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John Shattuck: Well, good afternoon. Good afternoon and welcome to the John F.
Kennedy Library for this wonderful forum with a truly authentic American hero that I
will introduce to you in just a moment. The forum, of course, is exploring the space
frontier and on behalf of myself, John Shattuck, the CEO of the Kennedy Library
Foundation, and Tom Putnam who’s seated in the front row, the Director of the Library,
we’re just thrilled to have you all here.
I want to thank the institutions that make our forums possible starting with our lead
sponsor Bank of America. We’re also grateful to the Boston Foundation, Boston Capital,
the Lowell Institute, the Corcoran Jennison Companies, and our media sponsors The
Boston Globe, NECN, and WBUR, which broadcasts all our Kennedy Library forums on
Sunday evenings at 8:00.
When John F. Kennedy became president in January 1961 the U.S. was losing a space
race with the Soviet Union. The Soviets had done some pretty spectacular things. They
had launched the first unmanned spaceship in orbit, the first to reach the moon, the first to
put a satellite around Venus, all of this before he became president. And then in April,
1961, three months after he became president, they were the first to send a man into space
around the world. Americans were frustrated and worried. How could this be happening?
President Kennedy took up the challenge and on May 21, 1961 he put it to the American
people in an address before a joint session of Congress. He said, “If we are to win the
battle that is now going on around the world between freedom and tyranny, the dramatic
achievements in space which occurred in recent weeks should have made clear to us the
impact of this adventure on the minds of people everywhere who are attempting to make
a determination of which road they should take." He then issued his famous dramatic and
far reaching challenge which you will hear in a moment. He said, “I believe this nation
should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on
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the moon and returning him safely to Earth.” Now, you notice I’ve been using ‘him’ all
throughout this introduction. But you will see tonight the real revolution has occurred in
space and no longer is that particular gender the exclusive one in reference to space
travel. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration accomplished President
Kennedy’s goal with dizzying speed and sent American astronauts orbiting the moon and
descending to its surface by 1969.
In one of his last speeches President Kennedy told the story of an Irish writer, Frank
O’Conner, who wrote how as a boy he and his friends would make their way across the
countryside and when they came to an orchard or a wall that seemed too high and too
doubtful to try and too difficult to permit their voyage to continue as they roamed, they
took off their hats and tossed them over the wall. And then they had no choice but to
follow. The President then told his audience that, and I quote, “This nation has tossed its
cap over the wall of space and we have no choice but to follow it. We will climb this wall
and we shall then explore the wonders on the other side.”
It’s our great privilege here at the Kennedy Library tonight to introduce someone who
embodies the excitement and challenge of that great new frontier of space about which
President Kennedy spoke. This year Sunita Williams has broken an incredible four world
records for space travel, last winter and spring we all know. And we’re electrified by her
flight as she was the flight engineer aboard the international space station launching her
voyage on December 9, 2006 and returning to Earth on June 22, 2007. Extraordinary
period of time. She set a world record by achieving the longest unbroken space flight by
a female astronaut -- 195 days. Her second world record was the four space walks that
she took -- again, the most by any female astronaut. Her third record was for the longest
time spent outside a spaceship by a female astronaut -- 29 hours and 17 minutes. And
these achievements, we all know, have brought great honor to her, to the U.S., and I
would say to Needham, Massachusetts very much. Maybe there are some people from
Needham, Massachusetts. [applause]
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But I have to say beyond these three remarkable achievements, I’m also in awe of the
fourth and final record set by Sunita this year: being the first astronaut, male or female,
to run a 26 mile marathon in space while orbiting the Earth. Imagine that! Trying to go
even faster than a spaceship. And this on your own! And this was not just any marathon.
This was our marathon, the Boston Marathon. And she competed on April 16, the date of
the marathon, by running on a treadmill aboard the international space station completing
the race in a remarkably strong time of four hours and 24 minutes.
She graduated from Needham High School in 1983, the same year that Dr. Sally Ride
became the first American female astronaut. She went on to attend the United States
Naval Academy, where she received her commission as an ensign in the U.S. Navy in
May, 1987. In July, 1989 she was designated a naval aviator and was later assigned to
Helicopter Combat Support Squadron Eight in Norfolk, Virginia, making overseas
deployments in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. She was then
selected for the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, after which she began the rigorous training
to become an astronaut.
Before introducing the moderator of this evening’s forum, I want to recognize Sunita’s
mother who’s here with us in the audience, Bonnie, who lives in Falmouth,
Massachusetts. And I wonder if you could perhaps stand so our audience could recognize
you. [applause].
And we’re very grateful and privileged to have as tonight’s moderator another Boston
star, our own Robin Young. Robin brings over 25 [applause] 25 years of award winning
broadcast experience to her role as host of Public Radio International’s daily news
magazine Here & Now -- which I know all of you listen to -- produced here at WBUR in
Boston and heard on NPR stations across the country. Robin has been honored many
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times for her work, including five Emmy awards, the CableACE Award, and the George
Foster Peabody Award for excellence in documentary filmmaking.
ROBIN YOUNG: But I have never ever done a marathon in space.
SHATTUCK: There you go. Well, we’ll hear from you. We’ll see. She’s been a
correspondent for the Discovery Channel, CBS, ABC, and for several years she was a
substitute host for NBC’s Today Show. So we’re delighted to have you with us here
tonight and we thank you for moderating this special forum, Robin. We’re going to begin
our forum this evening with a film clip from President Kennedy’s famous speech 45
years ago on September 12, 1962, when he outlined the great challenge to Americans of
exploring the new frontier of space. And then following the words of President Kennedy,
we’ll hear from Sunita who will tell us how she took up this great challenge, what it’s
meant to her, and then she will have a conversation with Robin Young. So thank you all
for coming and thank you both so much for being here.
JOHN F. KENNEDY: [film clip] There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in
outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all
mankind. And its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why,
some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb
the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the
other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard. Because that goal will
serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills. Because that challenge
is one that we’re willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend
to win. And the others too.
But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon 240,000 miles
away from the control station in Houston a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length
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of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been
invented, capable of withstanding heat and stresses several times more than have ever
been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all
the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food, and
survival on an untried mission to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to
Earth reentering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat
about half that of the temperature of the sun, almost as hot as it is here today. And do all
this and do it right and do it first before this decade is up, then we must be bold.
Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory who was to die on Mount
Everest was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, because it is there. Well, space is
there. And we’re going to climb it. And the moon and the planets are there. And new
hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God’s
blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has
ever embarked. Thank you. [applause]
SUNITA WILLIAMS: Oh wow, that’s a pretty hard act to follow right there. Pretty
incredible place to be and for all the right reasons I think that we’re here tonight. So
thanks for everyone for coming to the JFK Library and for having interest in space. I
mean I had a lot of interest in space when I was a kid just because I thought The Jetsons
were cool and stuff like that, not necessarily because I had a big vision about what I
really wanted to do when I grew up. But I tell you what. Having been in the space
business now for nine years, I couldn’t think of a better place to work or a better job to
have. It’s just incredible.
So there’s a couple things that we’re going to do tonight. One of them is I want to show a
little video about what I call my summer vacation, and explain about that. You know,
what’s nice about summer vacations, you go away and you don’t really have to have all
those … If you go some place like maybe Cape Cod because it’s so nice and you don’t
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have to have that hustle and bustle at home. And that’s sort of what it was like on a space
station. It was a little different hustle and bustle while we’re up there.
Just a little background on the space station: we’re still in the middle of constructing it.
It’s about three quarters of the way done. This year is going to be really exciting because
we’re going to be putting on other laboratories from our international partners, a Japanese
module and a European module. Right now, we have primarily a Russian and a U.S.
space station with a Canadian robotic arm to put on all these modules. And while I was
up there -- you’ll see a little bit of this in the film so that’s why I want to give a little
preview -- we did a little bit of changing. Our house went from a … I think we did a
remodel like This Old House a little bit because we changed the electrical system from a
temporary electrical system to a more permanent electrical system. And, likewise, once
we were able to get both of those big solar rays out there working, we were able to turn
over the heating and cooling system from a temporary heating and cooling system to a
more permanent one. And so what all that boiled down to was those space walks.
And I have a couple words about records. I think the one I’m most proud of is the crazy
one, the marathon. Of course, I think anyone who runs a marathon is a little bit crazy, but
that’s okay. It’s a great adventure. I think it’s a little bit of a determination and something
that you have to find in yourself to actually get through four hours plus of running,
particularly on a treadmill. But there’s lots of folks here in Boston who did that in much
worse weather than me. So I was very proud of them and thinking of them while I was on
that treadmill and thinking, you know, I’ve just got to be able to finish this.
But the other records: I was waiting for the first taxi back to Earth. And that sort of
determined how long I was going to be up there, and likewise with the space walks. Like
I said, we were right in the middle of the construction of the space station and so, of
course, we’re going to have a lot of space walks. And I think in the infamous words of
Tony Dungy who -- if you’re aren’t familiar with who he is, he’s that coach of those
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Colts who didn’t let our Patriots go to the Super Bowl last year at all. He said something
about being the first African American head coach to win a Super Bowl. He said it was
more of a matter of time and place, because there’s many people that had the
qualifications before and will in the future. So I hope there’s a whole bunch of young
girls out there who will kick my butt and take those records away from me.
So in the meantime, how about if we watch what it’s like to be living in space and how to
get to space. So I’m starting with a rocket from Russia. This is Kazakhstan. It’s the
Russian rocket, the Soyuz. This is the one that Yuri Gregarian launched on -- a couple
modifications but essentially the same thing. It’s an Apollo type rocket. This is what it
looks like inside. In there is the commander of Expedition XIV, Michael Lopez-Alegria,
… (inaudible) Tyurin, a Russian cosmonaut, and a space tourist Anousheh Ansari from
Iran. Actually, she’s American but she’s Iranian background. This is a view from that
little spacecraft and that’s what it looks like from the space station. After all of the other
parts, protective parts, come off. And that’s a view from the Soyuz as it’s getting ready to
dock to the space station. There they are. The guy in the white is Michael. The guy in the
blue was Thomas Ryder. He was a German astronaut, who I took the place of when I
came up on the shuttle. The shuttle rides a little bit. The suits are a little bit different.
They’re orange and, you know, they make you look nice and strong so we had to show
that off a little bit. The spacecraft is in the vertical position like you’ve seen it, I’m sure,
on all sorts of pictures just like that. So that’s how I was demonstrating how to get in.
This is liftoff. It was the first night launch in quite some time, because we were really
worried about what the tiles looked like. See all the stuff coming off in the flame trench
there? As its taking off, the external tank has foam all around it, sort of like a koozie, so
when you liftoff some of those pieces lift off. That ride is a little bit bumpy. I don’t know
if you saw in the corner -- I should have pointed out that that was the view of the inside
of the cockpit. While you’re on the solid rocket boosters, which are those two white
boosters on either side, it’s real bumpy. And there they are being jettisoned off right
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there. It’s bumpy because those boosters are like a cake mix material. There’s lots of air
pockets in there so while they’re burning up it’s pretty bouncy. But then you just are
riding on that big orange tank, which is fueling the three main engines. There you have
about a million and a half pounds of thrust for the next six minutes which will take you
up into orbit. So the whole ride is only eight and a half minutes. Somewhat impressive or
unimpressive -- I’m not sure how you want to look at that.
That’s from the shuttle coming into the station. That’s the station with all ten of us there.
So what does the inside of a space station look like? Because we were sort of clogging up
the view there. This is typically where you live. We each have our own little space. We
found after years of research that it’s nice that everybody has their own place where you
can put your own stuff, your pictures of your dog maybe, pictures of your favorite
baseball and football teams, or your husband or your family. A little cold in there, about
75 degrees. I wore my penguin jammies and I had to wear my little slippers.
This is a view of the lab. Right there I’m looking out the window checking the weather.
Usually, it’s pretty nice every day. We’re way above the clouds so we don’t necessarily
have to worry about it. I flew under the bike. That little brown thing right there was like a
table in case anybody has a problem. I’ll talk about that a little bit later. We’re floating
farther back going from the forward part of the space station back to the aft part. This
pink part is the node. That was the first U.S. piece to go up. All these white bags around
here, it’s like our pantry. That’s where we store all the stuff. So we have T-shirts, shorts,
toothbrushes, toothpaste, and anything that is reusable. All consumable type thing is right
there. So as we go further off you can sort of see the look and feel of the space station
starts to change. And this is where it becomes the Russian part. So the node was the first
U.S. part. This right here is called the functional cargo block which was the first Russian
piece to go up. It actually launched by itself autonomously and we connected the node to
it. We use this part right here.
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This is a typical day. We use this part as our little hygiene station. You see water does a
little bit interesting things. But brushing your teeth, shaving your face, those types of
things are pretty similar, but you don’t have a sink. Just keep that in mind. So what
you’re going to do with maybe your toothpaste or your whiskers, you have to be
conscientious and careful of where all that stuff goes. Washing your hair. A lot of people
asked about that. My hair actually has grown. It was a little bit shorter while I was up on
orbit. For LA, that’s what we called him, his nickname, no big deal. For me it was a little
bit of a bigger deal. I had to spend a little bit more time and probably wash my hair about
twice a week. Surprisingly enough, when the guys came to pick me up they said that I
didn’t stink and my hair wasn’t too greasy, so I was happy with that result. I’m not really
sure if brushing your hair has anything to do with how you look but it seemed like one of
those daily things that you wanted to do, just to sort of remind yourself that this is life.
You’re up there for six and a half months. It’s not a camping trip. You have to sort of
deal with all the rest of life.
And the rest of life: now, of course, we have to go to the real business end of the space
station. We were flying aft and that’s the very aft part. And, of course, there is the toilet.
So without a gravity assist, you need a little vacuum assist for number one. One size fits
all, but you don’t have to be right close. You can sort of go far away and it sucks it in.
But now you have to be sort of close for this, that’s number two. That one you don’t want
anything going anything going anywhere else than it’s supposed to. So you try to aim
pretty close. It could be fairly dangerous. There’s a story about getting mixed up between
an Oreo cookie and other brown things floating around so we’ll talk about that later.
Now let’s talk about food. This is the food part. Those red and blue containers right there.
Those are what are food comes in. They get shipped up. The Russian folks provide the
red ones, we provide the blue ones. And it’s a pantry. You know, you say, “What do I
want to eat?” It says breakfast, it says lunch, it says meats or vegetables. This happens to
be scrambled eggs. Just add a little water to it and let it hang out for a little bit and it’s
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good later, about a half an hour later. That’s our water dispensing system. So that’s how
when we have dehydrated food or drinks. That’s typically what our drink containers look
like. That’s how we fill them up. But we also had food that comes in cans, a little bit
looks like dog food. But you can get over that. Smells a little like dog food. But you can
get over it. And also food that’s ready made. That was orange juice. This is a little
breakfast meal here. We also have food that’s already ready made in a package. We have
a water fountain.
The treadmill is actually in that general area too. So it was nice to just have the water
fountain nearby. If you’re good … That’s Mikhail Tyurin by the way. He’s flown on the
space station a couple of times. If you’re good, you can go for distance. LA was … This
is his first flight for long duration and he wasn’t so good, so he had a long time keeping
that in his mouth. But this is what food looks like when it’s already made. It doesn’t have
to be hydrated or anything like that, and it just comes in those containers and then can get
heated up in that little oven. Waffles? We didn’t have a waffle iron but those were
already made and we just had to heat those up and we’re ready to go. The strawberries,
those were dehydrated so we just had to hydrate them a little bit beforehand. And you can
use your imagination and try to think about the best food you have and pretend the food
up there is like the best food that your mom would ever make for you.
Every now and then we had a progress vehicle or whenever any other spacecraft came
they brought fresh fruit and vegetables and it was awesome. You would just have to open
the hatch to smell the air and you could smell the tomatoes. You could smell the apples.
It was the best thing. I think what’s cool about that picture right there is the tomatoes and
the pickles that are there, they just are sticking to that paper, just because of their surface
tension because they’re just wet. So other things you’ve got to do, you know, of course,
cut your hair. My hair was a little bit different than those guys, because they’re using a
razor right there. Like a Flowbee it goes right into the vacuum cleaner. I had to sort of
hold the vacuum cleaner up close to my head while they were doing that. But there’s no
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lack of fun on the space station. You can play as much as work. And you sort of get
distracted with eating and playing. But then you have to get to work part of the day.
For every day that we’re up there we have to exercise. You have to exercise probably
about an hour and a half. And when you think about it what happens is, you know, you’re
walking around on Earth, your head is sitting on your spine, which is sitting on your hips
and that’s putting a lot of pressure on your hips and on your feet. So that stimulates your
bone density. In space that doesn’t happen. And so all of your bone density … Your
body’s so smart, so adaptable, that it goes, “Hey, I don’t need bone there.” So it starts
leeching it away. So to prevent that we have a resistant exercise equipment like this. We
have the treadmill. And you saw the bike. And the bike is there. Sort of interesting fact.
Your feet, actually, is known to shrink too because you don’t have to pump the blood
from your feet up to your heart and it doesn’t have to work against gravity to do that. And
so that’s why we had the bike so you can get a really good aerobic exercise while you’re
out there. The treadmill is primarily for, like I was talking about, the hip bone mass and
the feet bone mass.
But because we were using all that equipment up there and there’s all sorts of equipment
that we’re using on a regular basis up there, we have to do our own maintenance. So this
is me working on the treadmill after the marathon, actually. We had to change out some
parts. But that’s typical. We’re our own plumbers, we’re our own electricians. This is
actually a part that we’re going got use out on a space walk. We just go through and have
to on a regular basis, have to be fixing all this type of equipment as well as installing new
stuff. This right here happens to be an oxygen generation system, which is a simple
chemistry equation. This is about as much as I know about chemistry. It’s H2O. You split
it apart. It’s hydrogen and it’s oxygen. So that’s how we generate our own oxygen. We’re
getting ready to have a crew of six. Right now we have three. but we’re getting ready to
have a crew of six so we’re going to need more oxygen up there.
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We also rewired the space station for a brand new computer system as we’re getting
ready to add those laboratories I was talking about a little earlier. That’s the carbon
dioxide removal system. This is the Russian oxygen generation system we’re using for
only the crew of three right now. And we also did stuff in preparation for these new
modules attaching. Right there is what we called the hatch. And what we were working
on right here is a common berthing mechanism, which is the mechanism which we’ll be
able to combine new modules once they get added on. So that’s all the stuff that we did
inside.
And we did stuff outside as well. While I was up, there were five … wait, three, four …
Well, during the increment we had five space walks. Two of them were Russian. This is
the Russian space suit. Take a look at that backpack. It’s pretty long and you’ll see the
American spacesuit in a little bit and it’s a little bit different. The interesting thing about
the Russian space suit and that backpack, it’s like a door. You open it up and then you
climb in the suit. Then you close the door behind you. All the parts in there are made to
be changed out in space. In contrast, this is a U.S. solar ray which we were working on.
You saw that little kink in it. That’s the U.S. suit. The back part’s a little shorter. It’s
simply a life support system. It has the oxygen generation, the carbon dioxide and cooling
in it, and also a backpack in case you fly away. And I’ll show you that in just a second
here. But the suit’s a little bit different. It’s a little bit more modular. Three sizes of hard
upper torso and then you can change the arms and legs sizes. I like this view and you’ll
see another similar to that. That was from the helmet cam. But this is the backpack. In
case you get disconnected from the space station, you just extend the little handle right
there and then you can fly yourself back to the space station. Not something we need to
practice on a regular basis. It would be a little scary, but the suits are getting used quite a
bit. You know, there’s only about 18 suits in the whole U.S. inventory, and we have to do
our own maintenance for them up there as well. And that’s something new that we did
not plan on the U.S. side. The Russians planned that. That’s one of the reasons their suits
are different.
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So this again is a view from the helmet cams. I think it’s pretty cool. The guys on the
ground were actually watching us. This is when we were doing some of the ammonia
connection exchanges when we were getting ready for the heating and cooling switch
over. But the guys on the ground were actually watching everything that we were doing
from our view up in space down on the big screen there in mission control. And I think
that’s pretty amazing technology. That’s the radiator being, which it looks like an
accordion being closed up, and we were getting ready to move that part of the tress so we
needed to close up those radiators.
I like this view. That’s the front of the station right there as the two of us were working
on it. That all went up to our two space walks. Then we were on our last space walks,
which were a little bit interesting. With the two solar rays on either side, the station flies
symmetrically. You know, the station doesn’t have to fly that way. There’s no air up
there. So you don’t have to fly it like an airplane. You can fly in whichever altitude you
want. So before that it was sort of flying in a weird altitude. And because of that some of
the equipment was getting pummeled with a lot of heat and a lot of radiation. We took a
shroud off and then we were jettisoning it there because we didn’t need it anymore.
Another part of the space station which is cool on the outside … There’s like a train track
on the front and this is our little train going suni (powered). LA was just riding there as
we were going from one side of the tress to the other. And that’s to allow us to carry big
pieces of equipment back and forth in case we need to change something big. And sadly
enough, that was our last view as we were getting ready to go into the hatch the last time.
So I mentioned something, quickly, about other vehicles coming up. Well, we had little
guests. This was The Progress, a totally unmanned vehicle, except for inside the space
station they can control it in case it has a problem. It’s like a store. That’s the one that had
the apples and the tomatoes and smells great. And it just docks autonomously to the space
station. And it’s filled with everything from food to experiments to clothes and we just
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manually have to float things out of there. Also water. This was actually coming from
the space station. But just an idea of what water looks like. You know, it’s cool to
actually hand things to people in space. You don’t have to walk over and hand anything.
You can just float it over there even if it’s something really expensive. So water is just a
typical example. Those are like 50 pound bags of water but of course it doesn’t weigh
anything up there. Those progress vehicles also reboot. I’m essentially standing still in
space and the space station is accelerating around me in the last picture, as the Progress
vehicle was shooting its thrusters.
So, of course, we’re in a laboratory -- all this construction and maintenance and all that
kind of stuff. We also did science while we were up there, squeaked in a little science.
This is a radiation experiment where you see radiation flashes usually when you’re going
to sleep. And we don’t know where on your brain that really is happening. It’s not
necessarily with your eyes. And so LA’s head was all electroded up. I was just a little
bored so I was just playing around with my yo-yo. We also did some capillary flow
experiments up there. You think about that. That’s like water in a straw, or fluid in a
straw, and how that works in space. You know, on Earth, rather, there’s gravity that’s
pushing down. In space we don’t have that and so that has really neat implications, or
applications, for future engines.
We had different centrifuges up there so we were able to grow plants in different gravity
environments to sort of simulate how we might grow plants on the moon or on Mars.
We’re not going to be able to carry all the food with us. This is an experiment out of
MIT. It’s called spheres. And it’s really versatile. From the ground they can change the
flight control laws of these guys and they can have them do neat little things, try docking,
and all sorts of other things in micro gravity. So it’s a pretty versatile experiment. Also,
this is a reaction test. Your reactions in space might change. Think about it. On Earth it’s
easy to start moving but hard to stop. In space it’s the opposite. I’m sorry; I said that
wrong. It’s hard to get moving but easy to stop on Earth, and in space it’s easy to get
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moving but then hard to stop. So anyway the bottom line is your reaction time might
change.
We also took our own blood up there and urine samples. And we stored those in a little
freezer that we had up there. They just came back to Earth on the last shuttle mission. We
can sort of understand what happens to your body, to your blood, to your chemistry
inside when you’re up there in microgravity. Because things don’t always work. I mean
our bodies are so used to gravity that we process things internally using gravity. And so
what really happens without gravity?
This next little section talks about, or is directed at how we communicate with folks back
home. Because a lot of people say, “Hey, were you bored up there? Were you able to talk
to anybody?” Well, we had both a phone and email. Unfortunately, no Internet. So we
were able to contact our family and friends and also through a program called Net
Meeting I was actually able to see my dog. We had a couple advisers while we were up
there, told us how to maybe clean up the space station because it was a little messy. We
enlisted a bunch of folks in the Persian Gulf. We talked to the Astros. You know, we’re
based out of Houston, Texas where Johnson Space Center is. And so our second favorite
team, of course, is the Astros. I missed my dog incredibly, so I got to talk to the Dog
Whisperer and see some fuzzy characters. And got a little advice about food. Alton
Brown, the food chemist, was giving us little hints about some of the food we ate. As
well as we talked to somebody you guys might recognize. [Queen Elizabeth] Interesting
night. We didn’t get to see her, though we talked to her and then the questions came up
through another gentleman. And we talked to many schools while we were there which
was really pretty rewarding. It was cool to actually hear what the kids in classes were
thinking about. Well, that sort of wraps it up for Expedition XIV. And Expedition XIV
and XV are handing over here. There’s lots of Navy traditions. We change the flag. We
hand over the logbook. I was a handover item. I went from one expedition to the other.
We put our patches on different parts of the space station, one in the airlock, another one
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on our wall of visiting vehicles to the space station. And on the left there is actually a
spaceflight participant, Charles Simoney. And we have the bell to announce the arrival or
departure of vehicles. And this is the Expedition XIV getting into the Soyuz and getting
ready to leave. The Princess Bride was a favorite movie so we always said, “Have fun
storming the castle.”
That little bottom dot right there was where the three of them are, Expedition XIV. The
other two dots right there that are burning up as they enter the atmosphere are the other
parts of the Soyuz. So as LA would say, “Make sure you get into the right part of the
Soyuz.” And this is what’s left. It’s just a capsule, just like the Apollo days with a
parachute. And lands on the steps in Kazakhstan. A little dusty out there as well as they
have soft landing jets. The three of them are in there. They have to get to the right attitude
to pull them out. So a little bit of rolling. I can imagine it was sort of painful. But Misha
and LA and Charles came out there in Russia and ended up … What they do is they end
up staying there for some of their physical rehabilitation and then come back to the U.S.
And so while they were doing all their physical rehab, we were getting ready for the next,
like I said, taxi to earth which was this one, Space Shuttle Atlantis. We were all happy to
see it. We do lots of photographs of it because of the Columbia accident just to check the
tiles and make sure everything is okay for the reentry. That was the crew. And that’s
mission control and some of our flight directors have a good sense of humor. I think they
were ready to get us home.
And I have to finish the video with what the space station looks right now. And I tell you
what, it’s incredible. The golden solar rays are just spectacular to see, and it’s neat to
think that three people are living up there right now. So those are all the mission patches
of the flights that were in this movie while I was up there. Thank you. [applause]
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YOUNG: Go ahead, that was a lot of talking. I want to say, first of all, I’m just in awe.
In thinking of coming here to talk to Suni -- I talked to Garrison Keillor this afternoon,
and I’m sort of going through my schedule. I’m talking to Suni Williams tonight. I’m
very excited about it … astronaut, yeah, yeah. And then when we saw each other and we
hugged, and I suddenly had this, “Oh, my gosh! I touched a person who was in space.”
It’s really profound. Do you find that people have that reaction to you? You’ve been
somewhere! You carry particles and your cells are rearranged because you’ve been in this
place.
WILLIAMS: I hope not too many cells have been rearranged. I don’t know. But I don’t
think I’ve seen that reaction or felt that reaction. I think I have tried. I mean, there’re
folks here who have known me since I was a little kid, so I think they know better for one
thing. And I think I try to portray that to anybody that I meet that there’s nothing so
special. Though I do have a couple pieces of jewelry that I carry with me all the time that
have been in space and I think those are pretty special.
YOUNG: Is that the watch you have on?
WILLIAMS: The watch and this bracelet right here.
YOUNG: The bracelet that was in space.
WILLIAMS: Yep.
YOUNG: I said this morning on WBUR that you were going to be here. I said she’s
going to wear her astronaut suit because there was a miscommunication and someone
told me that. Well, it would be impossible. We’d have to cart you out here. How much
does that weigh?
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WILLIAMS: Well, there’s a couple suits you saw, right? The orange suit in the
beginning, you can lift that. I wasn’t super strong before I left. That’s probably only
about 50 pounds with the parachute on in the back and the oxygen bottles. But the white
suite, the space walking suit, can range anywhere between three and 900 pounds. It’s
pretty heavy. But that doesn’t matter because we put it on up in space.
YOUNG: Right, right. You talked about the impact on the body of being in space. How
do you feel now? And you’ve been back about, what, four months?
WILLIAMS: Three months now. I feel pretty good. Everybody is a little bit different,
so everybody’s body reacts a little bit different. I think I did enough physical exercise up
there that my bones and my muscles felt good. Though I have to say the first time I felt
gravity was when I took my helmet off and I was feeling like, “Whoa, this is really
heavy.” And the first time I stood up, I could visibly see my legs shaking a little bit. But
they got used to it. I mean, they reacted pretty quickly and I think that was the result of
the exercise we did up there. Some of the little bit longer lasting effects for me were
neural vestibular which is essentially, you know, simply put, the fluid in your inner ear.
It’s used to the effects of one G as you’re sitting here or as you’re on Earth. But then up
in space, of course, that fluid starts to float around a little bit. And I’ll tell you the tomato
soup that I ate beforehand came up nice and smoothly when I got up there, because I was
a little bit nauseous as that adjustment was beginning to take place. And, likewise, on the
flip side, coming home, you know, with the effect of gravity again on that fluid I felt
pretty sick for the first two days. Every time I turned my head it felt pretty nauseous. But
you feel when you come home, hour by hour you’re getting better. I mean, you can’t
escape gravity. And so every moment that you’re here on Earth, you feel better and better
and you start to get used to it again.
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YOUNG: How does it feel to be in space? Obviously, you’re floating. But how else does
it feel? Do you feel speed? There was one moment where you felt the other vehicle
thrust. But how does it feel?
WILLIAMS: It’s very peaceful. I mean, I would equate it to being on an airplane. You
know, when you look out the window, even though you’re going 500 miles per hour, it
just feels pretty smooth, unless you’re flying through turbulence, which we don’t have
any of up there. We’re way above the cloud tops, so it’s always usually a pretty smooth
ride unless the vehicle’s turning or anything like that. So it’s very peaceful, particularly
when you look out the window.
YOUNG: I’m almost disappointed to hear that, you know. Because I sometimes find
myself on an airplane and I’m thinking, “I wish I felt this was more miraculous.” Because
I knew one time in my life I thought it was. And now I don’t feel it. Is there a moment
when you’re in space where you … Maybe it’s like when we see the Grand Canyon, and
it’s just sometimes you have some weird vertigo when you’re at something like the Grand
Canyon because it’s so immense. Is there a time when you’re in space when there’s
something that happens that you really feel where you are?
WILLIAMS: Oh yeah. I mean, though it’s very smooth, we have big cameras where
we’re usually always trying to take pictures of the Earth and trying to get that one shot of
Cape Cod and, whoop, it’s gone. That’s sort of annoying. You know, it’s because you’re
going 17,500 miles an hour. You see 16 sunrises and sunsets. So as you’re trying to get
that other picture of some place and all of a sudden, you know, “Oh shoot, it’s night time
already over there.” And, you know, those types of things really dawn on you that you’re
going pretty darn fast.
YOUNG: Do you ever have a moment -- and maybe it’s just because we’re projecting,
I’m projecting that I would have these moments every second. Do any of the astronauts
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ever have a moment where you need to be calmed down a little bit? Where the enormity
of what you’re doing maybe hits one of you? Or is it just work?
WILLIAMS: Well, I would say it’s usually just work. I would say probably 95% of the
time it feels like just … I shouldn’t say ‘just’ because it’s cool work. Every day you get
up, you’re like, “Ooh, what are we going to do today?” So it’s fun work. But it doesn’t
feel like it’s scary or anything like that. But I think every now and then it dawns on you
that you’re living in a little can in space where the tempers are pretty violent and you’re
in the vacuum of space. We were in an interesting orbit at one point in time where the left
side of the spacecraft was always in the sunlight. The right side was seeing the sunrise
and sunsets but it was during the summer time frame and we were just following the orbit
track. And you could tell the left side was heating up, because you would hear little
creaks. I’m sure the spacecraft is rated for this, but you would hear little creaks and stuff
like that and we opened one of those hatches which I showed as one of the common
berthing mechanisms where we’re going to add another piece. And it’s black just like the
front of the space station. And so you could feel that heat just emanating in there. And so
you sort of think to yourself, “I hope this is all going to work.”
And, you know, when you’re out on a space walk we’ve practiced it so much that when
you open the hatch and you go out you feel like, “Okay, this is just normal. I’m in the
pool at Johnson Space Center. I know what I’m doing.” But every now and then when
there’s a moment to stop. You might have asked a question to the ground or you asked a
question to each other and you stopped working because you weren’t sure of what you
were doing, and you looked out and the Earth is just zipping by you. It makes you stop
and just go, “Wow, this is pretty amazing. And I hope my space suit works.” Every time I
came in I gave my space suit a big hug.
YOUNG: I guess while you’re up there, you know, do you have discussions? Especially
when you’re with the Russians? I’m just wondering because I know when I was coming
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here some people said to me, “Ask her about faith.” You know, you’re up there in what
people would call the heavens. You know, are there conversations about things like that
with your fellow cosmonauts or even internally with yourself?
WILLIAMS: Oh yeah. I mean, we have a typical day up there. Like I was mentioning,
it’s six and a half months. So you try to keep things as normal as possible. We wake up in
the morning. You do all your normal morning stuff. You have a little conference and then
you go to work. Everyone’s doing their whole thing all day. And then at night time,
everyone sort of gathers together and has dinner and that’s when you have some of those
reflective conversations about what are we doing up here, and why are we here and why
actually are we on Earth. And looking down at Earth. And talking to each other about
some of the amazing things we’ve seen. Misha Tyurin’s very -- I don’t want to say
artistic. It’s always fun to take pictures of places you know. Because you’re like, “Oh
that’s where I grew up.” Or that’s this, that’s this. And he started taking pictures of just
things that he thought were weird on Earth. You know, just like weird craters, weird
colors, and things that if you took those pictures back to an audience and said, “Where
was this?” They would say it’s a different planet. They wouldn’t even recognize it as our
planet. So those moments like that when you stop and start reflecting about this ball that
we’re living on, then you start really wondering, you know, what’s it all about.
YOUNG: Would you conclude … I mean, when we were all kids the thing was … I
mean, everyone went through this. Where does it end, you know? What’s the end of the
universe? And then what’s beyond that?
WILLIAMS: Well, I think the best way to answer that question is sort of like, I think
when kids ask me, “Do you think there’s aliens out there? Did you see any?” And I
haven’t seen any, I’ll have to tell you. First a disclaimer. I haven’t seen any aliens. But I
couldn’t imagine there isn’t something out there that’s living besides us. You look at all
those stars out there. When you’re up in space, you’re above the atmosphere of the Earth
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so it’s like the darkest place that you could find at night when you can see millions and
millions and millions of stars. And they don’t twinkle, because you’re above the
atmosphere. They’re just bright spots of light. And you’ve got to think that that’s what
our sun looks like. So around all those little stars out there are there planets? And on
those planets does anything have a makeup like we do here that could support some type
of life? I don’t mean to be focusing on we’re small, small, small, small, small, but there’s
got to be something else out there, and I think we’re very lucky and privileged to have
our planet that can sustain our life. And you start thinking about what else is out there. I
don’t know, it makes you feel pretty special and pretty small I think all in one.
YOUNG: You’re awfully casual when you were showing us the film and you were
saying, “Oh, look at the debris coming off the shuttle,” when it was going up. And, of
course, there were horrendous problems posed by some of the tiles that were coming off.
You mentioned that you hold one of your records by default. You were waiting for
someone to come and get you. We were waiting down here too, especially here in
Massachusetts. What was that like? Did you ever think maybe I don’t get down? Do you
even allow that to cross your mind? Do you know that, by the way, a lot of programs
were delivering this news that you’re setting all these records because, you know, there’s
trouble getting the shuttle up there? And they would play, what’s the song? Major Tom.
And I kept thinking, I hope she’s not hearing this, because it’s the song, you know, the
astronaut who’s stranded in space.
WILLIAMS: I like David Bowie, but I wouldn’t want that to describe my life I suppose.
Actually, you know, six and a half months up there went by so quick that I felt like I
could have stayed longer, no problem. Initially, I was supposed to come back on the next
shuttle, the STS-118. But we moved up to STS-117, because 117 … the whole schedule
sort of shifted. And so there was a lot of debate whether or not I was going to stay up
until the 118, which would have left me up there about 260 days. And one of the things
about being in space is you get a dose of radiation. They don’t really know exactly how
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much you get until you come home. Because everybody wears a dosimeter and there’s
dosimeters throughout the cabin as well. So somewhere around 180 days is what we
normally keep people up in space and that’s proven to be fine. So when we start getting
up to, you know, the 200 to 300 days we’re not exactly sure what those effects are,
what’s happening. And so we try not to keep people up in space that long. So that was
sort of the discussion. So that’s why I was sort of facetiously saying the next ride home
which got me back home.
YOUNG: Everyone’s going to get their chance to ask about different aspects of Suni’s
experience, but I’m just going to move to one quickly that has been all the news. So bear
with me. We, of course, know about your colleague astronaut Lisa Nowak, who went on
the cross country trip to seek retribution against what she perceived as a romantic rival.
And after that happened NASA promised to monitor the mental health of astronauts
more, and they came out with a study in which they found, in addition to talking about
mental health issues, that in fact there had been incidents of astronauts flying within a
timeframe that they’re not supposed to after having been drunk. So my question: are you
drunk? No. [laughter]
WILLIAMS: I didn’t stumble today did I? I don’t think so. What’s in there?
YOUNG: At the time some of the people in the program expressed concern. They said
they had expressed concern -- doctors had -- that they knew that these astronauts had
been drunk within the 12 hour limit and were still allowed to fly. Maybe it’s something
you can’t talk about or maybe you can and forcefully discount it. But are there things like
this that are going on in the program that, you know, safety questions, mental health
questions that people like you have to deal with?
WILLIAMS: Little difficult question to answer, because I really don’t have a good
answer for it except for the fact that I’ve gone through one launch count from first hand
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experience. And it would be really difficult to do what the press has, or what was
displayed as maybe people have been drinking within a timeframe which was close to
launch. Just because everything is down to the wire. You know, the launch count starts a
number of days beforehand, where the vehicle’s being programmed. And parallel to that
is the astronauts: we go into quarantine days beforehand and you have things that you’re
going to do right up until the time that you launch, in particular the day of launch. You
know, you have a breakfast at a certain time. You have a press conference at a certain
time. You have to put on your space suit when you’re going to the vehicle and all that
type of stuff. So from my experience and the experience of my crewmates, I can’t really
imagine that being a realistic concern.
YOUNG: I wondered too if it was in some ways being a little unfair to at least the core
astronauts. Because I started thinking when that report came out that there was a time
when we first started flying in space that people who were chosen to be astronauts were
out of their minds. I mean, they were expected to be risk takers and the real sort of
cowboys of outer space. They were test pilots and they always lived on the edge. And
there was always this winking nod that there was this kind of lifestyle and that’s why they
went up in these cans, you know, to outer space. And that now suddenly, you know, that
kind of -- however you characterize it -- is being called into question. Has their been sort
of a shift in …
WILLIAMS: Oh yeah. I think absolutely. I mean, half of the astronaut core comes from
a test pilot background. Of course, at this moment in time we have test pilots and jet
pilots who are flying the space shuttle. So there is a brotherhood in that system. But half
of the astronauts are also scientists and doctors and physicists, a veterinarian. We’ve got a
whole range of folks. We have some educators who are now astronauts as well. And also
our role is a little bit different. The spacecraft that we’re going on have flown a number
of times. I’m not going to say they’re not test aircraft or test spacecraft, but they’ve flown
a number of times and our mission is not just to launch and come back to Earth, but our
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mission is to get out there and understand what it is to live and work in microgravity and
how we can use this experience, this laboratory, to build the next generation of
spacecraft. So I think the focus of what we’re doing is a little bit different from the group
of astronauts in the very beginning. I’m not saying against them. My gosh, they were the
bravest folks on the planet to lock themselves, sort of strap themselves into a can and say,
“Light the candle,” as the first couple had said. That’s pretty incredible. But our focus has
changed about what we’re doing. And when we leave the planet and go back to the moon
or when we go on to Mars, there is a little attitude of that you’re on the cutting edge. But
you keep everything in perspective. I mean, I think everybody who launches on a space
shuttle … I can’t imagine … I went through this a couple days beforehand of, you know,
you sort of want your life in order, your friends and family in order, your dog at the right
place and everything all in order. Because you know, there’s a chance that you might not
be coming back. But you go through that and then you move on. We’re highly trained for
what we’re doing and people take it very seriously.
YOUNG: You know, you mentioned that wanting your life in order and you and your
husband have a dog that you love. And we’ve heard that. And I probably should ask this
of a male astronaut as well. But do you think if you had children, do you think you would
go up? Or do you think it’s harder for the astronauts who do?
WILLIAMS: Well, you know, a six-year-old boy asked me the other day would I go to
Mars if I knew it was a one way trip. So I sort of feel like this is a very similar question.
And I asked him, “Would you?” I’m not sure he was ready for me to ask him that. But I
said, “It’s your generation that might be doing that, so you better start thinking about
that.” I think, really, if you felt what you were doing, if I felt what I was doing was for a
good purpose that was going to help folks on Earth and humanity, and what we’re trying
to accomplish with nations working together, then, yeah, I think it would be worth it. If I
didn’t feel that way, then maybe I would say no.
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YOUNG: You know, and again, a man would have the same consideration. Leaving
children behind might be tough.
WILLIAMS: Absolutely.
YOUNG: By the way, I’m so sorry. The sun is setting right behind you.
WILLIAMS: Right in your eyes. Can I block you?
YOUNG: No, no. That’s okay. And it’s beautiful. Beautiful views here. You talk about
how this mission, you feel that it is so important. You know this debate where many
Americans are wondering if it is. Wondering if the money should be better spent
somewhere else. And the shuttle program itself is scheduled to end in 2010. Debate about
how it proceeds from there while the space station is there. What would you say to
Americans who say billions of dollars … It’s wonderful, we love seeing it, and it’s fun,
but really what is it doing?
WILLIAMS: Well, I think one of the things that I mentioned right in the beginning of
the film was, you know, all these parts are engineered all over the world. They’re not put
together before they go to space. This is the first time these pieces have come together.
And we are opening up our companies, our engineering models, ideas to be able to do
that with each other, like countries that we had not been so friendly with in the past. And
I think that’s pretty incredible, first of all, as an engineering project, and secondly as a
peaceful diplomatic project that we’re all working on together. So I think that is really
first and foremost, above all the benefits of the international space station.
And then secondly, why would we want to go back to the moon? Why do we want to go
on to Mars? Well, there’re lots of things that we can learn from doing that about our own
planet, about our own civilization. And what happens to planets that don’t have plate
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tectonics, for example, like Mars? And could our planet turn into a planet like that?
Going back to the moon … You know, the guys who went to the moon initially in
Apollo, again, what an amazing brave group of gentleman who were able to do that and
taught us a whole lot about space and exploration. But they were there for a short amount
of time. If we’re going to go to Mars to understand some of these issues that potentially
our planet can have, we need to figure out how we’re going to do that successfully. The
moon is a logical stepping stone. We can build a space station, an outpost there where we
can try out all these things that we want to do when we go to Mars, so we’ll be successful
when we do it. So there’re all sorts of benefits I think from the political, to the
engineering, to the scientific, to how humans look at each other. I wish everybody had the
opportunity. I wish we had a little bit more commercialized space travel, so folks can get
up and look down at the planet. Get up to space, look down at the planet. And one thing
I’ve talked about before is looking at the countries all around, those countries are all
bordered by things that we write on a piece of paper. Those lines in between countries are
all something in our imaginations. That’s not what it really looks like from space. Those
countries are all one. I had a hard time deciphering some of the countries in Europe
because, you know, “Where’s the map with the little lines that are drawn on there, you
know? What am I taking a picture of?” I was happy to find some good lakes and stuff like
that. But, honestly, I think that folks would be a lot nicer to each other if everybody had
that view.
YOUNG: We’re going to hear if there’re people who know Suni when she was a kid in
Needham. But growing up in Needham -- I mean, you loved Bobby Orr, you loved Larry
Bird. Did you love an astronaut? Was there something that appealed to you? When did it
happen for you?
WILLIAMS: No, I don’t … Well, you know, I mentioned quickly I grew up in the
sixties. We were four years old or so when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on
the moon and watching on the black and white TV. Some of you young people don’t
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realize that there were black and white TVs, and there were no remote controls at one
point. We had to get up and actually turn the channel. But we were watching that. And,
you know, I was little at the time but we all crowded down in the basement to watch. And
it was like, “Oh, that’s cool.” But I didn’t … Who’s going to be an astronaut? You’ve got
to be super smart to be an astronaut. And that surely wasn’t me. I was an okay student.
YOUNG: Now, wait a minute. We were hoping that you were going to say that you
excelled in math and science.
WILLIAMS: Well, I did excel in math and science.
YOUNG: Later?
WILLIAMS: Yeah, and particularly later. But I really wasn’t … You know, I wanted to
be a veterinarian. I loved animals. And I think what kids usually focus on and what I
think I did at the time is something that you know and you love and you go, “Okay, I
want to be a veterinarian because I love dogs.” And not really seeing the rest of the world
that’s out there and the opportunities that are there. My choices when I went to college as
it boiled down -- I mentioned this before so if some of you have heard this before I’m
sorry to be redundant -- were the Naval Academy and Columbia. And I had really long
hair at the time. I was really nervous about cutting my hair. At 17 years old, that was a
big deal for me. And so my thought was, “Do I cut my hair or do I go live in New York
City? No way, New York City’s way too scary. I’d rather go to the military and cut my
hair.” So I didn’t want to be a Yankees fan. So I went to the Naval Academy. When I
was there I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. I learned a lot about math
and science and teamwork and leadership and followership from the great experience that
I had there, but still didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a diver. It
seemed like it would go hand in hand with my swimming background. I was like, “Oh,
I’m really comfortable in the water.” Again, I wasn’t at the top of my class, I was in the
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middle. And we, through our service selection, figure out what we’re going to do based
on what our class standing is. And so I didn’t get the diving billet. There was only one
woman diving billet at the time. And I thought, “Well, I have 20/20 vision. Maybe I’ll
fly. I’ve never flown an airplane before. What the heck.” So I said, “Let’s go to flight
school.” So I did and then, you know, I wanted to fly jets. And at the time Top Gun came
out and everyone’s like, “Jets, jets, cool.” There were only one or two billets there for
women at the time. This has all gotten a lot better, by the way, for everybody out there.
And so I put that down, didn’t get that. I got helicopters. I’m like, “Okay, helicopters.
Cool, I guess. I don’t know what this is all about.” So I tried it out and I had really a
wonderful time flying helicopters. I mean, I think it’s probably the second best view of
the Earth when you’re zipping around really fast right over. And so I still didn’t really
think about being an astronaut. Or had it in the back of my mind, I’ll say, but thinking
again, “I’m a helicopter pilot. There’s just no way I would ever become an astronaut.” I
knew other jet pilots had become astronauts. And I went to test pilot school. And while
we were there, we went to Johnson Space Center. All the jet pilots, of course, are sitting
in the front row, you know, waiting with baited breath, you know, learning how to fill out
their application to be astronauts. And us laid back helicopter pilots are in the back row
just going, “Okay, when is this brief going to get over.” And John Young gave the brief,
and he mentioned that he had to learn -- he went to the moon twice in case you guys
didn’t remember and also flew the first space shuttle -- and he mentioned that he had to
learn how to fly helicopters to land the Lunar Lander. And then I went, hey. There’s a job
for me. You know, why not.
YOUNG: Why do you think NASA picked you? Because there were so many
candidates, why do you think you …
WILLIAMS: Oh, I don’t know. That’s a good question. I think what they’re looking for
… I mean, typically the job description is people who are pretty, I guess, not necessarily
outdoorsy, but I would say little bit adventurous. Not overly adventurous, because I think
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one of our big mottos or things that we do … We have a lot of redundancy to decrease
risk. So I think that they’re looking for people who do maybe slightly extraordinary
things with some calculated risk involved and have come out successfully, and people
who understand what it’s like to potentially go on a long deployment. I’m a Navy guy so
I’d been on a couple six month deployments, as well as my husband. So I think those are
characteristics that they’re looking at for someone to be an explorer. There’re a lot of
studies out there about the folks that have gone to the South Pole and what made their
expedition successful. So I think some of those characteristics are what they’re looking
for.
YOUNG: And we know Needham, Massachusetts is so proud of you. You tossed out the
baseball at the game last night.
WILLIAMS: Made it to home plate. [applause]
YOUNG: Yep, right. Of course the Yankees won, but …
WILLIAMS: I know.
YOUNG: But are you aware of how proud India is of you?
WILLIAMS: I will be soon.
YOUNG: Are you going there?
WILLIAMS: I’m going, leaving actually on Wednesday. We’ll be going to my father’s
home state and then a couple astronautic conferences are happening while I’ll be over
there. So I’ll really looking forward to that. That should be pretty interesting.
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YOUNG: It’s quite something.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, actually I’ll have to tell you a cool story. I got an email from a
friend of mine who I used to swim with at the Naval Academy. Her husband is in Iraq.
And the barbers in the Green Zone are Indian contractors. And they stopped what they
were doing to watch Atlantis land. And he said, “What are you guys doing? You know, I
have to get my haircut.” It’s like, I’m a timeline here. He’s like, “Well, you know, Suni
Williams is landing on the shuttle. This isn’t the Green Zone.” So that’s cool. I think I’m
getting the message that people are pretty psyched about it.
YOUNG: Well, let’s let the people who are here ask some questions of you in the time
that we have. And I’m not quite sure … do we just stand up and holler? Oh, there’s a
microphone there. Tell you what, why don’t you guys, there’re two mics, one on each
side. Why don’t you guys start forming little lines in front of each microphone, and we’ll
go side to side. There’s a young man here. Suni didn’t get to wear her outfit because we’d
have to wheel her in. Didn’t someone show up in an astronaut’s outfit? Is there a young
man here? Where are you? Where are you? It’s a little girl? Fantastic. Hold her up. Come
on down. While the lines are being formed, I want to see the outfit. She’s shy.
WILLIAMS: That’s great.
YOUNG: How cool. Well, she’s now hiding in the back. We’ll meet her later. Are you
aware of young girls, in particular?
WILLIAMS: I think I’m also getting the feeling -- I hate being … Somebody asked me
the other day about being a role model, and I had to take a step back and … Oh, I guess
maybe I need to think about this a little bit. And I take it pretty seriously. I think the
things that we’re doing are things that anybody, any young girl can do. Sort of like the
borders things. I think any limitations that you have in your mind between what you can
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do and what some little boy can do or what some guy can do, is just a border that you put
in your mind. And so I’m trying to relay that to kids. The helicopters I flew didn’t know
whether or not I was a boy or a girl. The spacesuit didn’t know whether or not I was a girl
or a boy, so why should that be a limitation. So I hope I am translating that type of
message to all the young women out there. Like I said, they’ve got to come up and beat
my record. I’m getting old so we need some people to take my place in the space
program, so let’s go.
YOUNG: We have a question for Suni.
AUDIENCE: Welcome, Suni. Welcome home.
WILLIAMS: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: Are you still in the Navy? And are most of the astronauts members of
some branch of the service?
WILLIAMS: I’m still in the Navy. Actually, just went over 20 years. So most of the
folks who have a military background stay in their military field until some point when
they can retire and then maybe they’ll switch over to government service. But really
about half of the astronauts are military and half are civilian or government service
workers now.
YOUNG: And a question over here.
AUDIENCE: What do you keep in the chest over here on the suit?
WILLIAMS: What did I keep in this part of the spacesuit right in front?
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AUDIENCE: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: Well, that’s all our controls. While you’re out there this little space suit is
actually a spacecraft. It has all your oxygen in it, all your carbon dioxide removal, it has
heating and cooling, it has a battery in there. It also has information about backup oxygen
in case your primary oxygen went away. So all of those pieces of information are
displayed on what we call a display control module right here. So we have a little screen
and we can toggle through everything that … how our suit is working.
YOUNG: Oh, we have the young girl coming up to show us her outfit.
WILLIAMS: Come on over here.
YOUNG: Wow.
WILLIAMS: Wow. [applause]
YOUNG: Can you tell us your name? We have a model for our radio listeners. Can you
tell us your name, just a little bit, into the microphone? Do you mind telling us your
name? Maybe that’s top secret. Is that top secret?
WILLIAMS: Are you the commander?
AUDIENCE: Isabel.
YOUNG: Okay. Thank you so much. You can go right on there, Isabel with her
commander suit on. Again, for our radio listeners, she had her full orange suit on. And
she’s come back. Did you want to say something to Suni?
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ISABEL: And Aidan.
YOUNG: And Aidan?
ISABEL: And Isabel.
YOUNG: And Isabel. Thank you very much. All right, one more …
ISABEL: And Mella and Isabel’s dad and Isabel’s mom and Aidan’s dad.
YOUNG: Alrighty. Thank you so much. They’ve all come here today. Okay.
ISABEL: No. Aidan and Isabel. [referring to her imaginary friends]
YOUNG: Thank you. Oh, there’s mom. Bye. And prior to that we had a young person at
the microphone who I didn’t even see, he’s so short. And he was holding up a photograph
of you with your spacesuit asking about the front of your spacesuit. So that’s for our
listeners at home. Well, I’m telling you, I think you just saw the future of the space
program right there.
WILLIAMS: All right, let’s go.
YOUNG: Were you finished with your question? Do you have more of a question?
Okay, thank you. And now, over here. We have a question on this side.
AUDIENCE: Hi, I don’t think my question is quite that sophisticated. Actually, two
questions. Did you get to use both American and Russian spacesuits in your space walks?
And also what kind of tracking do they do for orbital debris when you’re outside? I know
that I’ve read reports that the shuttle had a gouge windshield, I believe, on one flight and
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they said that … I believe that they thought it was actually a paint chip from a satellite.
But it actually had put a pretty good groove in the windshield. They had to replace it. So
what kind of protection do you have and how worried are you about that?
WILLIAMS: Okay. Just first to talk about the spacesuit question. I only went out in a
U.S. spacesuit. My Russian counterparts, as well as the commander of the space station,
had gone out and done a spacewalk in the Russian suit and also the U.S. suit. So I only
have firsthand knowledge on the U.S. suit. However, we’re trained in both suits before
we go just in case anything happens. Maybe there’s something, some systemic problem
in the spacesuits and say we can’t use any of the U.S. suits. Then we’re ready to go out
and do the tasks in the Russian suits, and likewise from the Russians, same thing with
them. They can go and use our suits. So we’re all trained in both suits. But I had never
done a space walk in the Russian suit.
And for protection or what type of tracking, well, you know, there’s folks on the ground
… I can’t really talk to the specific incident that you mentioned because I don’t really
have any knowledge about that. I need to go back and look that up. But they’re tracking
anything on the ground that’s like a softball size. And, really, for the space station we are
in an orbit that has an inclination above the equator. We can’t change that inclination that
we’re flying; however, we can change our altitude by the way we boost. We can change
our altitude by the way we turn to potentially help and prevent us from hitting anything.
So a little micrometeorites that we’re not going to be able to see -- and we have
micrometeorites protection on both the suits and the space station itself. We’ve seen some
evidence that every now and then there’s some damage here and there. But that
spacecraft is made to withstand that kind of stuff. Like I said, I’m not familiar with the
incident you mentioned, so I don’t really have any details on that one.
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
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YOUNG: On this side.
AUDIENCE: Can you tell us the circumstance of your record breaking space walk?
Whether it was planned to go that long and how you dealt with it?
WILLIAMS: Yeah, you know, when we’re practicing or when we’re training in the
pool for space walks, they are pretty much timed essentially to the minute with a little bit
of slop time in there. And you try to get done early. You know, it’s just like at home, you
know, you want to get all your yard work done early so you can go in and enjoy the
game. But sometimes that doesn’t happen. We had an idea that these might last a little bit
long, because we were dealing with ammonia and ammonia connections. And the quick
disconnect connections, we had known that there might be some problems with that and
they might leak. Now the ammonia that we used for the radiators is lethal if it comes
inside and so if you get any of that ammonia on your suit you have to wait a certain
amount of time, what they call “bake out.” First you try to scrape it off and then you have
to be outside for a certain amount of time so you don’t bring that ammonia into that
closed environment because then it would be really lethal and dangerous. And so that’s
one of the reasons our space walks lasted long. That was the group that was during the
increment.
My first space walk lasted long, because we had that problem with that solar -- I don’t
know if you remember that part in the video. There was a gold piece that sort of had that
kink in it. It’s like a map, you know, it’s sort of flimsy like that. And it already has bends
in it and you try to fold it. Sometimes it doesn’t work. And we had finished all of our
tasks pretty early for our nominal tasks that they said, “Hey, why don’t you go up there
and try to shake that thing. Take the map and do like this a little bit and see if it might
loosen itself up.” That was an unplanned task. And they really wanted to have cameras on
it. So they wanted it to be in the daytime. So we had about 40 minutes of nighttime where
we couldn’t do anything, actually. We were just waiting until daytime to try to do it
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again. So that was one of the reasons that spacewalk lasted long. But that was really cool
because those northern lights were acting up at that point in time. So this green cool
magnetic thing was like bouncing over the Earth while we were out there. So I enjoyed
the view for that time.
YOUNG: Next question.
AUDIENCE: Hi, there is a popular movie out right now, I don’t know if you’ve seen it,
called Sunshine.
WILLIAMS: Haven’t seen it.
AUDIENCE: Haven’t seen it? Oh no. Well, the reason I ask is it’s about a mission that
goes awry in a weirdly parallel way to the mission … I mean, it really recollects the
mission that you were on. And I guess the question that I have is about when they fix the
solar panels on it, and you can’t answer it because you didn’t see it. But thank you for
showing the footage of fixing the solar panels.
YOUNG: What was the question? Just try us.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, yeah.
AUDIENCE: Well, I guess I assumed that you would have seen it to see if they got it
right or not. But I guess it was just like how accurate was it. I mean, it was to me the
climax of the movie when they got outside the spaceship and had to go fix something.
Mostly because I was thinking of you guys.
WILLIAMS: Wow.
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AUDIENCE: I mean, that it happened.
WILLIAMS: Well, you know, each one of our spacewalks, one of the passed down
items … People ask, “What do you do now?” And one of the big things we do is we talk
to the other astronauts who are getting up to continue the construction about some of the
lessons learned, of course, that we had. And one of the lessons learned about spacewalks
that is resounding is something’s going to happen that you didn’t expect. And be ready
for that. And be ready to adapt to your plan. You know, just like the ammonia, we sort of
expected it but we weren’t really sure. Just like the solar rays we weren’t really sure how
that was going to work. We knew there might be some problems. We may or not have
thought of all of the contingencies of folks on the ground. We have an army of folks. You
know it’s not only us astronauts. We’re just the lucky ones who get to go execute. But
there’re thousands of people on the ground and all over the world that are working on
these problems with us. And you know, sometimes we didn’t anticipate how things are
going to work in microgravity, and you’re just going to have to go out there and try
something. And that’s happened on all of the last couple of missions that we’ve had.
We’ve had a couple other little problems with the shuttle surface itself. We’ve had
problems with solar rays retraction. We’ve had some problems with radiators. We’ve had
little problems here and there. I mean, this space station is a test bed. Like I said, we’ve
never done this before. We’ve never constructed and changed parts like a tinker toy in
outer space, and so we’re learning a whole lot out there.
YOUNG: And one on this side as well.
AUDIENCE: Is it possible to actually go up to Earth and touch it.
WILLIAMS: Wait, say it one more time.
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YOUNG: That was a dual question for our radio listeners from two young women who
split it up. Is it possible … Try it again.
AUDIENCE: Is it possible to actually go up to Earth and touch it?
WILLIAMS: To Earth?
YOUNG: You mean if you’re hanging out of the space station? Like putting your hand
out?
WILLIAMS: You’ve got to come home. You’ve got to come home to touch it, because
it’s pretty far away. But it’s an interesting question because when I was out there I was …
I wrote a journal every week and it’s on the NASA website if you’re interested just to see
what was going on in my mind when I was out there. And it took until probably the end,
about six months time, when we were orbiting and I’m taking pictures, I’m looking out
the window. And I was thinking, reflecting back on the Apollo folks and thinking about
the ones who went to the moon and orbited for the first couple of times. And they were
looking down on it and I felt like, “Wouldn’t you want to go down there and touch it?” It
was seriously the feeling I got after orbiting around the Earth for six months. I was like,
you know, you just want to be part of it. You want to touch it. So I think if I was one of
those folks that were going to go back to the moon or on to Mars. I think I would want to
get down there and really land and touch it. But coming back into any atmosphere is a
little tricky. You know, particularly here on Earth where we have air, it’s like you are
putting your hand through water, right. There’s a little resistance. Well, when you’re
coming back into the Earth’s atmosphere at such high speeds, air is like that. It’s friction.
And that friction is what heats up the bottom of the spacecraft. And so you’re going to
have to go through a little trauma to go back and touch the Earth.
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YOUNG: Scariest part. That’s a fantastic question, though. Because that’s how I feel
about the Grand Canyon. While I’m standing on one side I can just touch the other side.
But that’s enormity. You can’t. One more question?
AUDIENCE: Yeah. How many times have you gone up to space?
WILLIAMS: Actually this is my first time and only time. It was a little bit of a doozy. I
got it all in one package. I got to do a bunch of space walks as well as live on the space
stations.
AUDIENCE: Were you scared before you went up?
WILLIAMS: No, actually I don’t think I was scared. Like, I was mentioning, I think I
wanted to make sure everything was in order. I think the most scary part was going out to
the spacecraft right before we were getting ready to launch. We had been out there to
launch pad before, and lots of people are working on it so they’re still putting the payload
into the payload bay and closing up everything, making sure everything’s tightened
down, everything’s in the right place. And so we roamed around there before checking
out our stuff that we’re going to work on. But when we went out to the launch pad that
night -- because it was a nighttime launch -- the xenon lights were lighting the thing up.
You couldn’t see anywhere around it because they were so bright. There’re only a couple
other folks out there, called the close out crew, and the vehicle is fueled, which means it’s
filled up with cryogenic hydrogenic and oxygenic. And it’s just breathing and moaning
and hissing. And there’re only a couple people out there and you just look up at this
enormity and just go, “Oh my God, I’m going to be sitting on the top of that thing.” And
that was a little scary.
But once you climb in, you know, our training is really pretty thorough, and you feel like
you are back in a simulation. You’re like, “Oh okay, I know.” And then you have a
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couple of hours because we check the integrity of the door and make sure the hatch is all
sealed. And we do some communication checks with Kennedy and also in Houston,
because we’ll be talking to them before long. And then when there’s a little time in there
-- and folks have asked me, “What were you thinking about in there?” -- I’m like, “Oh,
we were telling jokes and just relaxing a little bit.” Because you’re on as soon as those
light and you get propelled right off the Earth you better be ready to do what you need to
do. And so we were just relaxing right beforehand.
YOUNG: I’d be checking the integrity of the door. I’d be out the door! Another question
on this side.
AUDIENCE: How does it feel to sleep in space? Because you’re in this small confined
area. And how does it feel? Is it comfortable dis-comfortable?
YOUNG: Did you get claustrophobic? Is that what you mean? Did you get a little
claustrophobic looking at the film?
AUDIENCE: Well, not really. Just wondering how does it feel to sleep in space.
WILLIAMS: It’s a great question because my thought beforehand was, “Oh, this is
going to be like sleeping on a hammock.” It’ll be nice and comfortable. You don’t have
to turn over because your shoulder hurts or something like that. That was true. However,
it was very difficult to get used to sleeping in space. You know, I’m 40-ish and my brain
has registered that I put my head on a pillow, I lay down on a bed, and that feels
comfortable to me. So to just sort of have your head floating around like a bobble head.
It’s like, “This is weird.” And I ended up having a little bit of a neck cramp, because I
was straining my neck to hold it still unconsciously. Likewise, my stomach to hold
myself. And it took really about a month to be able to get adapted and relax in space.
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And, you know, you’re in a sleeping bag and then you’re in that space. So you’re not like
floating all over the place. But it took a little while to get used to all of that.
YOUNG: Would they ever put you in a head harness?
WILLIAMS: Yeah, we have those. Actually, we have a little Velcro strap that can go
across your head. And some people have recommended sleeping with a bungee across
them. I guess maybe this is the adventurous side in me. I said I want to adapt. I want to
see if I can do this and, lo and behold, you can.
YOUNG: A couple more questions. Do you have another one, young lady?
AUDIENCE: No.
YOUNG: Okay, let’s have another from the young woman behind you.
AUDIENCE: What was your first emotion when you found out you were first going
into space? And how long did you have to prepare for your journey?
WILLIAMS: Well, I think the first time I had like an, “Oh, my God, I might be going
into space,” was when I got selected to be an astronaut. And that was in 1998. And I was
pretty psyched about it. I was actually on a ship at the time. I was what we call ship’s
company, not flying airplanes at the time, just as one of the ship drivers there. And it’s
really infrequent that folks that are -- we called it on the waterfront, ships that are moored
in Norfolk, Virginia -- have folks from that background become astronauts. It’s usually
test pilots. And so it usually happens at the test squadrons, and it’s sort of not necessarily
normal but it’s a little bit more expected. And I think what was really cool about being on
the ship was it was so different for all the folks that were there. They were like, “No way.
What are you kidding me?” And with that reaction it sort of dawned on me. “Oh my God,
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I’m actually going to go to space one day.” And that feeling just sort of emanated and
stayed with me for a long time. But then it started to dissipate because it took a little
while.
And there was a bunch of different things that were reasons why I didn’t go to space right
away. Of course, the Columbia accident. We had hired a lot of people thinking we were
going to have seven people on the space station a little while ago. So it just took a while
for the line to get going and I think that feeling of like, “Oh my God, I’m going to space,”
just went to, “I don’t believe it’s going to happen.” And it didn’t … And I felt that way
again after we had a launch scrub the first night, the first launch attempt on the 7th. And
that’s when I was scared. So when we went out to the vehicle on the 9th I sort of had that
same feeling like, “Ah, it’s not going to happen. It’s not going to happen.” And I think
the second time aside from when I get selected to be an astronaut that I went, “Oh my
God I’m really going to space,” was when the launch pad was lit. And then we were
going, and there was no turning back. We were hurling and hollering like you’re on a
roller coast. Hoo-hoo let’s go. So I think it was a long waiting to get there. That was I
think more of the feeling.
YOUNG: I’m just going to ask, if Amy’s here, should we maybe just take the people in
line that we have now? Right. So if you’re in line now, that’s going to be the end of our
questions. And by the way, I’ve been doing this, too. A lot of us have been saying Soony.
It’s Suny.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, Suni.
YOUNG: Because of your sunny demeanor, actually.
WILLIAMS: It’s okay.
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AUDIENCE: Yeah, hi. My name is Sola. I’m from the John D. O’Brien School. And I
actually have some questions. I was just wondering what’s like the total cost of just one
space walk?
YOUNG: What’s the cost of one space walk?
WILLIAMS: I don’t have that number. I know the suits are in the millions and we only
have a limited number of suits for that very reason. But I’m sure it’s pretty expensive.
YOUNG: So just the suit alone -- millions and millions?
WILLIAMS: Yeah.
SOLA: My second question is what is your most memorable event?
WILLIAMS: I think the most memorable event -- the space walks were cool, absolutely
without a doubt. And you know, going out, we’d call it out the door the first time, was
pretty special and pretty incredible to see the planet however I wanted when I turned my
head. That was really cool. But I think the most memorable and special point was when
we switched over crews. I was out there with another American and a Russian until I was
up there just with two other Russians. And I think what was cool about that was I sort of
got that feeling of responsibility like, “Oh my God, I better know what I’m doing.” And
also I had probably the most experience at that time of anybody on the space station. And
you stop and think about what we’re doing and you sort of reflect back about what
humans are doing up in space, and I felt pretty proud of that moment.
YOUNG: Thank you. Back to this side.
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AUDIENCE: Were you able to see the Earth rotate or revolve or even wobble a little
around the sun or on its axis?
WILLIAMS: Well not … -- How do I answer this question? Not as you’re describing it.
I mean, we were aware of it turning and rotating, of course, because every time we would
fly … You know, we were flying a little bit too fast to see that happening. But the second
time we’d come around an orbit, we wouldn’t be at the same place over the Earth. So if
you think about that -- so you know it’s spinning beneath you because if it wasn’t
spinning, you’d be coming over the same place each time. And we would see on a map or
computer program that we use called World Map or Sigma, two of them, we’d see how
much we would move which meant how much the Earth would turn. But I didn’t
necessarily see any wobble while I was out there.
YOUNG: That’s so cool, though. You had no point of reference ever up there.
WILLIAMS: No.
YOUNG: One more over here.
AUDIENCE: Hi, my name is Julia Remasa. I’m also a student at the O’Brien and I was
just wondering some academic classes that one could take if they wanted to be an
astronaut?
WILLIAMS: What types of classes and stuff that you want to take? Yeah. I think
science and math are absolutely up there on the level. Public speaking maybe not so
much. I’ve been working on it, but I’m not that good at it. So science and math are
definitely up there. But, you know, I think I quickly mentioned that the astronaut core has
a whole range of folks, you know, not only physicists, chemists, and scientists, but also
military folks, pilots, we have a SEAL in the audience, we have a deep sea diver, we have
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a veterinarian, we have doctors, we have teachers. But everybody has some math and
science background in their fields. And just because what we’re doing is filled with math
and science. So you have to have that little bit there. And when I’m talking to kids about
… you know, sort of like I alluded to with my life, it sort of took a couple, a circuitous
path there. You know, I think the best advice to kids who are thinking about being an
astronaut is find something that you like and then you will be good at it obviously
because you like it. And then find out how that translates to being an astronaut. And I’ll
bet you’ll find a path right there.
REMASA: Okay, thank you.
YOUNG: I think we have one last question. Oh, two, sorry. I’m sorry.
AUDIEN CE: I wanted to know, did you always have your parents support in your
career decisions?
YOUNG: Did we? Did I? Do you mind answering … Because we were talking a little
bit about it. And if you wouldn’t mind, Suni’s mom going to one of the microphones just
telling us, were you concerned about her career decisions as she was making them in a
helicopter and then, you know, as an astronaut? Would you mind just taking a second at
the mic? We have Mom here so we might as well.
SUNITA’S MOTHER: Actually, I really, I was more concerned with her flying
helicopters and test planes then going into space. I know a lot of people at NASA, and
they’re very excellent concerned people about their astronauts. And, you know, their
space program, they don’t want anything going wrong with it. You know, Suni was a
person who always was adventurous and wanted to get out and do something, and I never
held her back. I said, “Go for it. Do it.”
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YOUNG: There’s your answer.
WILLIAMS: I have to say one thing about my parents, particularly my mother. When I
was 17 and I was getting ready to cut my hair and go off to military school and not be a
Yankees fan, I was mowing the lawn one morning and it happened to be in April and I
said, “You know, I think this is probably going to be the last time I’m going to get to run
the Boston Marathon before I go away to the military, and I don’t know when I’m going
to be back to be able to do that. And so will you drive me out to Hopkinton?” And she
said, “Sure, let’s go.” And so I think that’s a reflection of the support that I got from my
parents. If I ever wanted to try something she was like, “Here, put a dime in your shoe,
give me a call if you’re tired. Let’s go.” So a little “go get it.” So I appreciate my parents
a whole lot.
YOUNG: And one very last question.
AUDIENCE: Did you miss space more than Earth?
WILLIAMS: Oh, that’s a great question. You know what, I have to say I really do miss
space a lot. I think the drive which keeps me back here are the people. What keeps me
here and wanting to be here are the people. But being in space is absolutely fun and cool,
and I am happy that I actually have the ability to have dreams about being in space since I
was there. Every time I walk into a room like this and I look at the ceiling, I look how
high it is and I think how cool it would be to jump off the floor and fly up there and fly
back down and push off the front and go there. Your perspective on life makes you want
every now and then when you see pretty cool places like that to do stuff like that. So I
really do miss, I really, really miss being in space. I already told you about the views that
you have that are just spectacular. But I think it’s the people that keep you here.
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YOUNG: Well, I quit. First of all, your questions, all of you, were spectacular. And
you’re going to get to ask more of them because Suni will be here with us. But Sunita
Williams, Needham’s own. Thank you so much.