who encounters this problem can learn from it.

[00:16:48] And there was no there was no shame in doing that, in admitting that we had. OK, I mentioned there was one case where an astronaut was ended up getting a little little hasty with lifting the gear on a touch and go in this, the plane settled

[00:17:02] bit down to the runway impact hit the runway at high speed with the airplane. Russell, the number control and able to take off. And he came with a full confession and was totally forgiven. Because he was a very respected person.

[00:17:15] We had our head of flight operations one time. One of our very experienced pilots took out a landing light on a runway coming in a little bit too low on a runway. And like, if this could happen to this guy, you know, let's you hear these

[00:17:29] you hear these lessons and you take them in and, you know, the forgiveness is there because it can happen to anybody. You know, things happen and in this one particular case, though, it wasn't reported when you ran off the runway and then he put

[00:17:42] the next pilot who flew that airplane at risk by not telling people that, you know, they would have done a full gear inspection. Right, because there could be many reasons why it could have been personal fault or it could have been the equipment.

[00:17:55] We don't know. Yeah, but things happen. I mean, you know, whatever it was, I think it was at night time and there was, you know, sometimes a taxiway looks like a runway and a runway looks like a taxiway.

[00:18:05] And who knows what the conditions were, but it doesn't mean that it's, you know, something, something that to be ashamed of it, you might be embarrassed, but you got to come clean with what happened. You might get a new nickname out of it.

[00:18:18] But the worst thing you could do is hide it and then put someone else at risk. And then you were considered to be a person that couldn't be trusted. And so the part of our culture was is that when you make a mistake

[00:18:31] as embarrassing as it is, you need to tell people about it, especially when you can put someone else in jeopardy. Why do you think he didn't learn from the culture about this? I mean, he probably did learn it, but maybe in this one case,

[00:18:45] just whatever, he didn't feel comfortable reporting it for some reason. I don't know. I can't get in the guy's head. I don't know. And I never talked about it to him, right? But I think what it is and I don't know, this is what my thinking is,

[00:19:00] is that when you're thinking about others, when you're thinking about the team, it's a bit different than thinking about your own butt, right? So and I'm not saying this is what this guy did, but I always felt like when I made a mistake,

[00:19:18] my mistake might be bad enough that, you know, they'll say, you're not meant to be an astronaut. But what I tried to think of at that point, when I when I encountered something that didn't work or some mistake I made,

[00:19:30] that it was important for me for the sake of the team to come forward with it, because maybe what happened to me can happen to somebody else. And if they learn about it, it won't happen to them. And therefore, the team is better off.

[00:19:43] If you only worried about yourself and your own rear end, then you're going to say, I'm not going to say because I don't want to look bad. But if you think of it as that we're on a mission together and we're we're trying to help each other

[00:19:56] and people can learn from my mistakes and the overall group is going to be better off learning from my mistake and safer. I mean, in this case where, you know, you did something not only that's embarrassing, but but something that could put someone else at risk.

[00:20:08] You know, you have to come forward no matter how painful it is and how embarrassing it is and people are going to respect you for it. That was the thing that I that the culture we had is that you

[00:20:17] when you came forward like that, that's not an easy thing to admit. You know, when when something bad happens or something you do something dumb, but it happens and when you come forward with it usually leads to people

[00:20:29] saying, OK, you know, that that took some guts to do that. Thank you. So it seems like almost there are two, maybe three benefits of this policy of encouraging people to to come forward. One is the very first level thing, which is OK,

[00:20:43] if there's a problem with the equipment, say something so we can check it out. And maybe you're saving a life. The other thing, which is a little bit more subtle, is that it makes you personally comfortable with admitting your faults.

[00:20:57] So taking that idea when you were fixing the Hubble telescope and something went wrong rather than right there in space in the middle of fixing the Hubble telescope, you would you instead of just berating yourself and being embarrassed because the entire planet is looking at you, you know,

[00:21:17] making a fool of yourself at the Hubble telescope, you're able to get right into, you know, mode. Something went wrong. Now it's time to fix it. So maybe that process itself of not being ashamed allowed you to move forward very quickly when something really was critical.

[00:21:33] Yeah, no, absolutely. And in that case for me, James, when you're bringing me back to those moments when I made this mistake on the Hubble, I stripped the bolt and and it put the repair of this science instrument at risk.

[00:21:46] And this instrument was able to analyze the atmospheres of far planets. And we were trying to bring it back to life as a very complicated spacewalk. And I go and make this bonehead move during the spacewalk of stripping the screw.

[00:22:00] I remember thinking that this was a this was a bad mistake. But the Hubble and the science that they could that could come from it was so much more important than my feelings. I mean, it wasn't that I was putting myself in

[00:22:13] I'm going to sacrifice my life or get hurt for this. It was just, you know, I might my ego would take a shot, maybe. And but, you know, it was that goal of the telescope of fixing the telescope was much more important than anything

[00:22:28] that was going on in my head. And I remember even thinking like stuff I had to do is a little sporty to climb, you know, go into different areas of the space shuttle that I wasn't used to translating in and was going to be a little

[00:22:39] on now because I got myself into this issue. I had to go to toolboxes and other places that were kind of hidden away in different places of not hidden but an unusual places that I wasn't used to going to. And I was like, I don't know about this.

[00:22:52] I was like, that doesn't matter. You know, my my hesitancy right now, anything that's in my head is not as important as getting the job done today. And whatever, whatever I had to I had to keep that in mind.

[00:23:05] And when you have that in mind and when the mission, the team is more important than your own personal feelings, I think that that's that's good. That's that's the organization want to be a part of. Well, well, and you have a great kind of rule, you call it

[00:23:20] thirty second rule for dealing with these kind of moments. Like I think everybody like I know myself if something goes wrong in my life, I tend to berate myself and negative self-talk is a very easy habit to fall into.

[00:23:32] And on the one hand, you can take an extreme never have negative self-talk. But I think with your thirty second rule, which you can describe, it kind of allows for some and then you move on. Right. Yeah, no, it's it was learned,

[00:23:45] taught to me by my friend, crewmate, Megan MacArthur, who learned it from CJ Sturkow. And I immediately spoke to him about about what he what what his interpretation of his of his own advice was. And so the thirty second rule is when you make a mistake,

[00:24:00] it's OK to be mad and disappointed and, you know, irritated with yourself. But you got to cap it. So give yourself 30 seconds of regret. CJ used to say 30 seconds of remorse where you feel bad. You can berate yourself, call yourself every name in the book.

[00:24:19] Just, you know, don't don't vocalize this because you'll scare people if they hear you cursing yourself out. But give yourself that thirty second set a mental timer for thirty seconds and be remorseful, be disappointed, be regretful.

[00:24:32] But then it's got to end and you have to let that mistake pass. And we used to say in the astronaut office is that you're going to make mistakes, let them pass. But I like this thirty second of regret better

[00:24:44] because it gives me a chance to beat myself up. It just caps it at 30 seconds and then I can move on. And that you have to do because your team needs you. You can't wallow in the misery while you're trying to accomplish something

[00:24:56] when you when you make a mistake. It's OK to be mad. It's OK to be disappointed with yourself thirty seconds and then move on. And, you know, it's interesting how here you were at some point achieving goal after goal for yourself, like get in the space program,

[00:25:12] become an astronaut, go into space, go on a spacewalk. You know, when you're achieving all of these these goals and this is after achieving like a PhD, which is normally like a big life goal for people. And there's a story in the book that reminds me

[00:25:26] that kind of this this process of improvement and excellence never ends. And it's the conversation between Alan Bean and Pete Conrad that you describe. And I just thought that was a great conversation because it shows how you're not at the end goal

[00:25:41] just because you got in the space program like Alan Bean had he had to step up and keep improving. And that's in part because of this conversation. He was the last person in his class to go into space. You know, it was interesting.

[00:25:55] Yeah, I think it was a reminder that and I sometimes speak about this in my in the talks that I give that the the you mentioned all the goals, the PhD becoming an astronaut, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. But all that stuff took perseverance.

[00:26:11] Let's say you know, finishing the PhD and becoming an astronaut. That was those are two big things right getting picked. And when I remember when I showed up at work, all of us had had a path to get there that was filled with

[00:26:23] obstacles and hard work and good fortune to at times. No things working out, but you still hadn't done anything. And when you get that that position, when you reach that goal, now you're in a position, I think, to put it to good use.

[00:26:38] And if all of a sudden you change your attitude about things and say, all right, you know, I'm an astronaut now, I don't need to work hard anymore. And, you know, let all the let all the accolades come, you know, that's the kiss of death.

[00:26:49] As soon as you feel entitled to anything or you lose your your passion or your willingness to sacrifice, all the things that got you to that great position, that is what's going to be required to be successful moving forward.

[00:27:06] And as mad as I was at myself for messing up on that space walk, when I look back at it now, you know, it all turned out OK. You know, the ground came through and we were able to fix the instrument and working together.

[00:27:18] They came up with a solution. But what helped me through that was not that I was the best space walker or engineer, but that I wasn't going to give that up. Just like I wasn't going to give up my dream to become an astronaut

[00:27:29] or my PhD when I failed my qualifier or any of these other things that happened. I wasn't about to give up on that space walk. It was just unthinkable. And so I think that that's a characteristic that can be very, very helpful.

[00:27:40] And I think once you slip into the thought that I don't have to work that hard or, you know, this is easy now. Or that's where I think you got to question your thought process and maybe rethink what you're doing, because that's that's

[00:27:53] where I think you're susceptible to not doing a good job and not being successful. So it's interesting then because do you ever think or did you ever think when so you left the space program in 2014 and you had a path for yourself like you became Columbia professor.

[00:28:07] You've we'll talk about some of these other things in a little bit. But did you ever think, OK, well, my the best part of my life is done. The peak performance of my career and life, my lifespan on this planet is over. Yes. No, I think it was.

[00:28:25] I remember here in Michael Collins, the Apollo 11 command module pilot. And I remember he was saying not that your life is over, but he said a very interesting I've heard him say it a few times that he realized

[00:28:38] that the most interesting job he was ever going to have in his life. He had when he was in his thirties, you know, when he went to the moon, right? He was probably in it. I don't know how old he was when he went to the moon.

[00:28:48] Neil Armstrong, I know was 38. So he's Michael was probably Michael's father around that age. He's gone now, unfortunately, past a couple of years ago. But a great guy, one of my childhood idols. So I got to meet just a wonderful guy, very humble.

[00:29:00] And I remember him saying that before I was an astronaut. I first heard him say it. And I think that that's that's OK. If you can have a job like an astronaut like being. And I talk about that in the book too, like it sort of defines

[00:29:13] you in certain ways that this was a wonderful job. And it may not I may not be able to top it, but I think that that's OK. But now being 10 years away from it. So I did think that, you know, I'll never match this and so on.

[00:29:26] But what I did find in my years, it's been now nine years since I left NASA nearly 10 now. I felt like I feel now that I kind of had have found something with my teaching and the writing of the book and speaking

[00:29:42] and television appearances and other things that still allows me to be part of the space program. And I find it very fulfilling and in some ways, a lot less stressful. And it's not as dangerous, hopefully, James. So there are, you know, there are some advantages to it.

[00:29:58] But I think that it's when you have a great job like I had. And we're talking about stuff I learned back in my astronaut days. And remember meeting Charlie Duke, who is one of the moonwalkers, one of the 12 that walked on the moon.

[00:30:11] And we, he and I have become friends. And he came up to Columbia to speak to my students. And I spent a couple of days with him. It was great. And as we're walking around campus, you know, I realized that every conversation everyone was having with him

[00:30:21] and every talk he gave was about a couple of days he spent on the moon in his life. The man's in his 80s. So I said, you know, Charlie, everything you talk about is. You know, you ever wonder about that? And he goes, no, that's OK, Mike.

[00:30:31] You know, that's that's how significant those days were that not only days that you live in the moment, but that you can kind of relive and you take that experience with you and you share it. And so in some ways that might be even a bigger contribution

[00:30:44] than actually doing that, that task. So yeah, I did have to, particularly when I first left, I think you know, when you I think when you go through any major decision in life, like my decision to leave NASA is always going to be a little bit of regret.

[00:30:57] And you know, like you can't I don't think you can make a major decision in life without, oh, you know, I went this way. What happens are went that way. And I kind of felt that way about it.

[00:31:05] I think pretty soon after I left NASA and was adjusting to my new life, I think those thoughts that those thoughts did go through my mind. Like, oh, man, I'll never be able to match that. But now being this far away from it,

[00:31:18] I'm really happy with what I'm doing. So I think that that's something to keep in mind, too, is that everything has a phase in life. Alan Bean, who is one of my mentors, we've mentioned him already a couple of times,

[00:31:28] he gave me a very good advice at different times in my life. And and one of her was his look at life as a series of phases. And you go from one phase to the next. And it doesn't mean that one is necessarily better or worse.

[00:31:40] They're just different and they're all good. And he went on in his career after being a moonwalker and then being on Skylab for a long duration flight. He went on to dedicate his life to painting and he became a very successful artist.

[00:31:53] So I looked at it that way, that it's a when you have a great career, be thankful for it. You know, don't say you could always I could have done more. I should have stayed in longer. Maybe I could have done this or that.

[00:32:03] But I think just be really grateful for that phase and when it's time to move on, recognize it and move on to that next phase and embrace it. And what you what you did will always be with you and can always be a part of that next phase,

[00:32:15] if it was that significant. And I feel like that's the way it was in my case. And you know, also, like you mentioned earlier, as you age, there's physical limitations to being an astronaut and doing some of the things you did.

[00:32:26] Yeah. So you lose some things, but you gain some things like you have the experience of doing what you did. So now you're taking that experience and either writing books or teaching or perhaps mentoring future astronauts. Or, you know, these are it's it's valuable to take the skills

[00:32:42] you've accumulated from that exciting career. There's this book from strength to strength, which talks about this a little bit by Arthur Brooks, where you can't always be an athlete. Yeah. Sometimes you have to coach athletes as you get older. So it's interesting.

[00:32:59] A lot of the people you describe like like Charlie Duke and Ali Allen beam here did that as well. Like sort of took on these more teaching or mentoring kind of roles or artistic sort of roles based on their experience.

[00:33:27] There was a conversation I had again when I was a student in grad school, it was with a guy at NASA headquarters is very, very experienced. I can't remember exactly who it was, but he told me I saw about being an astronaut.

[00:33:37] He said, you know, being an astronaut isn't necessarily an end. It's a means to an end that it gives you an opportunity to do great things with. And that's really what the job is. The job is great while you're doing it,

[00:33:48] but it gives you such great experience and being again, and from writing the book, for example, is based on all the stuff I learned from NASA, all these things about teamwork and leadership and not giving up and pursuing goals

[00:34:02] and reaching out when you need help and so on. These were things that I learned as an astronaut. And so it wasn't just the job itself that was fulfilling and exciting in a very special time in my life. It was also lessons learned and experiences

[00:34:19] that will hopefully help other people. I think we don't always think of that when we get to do we get to do something really cool in life. That's great. Now, what are you going to do with that opportunity that you were given

[00:34:30] and it can manifest itself in different ways? It doesn't always end well. You know, when I was leaving the when I was leaving the astronaut office, I looked at a lot of examples of people who left the astronaut office

[00:34:41] and it doesn't always go well, but it does oftentimes go really well where people are able to have a next career that is very exciting. And we can think of examples of people that went from career to career to career that we know that we've heard of

[00:34:55] that you can say, wow, that's pretty cool. He went from this to this to this. And I think that's OK. You know, it's all right to go to that next phase and realize that it may not be as exciting.

[00:35:05] Maybe you might not think it is, but it could be just as good and that experience that you had that was so meaningful is what set you up for that next phase. Well, what's an example where it didn't go so well for someone?

[00:35:16] In some examples I got from especially some of the older guys, you know, they would say that, you know, there were certain examples of an astronaut who left NASA and felt entitled where, you know, hey, I've done this or that and now the goodies should come my way.

[00:35:33] And they wouldn't ever be happy because they felt no matter what they got, what didn't live up to what they sacrificed as an astronaut. Jim Lovell gave me a piece of advice. That advice came from Alan Bean about never feeling entitled.

[00:35:49] That was he said, whatever you do, Mike, never feel like anybody owes you anything for what you did. You know, people think I was an astronaut. I did this or that. I now I deserve stuff. No, no, no, no, that's not going to work. Can't do that.

[00:36:01] Jim Lovell, we were at an opening for the Apollo 13 movie in IMAX. It had come out a few years earlier. The Apollo 13 movie did. And then a few years later is being released in IMAX. And I was at the premiere with him and people were taking our pictures

[00:36:17] and he goes, you know, Mike, I got one piece of advice for you. Like, what is that, Jim? And he said, so these people with these cameras right here taking our picture, they're not going to care about us tomorrow. They're going to be taking pictures of somebody else.

[00:36:28] You got to remember that fame is fleeting. And he said there are some, you know, some people that he had worked with that didn't understand that, that fame was fleeting. And they were they were never happy because of that.

[00:36:42] And so I think that that's something to stay away from of feeling entitled after you've done something really great or you think is great or or feeling that, you know, you're going to be famous always

[00:36:53] because of it, that you're always going to be invited to the White House, you know, or you're always going to be on your show, James, or whatever it might be. You know, that's not always going to happen. Well, you're always welcome. You're always welcome. I appreciate that, James.

[00:37:05] But yeah, but you know, that's not they may not always be the case. And that's that's OK. And if you think that that you should be always always famous or always entitled to things, you're you're done. And so that's not that's not good.

[00:37:24] And also some some people they kind of they didn't do well when they left. They were not happy. They things happen in their lives and you know, like how the heck did this happen? So I mean, I look at what you gained in your career

[00:37:37] and what's told in this book, for instance, it's not like this external validation. Oh, I've been in space. I'm an astronaut. But you learn that a moon shots are worth going for, you know, one million chance like like you know, you describe,

[00:37:53] you know, you've been on the Big Bang Theory a bunch of times, the TV show. And then you and others are have been writing a pilot or a script for a TV idea. And they didn't they didn't like it. And you learn the odds.

[00:38:06] It's basically one in a million to get a TV show or one in a thousand to get a TV show on air, even if you have a great idea. I've been through that experience several times myself. And you really have to just keep pursuing

[00:38:19] to make the math start to work for you and to give yourself better odds. And, you know, I at least in the book, you're still trying. I don't know where it's ended up. But, you know, I'm sure you wrote that over a year ago.

[00:38:30] But what show were you trying to pitch? Well, that was a show after the Big Bang Theory appearances. And when the Big Bang Theory was winding down, Bill Parade, one of the co-creator of the Big Bang Theory with Chuck Laurie, he and I become friends.

[00:38:47] And it was actually his agents idea. His agent had said that when he would get together with Bill, I would he would hear all these stories that I would tell Bill. And Bill would relate him to just to amuse his agent and his agents like, you know,

[00:38:58] I think there may be a show there and you and Bill could. And he had he thought we know we could we could help create this thing together along with a writer from the Simpsons named Dan Greeny

[00:39:11] and a director, Jamie Widows, who directs a lot of TV shows. He actually played in the movie Animal House. He was the president of Animal House when he was a young kid, he was the actor in his 20s.

[00:39:23] He was an actor and anyway, so it was a pretty good team. And we got together and and wrote up, you know, wrote up pilot. We ended up getting a pilot deal from one of the major networks.

[00:39:32] We had meetings with all the networks and one in particular loved it. And we so oh, so we're going to write this pilot and they didn't they passed on the pilot. So I was really disappointed with that. But then I started realizing there is the same thing as

[00:39:46] trying to become an astronaut. It's it's not going to be that easy. And as I've learned from other people, really successful people in Hollywood, they get turned down all the time. One of my one of my friends in Hollywood said that when people are looking

[00:40:00] at your script or your proposal or whatever it might be, they're only going to get fired when they say yes, which is an interesting way to look at it, is that as long as they say no, they keep their job.

[00:40:09] But as soon as they say yes and take that risk, then you're putting themselves at risk if the show doesn't pan out, right? They're getting, you know, they can get can for that. So that's the way it is.

[00:40:19] And it's not just that way for the group of people I was working with, it's that way for anyone trying to do something like that. There are lots of people with good great ideas for television and that all of them are going to get picked.

[00:40:30] So what I know we're still trying to give the update on that. No, we don't have anything. We've tried, you know, we're trying to reattack and rewrite it. And sometimes a little bit of time has to go by, you know, speed.

[00:40:41] So now you can try to reattack because I was going back four years ago when we were doing that that first attempt. And we've had a few. Did you ever get feedback like why they? I mean, they probably don't really get feedback.

[00:40:51] Why? Why didn't pass because there's no one centered for them to give that feedback. But I'm sure there's a lot of funny things about being an ex astronaut that, you know, you could play around with.

[00:41:01] I thought it was a great script and Bill Prady was happy with it too. I mean, everyone was happy with it, except not that they weren't happy with it. I just think that the network this is, I just think that they have lots

[00:41:14] of choices and they weren't maybe they went with somebody else. So it didn't go with anybody. I don't know what happened, but no, we did not get that's that was the interesting thing about it is they just more or less passed.

[00:41:24] You know, it and it didn't, it wasn't like, well, we need this or that. It will work with you. It was a pass and it wasn't much explanation. You know, it was four years ago. So I'm going to give a gut.

[00:41:36] We go knowing what was going on then I'm going to give a gut reason why I think somebody might pass is that the TV show Space Force was not doing that great. Could be. And and with Steve and had all the big names on it.

[00:41:50] And it just didn't seem to be working out. And maybe that would they feel like, OK, that's related to astronauts in space and it's not quite doing it. And because they tend to make decisions like that, that makes no sense.

[00:42:03] But that's a type of decision I can see people making in Hollywood. Yeah, it might. There's all kinds of reasons, you know, the climate isn't good for this or that or whatever it is. Like you're saying there's whatever the reason was. That's where it was.

[00:42:19] And I think it's it's you have to just keep trying and make, you know, change things and see what people. But I think at some point to you need to stay true to yourself and to change it for, you know, whatever they look.

[00:42:34] I don't think that would work. What I what I enjoyed about the project most was hanging around with these guys was hanging around with Bill and Dan and Jamie and and just throwing around ideas about what the show would be. These are these are hilarious people.

[00:42:49] These are some of the funniest people I've ever been around. And they were delightful people and very good friends. And I just enjoyed working with them. And so for that reason, I would like to try to do a show.

[00:42:58] And I know that I would be nice to get. And for me, I want to tell this story. Some of the stories we've talked about and the experiences I've had. I think a television show would be a great way to tell the audience

[00:43:12] what that all was like and make them laugh, too. Because there's a lot of funny stuff in there. We'll keep trying. One thing in the book that was kind of stood out as as funny. And I didn't even think of this until I read it in your book.

[00:43:23] I think you were talking to Charlie Duke about something about being on the moon. And he said, you know, the big great thing about being on the moon was that you could take a dump. That was John Yon. Oh, John Yon. OK.

[00:43:35] Yeah, it didn't occur to me that, yeah, the moon's got gravity. So you solve a problem. Yeah, I couldn't believe it when he told me that, you know, I was a newer astronaut. And he was so he was in his late 60s, I think at this point,

[00:43:48] but still an active astronaut flying in a T-38. And so I was like, I can get to fly in a jet with this guy who walked on the moon, the first commander of the space shuttle. The guy was on Gemini one. You know, this is this is it.

[00:44:00] You know, I this is my one of my boyhood heroes. And he went to the moon twice on Apollo 10. He orbited and then Apollo 16. He walked on the moon. It's just this is it, you know, the most probably the most accomplished astronaut ever.

[00:44:12] And and there's like, you know, I'd love to fly with you. It's like, you bet, good buddy. And next thing you know, like next week, I'm in the air with him going out to California and on our way back as you say, I finally got up.

[00:44:22] He was telling me all these unbelievable stories about things that they went through as new astronauts and those other guys he worked with and what it was like in mission control and so in the White House stories.

[00:44:33] I was new, I couldn't believe all this stuff was he was telling me. And then I finally got up to courage. They asked him what was it like on the moon? And I was expecting, I don't know what I was expecting, but it was, you know,

[00:44:42] we were coming over in New Mexico or something on our way back to Houston and the sun was going down. It was like that magical time and we're up above the clouds. And it's just beautiful, you know, and then what was it like on the moon,

[00:44:54] John? And he says, well, I tell you, Mike, the best thing about it is you finally could take a dump. So I did not expect to hear that, but, you know, he went on to say, well,

[00:45:02] you know, you haven't been in space yet, but you're floating around in zero gravity and you can't, you know, you gravity can't help you digest. And finally you get on the moon and at one six gravity is just enough so you can let it go.

[00:45:12] And I was like, really, I didn't have no idea what to say to that. But I think in some ways it was like trying to just make everything seem sort of normal because I can't think of anything more extraordinary than going to the moon.

[00:45:25] And that certainly wasn't, I'm sure there wasn't the most important thing. But in some way, you know, it was, it sort of made me realize, you know, all this stuff, not that it's routine, but it's achievable.

[00:45:36] And it's, you know, that's in some ways it kind of took the edge off of a huge accomplishment kind of put in very, very simple terms of what he was grateful for when he finally got to the moon.

[00:45:49] I wonder if that was part of the space program's research before anybody went to the moon or I wonder if they only realized that this is an issue or an interesting thing after they send people to the moon. I don't think it was a concern. I don't know.

[00:46:01] I think that we've learned more and more with using your digestive tract and zero gravity as time, just in the difference between my two flights. We started taking supplements and doing other things to help us with that stuff.

[00:46:16] So we could have a, you know, to help our, help us stay regular, let's say. So I don't think they knew how, what that was going to be like and how much of an issue that was going to be.

[00:46:26] They started adding to the diet and other doing other things to help, help with that. Help you stay on a regular schedule. Yeah. For the people who had extended stays, like in the space station, did they have issues? Well, you try to get another one on this topic.

[00:46:42] You try to get regular beforehand, right? So what it is is that we would start taking us like something like metamucil beforehand, just to try to get on a regular schedule and you keep taking that stuff

[00:46:53] in quarantine and in flight, just so to kind of help things move along. We also would eat a lot of dried fruit and space. You didn't have much fresh fruit. They can get some now. They have some refrigeration on the space station.

[00:47:05] But no, these are the, it sounds silly maybe in some ways, but these are the things that you don't want things like that to affect your performance. You don't want to have a bad stomach or be dehydrated or sick or anything like that

[00:47:18] when you're trying to do things that are really important in space. So you have to pay attention to all those little details. Now, this is just kind of a curiosity thing, but like Michael Collins, you mentioned him

[00:47:29] earlier, why did they ever let that guy go back to the moon just so we could walk on it? Like the first three people to go there and that, in that, you know, 11 I always felt like maybe they should have just let him go back

[00:47:42] so he could walk to on the moon. That's, you know, that's a really interesting comment. I don't know if he, if he talks about that in his book, it's been, I have, I just, I just was reading his parts of his book again, which I love carrying

[00:47:56] the fire and I don't know if he goes through that decision process or he talks about that. I don't, I don't know. I think I don't know. It could be, it could be a couple of things.

[00:48:07] I think they come to mind and I'm just, you know, just, just conjecture here is that once you have a flight like that, like Apollo 11, nothing's going to top Apollo 11. Nothing ever will. I don't think in the space program until we, until we find the aliens

[00:48:23] walking around someplace, I don't think even going to Mars, I don't think it's going to top Apollo 11. I think we're going to land on Mars and people are going to say, wait a minute, I thought we already did that. There was that movie.

[00:48:33] You know, so I think that Apollo 11 was such an unbelievable accomplishment. I mean, maybe going to Mars will, will be close, but I don't know. It was really amazing when, when the whole world was paying attention

[00:48:45] to that event. So it could be part of that, that, you know, how do you, how do you top this? But you could argue Alan Shepard was, you know, first man in space, a first American in space. And then it was Apollo 17. He played golf on the moon.

[00:48:58] Apollo 14. Yeah. He went back. So he had a break in the action, you know, but if you look at like John Glenn, for example, we were, it was 25 years ago today, John Glenn. Yesterday, not the date where we're talking about, but it's 25 years ago,

[00:49:11] John Glenn went back to space after 36 years after his first flight. And the reason was is that he was an American hero. And John F. Kennedy was the president during John Glenn's first flight. So you're not flying again because it's a bit dangerous.

[00:49:27] And we're not putting, we're not putting you at risk as this. Because John Glenn reached this fame of, he was very more famous than Alan Shepard. He was the first American in orbit. And even though Alan Shepard was the first guy in space,

[00:49:39] I think as far as the fame factor went, John Glenn was, was a, was more famous at the time, more, more well known than Alan Shepard. And so that restriction was kind of put on by John F. Kennedy.

[00:49:53] And then unfortunately we lost president Kennedy and there's a little, there was an interesting press conference before John Glenn was, was put on that second mission where President Clinton was president at the time and he said something like it's okay for John Glenn to fly in space again,

[00:50:12] which was kind of, it kind of went under the radar at the time, but it made the NASA news that now, okay, another president said it's okay for you to go. And then he was, then he flew again on that second flight.

[00:50:23] I don't know if that had anything to do with Michael Collins or any of those guys because yeah, they didn't fly, they didn't fly a second time. You know, there were, there were guys like, like Buzz who went to the moon,

[00:50:34] I'm sorry, like mentioned John Young went to the moon twice and Jim Lovell also did. He flew around it on Apollo eight and he was a commander of Apollo 13 didn't get to walk on it, but he was there two times.

[00:50:46] So yeah, you would think Michael Collins would have been perfect for a command on a following Apollo mission and to do the landing and, and to walk around. I'm not, I'm not sure why that didn't happen, but so, you know,

[00:50:59] So what do you think is next for the space program? Like now that, you know, space tourism is becoming a thing. So now becoming going into space might get commoditized at some point in the next 10, 20 years, it's already starting to be with space tourism.

[00:51:12] And then of course there's talk of going to the moon again. There's talk of Mars, of course. You know, going into space, sending rockets into space has become much more commercial and in the private sector. So what's, where do you think this is going?

[00:51:26] I think overall it's headed in a very good direction. I think having private enterprise involved is really good. I think the advances in technology and AI and computing, automation, where now the spaceships are very automated compared to everything we had through the shuttle.

[00:51:46] The shuttle was manually flown and very difficult and dangerous. And you had to know lots of stuff, not only what you were going to do, but also all the emergencies. 99.9% of the training that the pilots had for the space shuttle

[00:51:58] was never used on orbit because it was all the handle emergencies that never happened. So now we have AI and computing and automation to handle all that, which makes the training a lot easier and more people can go. And even my students at Columbia have flown twice.

[00:52:11] They've flown experiments in space twice, which would be unheard of just a few years ago. So I think overall it's opened up lots of opportunities. For not just for commercial benefit and not just for people to go to space,

[00:52:26] but also for science and access to spaces has increased and will continue as more and more commercial entities get involved. It's not just governments anymore. So I think that's overall a good thing. The only thing that I worry about, this is just me personally.

[00:52:42] I typically don't talk about this, but I think there was something cool about being a NASA astronaut, doing it as a career and being part of that team that I try to express in the book. And when I talk to people that I hope we don't lose that,

[00:52:55] you know, that that is still, I think, you know, something to aspire to, to do that job as a career to serve your country in that way, to try to do it on behalf of science. No, we weren't there doing it for any financial gain.

[00:53:10] We were government employees trying to trying to do what we thought was important and as a result, it led to, I think the accomplishment of great things. And also a lot of great experiences and things that I try to share.

[00:53:22] And so I don't think we're going to lose that. I think there'll always be that the NASA part of it, the role of the government in there to do that. But I think supplementing that with what we're doing with commercial space flying,

[00:53:34] whether it's commercial astronauts or companies doing things in space. I think that that far outweighs any negative that I can think of. So I'm very excited about the future and enables NASA to do other things like what we're learning

[00:53:48] with the James Webb space telescope going back to the moon again with the space launch system and the crew that's been announced to do that. Looking at asteroids, the asteroid return missions and putting our attention to things.

[00:54:02] NASA has been freed up to do a lot of that now because the commercial enterprise is taking care of what's going on in low Earth orbit and may also be taking care of going back to the moon. So we'll see how that works out.

[00:54:13] And I think you're right. I don't think that team aspect, particularly kind of the aura around that from the early decades of NASA, including when you were there. I don't think that ever goes away because you guys were not only going into space,

[00:54:28] but you were exploring a frontier that America and the world and technology had, which is how do we do this? And it's pretty scary. And some people are going to lose their lives. So you have to be good and excellent and work together

[00:54:43] and continuous improvement and all these good things. So and you really exemplified that both in your career and then now post career, like, you know, a bunch of books and your teaching, your trying different things. You're again an inspiration to many people, not every astronaut is,

[00:55:05] I'm not criticizing anybody else, but you're making an effort to really kind of show what happened and what you went through in your ups and downs and how hard it was and what you had to do to achieve the impossible. And it's an inspiration.

[00:55:20] Like that's something to keep in mind about not just about giving up, but about improving yourself to fit the role you want to ultimately have and the teamwork that's required and the leadership that's required and so on. So again, great book, moonshot, Mike, you're always welcome.

[00:55:38] Keep writing books and making TV shows and come back all the time. And I'm sure you have many great things to accomplish in the next phase of your career. And thanks once again. Thank you, thank you, James. I really enjoy speaking with you and you got me thinking

[00:55:55] with some of the questions you're asking. So I hope your audience enjoys this and and I really appreciate your support and hope to speak to you again soon. Thanks, James. Definitely. Thank you.