Joy, a Podcast. Hosted by Craig Ferguson - Mike Massimino

Episode Date: December 5, 2023

Meet Craig’s long time friend Mike Massimino. He served as a NASA Astronaut from 1996 until 2014, flew in space twice and became the first human to tweet from space. His new book titled Moonshot: A NASA Astronaut’s Guide to Achieving the Impossible is available here: https://shorturl.at/uwGKR or anywhere you get your books. EnJOY! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Want to know how to leverage culture to build a successful business? Then Butternomics is the podcast for you. I'm your host, Brandon Butler, founder and CEO of Butter ATL. And on Butternomics, we go deep with today's most influential entrepreneurs, innovators, and business leaders to peel back the layers on how they use culture as a driving force in their business. Butternomics will give you what you need to take your game to the next level. Listen to Butternomics on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

For 10 years, I've been obsessed with one of the most bizarre and audacious cons in rock and roll history. We were all facing 20 years and all that good stuff. The lead singer tried to pull off an English accent, and they went on the road as the zombies. These guys are not going to get away with it. Zombies are too popular. Listen to the true story of the fake zombies on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life in marriage.

I just filed for divorce. Whoa. I said the words that I've said like in my head for like 16 years. Wild. that I've said like in my head for like 16 years. Wild. Listen to Miss Spelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to interesting people about what brings them happiness.

Mike Massimino has done something that I've always wanted to do, and he's been to space. Here's Mike. Do you wear headphones when you're in space? You need to be able to communicate with the ground and with each other, so sometimes we would, not big ones like this. No big headphones. We had little ones. Like earbuds?

Yeah, like, no, maybe big ones like this. No big headphones. We had little ones. Like earbuds? Yeah, like, no. Maybe now they do that. Yeah. We had these little, kind of like the thing, you know, like Janet Jackson would wear when she's singing, you know, Madonna, one thing like this. Yeah, you wear little headphones like that. Something like a little, no, not the,

just I'm talking about the communication gear. Yeah, no, I get it. Some of us, you know, you do whatever you want up there, really, as long as the camera's not on. But the camera's on a lot. I think the camera's on a lot. Yeah, but you can turn it off. But the little here, it's kind of like a little

mic headset. So you can wear a headset or you have to have something. Now, in your space suit, when you're space walking, you wear a Snoopy cap because it makes you look like Snoopy the dog. Right. And then you have headphones on your, but they're not big like this. Right, there's just little headphones. They're in microphones, like a comm cap.

And do you have to, when you finish talking, do you have to say beep when you finish talking? No, that happens naturally, but I think they got rid of that thing. They got rid of the beep thing? They got rid of the beep. Last time I was down there, they called it a quindar. Do you have a guy that can look up what the hell that means? A quindar? I thought a quindar was a medical name for a lady's personal equipment.

It might be. Maybe that's why they called it that. But the little beep, that's why they called it that. Yeah. Like a little beep. Yeah. That was called a, it was called a Quindar. And I was there a couple years ago. I'm like, what's going on?

There's no beep. And they go, no, we don't. I think why they did that back in the day was it was like an actual, when you'd cue the mic, it was a signal that was sent to kind of clear the line. It was like, it was an antiquated thing. Right. So they have a second beep and we're like, clear the line. So now the message is coming.

Nothing's coming in this direction. This is going up. How do you know you're talking to a guy in space if you don't get beep at the end of the thing? I agree with you. I think they're rude, man. I agree with you. Now, listen, Mike. I'm talking to you, and right in front of me right here is a book called Moonshot, right?

Yeah. And it says it's written by you. Now, I know you for a couple of years. You wrote a whole book all by yourself? I've known you a long time, actually. I mean, it's been... It's like 20 years or something. It was in 09.

Oh, wow. It was my first late night appearance. Oh, yeah? And it was in 09. So, that's over 14 years ago. 14 years ago. So, you were saying, did I write this by myself? Yeah.

You know, I wanted to. Yeah. I thought... Because I had written another book. I had this co-? Yeah. You know, I wanted to. Yeah. I thought, because I had written another book. I had this co-writer named Tanner Colby. He was great. He wrote a book with Trevor Noah as well. Oh, right.

Okay. Yeah. And he helped me with my first book. Yeah. And so I was like, now I can branch out on my own. And my agent said, I don't think that's a good idea. I'm calling Tanner. So he got me.

It was a little bit different than the way we worked together the first time. It was more me writing and then him kind of looking at the stories and telling me what he got to, it was a little bit different than the way we worked together the first time. It was more me writing and then him kind of looking at the stories and telling me what he needed. Right. Whereas before, I told him stories

and it was, then he had someone transpose it. All right. And then he would write it from there. So a little bit different, but no,

I did have help. I think it's good to have help. Definitely. I've written T-books and I've had help with it. No, it's going to be better with a,

especially with someone as talented as Tanner. And I love the guy. He's so much fun to work with. All the resources in the cockpit. Why not? Why not? All right. So NASA Astronauts Guide to Achieving the Impossible. Right. All right. So here's my question then.

Yeah. What did you learn when you were becoming an astronaut? First of all, here's the thing. I know this, but you're not a pilot. I'm a private pilot. You're a private pilot. Right. And so are you, aren't you?

Yeah, I am. You're probably more accomplished than I am in the private pilot realm. I don't know about that. I haven't flown. I'm like VFR single engine. Okay. That's what I am. That's it.

Did you do that before you went to space or after? No, I'm like VFR single engine. Okay. That's what I am. That's it. Yeah. Did you do that before you went to space or after? No, I did that before, before I was an astronaut, I got my pilot's license. Once we became astronauts, we got to fly in T-38s. So I have a thousand hours of co-pilot time in a T-38. It's a high performance jet. So what speeds do you do in a T-38? It's a mock airplane. It could go, but we would cruise, you know, about 0.91 mach, so 500 miles an hour, up high at 41,000 feet.

It could go high. Did you do the sine wave thing to practice weightlessness? You could do that in that plane or any airplane, as a matter of fact. Yeah, I've done it in a Cessna. I didn't mean to, but I've done it. You can also, hey, where'd my pen go? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that would make you cough.

You got to be careful. All right. You got to... You can also... Hey, where'd my pen go? Oh, yeah. Yeah, that would make you cough. You got to be careful. Right. But that airplane that we used to use was a KC-135, and then they started using a DC-8. NASA did. Right. And then they turned it over to a contractor. There's a company that does that. It's a company in Vegas or something.

I don't know. Zero Gravity or something. You know, I don't want to mispronounce their name or get it wrong, but there's a zero... Maybe it's Zero zero G or something. Zero G, something like that. And they do this where people paying customers can go. And I think they'll fly wherever they, yeah, you just go in this airplane. And I don't know if it's different than what we did.

The parabolas are probably similar to what we did when we were training. Did you throw up before saving, did you? I did not, but I wanted to. So we medicated. We would medicate for these things. Oh, you did? Yeah. So they would give us, NASA gave me,

it would give us this thing, it was called Scopdex. And what it was, it was scopolamine, which is like an anti-nausea drug. Right. But that apparently makes you a little sleepy. So they didn't like that idea. So they would combine that with Dexedrine or something like that, which is an upper. Yeah, Dexy's Midnight Runner. So they would give that with Dexedrine or something like that, which is an upper.

Yeah, Dexy's Midnight Runner. So they would give that combined to us. Let's go to space. Let's go. So then a couple years ago, I was doing a commercial video ad for Lego. And they wanted to build Legos in zero gravity. So they're flying me. We're going to go out.

We're going to do this. They couldn't get the airplane here in America. I don't know. We went out to France, to Bordeaux. Right. And flew with this with a French company in France it's more European

it was very European European gravity look out for that it was a little bit different but it was so anyway so I go to my now I go to

a doctor here I have a family doctor yeah Dr. Baskin I need some scope decks she's like what I go I need the scope she. She's like, what? I go, I need a scope.

She goes, what is that? I go, it's a scopolamine. She goes, that's not anything real. That's just something they gave you guys. You can't get that. It was bullshit? No, but it was a real pill what they did. I wonder, you know, you're right.

Because they would give it to us in a little, like a see-through capsule. And you saw these two things floating around in it. So they kind of made their own concoction. Right. She goes, I can't get that for you. That's a massive thing. So it was just like a, so it's basically a guy on the way of the aircraft going, hey, you want something now?

You want that flight surgeon? But we had it in space. I flew it, I took it before I flew in space as well. Right. So that was a really good anti-nausea drug. But still I felt, you know, a little pleased. How did you get up? Did you get up on the shuttle?

On the shuttle twice. Oh. Yeah. So that's like a powerful takeoff, right? That was a lot of power. Shuttle was huge in comparison to the SpaceX vehicle where you're mainly just putting a few people in there. Shuttle can carry seven passengers and a lot of cargo,

something like double space telescope or big pieces of the space station. So you pull a lot of Gs when you take off? The G forces to go to orbit are similar no matter what spacecraft you're in. You get a max of three Gs. That's it? For about two and a half minutes. That's it.

So like in a high-performance jet, you can go much higher than that. Oh, sure, yeah. It's only for a split second, right? Because if you sustain a high G, eventually you'll get to it, right? But with this, you're on your back. So, the reason you could pass out in a high-performance jet doing like a 6G turn is that you're kind of sitting in a chair, more or less. Right.

And the, I can't believe I was going to say vector. You know what I mean, right? You know, I don't know. This is a smart audience, right? So, the vector, as you understand, of course, the gravity vector now is going through your head. Right. So it's vertical. So it's vertical, exactly.

So that sucks the blood out of your head and you can pass out. Right. In space, you're lying on your back for that reason, so that the gravity vector is going through your chest. All right. So you feel it in your chest. I feel like there were three big dudes sitting on me. Not in a good way.

Not in a good way. It reminds me of my playground days as a child. Well, I was going to get to that because you and I are of a similar vintage. Yes. I think almost exactly. I'm 61 now.

That's what I am. I'm 61. What do you think about that? Is that all right? You know, I've got to be honest. As long as I don't look in the mirror, I don't notice anything.

You look the same to me. As long as I don't look in the mirror, and I'm talking about looking in the mirror particularly below the neck, I'm like, what the hell? What the hell is happening? Because the gravity vector is pulling.

I've got some of that super strong American gravity working on at least one of my testicles. Better not to look. You don't need to be looking down there. Man, I was thinking about this. So if I ever get plastic surgery, I'm going to start with my balls. Really? Yeah. What are you going to do?

Well, I thought I'd get them plumped and, you know, a lift. Because here's where I thought. I thought that or a wheel. But here's where I thought. Because, look, it's your balls. Yeah. Like, if they screw it up, it's not going to look any worse. It can't look any worse. I don't know. That's a very sensitive area, though. I'd leave those things alone look any worse. It can't look any worse.

I don't know. That's a very sensitive area, though. I'd leave those things alone. All right. I wouldn't mess with that. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I'm not an expert in this area, but I'd leave it alone.

You know, it's very important that you get NASA people onto your podcast and discuss bald plastic surgery. I wouldn't do that. Nah, I wouldn't let them mess with that. I wouldn't do that. Nah. All right. I'll take the chance. Well, fair enough, fair enough.

But you can achieve the impossible, make your scrotum look good after the age of 60. But here's the thing. You and I are a similar vintage. So when I'm a kid, I'm seven years old. Yeah. So you're the same. Yeah.

And I see, I'm allowed, because of the time difference, it's on in the middle of the night in British television, Scottish television. I see these guys land on the moon. Yeah. And I'm like, I want to be an American. That's when I saw that. I'm not kidding.

I was like, I'm going to be. And you are an American. I am an American now, yeah. And I was like, whatever these guys are doing, that's, I'm into that. I never went to space. I never did it. But I thought, whatever these people are doing,

I want to be part of that yep now I'm guessing it had a big effect on you when you were a kid too yeah absolutely exactly what you said Craig

I remember looking at that TV set a little bit earlier than you did yeah time wise yeah it was prime time for you yeah and it was like probably about

I don't know we can look this up I guess but it was around 8 o'clock 9 o'clock when you took that first walk. See, that's why I fucking love America as well. It's like, we got to land primetime.

Right. We're not missing this. Let the world adjust. That's right. Fuck everybody else. We need primetime. Primetime TV audience in America. See that?

Yeah. That's another reason to come to America. But I remember saying that, and I was like, I not only wanted to grow up to do that, I wanted to grow up to be those guys. I wanted to be like Neil Armstrong. Did you ever meet Armstrong? I did. Did you really? Yeah. I never met him. He's awesome. He was

just great. So the first time I met him, Craig, do we have time for a story here? So I met him, it was my first week as an astronaut. No kidding. Can you imagine? He was in town for his physical, his annual physical. Okay. And our training coordinator reached out to us, hey, you want to come speak to these new astronauts?

So he said, sure. So he was almost like painfully shy. Yeah, I heard that about him. And he didn't even talk about the moon. He talked about flying the X-15 and so on. And then we went to Q&A. We asked him about the moon landing, of course. The first question was about that.

But I saw him the next day in the cafeteria. Wow. And I go up to him. I had to say something to him. I didn't want to bother him. I don't give a crap. I'm going up to him. So I introduced myself.

And I say, Neil, let me ask you something. How did you come up with that thing you said on the moon? You know that thing you said on the moon? One small step for a man, one giant leap. I was like, did your wife tell you to say that? How did you come up with that? How did you hire a publicist? And he looks at me kind of awkwardly and man, one giant leaf. I was like, did your wife tell you to say that? How did you come up with that? Did you hire a publicist? And he looks at me kind of awkwardly and he says, no, Mike,

I didn't think about it until I landed on the moon. I'm like, really? Yeah. And I'm like, that's exactly what I said. Are you kidding me? And he says, Mike, if I didn't land on the moon, there'd be no reason to say anything. And then he got serious with me, Craig, and he said, look,

you're new to this business, Mike, but this is a serious business, and bad things happen when you get distracted. Stick to your job, stick to business, and worry about all that publicity stuff after. He's like, you got it? I'm like, I got it. So years later, Craig, I got asked to send the first tweet from space. Oh, that's right. I remember that.

First tweet from space, right? And we have our final press conference, and I get asked, have you thought about what you're going to tweet? And I'm like, I channeled Neil Armstrong. I can picture him. I almost feel like I had a crew cut like he did. I just channeled him, and I said, I'm not thinking about that. We've got to get to space first.

If we don't get to space, there's going to be no reason to tweet anything. I'm not worrying about that at all. I'll worry about that when we get there. So we get to space. I open up the computer, and I'm looking at that screen. And I realized, Craig, that advice I got from our hero was the worst advice I ever got in my life. I couldn't think of a damn thing. And then I'm saying to myself, there's no way he thought of that on the moon. Everyone was listening. Everyone, you're saying you're listening in Scotland, everyone around

the world. Everyone knew where he was, who he was, and what he was going to say. Here I am floating. A few people knew who I was, but no one's really paying attention. You didn't know where I was. No one's listening. I knew you were. You know I'm a space. Yeah, but I didn't know what, and I'm saying, no one's paying attention to me, and I can't think of a thing. He must have lied to me. You know what I wanted to tweet?

I wanted to tweet, curse you, Neil Armstrong. Yeah, but you didn't do that. I didn't do that. What did you tweet? So what I did is, whatever came to mind, I put, launch was awesome. I'm feeling great, enjoying the view. The adventure of a lifetime has begun. That was on a Monday. On Saturday, they made fun of me on Saturday Night Live. No.

On Weekend Update, Seth Meyers is there. I didn't notice what was going on. I'm in space working. And he goes, we have the first tweet from space. And here it is. Launch was awesome. In 40 years, we've gone from one giant leap for mankind to launch was awesome. And then he continues and he says, I assume if we ever find life in the universe, I assume this is how we'll be notified.

And it shows my little Twitter thing that says, geez, dudes, aliens. I don't know. This is unfair. The way I found out about this was my kids, who were in middle school and high school, they were apparently

very excited about this. And so they sent me some email. They're like, Dad, they made fun of you on Saturday Night Live. Which is kind of awesome when you think about it. They gave me a lot of credit.

And they're like, all the kids at school loved it. Keep up the good work. I finally got some credit. Finally got to your kids. So they weren't impressed that you were going to space. Absolutely not. It was Saturday Night Live.

But they were excited that I got made fun of for the first tweet. But I got that advice from Neil Armstrong. Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines in a personal podcast that delves into the life of the notorious Tori Spelling as she takes us through the ups and downs of her sometimes glamorous, sometimes chaotic life and marriage. I don't think he knew how big it would be, how big the life I was given and live is. I think he was like, oh yeah, things come and go, but with me, it never came and went. Is she Donna Martin or a down-and-out divorcee?

Is she living in Beverly Hills or a trailer park? In a town where the lines are blurred, Tori is finally going to clear the air in the podcast Misspelling. When a woman has nothing to lose, she has everything to gain. I just filed for divorce. Whoa. I said the words that I've said like in my head for like 16 years. Wild. Listen to Miss Spelling on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Angie Martinez. Check out my podcast where I talk to some of the biggest athletes, musicians, actors in the world. We go beyond the headlines and the soundbites to have real conversations about real life, death, love and everything in between. This life right here, just finding myself, just this relaxation, this not feeling stressed, this not feeling pressed. This is what I'm most proud of. I'm proud of Mary because I've been through hell and some horrible things. That feeling that I had of inadequacy is gone. You're going to die being you. So you got to constantly work on who you are to make sure that the stars align correctly. Life ain't easy and it's getting harder and harder. So if you have a story to tell, if you come through some trials, you need to share it because you're going to inspire someone.

You're going to you're going to give somebody the motivation to not give up, to not quit. Listen to Angie Martinez IRL on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Guess what, Mango? What's that, Will? So iHeart is giving us a whole minute to promote our podcast, Part-Time Genius. I know. That's why I spent my whole week composing a haiku for the occasion. It's about my emotional journey in podcasting over the last seven years,

and it's called Earthquake House. Mango, I'm going to cut you off right there. Why don't we just tell people about our show instead? Yeah, that's a better idea. So every week on Part-Time Genius, we feed our curiosity by answering the world's most important questions. Things like, when did America start dialing 911? Is William Shatner's best acting work in Esperanto? Also, what happened to Esperanto? Plus, we cover questions like, how Chinese is your Chinese food? How do dollar stores

stay in business? And of course, is there an Illuminati of cheese? There absolutely is. And we are risking our lives by talking about it. But if you love mind-blowing facts, incredible history, and really bad jokes, make your brains happy and tune in to Part-Time Genius. Listen to Part-Time Genius on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. wherever you get your podcasts. You know, it's funny. I've met a few of the guys that have been on the moon. A lot of them have, you know, most of them have gone now. Just lost a couple.

Well, that didn't, Ken Mattingly, who didn't walk on the moon, but went to the moon twice and didn't land. And Frank Borman, Apollo 8 just recently died too. Yeah. I mean, Buzz is still. He's still around. He's still around He's still around And crazier than a bed bug

I'm going to see Charlie Duke Later this week If you're in town You may want to come by I can't leave in town tomorrow But he's going to be I'm going to see him He was on Apollo 16

You ever meet Jim Lovell? Yes He's still around Yeah he's an amazing character Do you know I have a story about this So I went to the Living Legends of Aviation

dinner in California a few years ago. Yeah. Have you ever been to that thing? No, I've never been. I've never been. So,

I go to this, I mean, it's crazy. Like, Travolta's there, and Kurt Russell is there, and Tom Cruise is there, and there's like all these

like celebrity pilots there, you know, and Edward Norton is there. It's crazy. Cool. And it's all these like, you know, guys at Flu Choppers, and Nam. Yeah, yeah, yeah there it's crazy and it's all these like you know guys that flew choppers

and nah you know it's crazy and the person that was being honoured Jim Lovell was being honoured nice for

you know bringing Apollo 13 around the moon bringing it back and Sully Sullenberger is giving him the honour so Sully gets up

and he says he said I never met never met Jim before this evening. I only just met him backstage. But he is the gentleman that taught me everything you need to know about aviation. And I was like, oh, okay. That's interesting.

And he said, and here's what it is. No matter how bad things are, no matter how close death may appear, you got to sound cool on the radio. And you think about it. are, no matter how close death may appear, you gotta sound cool on the radio. Have you think about it? Because it's good. Houston, we have a problem. I mean, like, it's not, oh, shit,

I'm in space, and we're fucked. We're gonna die. It's like, no, Houston, we have a problem. And then Sullenberger is like, and a bunch of birds went in the engines, oh, what the fuck? It's like, no, I'm going to be in the Hudson.

Yeah, yeah, we're going in the Hudson. Say again? Going in the Hudson. Going in the Hudson. And what he did, I mean, that piece of flying,

that's amazing. I think people think that that was something to do with like the plane can do that on its own or something like that. I mean, what that man did with that plane in the Hudson,

that's an easy piece of flying. The decisions he made. Unbelievable. So quickly. Good training. Good training. But the way he was able to make those that quickly, because there wasn't much time.

He lost both those engines. It was unprecedented. It was like a huge flock of birds just went through the engines. And he says he looked back at LaGuardia, and all he saw between him and the field was humanity. People in the Bronx, people living there, and he's like, that's not going to work. Got to miss it. Yeah.

And I mean, if we had a couple of days to figure this out, maybe we'd come up with the right solution. Yeah. He had seconds and he came up with it. That's really the thing that's amazing of how quickly he did the right thing. Well, you get, I mean, if you're traveling at high speeds and you know what you were doing for a living back then, you're traveling at high speeds all the time. I mean, how fast does that space station go that's 17 500 miles an hour i mean that's crazy i mean it doesn't look like it's doing that because you're yeah you get no

sense of it right no there's no turbulence there's no wind there's nothing and there's no even your visual cues like you know as you know i timed it? As you were coming, we hit Baja, California, set the timer, hit Miami 11 minutes later. Wow. So you know that's pretty fast going coast to coast. But you have no sensation of it. You don't feel anything. Right. And even coming back, so we were coming back from orbit on the shuttle, and you kind of got into this area in the atmosphere where it's like being in a cloud.

Like the particles are excited, and it was just gray outside. Right. And it's like being in a cloud, no sensation of movement because there's no, there's no turbulence. There's still no atmosphere out there. Right. You're still too high. But you're still, you're picking up the outer particles, but you don't have, you don't feel anything. It's still smooth. No sensation of motion, nothing, Nothing out the window. And I look at the velocity indicator. It was still going about 12,000 miles an hour. But no sense of it other than what the instrument

said. That's insane. And of course, the shuttle landed with, like, there's no flaps on that thing, right? They had a body flap. They had controls, but there's no power. No power on it. That's like the flying brick they used to call it, right?

Correct. Yeah, yeah. Yep. And it really, very low lift-to-drag ratio. So it came in, had to come in really, just like drop out of the sky,

like a brick. Yep. All right. So let's get back to seven-year-old Mikey, little Mikey in the playground. He wants to be an astronaut. So how do you go from,

where did you grow up again? Franklin Square, New York. So it's just outside of Queens. Right. By Belmont Racetrack, that area. So it's the Paris of America. It's a great place to grow up. But yes, I didn't know it's the Paris of America.

Yeah, it's the Paris of America. You've heard it from America. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where it is, yes. You know what, I have to say, you know that when I first came to America in 1975, I'm 13 years old. I go to a bowling alley with my cousins. We go to a bowling alley in Smithtown, Long Island. No, that's not fair.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. That's the Paris. Right. So I go to Smithtown, Long Island. I'm 13 years old. Oh, my God. And I'm from Scotland, right?

Yeah, yeah. I go from Scotland, Smithtown, Long Island. Yeah. I'm in a bowling alley and someone says, do you want a root beer? And I went, I didn't even know

I fucking read it. I thought it was like beer made out of potatoes or something. That's possible. Yeah. You see that. So you want a root beer?

And I went, yeah. And someone gave me an American size beverage. So it's about the size of where I live in Scotland, right? It's a root beer over crushed ice in a bowling alley. And every time I taste root beer,

I still remember that. I taste the root beer and I'm like, God damn, these people are fucking amazing. This is crazy. So first you see Neil Armstrong on the moon, you want to come to America, and you get there and go to a bowling alley. Bowling alley, root beer over crushed ice.

I'm like, I was right. Yes. I was right. That's total vindication. Yeah. So how do you get from seven-year-old Mikey in Queens to NASA sitting on the space shuttle like 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and then boom. Or they don't even go to one, do they? It's like 10, 9, 7, 6, 5, 3, 2, 2, 1 and then boom. Or they don't even go to 1, do they?

It's like 10, 9, 7, 6, 5, 1 and liftoff. Do they do all that? Yeah, still. It's like the Saturn V stuff? Yes. Same countdown? Yeah.

It would be ignition sequence start at 6. So it would be 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, ignition sequence start, 3, 2, 1, and lift off. You know how I know that? What? I did. I have a very exciting news.

This is old news, but I was the voice of Mission Control in the most recent Beavis and Butthead movie. Oh, man. Beavis and Butthead do the universe. That's very cool. Mike Judge had me do that. So I got to do that. So Beavis and Butthead and space? Right.

When they went to space in the cartoon movie, I got to. But yeah, they still do it like that. And liftoffs. That's what you say at zero. You say liftoff. And so. Yeah. All right.

So you're seven. Let's get back to the playground. Seven years old. Right. So little Mikey. Little Mikey's smart. Is he smart, kid? Is he?

He's all right. Yeah, he's okay. Is he book smart? He liked math. I'm talking about. I liked math when I was a little kid. Right., right? Yeah, he's smart. Is he like book smart? Is he? He was, he liked math. I'm talking about, I liked math when I was a little kid. Right. Yeah. So that's got to, you're going to need math.

I was a good student. Right. I wasn't a real genius or anything, but. But you worked hard. I worked, I met my fourth grade teacher after I became an astronaut. Oh, yeah. And I go back to my elementary school. That's good for a fourth grade teacher.

Oh, that's great. Yeah, that's. So I, Mrs. Oco. And so she was still working. She was a very young teacher when she was my teacher in fourth grade. And she said, oh, you know, I told my kids, I have two sons, and I told them I was going to have lunch

with a former student who's now an astronaut. I go, oh, that's cool. I go, what'd they say? He goes, well, he must have been smart, Mom. And I go, what'd you say? And she said, well, I said, well, I'm sure he was bright, but if he was really smart, I would have remembered, is what she said. And she goes, I went on to tell him

that sometimes being the smartest isn't the most important thing. And it's how you work and work hard and do the right thing and so on, right? So in the words of Mrs. Oko, I was probably bright, but I wasn't the smartest kid in that class.

You know, it's like when people talk about, when people go to Hollywood and they think they're going to make it because they're super talented, you go, yeah, of course you're talented.

Everybody here is talented. Here is like talent, it's like your driver's license. It's like everybody's fucking talented. Yeah. What have you got? Do you have a work ethic

do people want to hang out with you are you gonna fucking be on time yeah you're gonna be a douchebag yeah are you gonna get the work done are you gonna prepare so that nobody's waiting around for you to figure it out right and it feels to me like maybe you have that ethic as well right it's a work i agree and the little bit i know like through you as as my friend and other people that are in the the entertainment business, it's the same thing because there are so many great people that can do it. But all those things apply, and people don't always realize that. But the entertainment business is relentlessly competitive, man.

You've got to want it so bad to do that, which is it shows you have to have that passion, which is what I had for the space program. Well, that's what I was going to say. It's got to be. I think being an astronaut is probably pretty competitive as well. There's a lot of people

who want to do it. there's thousands of people that want to do it. Yeah. And I got rejected three times. Did you really? Yeah, I got rejected. I kind of forgot about it.

I thought it was impossible. I went and saw The Right Stuff. You must have seen that movie. Oh, yeah. That's a great movie. That's my favorite movie. That's a great movie. Is that a man? That's my favorite. You must have seen that movie. Oh, yeah. That's a great movie. That's my favorite movie. That's a great movie. Is that a man? That's my favorite. You bet it is.

Yeah! You damn right it is. Sir, is that a man? You damn right it is. Sounds dangerous. It is dangerous. Count me in. Yeah! I quoted that movie the whole... We quoted that movie on the

launch pad. It was just the greatest movie. I loved that movie and the book by Tom Wolfe. And that rekindled my interest. And then I went to grad school trying to pursue this dream. I got rejected twice outright. Third time I got an interview and got rejected. So you applied directly to NASA? Yeah, everyone can.

You can as well. If you're an American citizen, you can apply. I feel like I might have missed the boat a little bit. I don't know, man. Well, now with all these commercial opportunities. I ain't paying a good space. I don't know. Maybe the price comes down.

Maybe the price comes down. I mean, you're a celebrity, and you have a great interest in flying. You think someone will take me up? I don't see why not. Will you call someone at NASA? He's asked NASA. I don't think NASA's the way to go. That's taxpayer's money.

I'm a taxpayer. I'm a billionaire. I'm a taxpayer. I pay my taxes. Yeah, but then they got to, you know, they go, hey, why are you flying that guy? They won't fly me anymore neither. I think you need that. Yeah, that's right.

You got to have a mission, I guess, up there. Ah, that or a very wealthy friend. Right. Yeah. I don't a very wealthy friend. Right. Yeah. I don't have any wealthy friends. You're the richest guy I know. Yeah, you're out of luck. Yeah.

Okay. So I was just trying to hint. All right. So you applied to NASA. Right. So what did you study at school? Mathematics? I was an engineering student.

I was an industrial engineer as an undergrad. And in grad school, mechanical engineering is what I studied. All right. So you're a mechanical engineer. Yes. You're a qualified mechanical engineer, and you eventually get accepted into the space program. Yep. But you're not going to be flying the bird up there.

So what are you going to be doing? So back then, in the shuttle days, there was actually two categories of astronauts. Right. One was the astronaut pilot, and those were the traditional military test pilots. That's the guys who say beep when they finish talking. That's right. Those are the guys. That's the ones. They're the guys. Sounds dangerous. Count me in. Those guys, the test pilots, all the test pilots. Right. They would be competitive for the pilot job. Okay. And they were trained to fly the shuttle, to do the landings, to work all the flying part of it, because that was almost like a completely different training flow than what mission specialists went through, which is what

I was. So mission specialist was kind of like a grab bag. So all the civilians, and also some pilots too, who are military pilots, but were not selected as pilots. They could be selected as mission specialists. So we were the scientists, engineers, and we were trained to do spacewalks and robotics and work experiments and also work the systems on the space shuttle to help. So you have a working knowledge of how to repair and maintain the space shuttle? Is that the idea? Yeah. Well, for us, it's like, so it's like doing, the repair of it came in if you have damage like in orbit and you need to go out and do a spacewalk to do that. The repair of it came in if you have damage in orbit and you need to go out and do a spacewalk to do that.

But it's mainly just working the systems, working the communications, working the cooling systems, working all the different things for rendezvous. It's not just a two-pilot. You have a pilot. They don't have a pilot and co-pilot. We had a commander and pilot. Right. Don't want to be called a co-pilot, apparently. Right.

But you have a commander and you have a pilot, and then you had a bunch of mission specialists. So we would help with the rendezvous. We would work the space shuttle robot arm we would do the spacewalks be primarily responsible for for the experiments but also know enough about the space shuttle so that we could be helpful we were also trained as flight engineers so you have the two people up front right we're flying right and then a person in the middle like and the old airplanes used to have like a navigator seat yeah so you hadator seat. So he had, yeah, that person, he had another person next to him. He had two mission specialists

behind the pilots who would assist with helping with emergencies and reminding of milestones and the checklist and so on. So have you got like checklists to go through like at the start of a mission,

like you do this, you do that, everyone talks to each other. Yeah. Do you check the checklists and all that kind of stuff? All that stuff, especially in the shuttle dates, because it was all manually flown. Everything was done manually.

And the pilot on my first flight, Dwayne Carey, Digger, this guy from the Air Force, Digger Carey, was an A-10 pilot and then an F-16 pilot. Goddamn. A military test, but cool guy, really cool haircut. So Digger, a good friend of mine, I asked him a couple years ago, how much of your training to fly in space did you not use in space, as training as a pilot? Because they had to know every emergency. The percent he did not use, he said 99.99999% of the stuff that I was trained for,

I never used in space. Because typically everything goes okay. But that's learning to fly a plane, isn't it? That's why it's so terrifying. Because you learn all the scary stuff. Yeah, that's a good point. And probably never use it. That's right.

But you better know it. You better know it. But now with the newer systems like the SpaceX Falcon, for example, that is not the Dragon. The Falcon is a launch vehicle. But the Dragon spaceship, that is so automated that it's a completely different situation. You don't have to know all these things like we did with the,

it reduces the training flow down to very little. See, I have a hard time with that, and I'll tell you why. Because of redundancies. If everything is in automated, so an automated redundancy program kicks in if one system fails, and then if that system fails, typically in aviation, it's like three redundancies, right? But if they're all running through the same program, I feel like that isn't three redundancies.

That's one redundancy. Well, the pilot is still the backup there. They still get trained to handle some things. Right. But what we found, like, there were things like we would say, oh, astronauts need to, in this new spaceship, need to control these 100 things. Right. And then he would come back and he'd say, well, for like, let's say 90 of these things, there's a greater chance of you killing yourself as opposed to the automation handling. Right, right. Okay, we're going to let the automation do that. We're going to let the automation do that. We're going to let the automation do it. But there's always, there's a few things

that people will always be able to do, I think, as the backup to the backup to the backup. Has technology changed, like the AI changed

the space program immensely? Has it? I think so, yes. It makes it better, it makes it easier, safer? It does, yeah. And I think it does make it safer

because it's, you're, the design of the spaceships are safer too. The shuttle was a dangerous spaceship. Yeah. The odds of total destruction and loss of crew were one out of 75. We saw that.

We saw that twice, right? Two major accidents. And you would keep losing them if you kept flying them. Yeah. Eventually something else would happen. They were getting old. That's an unacceptable level of risk. That is not good.

One out of 75 is no one would accept that. No, that's not good, right? So, but the newest, if you think of it, the shuttle, it had its thermal protection system was exposed, which is how we lost the second space shuttle. Right. Even your abort, you had to come back to the launch site or you had to go across the ocean. Yeah. You needed a runway. Right.

And you couldn't separate from the stack until after a few minutes. You could not just get out of there. When there was a problem, you were stuck. So you couldn't abort from the stack. You could not. That thing's full of, that's a flying bomb. It's a flying bomb. And even the only abortion errors we had was after the solid rocket boosters left, and that was two minutes in.

There was no abort before then. When you were going up, did you sweat for the first couple of minutes? Yeah, the first couple of the... It was more, you know, and it really was, it was scarier looking at that spaceship, man. Yeah. On my first launch. On the way to it. Yeah, standing outside of it.

You know, we arrived, it was a night launch, my first one. And we got out there in the middle of the night. And, you know, it was dark, which is, you know, it's scary in the dark. Yeah, it's always scary in the dark. I hear you. And there's no one around. The place is deserted because they put fuel in there and everybody's gonna go away yeah because you have a bomb sitting there you know and they won't get out of there there's only a few people around and we get well it's all lit up really brightly and all the

support structures it looks like a spaceship right and it's the smoke coming off of it it's just a water vapor yeah and yeah and you hear these really yeah you hear that and you hear like this groans i think it's like the cryogenic fuel going yeah and i'm like what the and it looked like it looked like an angry beast yeah right and it sounded angry and i was looking up at that thing in that night and after all these years of you know you were saying since we were little kids dreaming of doing this you know it hit me maybe this wasn't such a good idea too fucking late too fucking late. That's right.

Yeah. I had to get up. Once I got on, I was okay. Yeah. And that was, once you get in there, it seems normal. It's really weird. It's like thinking about it is worse than doing it. But we were so well trained.

We had stuff to think about and stuff to do. And we had emergency placards. And the emergency placards were like right. Once we took off, I realized I had no control over this thing. It was either going to be a good day or a bad day. Right. And I was looking at that placard which tells us what to do,

unstrap, remove your comm, pull the green apple which is your oxygen. All these things, I'm like, this is just something there to read while we die.

You know? And I was like, my suggestion is like, why don't we get a couple magazines or something up here because this ain't going to help. You know, this is not what I want

to be looking at in my last couple seconds here. So you get, there's one thing you talked to me about, you do the rendezvous in space, and it just occurred to me, if you're traveling at super high speeds, what, 17,000 miles an hour or something? Yeah, it's fast. And you're connecting with another vessel that is traveling at that speed? That's correct.

So if that goes wrong, that's a fucking mess right away, isn't it? You're flying in formation at that speed. And it was a manually flown rendezvous with the shuttle. So these pilots, man,

these pilots, like the guys you were saying at that aviation event that you were at, these are the best pilots in the world that are doing this stuff. That's so crazy.

But you're flying in formation at 17,500 miles an hour. So when you do a rendezvous with another spaceship or a spaceship comes up, at that point, do you get a sense of perception about the speed or because they're traveling at the same speed? They've traveled at the same, so it's all relative. And it's like kind of, you know, if you've flown in formation with another airplane, you could be going quite fast. But relative to relative that other airplane your whole world's that other

airplane right doing that and you might look at the airspeed and scare yourself yeah you know you're because you're flying but it's kind of like that you don't realize that you're going that that quickly that's amazing so and you were up there for a long time right uh not by today's standards it was 12 days and 14 days, my two missions. Right. Now these guys are up there six months. We had one dude, my friend Scott Kelly, was there for nearly a year. Frank Rubio just returned after a year.

He got stuck there for a while. A year? Yeah, over a year. In space? Yeah. First of all, what exercises are you doing to keep you? Got it. So when we were there, a couple of weeks isn't that much of a big deal.

You're not going to atrophy laying around for... It's kind of like you're on bed rest in zero gravity. We were spacewalking. That's exercise. And we had like,

we had like these TheraBands to try to keep some of your muscle and, you know, things you pull on, you know, those things. And we had a bike to ride,

an ergometer, a stationary bike. A little kind of Peloton type thing. Yeah, it was NASA's own invention. Yeah. Peloton ergometer, a stationary bike. A little kind of Peloton type thing. Yeah, it was NASA's own invention. Peloton would have been a step up. I think there's something like that now. Probably.

They probably have a Starbucks up there now. You can't get good coffee up there. I didn't drink coffee when I was an astronaut, though. Didn't want to be dependent on it. I also think the idea of being a little caffeinated in space and you really get nothing to do is probably not a great idea. Yeah. Meet the real woman behind the tabloid headlines

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let me ask you this. You're talking about doing spacewalks. You've done spacewalks. Yes. So you go out. This is a vehicle traveling at 17,000 miles an hour. Yes, quite fast.

So you're getting out of this vehicle. Right. You are also traveling at 17,000 miles an hour. Yes, quite fast. So you're getting out of this vehicle. Right. You are also traveling at 17,000 miles an hour. Yes. Now, but you're not experiencing any sense of motion. Nothing. Because there's no friction. Yeah, and there's no reference either.

Right. You're looking at the planet. You're like, oh, that's, but it's so far, it's, you know, far away from you. Right. So it's kind of like when you're flying and you come up to a cloud. You know, you think you're going, maybe you're going, you know, and then all of a sudden you come up to this cloud. Yeah, you go, boom, it's gone. Right. So it's kind of like when you're flying and you come up to a cloud. Right. You know, you think you're going, maybe you're going, you know, and then all of a sudden you come up to this cloud and boom, boom, it's gone. Yeah, that's crazy.

Or if you're in a, if you, and you got stuff going by in a cloud, like, whoa, what's going on here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, I'm going fast. Right. But when you're out in the open space, you don't necessarily feel it, right? Yeah. So we don't have any turbulence or any of that.

So there's no cue to let your brain know that you're going fast. So you're not getting... Except for the indication on that instrument. So what about the psychological impact? I mean, you were up there for a couple of weeks. I think even a couple of minutes for me would be... There's questions you ask yourself, man. I mean, you're like, who am I?

Where am I in the sense of things? Here I am. Like, you get to see the universe. You get a sense of how small you are and how small our planet is in the sense of things. Did it do a number on you or any of your buddies psychologically? Did they even debrief you with that stuff? No, we don't.

You may talk amongst yourselves, but it's more something that's of interest to people outside of NASA, I think, when they ask us about that. That's interesting. But I never felt small, man, because you look, this planet we have, it is beautiful. It is like a paradise, right? Compared to the other planets as well. The other planets suck, man. I mean, they're balls of gas and a bed of rock.

Yeah, frozen crap. Fuck those guys. I mean, really. The worst place that you can imagine on our planet is a paradise on Mars, man. Compared to it, yeah. That's rough, right? Although, I've had this idea for Mars. See what you think.

Like, I think we go to Mars and set off a bunch of nukes. Yeah? All right, okay. And create an atmosphere. What do you think? Would it work? I don't know. I just thought it might be cool.

But at least we could just set up some nooks. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what would happen. Maybe put some water in the bombs, and then that would get in the atmosphere. You know what I'm saying? I don't know if that would work or not. But it's that outside-of-the-box thinking is what we need.

Well. Not necessarily that, but that's very creative. Have you asked anyone beside me about this? You should submit it. Maybe it is. Look, I'm asking you because you have a degree. I do. You went to college.

Right. You've written books. And I'm going to ask you about a book in a minute because I know we can sidetrack with Little Mike Becoming an Astronaut. That's in the book, by the way, too. Well, it's a book about how to become an astronaut. But interestingly, because I talked to you, when you came in, I saw you were wearing a suit. Now I'm like, and it was a fancy suit. It was very fancy, yes.

It sounded like you looked fancy. You were telling me you were speaking to a bunch of businessmen about motivation. You do a lot of that now? I do, yeah. I do a few of those a month. I've got three this week, so it's a busy week for that. You talk to people about decision-making under pressure? Yeah, all kinds

of things. Today it was about leadership, like how we, leadership, promoting people. Were you in charge when you were in the space station? No, I was not the commander of the spaceship, but I was in charge for other projects that I worked on at NASA for my spacewalks. I was the lead on my spacewalks, not the commander of the spaceship. But I was, for other projects that I worked on at NASA, for my spacewalks, I was the lead on my spacewalks. So the commander of the space shuttle was our commander who was a pilot.

It was commander of the missions. Right. For the space station, no, it doesn't have to be a military test pilot who's in charge. Right. But I never was at the space station. Right. But we had other, like I was the lead guy for my spacewalks and for other projects that I worked on. So I talk about some of the lessons that I learned there about leadership.

Tell me about that then. What did you learn about leadership? So I learned this from Alan Bean, who was the fourth person to walk on the moon. I think I met him. And he's an artist as well. Yeah, yeah. I'm pretty sure I met Alan. Amazing person.

Yeah. So he painted these amazing landscapes of his experiences. Yeah. And very nice man. He passed, unfortunately, a few years ago. Yeah, that's right. I didn't meet him, yeah. But he told me that the key to being a good leader was to find a way to care for and admire everyone on your team.

So you have to figure out a way for everyone who's looking up to you, that you're leading, figure out a way to care for and admire each one of them. And they have to know that you care about them. And if you find someone that you just don't like, right? Don't think of it as that you don't like them. Think of it as if you don't know them well enough. And take the time to get to know them and get that good thought. I call it in the book I write about it, I was like, your bank of good thoughts. Try to get a good thought about everybody.

So when they do something that might aggravate you or they do something wrong, go there first for that good thought before you address the problem. Do you live your life like that? I try to. On the freeway and stuff like that? I try to do that. I have a different approach in the car. That's a different approach in the car. I try to picture like. I have a different approach in the car. That's a different approach in the car.

I try to picture my mom as the driver. I'm not going to scream at her or something like that. You know what I mean? Because you never know who the driver is. It could be you next to me. You know what I mean? I always try to think that maybe it's like a nurse or a doctor and she is getting somewhere or just come from something really hard or, you know, like try and get it in perspective.

Yes. I don't always manage that. I got to be honest with you. It depends. I drive around a lot here in New York. Do you drive in New York? I do. I don't really drive here.

I don't mind it, but you've got to have patience because people are working. Yeah. People are either driving people places or unloading things. People are running their living out there in those streets, man. You don't want to hold them up. You've got to understand. It's a funny thing about New York. I mean, it's funny.

I was talking to a friend of mine. I said, you know, I'm moving back to New York. Because I'm in New York now. Oh, really? Yeah, and a lot of the time I'm in New York. And so, up near you, actually. Oh, is she? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right. You probably don't want to give away your address. Well, in the general area. I'm on the Upper East Side. That's right. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. So, you probably don't want to give away your address. Well, in the general area, I'm on the Upper East Side. That's right. Right, right,

right. If I knew about the Upper East Side, Greg, I would have never wanted to go to space. Don't you love that neighborhood? It's the greatest neighborhood.

It is like Disneyland. Greatest neighborhood. Steroids for older people. Unbelievable. I love it. I'm telling you, you can get to a drugstore, you can get a bagel.

Nice people there. Dormant everywhere keeping an eye on stuff. Dorm I love it. I'm telling you, you can get to a drugstore, you can get a bagel. Nice people there. Dorming everywhere, keeping an eye on stuff. Dorming are everywhere. It's awesome. Thousands of dogs. You know what I discovered here? You like to drive, so here's the thing I discovered. It's a parking ticket twice a week, 65 bucks. That's it. To park

on the street. Yeah, but you only get a parking ticket twice a week. Yes. That's the. To park on the street. Yeah, but you only get a parking ticket twice a week. Yes. That's the cheapest fucking parking in New York. This is a true statement. Yeah, so you just illegally park, pay your tickets. And you may not even get a ticket every time. You might not.

You might not even have to pay. You might not get it. Anyway, look, what I'm saying. No, you're absolutely right, but I still, I park on the street a lot. I have spots in the garage, but I also park on the street a lot. To me, it's like a hobby where to park when I know

I have the streets memorized now I know where it is where the hydrant is where the driveways are and it's like something to do it's like a hobby you gotta know so I said to someone

I would spend a lot more time in New York like now for tax reasons I can't spend all my year in New York but I spent yeah I found out about that too so I you know I'm less than in New York. Like now for tax reasons, I can't spend all my year in New York. But I spent... Yeah. I know you're a fan about that too. So I'm less than 180 days a year in New York City.

Genius. But I said to someone, I'm going back to New York, and he said, you hate people. Why would you go to a place that's full of people? I said, it's New York. Everybody hates people in New York.

We're amongst our own kind. It's funny. No one takes offense to that. It's fine. They're not supposed to New York. We're amongst our own kind. It's funny. No one takes offense to that. Yeah, it's fine. They're not supposed to like you. Get out of the way. You get out of the way. Okay, okay. It's a thing.

It's the way it is. Yeah. And I was talking to Ileana Douglas today. You know the actress Ileana Douglas? She's a great actress. She's a real New Yorker. And I said to her, I think what happens is if you are,

like if you come to New York, because I lived in LA for 23 years. Yeah. She lived in LA for like 14 years. Mm-hmm. But if you're a New Yorker,

it doesn't matter where you, it's kind of like the IRS. Like, it doesn't matter where you fucking go. they don't care. It doesn't matter where you go.

They're going to come and get you. But for the taxes you mean yeah oh god yeah yeah yeah yeah it's like i tried living in scotland i'm like yeah but you're an american sis yeah they don't you're not gonna get like no well that's very nice no i'm not i'm not a cpa or anything but i am amazed that the creative ways that they'll get money from my god my god no one can afford to live here yet how many many people do we have? 10 million? Yeah. Here in New York.

I don't know how we do it. I don't know how it's done. But we do it. You know, you just have to take turns living here. You just have to find out how much they're going to let you be here and take a little less than that. And then that's what it is. So now then, at this point in your your life you and I are the same age and I kind of

I'm not retired I couldn't retire I tried sort of retiring it drove me it drove me crazy I hated it you know I started doing like

home improvement and all that it's awful yeah it's it's overrated putting up shelves and stuff hanging out with my wife

well that's nice oh yeah it was great yeah yeah but too much I started It's overrated. Putting up shelves and stuff. No, it's... Hanging out with my wife. Well, that's nice. Oh, yeah, it was great. Yeah, yeah. But too much? I start to irritate her. I start to irritate her. That's the other thing. Yeah, I've noticed that.

If I'm there too long, it's kind of like, don't you... Yeah, don't you have something to do? Now's the time for me to read. She said, I didn't marry you for lunch. So what do you do? Like you do the speaking engagements now. Yeah, I really like that. And that stuff has been, you know, we talked about leadership or teamwork,

whatever we're going to talk about. And that's how the book came about was through that stuff, was from doing that speaking, what resonated with the audience. You should probably have a podcast. Everybody has a podcast. I tried it. Did you really? I did it with a buddy of mine.

It was called this other astronaut, Garrett Reisman. It was called Two Funny Did you really? I did it with a buddy of mine. It was called, this other astronaut, Garrett Reisman. It was called Two Funny Astronauts. Yeah. It was the two of us. And it was all right. But that's,

that's. You have to keep making them. You got to keep making, we did like 25 of them. I'm like, ah, we're out of it. So we,

we kind of like that. But, but I do, I teach at Columbia. I'm on the faculty there. That's a pretty fancy job. You could wear your fancy suit to that. Yeah, not really though. It's kind of, it's a little more, the fancy suits for more of the faculty there. That's a pretty fancy job. You could wear your fancy suit to that. Yeah,

not really though. It's kind of, it's a little more, the fancy suits for more of the speaking engagements. But it is a good job. I'm a professor there. Yep.

Are you Dr. Mike then? I am. I got my PhD, so. That's very impressive. Maybe you should do advice on TV. No,

I don't know. Dr. Mike. Yeah, I can do advice on your podcast. Sure, sure. Do we have any advice here? All right. Probably not. Here's the thing, Dr. Mike.

Yeah, go ahead. Right. So sometimes I feel so insignificant and small in the vastness of the universe. Right. And I worry about God and if he's there or she's there. I have a lot of existential angst. Now, you've been in space, Dr. Mike. Yes.

How should I cope with that? I wouldn't worry so much about that. I would try to enjoy the planet while you can. Ah, right. And I don't think we're insignificant. I think that looking at our planet from space, and then you look out, we were talking about those other planets out there.

I mean, you look to the blackness in the other direction, and we've checked out the neighborhood. We've got nowhere to go. We've got to make this planet work, and it's fragile. You can see the thinness of the atmosphere, but it is an absolute paradise. And Jim Lovell, we mentioned him earlier. I was telling him about this.

I go, you know, it's like looking into heaven. It's beautiful. You know, when you look at our go, you know, it's like looking into heaven. It's beautiful. You know, when you look at our, I can't imagine anything like it. Yeah. Anywhere else. You know, there's, I think there's life other places, but it's so beautiful. And he said, Jim Lovell told me, he goes, Mike, you know, a lot of people hope that when they die, they'll go to heaven. I'm convinced where we were all born there.

Oh, interesting. And so I think we should, after that experience I had of looking in space, looking at the planet, we really have it pretty good here. Even if you don't live on the Upper East Side. We should try to, that would be my advice. Try to be amazed by what we have right now around us.

And there's a lot of crap going on, I'm sure. There's a lot of bad things going on. But we are really given an opportunity here to live in a beautiful paradise. Are you a religious man? I'm a spiritual person. I'm kind of a fallen Catholic at this point. I believe

there's a... Here's one. I got one for you. Are you, Craig? If I can ask. I know it's your podcast. I'm not a religious person. I think one for you. All right. Are you, Craig? If I can ask. I know it's your podcast. I'm not a religious person. I think religion is a human vanity. Ah. Right?

But I think the idea of a divine nature of the universe, totally. I'm with you. I think there's something going on. Or at least that's where I interpret things. It allows me to interpret things. So I read this thing about the early Christian mystics, pre-Roman Christian desert mothers and fathers, St. Anthony, Abba Pima,

Origen of Alexandria, and Evagrius of Pontus. A lot of different people. Some pretty fancy names. Fancy names. Fancy theological names. Well, you're Catholic, so maybe you should. But here's the thing. Well, they were pre-Catholic, though.

They were pre-church Christians, right? Pre-Roman church Christians. The origin of Alexandria said, God is in silence. Silence is God. And I was thinking about that, and I was watching a YouTube thing with one of my boys when I was little, and it was one of those YouTube things. It was extrapolating from like a blade of grass all the way out to the size of the universe. It was like, when it comes down to it,

it'll be about mostly black holes. It's mostly black holes, which are completely silent, and nothing happens there. And the origin of Alexandria 2,000 years ago said, God is silence, and there's nothing happening. That's what it is. So I think that science and theology, which is not dogmatic,

but a genuine quest to try and explain your existence, I think they're both the same thing. I happen to agree with you. I think that there's no reason why they need to be in conflict. And I think the more we learn, the closer we get to the truth. And I think that's what we'll find out. I think the truth is what we're seeking when we go to space, actually, when we're exploring, observing, trying to figure out what's going on.

And I think it'll bring us back to that. Bring us back to this. And there's no reason why it can't coexist and agree. It doesn't have to be a fight. I think that's right. And I think the only reason that, the only times it doesn't agree is when you get people that are not prepared to accept new information.

Yes. So you go, well, we have new information. I talked to, before one of my kids was born, my first boy was born, I was talking to the obstetrician. And I said to her, so, you know, she was explaining something about the baby this and the thing that. And I was like to the obstetrician and I said to her so you know she was explaining something about the baby this and the thing that and I was like oh god and and she said and the thing that

and the heartbeat this and the thing that and I and I said how much of this stuff are you you know the progress from you know conception to birth how much of it do we actually know about? She said, well, if you'd asked me that 15 years ago, I'd have said we know about 50 or 60%. Yeah. She said, but now we've learned so much more, I'd say we know about 10%. That's right, that's it. I love it, yeah.

I love it. And I was like, oh my God. Yes. That's a real scientific answer. Yes. The more you know, the less you find out what you don't know. Right. Absolutely.

So if you walk away from the experience you have in your life, right? You've been in space. You've seen what very few human beings have been privileged enough to see. And you've walked away with it, not only intact, but with like, I feel like you're an optimistic person. I certainly am. I would like to think that anyway. So when the time comes for Mike's corporal tabernacle, for the realm in which you physically possess right now,

what do you think happens? What do you think happens when it's time to shuffle off this mortal body? Oh, when we die? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. That's a die? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. That's a great answer. I mean, I don't know, and I hope it's good, but I don't know. And we don't, you know, we have a belief maybe of what happens.

People have certain beliefs. Yeah. So that's why I think we've got to make the most of this. We've got to think. It's not. You know, and I do believe we're in a paradise. And Dan Brown, the author, who writes all that, you know,, the author, you know, about the Da Vinci Code guy and stuff. Da Vinci Code guy, I was having a similar conversation with him. And he said, you know, like God has given us a

paradise to live in. Everyone wants to die and go to heaven. Like this place sucks. I want out. This is terrible. But if you look at it, he gave us this beautiful, if you believe in God and you think of the creation that we have, it is a beautiful place with opportunities to do good and to help people and to create laughter and entertain people like you do and to love people and be nice and enjoy. It's a wonderful place. What would be different about heaven than what we could have here if you look at it that way? We could have it here. But what you'd have to do is everyone would have to live in the Upper East Side.

Everyone. That's really, you're getting us in trouble with New York. That's right. We got to restrict this podcast to a certain zip code. It's the Upper East Side. Because, I mean, other people are going to come for us now. You know, that's right. The West Village, go fuck yourself.

Oh, man, what? Fuck you. West, the Upper West Side, get out of here. All right, we've got to go, Mike. We do. It's always a pleasure. And I do want to plug your book one more time. Thank you very much.

Moonshot, a NASA astronaut's guide to achieving the impossible. Greg, it's great seeing you again. It's lovely to see you, Mike. Always a pleasure. For 10 years, I've been obsessed with one of the most bizarre and audacious cons in rock and roll history. We were all facing 20 years and all that good stuff.

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