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2019 Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève Preview

Published on Wed, 6 Nov 2019 11:00:11 +0000

Our editors cast their hypothetical votes for this year's most important watches.

Synopsis

In this bonus episode of Hodinkee Radio, hosts Cara Barrett and Cole Pennington sit down with Nicole Stott, a retired NASA astronaut and Omega ambassador, for a fascinating conversation about space exploration, watches, and the intersection of science and art. The discussion takes place in conjunction with Hodinkee's pop-up shop featuring Omega Speedmasters and Seamasters. Stott shares her remarkable journey from NASA engineer at Kennedy Space Center to becoming an astronaut, including her work on the Space Shuttle program and her participation in the NEMO 9 underwater mission, which served as an analog for space training.

Throughout the episode, Stott discusses her experiences during two space missions, including her time on the International Space Station. She reveals personal stories about the watches she wore in space, particularly the Omega X-33, and shares an amusing anecdote about accidentally packing her son's engraved watch where she couldn't access it during her first mission. The conversation explores the evolution of space exploration from the NASA-led era to the current public-private partnerships with companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. Stott also discusses her unique accomplishment of creating the first watercolor painting in space and her ongoing work bridging the gap between science and art through her Space for Art Foundation. The episode concludes with reflections on her key takeaways from space: that we all live on a planet together, we're all earthlings, and the only border that truly matters is the thin blue line of atmosphere that surrounds us all.

Transcript

Speaker
Unknown How am I gonna do this? Should I write this down? No. Okay. I think you need to um It's also hard because this is not my regular voice. I feel like I've lost it. But the you got the baritone thing. Yeah, I'm losing my voice. I kinda like when I lose my voice though. Okay. Hey everyone. There you go. That's better. All right. Hey everybody! This week we have a bonus episode of Hodinky Radio. I know you're used to hearing Stevie's voice, but today it's hosted by myself, Cara Barrett, and Cole Pennington. Today we sit down with Omega Ambassador and former NASA astronaut Nicole Stott. She's been to space twice and the bottom of the ocean, and she's all around just a badass. We talk all things space, exploration, and don't worry, we got some watches in there too. That said, we have a pop-up with Omega in Soho with Speedmasters, Seamasters, and some really cool pieces for the museum on display. We also have a couple of strap bars too, so be sure to stop by if you haven't already. It's closing this weekend, and we'd love to see you. Here's our chat with Nicole and Cole. Don't get that twisted. Take a listen. Are we recording now? Yeah, we're all recording Oh wow, okay. Okay, we're a go. Welcome everyone. Uh I'm Cara Barrett and I'm here with Cole Pennington and Nicole Stott, retired NASA astronaut. We're really thrilled to have you here. She's also an Omega ambassador and she's here in honor of our pop-up shop. And just to kind of chat things all space. And I just full disclosure, I mentioned this to Nicole when she came in. I'm very anxious about the idea of space. So I'm really excited to learn a lot from you today and kind of jump in when I can. So let's get things going. Do you feel like you're just gonna float away or something? Yeah, I you know, it's the idea that I am so small and everything else is so big and that there's possibly more out there that I just don't know I can't grasp it. Like my my mind cannot grasp it. Did you ever
Unknown feel that way? Well I think most I tried not to think about that when I was actually in space. But um but we're all in space. So that's a whole you know this one of my my kind of mantra things is that we live on a planet. So you know we're already all in space. Which is something I'd like to do. I never really think about it. It's a good thing to think about. But I mean, I think the first time I had that feeling that you're describing, and I guess it's continued through life too, but is I had this vivid memory of sitting on my bedroom floor when I was a kid, probably eight or nine, with one of those Nat Geomag, you know, the National Geographic magazines. And you know how they always have the really cool like fold-out posters in them? And this was a space issue. And there was this poster in the center that was, it was a big white sheet of paper with this oval drawing of like the known or the observed universe. And I remember looking at it. You know, whenever you look at one of those things, it's kind of like the map in the airport or any of them, you look for the you are here thing and find yourself and then look at it with respect to everything else. And then I remember thinking, even then, like, wow, what's all this white stuff around the oval drawing of the known universe. And then looking at that and and like it continued out onto my bedroom floor and then out the window and this whole idea that I mean maybe that's this idea of infinity and we just don't know. And then I thought, wow, is that that heaven's all the white stuff or you know there's been a lot of really beautiful new images of that you know this I don't know if you've seen it's like a circular drawing now or or a ph photograph almost, but it's got black around the border. And then it's always in this bordered kind of image that makes me I and you can, I think you can get very anxious about it if you start thinking about it that way. Yeah. No, of course. I
Unknown like how you said though it's like we're all in space. Cause that actually does make me feel a little bit better. Yeah.
Unknown Kind of quick. What is it like I yeah, I can't remember. What is it, 60,000 miles an hour? Somewhere or something. Okay, well that makes me feel a lot better about my stress and stuff. Because we're all used to it.
Unknown Well, so were you always fascinated by space? Was that kind of what k
Unknown icked things off for you? Or uh I was always fascinated by space. I mean, I know look and we don't have the video going, but you know, I don't look like I probably watched the moon landing, right? Um but when I was seven, I have memory of sitting in front of the TV with my family, you know, black and white, watching the first moon landing. And even at that point, when you're seven years old, I think you you understand kind of the extraordinariness of it, kind of the real special thing about it. And as a family walked out and looked at the moon and thought, oh, there's people on that moon, you know, that you're so used to looking at is just this thing in the sky. And I I think that always intrigued me, but it was more flying that I think got me to an interest in space. And I wanted to know how things fly. My dad built and flew small like aerobatic airplanes when I was growing up. So I was exposed to flying that way and the love of it. And I wanted to study how things fly. And I very quickly discovered, you know, if you want to know how airplanes fly, why would you not want to know how rocket ships fly? Kennedy Space Center was right there. And so I pursued it more from that standpoint. How do things fly? And studied engineering and worked at the Kennedy Space Center. And it was a long time though before I thought, you know, something other than wow, that astronaut job is really cool, but that's something other special people get to do. So why should I even consider it? It took me a while to get there and not kind of self-doubt my way out of it or you know, not even pick up the pen and fill out the application. But
Unknown prior so prior to being selected as an astronaut, you had ample experience in aviation at NASA. Yeah.
Unknown Can you tell us a little bit about this? Yeah. Well I had actually, you know, kind of two chunks of my NASA engineering career before being selected as an astronaut. The first was, and that's all really cool. I mean, that all kind of builds on each other. I had no job I didn't love at NASA. And um, the first was I was a an engineer on the space shuttle program at Kennedy Space Center. And so I was helping get the rockets ready for astronauts to fly. And that was about, I was there about 10 years, kind of moving all through the different jobs you would do. I was in the hangar where they have the space shuttle when they're getting it ready for the next flight. I was in the launch control center for part of my time there. And then out on the runway after the vehicle had landed, you know, and then you're rolling it back and getting the crew safe and getting it back to the hangar to go again. And probably about nine into those 10 years, I started looking at the astronaut job, like, wow, maybe, you know, I I started seeing like wow, you know, 99.9% of what an astronaut j does is not flying in space. Right. You know, I mean who, you know, surprise. And then at least 80% of it was a lot like what I was already doing as a NASA engineer. So I spoke to some people that I considered to be mentors. They encouraged me to fill out the application. I did, and I got an interview the first time, but didn't get selected. But they offered me a job at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. And that was, I mean, I had watched this going on, the shuttle training aircraft, this modified corporate jet that would come down to Kennedy Space Center and the astronauts would train to land the space shuttle in this airplane that was modified in ways that you would never want your airplane to be modified, you know, like thrust reversers deploying in flight and gear coming down when it should. I mean, all these things to give you this like seven times the the glide path, so the approach into the like you're diving at the ground basically when you're coming in versus what you would do on a normal airplane. And I remember watching that thinking, oh man, I just want to ride on that airplane. I just want to sit in it and watch. And I got offered this job to be a flight engineer on that airplane. And I didn't get selected to be an astronaut, but I thought, oh my gosh, when do you ever get to it's pretty darn close. Um so for two years I did that and it was amazing. And it was like every job I had at NASA where I thought, you know, I could do this forever. Like I could go back and do that job now and be perfectly happy after having flown in space. And it was just like this pathway to it. But it was, you know, for a person who loved flying, wanted to know how things fly, to be doing that job seemed like dream job already. Yeah. And then you're also, when did the the vomit comet come into play? Well, I did while I was working as a flight engineer in this group we called aircraft operations, where all of the NASA airplane stuff went on, including the shuttle training aircraft. They had responsibility for the was a KC-135 airplane at the time, and it's um it's where we do these kind of parabolas. You fly like you're on a roller coaster, and so you go over the top like you do on a roller coaster, you feel like you're coming out of the seat, so you float, and then you do the dive, and you pull two G's to come back and do that again, you know, over and over again. And so I had the chance to fly on that airplane when I was doing the flight engineer job. And it was great because when I would go out, it was normally when the pilots were doing their currency flight. So there was nobody else in the back. There'd be like three of us in the back just doing this Superman stuff and floating around and trying not to get sick. And and then later, when I got selected to be an astronaut, everybody thinks that astronauts are doing that kind of flying all the time. And really, they give you like one familiarization flight on that airplane. And then if you're lucky, you might get to get out there and do some other stuff, but it's not a part really of the like really intensive astronaut training that goes on. Learning to fly the T-38 is though, isn't that learning to fly the T38, we do that very regularly. We have a minimum number of hours we have to get in that airplane every quarter. Uh I have my pilot's license, but I'm a private pilot, you know, just uh you know, like what anybody can do if they want to go out and do. Right. Uh I wasn't qualified to go take one of those T thirty eight jets myself, but uh I had to know how to fly the backseat operations in it. So all the nav and com and everything. And then fortunately most of the pilots would let us fly. Wow too. So we got to you know, and you know, from the takeoff to landing, you got to to fly, and technically you were not allowed to take it off or land it
Unknown . Right. So I guess as aviation as an entry point into being an astronaut. You you've gotten your fair share of uh Yeah, it's been, I mean, it's
Unknown been it's been part of every everything that I I did. And what's interesting to me is that there is no, when you go look at the NASA requirements for what qualifies to even apply to be an astronaut, there is no requirement to have a pilot's license. You know, you don't need to have any aviation background at all. Um, I think most people that apply to be astronauts have some interest in flying in general, even if they don't have that yet. And then NASA gives you, you know, a lot of that training. But I think a lot of people have this, you know, misconception that you have to have gotten a pilot's license, you have to be a scuba diver, you have to be, and when you look, it's really very um limited requirements. Right. Like, you know, there's some medical stuff, there's some things you have had to do, you know, in terms of progressing in your job, but the education is is is pretty wide open in the technical fields, which is nice. They don't want you to be a pilot or everyone you come in, because they will train you their way. Yeah, well the NASA way. There is some of that because I'm the driver in flying in the T38s, even like a lot of the stuff we do, is how do you work as a crew in a really complex environment? And I think one of the things that was kind of fun about flying in the T38s, other than it's just really fun to fly in the T38, is that a lot of the pilots that come into like the the fighter pilot, test pilot, military guys that come into the astronaut office have flown single seat airplanes their whole career. So to now have to work, you know, depend on, rely on, you know, trust in another uh person in the cockpit is is a different dynamic for them too. Totally. Yeah. S
Unknown hould we uh do you think we should give the people what they want to talk about watches a little bit? Some watches.. Watches
Unknown How did the watch thing come about? Like were you always interested in them? What did it was it part of your training
Unknown that you needed one? Uh we do. And as part of the training, they um they want you to have a watch. It's kind of like, you know, as a backup to other systems that are providing the computers that are providing that information. And then it's also like just day-to-day activity, make sure you get to that other module on time so you don't, you know, not start start a task when you're supposed to like any other job get yeah you know and I think it's it's kind of cool because um I find myself I still I don't know if it's because I'm old but I mean I see you guys are young. You got watches on your wrists. I I think, you know, we could go every day and just have our phones as that interface to time. But there's something about having it on you. There's really, there's like a personal connection to it that I think is really I don't know, I think it's important and not to be disconnected just electronically to something. And you could technically work in a spaceship that way. You know, really and truly you wouldn't need a watch on on your arm to to do everything. But I think everybody like like feels that personal connection to it and wants to be able to do the and know that it's right right there with you. Yeah. Yeah. So what
Unknown so we know and our readers and everyone knows the X33, the Omega X33, and the Speedmaster can be issued to crews. Yes. Were you issued a watch? And I also know that you can buy a wash as well. And did you take one of your own? So what what
Unknown what was your your case? I did. You know, I was um and I'll tell you my faux pas on my first mission, but I so they will issue you one of the X thirty threes. Um you're not allowed to keep that afterwards. So you know Omega and NASA have worked out uh a relationship where because of the the way the watches are provided, we have the opportunity to buy them at a really discounted rate. So I did buy one before my first flight. I trained with it and then um, you know, and wore it as my own watch. In space. And well, and then because I bought I bought it for my son, right? And I had it all engraved and everything. And so I put it back in some of the packaging and then had them package it. And I really stupidly um thought that where it was going to be packed was where I was going to be able to wear it. And it was not. It was packed away. So my first flight that was three months in space, I ended up wearing a totally different like backup watch that I had, which worked out great, you know. But the whole time I was thinking, oh my gosh, Roman's watch is like in the cargo somewhere that I cannot get to. But it's so that was kind of said. So it flew. I mean, it flew those three months, but it wasn't what I got to wear. Right. Right. So I very purposely, on my second flight, made sure that it was strapped to my arm when I was launching on the shuttle. And I just saw a picture um yesterday when I was looking through some things. It was a little a little video that somebody had sent me and there was the scene of like the crew, you know, the the people that suit you up like strapping the watch on my arm was like, Yes, I remembered on this one. We we should look that up. We would love to share that with people. And um and so and then, you know, and then I had that watch with me the whole time. And I can tell you, you know, there were a lot of purposes for it. Um you know a couple of them that come to mind to me um and both are associated with the really wonderful alarm that is on that watch. You know, waking up in the morning, it was that that was, I mean it just, brought you out of sleep, but it was great to have it for that. And then I found myself very quickly when I got to space, and I knew this from my first flight, that if I got in front of a window during the day, you know, just looking at Earth, whatever, you know, I knew we were gonna be flying over Florida, maybe I wanted to see Florida or you know, some interesting spot. If I got in the window during the day, if I didn't set my watch to remind myself to go back to work. Uh-huh. I would be there, you know, I'd be there an hour and a half. You know, you just get sucked into this like beautiful vortex that's out there. And you can go a whole, you know, lap of the planet without realizing how much time Well they they do say time moves differently in
Unknown space, right? Yeah, well, fully. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. You mentioned NASA d you don't need to be a s scuba diver or whatever, but you are. Yes. And you participated in Nemo 9. Yes. Which for everyone can can you talk about it for everyone that isn't familiar with what that is? R
Unknown ight. So Nemo, like NASA is uh maybe the Watchworld is too um probably not as much fanatic about acronyms for everything. Oh, we so you got some. Yeah. So Nemo stands for NASA Extreme Environment Mission operations, which I don't know if that tells you anything about the fact that it is a mission where you go live underwater for some period of time, with the idea that you're training, preparing for what it'll be like to live in space. And I can tell you it is absolutely the best analogue to living and working in space. I I did it before flying. We do all this training that's about how do you work as a crew, how do you discover your own strengths and weaknesses while you're doing that? And uh this was the setting for this is a habitat called Aquarius. It's about the size of a school bus. It's at 60 feet underwater on the floor of the ocean, off a couple miles off the coast of Key Largo. Only one like it on the planet. It's amazing facility. And really it's one of those deals where once you get down there and you're down there as a diver for more than an hour, you can't just swim safely back to the surface. That whole dive tables team, you know, you know, thing where your body sucks in too much nitrogen and you can't safely Yeah, yeah, it's bad news. So um you're down there and if something goes wrong, you have to be able to deal with it at 60 feet underwater just like you would in space. So you're in a real extreme environment. There's not a minivan waiting out the door, you know, to take you off, you know, out of the crater or a helicopter can't fly in and get you out of the Utah Canyon lands or where you're doing winter survival. I mean, you really and truly have to deal with it there. And then the other thing is we treated it just like it was a real mission in space. So anytime we would go out on dive excursions or any of that, we treated that like it was a spacewalk. So we communicated the way you would. We had research going on inside the habitat. And inside the habitat is just like here. It's it's at the depth pressure, but it's air. You can walk around in regular clothes and do, you know, anything you want. And then you just have to gear up to go out, um, you know, just out the door to go in swim around. Were you issued a watch for that and or did you wear a watch for this? Um we were not issued like the X33 or anything. I did wear a watch for that, but for the life of me, I cannot remember which one I did. I know I know for a fact I wouldn't have taken my X thirty three down there with me. I would not have wanted to risk it. Yeah, I really and truly would not have wanted to risk it. But um
Unknown a little little Easter egg for for hodinky readers. Uh you were participating in Nemo 9 with David Williams, yes, who is a Talking Watches alum. So he's actually, he sat down and we've
Unknown talked about watches a little bit too. He's a great guy. And I, you know, he's one of the Canadian astronauts. And it's another one of the things that's so great about you know the way we're living and working in space now. Apparently the way we live and work underwater is that it's not just the US doing it. It's not any one country. I mean, we do it as an international partnership that somehow has been very peaceful and successful, you know, with fifteen different countries uh, you know, on a space station. Yeah. And I think a really great model for how we could be living on this space, you know, we talked about we're all living in space on this spaceship Earth. Yeah. What do you prefer, being underwater or in space? Oh, that is not a a fair question at all. I I mean I love them both. Uh I remember when I was getting ready to we were all it was at the end of the mission on on the Nemo mission and we were getting ready to come t to come topside to to swim up. And I sat at the window just thinking, man, if I never fly in space, this was incredible. I mean, this was really because I think you get it's it's like special vantage points. I think it's what time does for us too, kind of this feeling of who and where you are at any given moment. And um, you know, whether it was underwater where you're just surrounded by the planet, and you know, I became familiar with it in a way that I never had really on, you know, a a thirty minute or hour long scuba dive before. Um, it was very much the same kind of feeling as looking at Earth from space where you're the one surrounding it. Um, but now, and I I really want people to to realize this without having to spend eighteen days living underwater or having to go to space, is I want people to realize that you can I mean, I'm looking out the window here and I'm in awe. I mean you can go on a twenty minute scuba dive and be just captivated by what's around you and appreciate this, you know, fact that we're all on a planet together. It's pretty cool. On on that note
Unknown , in addition to being an astronaut, aqua, da da da, you're also an artist. Yeah. Yeah, which is which can you I you're the first person to do a watercolor in space. Kind of crazy. Yeah, and that was, I
Unknown mean, that was a really coincidental kind of thing. I'm really thankful to a friend of mine who was um uh Mary Jane Anderson, who is this woman who helped me. She was a uh an engineer in the astronaut office and she was the person that helped us pack our stuff. I I do like yeah, like who told me Mary Jane that the watch would not be the watch was not she she's the one who said, you know, Nicole, you're gonna be up there for three months or more. You know, you'll have some free time. What do you want to maybe do while you're there? You think about it, you can pack things. And so I did. I'm like, you know, how about painting in space? You know, I love to do that down here. So I took this little, you know, hard paint watercolor kit and ended up only painting one time while I was there, like right before coming home. But it was I don't remember doing it and thinking, wow, this is like we really are humans living and working in space. You can do human things here. You know, you can be people while you're while you're living and working here. And uh it was really fun. It's not, you know, as you imagine floating water and um you can't do plain air paint you can't look out the window and paint what you're seeing while you're seeing it because at five miles a second it's gone before you can get the brush to the paper. But it was an incredible experience. And um I brought that back and I just remember when I was thinking about retiring from NASA, like you know, giving up this opportunity to fly in space again and to be working with these really amazing people and wanting to know how really wanting to uniquely share the experience. And I just kept coming back to that painting, like wow, this, you know, there's a whole audience of people that don't even know we have a space station. And if you can connect and it's what I think about the watches too. I mean, if we can have these kinds of conversations and people who because they love watches might discover that we've had, you know, human beings from 15 different countries living and working together on a space station for 20 years, I mean, that's that's success for me. That they'll they'll wanna know about it and they'll wanna understand that it's all about improving life on earth. And so I just, you know, I'm a rambler. Long story short, took this love of art and have used it in my own personal way to try to share the experience of flying in space and living underwater. And also have been really lucky to be able to pull that space and art love together with, you know, some work with kids in countries all over the world to do space themed art therapy projects too. Yeah, fantastic. I
Unknown the National Science Foundation has a grant program for artists, including writers and so forth, to go spend some time in Antarctica. Yeah. I applied for it, I didn't get it. Next time, next time. the ultimate opportunity would be to send an artist, a so solely an artist to space. And we'll get there eventually, of course. But I just thought that was a kind
Unknown of interesting way to look at it too. Yeah, absolutely. And but what I I what I like to tell people in the meantime is that, and this is this is something I I I I probably knew it always because I've always had this love of science and art together. You know, I never thought you you couldn't do one if you were doing the other. Um but I think a lot of people, and I watch it in schools, you know, kids just getting funneled one way or the other. You know, because ooh, they seem to have a talent for science. Ooh, let's just shove them this way and never give them a humanities or art class again. And I think we're doing a disservice if we don't appreciate the whole brain. Um, but you know, just in the astronaut community itself, I would say at least 75%, and I'm probably being conservative. Of the astronauts have some creative artistic outlet. Yeah. In some way. Just following on Instagram, you see some of the stuff. Oh my gosh. Whoa. This is yeah. And some of it is like people who maybe are not even realize it, you know, they get to space and they start taking pictures and they become these wonderful photographers and they're looking at things in a different way and trying to communicate it. But I mean, my friend Karen Nyberg, she she is absolutely, she was in my astronaut class and she's flown. And I mean, absolutely the most well-rounded artist I've ever met, too. And that's from playing the piano to quilting, you know, and everything in between. And she sewed a little stuffed animal and quilted while she was in space. You know, we've had people playing musical instruments in space since the very beginning. And really, since some of the first people flying in space, like Alexei Lanoff, one of the first cosmonauts, he was the first person to do art in space. He brought up colored pencils and he sketched orbital sunrises and and then he sc he did portraits of the Apollo Soyuz crewmates, um his best friend Tom Stafford. I mean they he did these in space. Yeah. Purposely brought these, you know, this paper and these pencils to do that. Also uh Omega folks. Yes, absolutely. Um we can link up that story, which is Yeah. Oh, it's gorgeous. And you know, so it's kind of embedded. And and I've even I've gone as far like with the Space for Art Foundation, we're really trying to work to kind of bring this intersection between science or space and art together, you know, beyond just what we're doing with the kids in the, you know, the clinical setting and stuff. And to show people that, hey, there's, you know, there's this really beautiful mix of technical and artistic creativity in and I would say all of us in some way or another. I mean it's kinda like watches. I
Unknown mean watches is all about beauty and engineering ties in together. But I agree. I do think that the funnel. I was actually I started off as an engineering and an art major in college. And I remember being very intimidated by the fact because everyone was like, oh, it's going to take you forever. You're never going to be able to finish it. No, no, no. And I was like, okay. So that kind of ended up sticking with art. But it is true. I think it's a very archaic way of
Unknown the best engineers are are creative artistically too. They really are. Yeah, absolutely. And I'll, you know, with the watch thing, I have been in awe of what I've seen of like the real um the people that really appreciate their watch and the craftsmanship in the watches and you know the technical specifications of it for sure and the clearances on these tiny little kind of micro. I mean, when you look at them under the microscope, you're like, how in the world does a machine or a person make that little thing, first of all, and then pull it all together to have it till accurate time? Yeah. Is incredible. But there's you know, it isn't just oh that watch is pretty. It's it's beyond that. It's an appreciation for a ha I mean, it's really wonderful. I mean movements don't have to be beautiful. I mean watchmakers can actually make very crude movements. Space stations don't have to be beautiful either, but
Unknown they're gorgeous, you know. Exactly. Just this doesn't have to be fact check, it's not true. But I would say there's probably as much engineering, like proper engineering in modern watches, some of the kind of next gen movements and so forth as there was an early space being a bit of a I would I I I'd say that's a reasonable rudimentary to make yeah. Sat
Unknown urn series and so forth. Well, and use it just the way the tech
Unknown niques have developed too, you know. That's yeah. Yeah. Something um speaking of that, you it sounds like your career also kind of uh ran concurrently with the heyday of the shuttle. That was really and you were the last person to take the shuttle home from the space station. So there's got to be some. You touched on earlier the relationship between a person and their watch. It's kind of a personal connection. Yeah. Do you have any of that sort of wistful appreciation towards the shuttle? Absolutely. So it's not with us
Unknown anymore. So absolutely. And it's why I encourage people if they can, you know, get to the Kennedy Space Center and see Atlantis on display. Get up to Smithsonian, get out to California. It's almost like you don't believe it when you see it that it's that it's the real vehicle that flew in space. Um I mean, I was really fortunate for those 10 years that I worked at Kennedy Space Center. I I worked up close and personal with all of those spacecraft and with the people, I think it always comes, ends up coming down to the people. You know, I mean I love the spaceships, but the the people that I got to work with on that, I mean, they they're the kind of people you want to work with. There's this picture that I show in a lot of my presentations. It's of our um expedition 21 crew. There's nine of us on board because uh three person crew has come up before we've sent three people home. And one of those people is Guilla Liberté who's the owner founder of Cirque de Soleil. And so we're all in our flight suits, and we're kind of in this doing these goofy positions to show that we're in space. You know, you don't have to stand upright and stuff. And we have clown noses on because Guy considers himself a clown. And I show that picture because that group of people, I mean, there was so much personality in that group of people. You were going to have fun flying in space. It was, you know, you just knew you were going to enjoy the experience, but you also knew when it hit the fan, every single one of them would have your back. They would trust that you'd have their back. So just this blend between personality and professional that I think we all want to have in some way. And that same thing was true for me with the space shuttle and the people that I got to work with on that. I mean, they honestly believe that the care and feeding of that spacecraft was their responsibility. So it was so much fun to work on that. And then to get to fly on it. And I think that the space shuttle, you know, there won't be a vehicle like that, sadly, for a really long time. You know, it's one of these unique vehicles that, you know, a lot of times you build you build something and when it's like as as you know with your engineering stuff too, you know, you build it. Imagine if you did this with a watch where you want it to do everything beautifully. You want every kind of watch thing that you could ever do to be be done well. Oh, that sounds like a speed master. So that's complicated. I mean, that's really complicated to do. And on the space shuttle, it started out, it was gonna be like a cargo vehicle. And then they wanted to be able to do all kinds of science on it. And then they wanted the crew to be able to live for extended times. And then they wanted to be able to dock with a space station. They wanted to build stuff in space and all these things kind of designed by committee and those things don't always go well. Right. And it did all of them beautifully. And yes, there were a couple accidents along the way that um, you know, you hope never happen again and that we learn from for the new programs to come. But that spacecraft, I mean, and I'll just tell you, as a human being coming home from space, we should be landing on a runway, that little chirp, you know, the little, you know, and we'll stop as as humid. That's the way we should be landing. Coming home from space
Unknown . This is actually a good pivot point. One question I have. Yeah. So Space Shuttle's gone. Yes. Now we're flying Soyuz, right? Which you do, splash down. So you're not coming home the way you think we should. What do you think? We're we're seeing the private sector kind of pick up where NASA left off. Your era was very NASA was leading the way. Yep. Now the private sector is, in a way. I mean it's
Unknown a very good thing. Yeah. What I love about it now, well, first of all, I'll say about the Soyuz is that, you know, we were flying at this whole international partnership we have with station is such a great thing. And we were in parallel with shuttle, we were already flying a a lot of our crew members on the Soyuz. And and I had to learn Russian because um the Soyuz was always our rescue vehicle on the space station. So if you had six people on station, you have two Soyuz docked at all times, so you could get home if there's an emergency. And that vehicle is all in Russian. The instrument panels, the procedures, the talk to the ground is all Russian. While the official language of the station is English, but that ride home or there was in Russian. And so I am so thankful that we have that partnership and that the Russians have that vehicle so that we can continue to get people to and from the space station. And yes, it does. It's it lands in the middle of a desert out in Kazakhstan. I've heard it's kind of like a car crash, but it's safe, you know, that they've designed that very safely. What's going on now with the private sector is really, I don't know, it's really exciting for a number of reasons. Um, one, I think, is that we're kind of in this transition stage where NASA isn't out of it. And in fact, none of those private sector um organizations would be able to be in it without NASA. Right. So there's this public private partnership going on. And um and at this point, really, the the major customer for a really long time is gonna be NASA for these companies, you know, getting to and from the space station, um, hopefully going back and you know, establishing a permanent presence on the moon and then ultimately, you know, taking those those trips to Mars or whatever destination we talk about. Yeah, you know. And so yeah, there's another guy we could talk about that's uh Omega. And um I I love the way it's going on. It's like if you looked back to early aviation days, similar things happened. And you know, and then you've got private sector stuff that's completely um, you know, separate from NASA in terms of how it's funded and the way they're building their spacecraft, you know, like Virgin Galactic that's doing suborbital flights, you know, ultimately with the goal like Virgin Airlines to get from point A to point B on the Earth in a a you know faster way, you know, just to help people travel. And and then you get this really cool view of Earth while you're you know while you're doing it. And uh you know, so all these different kinds of businesses that are coming out of uh kind of just just not a love of space for the exploration, but a real need for it too. And yeah, I I love that the that there is this partnership between NASA and these companies and and and that NASA really understands that there's there's a role for them that you know invigorates this new business, that sets it on its way and that hopefully allows these companies to understand, you know, all these lessons that we've learned through the years, you know, fly into space that we don't need to learn over again. I mean, there's plenty of stuff that can hurt us without doing the same thing we did before over again
Unknown . Yeah, it sounds like a kind of high tide raises all ships scenario. Everyone I think I don't know if this is true either, but is NASA's core mission would be to become an a multiplanetary species, whereas the other is like space tourism and so forth is it's a business. It's just something interesting
Unknown . Well I think there's a mix for both actually. And you know if you listen to either Jeff Bezos with Blue Origin or Elon Musk with SpaceX. They're they're both wanting to, you know, set up a future where we're not just living on Earth. And um and and again, I think ultimately it's about how do we improve life uh improve life on Earth while we're expanding ourselves into the universe. The you know, the multiplanetary species thing is a really interesting idea because, you know, at some point, whether we like it or not, you know, the sun does bad things to the planet. You know, regardless of what bad things we're, you know, we're doing to it. You know? And so um the getting ourselves off of Earth too to ensure our survival is is definitely, you know, one of those key concepts. But going to Mars can be a very facilitating thing in how we just improve the way we live on Earth itself for all the people that stay here. And, you know, some of that can be lifting industrial stuff off of the planet, generating electricity from the sun, you know, space space solar power that could essentially when we get to the point could power the whole planet without us having to use a single, you know, way of generating it down here. And that's a good thing. Well
Unknown a personal thank you from me for laying some of the framework for that going forward. Well, my my pleasure. Yeah
Unknown . Yeah. I have a relatively simple question. But was there ever a day when you were out in space? Because I get I get kind of restless and you were just like, Oh my god, I'm here for like another two months. Like, was there ever a day where you're just like, I gotta like this is not my day in space
Unknown today? Oh, I think there's days where you're you I was like this is not my day in space, whether you know, I'd made a mistake or you know, I wished I had been at home 'cause my son uh my son was seven when I flew the first time. So you know, that there was something he was doing that I would have wanted to be there for. You know, I mean, those kinds of things. But I'll tell you, they the space station is ginormous, in the word of my son. I mean, it's a it's a huge volume. And imagine, like, even in this room, if you didn't just have to sit in the chairs or be confined to the floor, if you could just you know gently push off the wall and be up in the corner of the you know the ceiling and you know it's really quite spacious in space. And so I I never felt that way. I never felt confined. I never felt like, ooh, get me out of here. I loved my crewmates. I mean we really I guess that's really key. It's like one year, you know, and I can't speak for any other crews, but I I really feel like any of the people on our crew would say the same thing I'm saying right now is that it was it was a good time and I think it comes down to that kind of professional personality mix. Um and I'll tell you, the view out the windows that we have just, I mean, you you want your face in front of that window. You want to experience it, being surprised by it all the time. And um and you get, I mean, you get this chance to appreciate um kind of this interconnectivity of everything that I I hadn't really felt when I was down in the middle of it. And I want people to feel that too. You know, you don't have to go to space to feel that either. You know, and and I you know, I mean I came back with three little lessons. This, you know, this in all of the complexity, the three lessons to me are we live on a planet. We talked about, you know, we're all earthlings, only border that matters, that thin blue line of atmosphere that blankets us all. And I every day think about those things. And I'm so thankful for the opportunity to have for whatever length of time I was up there to to be able to figure that out to appreciate it. Yeah. I think it's pretty well said. That's a note.
Unknown Yeah. But my last question is what watch are you wearing today?
Unknown Oh, I have on my uh it's this beautiful isn't it gorgeous? Oh gosh, that is gorgeous. So um it's a speedmaster and um it's got this beautiful little ring of I mean, just very I just think like graceful tasteful little ring of diamonds around the edge blue's my favorite color so this is and it comes in many different colors and it's a chronograph and so you can do all the kinds of things you'd want to do with time and stuff and you know and it's got a good alarm and it but I love it because um it's reminiscent to me of the X33 in a way because it's a speed master. You know, I make that connection. My s the watch I bought for my son is gonna stay for him when I at some point when he's like 47 or something decide that he should have it. But this to me, I mean you can wear it anytime. I mean it you can wear it with jeans, you can wear it with a fancy dress and it just I I don't know, I think it's just a real classic. It's beautiful. And it's got a very omega look to it. Yeah.
Unknown Or is it white gold? Yeah. No, I think it's still beautiful. Yeah. I also love hearing you talk about your watch in a technical matter, but also in a fashion sense. Because something that I struggle with as like a female watch journalist, it's like when I look at a watch, like I think about it technically, but I'm also like, it better match my outfit. Like that's kind of how I think about watches. So I think it's cool to hear that. That
Unknown 's so well and I really like I like that one because I think it it's you know, I'm kind of a person the jewelry you see on me is what I have on all the time. You know, and if I can't wear it when I'm digging, you know, in the garden or when I'm, you know, here with you guys or at a party, then I it's not like I don't know. It's important. Yeah.
Unknown Well, thank you so much. You're welcome. Joining us today. And the conversation. This was fascinating and eye opening and I definitely learned a lot. Do you still feel anxious about space? No, I feel a lot better now. I really do. And a couple of my very close friends are obsessed with space so I'm definitely going to be sending this to them. But um no that was eye-opening. It was really fascinating. So yeah thank you again. Thank you
Unknown Today's episode was recorded at Hodinky HQ in New York City and was produced and edited by Grayson Korhonen. Please remember to subscribe and rate the show. It really does make a difference for us. Thanks for listening and we'll see you on Monday with a full episode.