Into the Impossible With Brian Keating - Astronaut Nicole Stott: BACK TO EARTH (#188)

Episode Date: October 13, 2021

Inspired by insights gained in spaceflight, a NASA astronaut offers key lessons to empower Earthbound readers to fight climate change When Nicole Stott first saw Earth from space, she realized how interconnected we are and knew she had to help protect our planetary home. In Back to Earth, Stott imparts essential lessons in problem-solving, survival, and crisis response that each of us can practice to make change. She knows we can overcome differences to address global issues, because she saw this every day on the International Space Station. Stott shares stories from her spaceflight and insights from scientists, activists, and changemakers working to solve our greatest environmental challenges. She learns about the complexities of Earth’s biodiversity from NASA engineers working to enable life in space and from scientists protecting life on Earth for future generations. Ultimately, Stott reveals how we each have the power to respect our planetary home and one another by living our lives like crewmates, not passengers, on an inspiring shared mission. Get BACK TO EARTH here https://amzn.to/3mzwtNW LinkedIn Jobs is the best platform for finding the right candidate to join your business this fall. It’s the largest marketplace for job seekers in the world, and it has great search features so that you can find candidates with any hard or soft skills that you need. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit linkedin.com/impossible to post a job for free. Audible is hands-down my favorite platform for consuming podcasts, fiction and nonfiction books! With an Audible membership, you can download titles and listen offline, anytime, anywhere. The Audible app is free and can be installed on all smartphones and tablets. You can listen across devices without losing your spot. Audible members don’t have to worry about using their credits right away. You can keep your credits for up to a year—and use them to binge on a whole series if you’d like! And if you’re not loving your selection, you can simply swap it for another. Start your free 30-day trial today:  Audible.com/impossible or text “impossible” to 500-500 Please contact [e-mail] to learn more about sponsoring Into the Impossible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. So today, we are joined by a past guest on the Into the Impossible podcast. And now I can add to her many accolades. I can add she is an author, a published author. And she has always been an artist, and she has been an astronaut, and all these triple A, she's a triple threat in many ways. and it's Nicole Scott joining us from the East Coast, from Florida, right, Nicole? Yep, yep, St. Petersburg, Florida.

And Nicole was, I think you were my second astronaut guest. I had Dr. Jessica Mayer on in January of last year, and that was really fun because she was live on the International Space Station at the time. Can't get me better than that. That's a pretty good get. Although when I talked to her again, she was in Houston at the end of last year. We pointed out that's five times farther away than the International Space Station when it flies overhead. But last year you joined us to talk about your space for art and other projects.

And now today we're going to talk about your book, Back to Earth. And the subtitle is What Life and Space taught me about our home planet and our mission to protect it. And I want to start, as I always do, Nicole, playing a game called judging books by their covers. You're never supposed to do that, but what else can you use to understand what a book is about? So this is a lovely book. Your publisher sent it to me earlier the year. I've been just dying to get it in as many versions as possible. There's a link in the video description below. So please click there.

But I wanted to start off by asking you to describe how you came up with a couple. cover the title and the subtitle? Well, I think I'll start with the title and the subtitle, if that's okay. The title was something that I think from the time I was starting to think about writing a book, that title was with me, this whole idea of Back to Earth. And what it's, what it really is referring to is how we take, you know, all this amazing work we've been doing as of this international community on the international space station and how we bring that back to earth in a way that allows us all, you know, to acknowledge our role as crewmates versus passengers here on spaceship early. And the subtitle, what life and space taught me about our home planet

and our mission to protect it is really, I think, what underlies this whole idea of bringing everything back to Earth, which is, you know, I mean, one of the things I learned, which I knew in kindergarten, but I will tell you it became reality for me from space is that, oh my gosh, you know, looking out the witness, like, wow, we live on a planet. That's, you know, it seems so simple, I know, but I don't know about you, but I hadn't really found myself thinking about that, you know, really, really considering that on a daily basis, right? And I can tell you, after flying in space, I do. Now, I don't think that I learned everything there is about the way our planet works,

and all that kind of thing. But in how we relate to it, that's what I'm really trying to get at. And then, you know, our mission to protect it, the it is bigger than I think the planet. The it is, you know, recognizing that just like this mechanical life support system we've built in space, you know, to do everything we can to mimic what Earth does for us naturally, the it is about Earth is our life support system, but it's about doing that in a way that allows, you know, us and all the life. that it supports to thrive.

Excellent. Now, what I really enjoyed was actually skipping all the way to the acknowledgments. You know, I hate as an author when a podcaster will ask me, you know, what's your entire book about? Can you read the book? Can you eliminate the need for my audience to have to buy the book? No, no, no, no, no. We're not going to do that.

This book is delightful. It should be savored. But I found the acknowledgments very, very. very provocative and an interesting way. First of all, they're a couple pages long, which is to be commended. And second of all, they begin with an acknowledgement, not to your family, not to the publisher, but to Captain Kirk. I want to talk about Captain Kirk because I've been fascinated with him for a long time, long before I starred with him this past summer, unexplained with William Shatner. But we're not here to talk about me. But I do have an IMDBB, I, MDB,

credit with him. But I want to ask you, what is he to you? What is Star Trek to you? What do you think he's going to learn when he comes back from space? As I understand, he is going to space, right? He is going to, yeah, he's launching space on book launch day next Tuesday, as best I understand, if they stick to their schedule. And, you know, I don't know if it's about just about Captain Kirk, really. I think for me though, my earliest memories of anything sci-fi, you know, as a kid, are Star Trek. And I'm so thankful for that because, you know, Star Trek to me, and I think to a lot of people, I hope, is this presentation of a future that I think we would all probably like to be a part of, right? You know, one that where Earth is still surviving and, you know,

people are thriving on our home planet and we are exploring, you know, beyond our solar. The inner solar travel is happening. And, you know, for the most part, that's happening in a very positive way. And, you know, when I think about sci-fi becoming sci-fact, which, you know, I think we see this happening all the time, things that were first just imagined in some story somewhere that we now, you know, I look at my phone and I. think about that. And I don't know, I just think Star Trek brought to light this very positive and encouraging inspirational future. Yeah, absolutely. And to many people, I think they'd be curious

about how you would expect him to react when he does return hopefully safely to Earth. What do you think that will mean for him, you know, spiritually, psychologically, scientifically, What do you think that will connect the dots in his mind to do? Well, I, you know, I'm so excited for all of these people that are having this opportunity. First of all, if I had a chance to give him a little bit of advice before he flies, I would suggest that as they launch and when he gets, you know, into that suborbital space and is coming over the top of that, you know, that parabola perhaps, you know, that, yeah, loosen your belt a little bit, float up in your seat,

but from the time you get on board that spaceship, I want your face in the window. I don't want you worrying about flipping around and throw in gel. I don't want you thinking about anything other than just absorbing this stunning, you know, view of your home out the window and trying to just suck that in,

to have it become a part of you. You know, I think about, you know, William Shatner, as Captain Kirk, I mean, all these adventures that they went on, you know, the places that they saw in the universe, the other life that they met. And, you know, underlying all of that would be what is the, what is the home for anyone of those beings? You know, what is the, you see the crew in their own ways thinking and always engaging in conversation about where they're from and what they consider home to be. And I want William Shatner to just really establish a new relationship with Earth as a planet as his home. And I hope that by keeping that face in the window, he'll be able to do that.

And I think we all come back after that experience and others, even ones we have here on Earth, you know, with a call to action. And I'd like to think that he would be rallying, you know, just like I am with this book for, you know, for everyone he meets to be. the crewmates, you know, find your role as crew here, not passengers. And thinking about how he would react to it, I also can't resist mentioning the kind of real frequent call-out to the famous Earthrise picture, you know, where Kirk is going boldly away from the Earth,

but this book is focused on being on Earth, back to Earth and a life lessons you learned as an astronaut. I remember hearing, was it Mitchell or, I think, Edgar Mitchell, I think it's calling him. So he says, you know, I just, when I'm up there, I just want to take a congressman up there and say, look at that, you son of a bitch. Look at that. And I kind of am depressed by that, Nicole, because I feel like if it really takes, you know, people going to space before they get that impression, you know, is this book kind of designed to,

have low-cost space travel, you know, for the 1999 that this book is certainly worth, can that replace that by getting your honest perspectives on how it affected you personally? Can that replace taking the congressman to space? Well, I can tell you that I think every, every astronaut, every crew of astronauts in one of their conversations when they're floating around the dinner table, you know, during their mission, this comes up. Now, man, if we could just get all these world leaders, their heads bouncing off each other looking through this window. And I'm going to be heading in November to COP 26, you know, in Glasgow.

And all I can think is, man, if we could just lift these folks off the planet and have them look back at what they're talking about, how incredible how life-changing that would be. And yet, I really, really don't believe you should have to leave Earth to understand this, you know, this sense of an earth-rise moment, this idea of the connection, the relationship we have to our planet and to all life we share it with. You should not have to get on a spaceship and travel to space to do that. If you do get lucky enough to get on that spaceship, I hope to, you know who,

I mean, I hope to God that you are sucking that view in and letting it impress you in every way that it possibly can. But you don't have to leave the planet to do that. I hope that the stories in my book and that the people that I share who are doing such incredible crew member kinds of things already here on Earth will encourage everyone that reads it to just, I mean, really take the time every day to look around and appreciate the awe and wonder that surrounds you every day. Look up, look around, look down, you know, feel your feet touching the planet, you know, and acknowledge that. And I think that that gets into you. And hopefully it's to impact the decisions that you make and the way you treat, you know, everyone around you

and the way you treat the planet, it's really a pretty simple underlying theme of what we all share in common. It's peak pollination season and my business is scaling fast. To keep the nectar flowing, I need a phone plan with top priority data speed. That's why I chose GoogleFi wireless. My connections stay strong even when the hive is buzzing. Plus, unlimited plans started third. $35 a month. Now that's a deal that doesn't stay.

Explore GoogleFi Wireless plans today. Plus taxes and government fees. GoogleFi Wireless is not subject to data traffic deprioritization during times of high network usage. You make a very powerful case in the book that, as I've heard, you know, the Earth is in peril, the Earth is in danger. The Earth's going to go on, you know, with or without us, right? Yep. But the question of what's in peril? Is it us?

Is it in all life on Earth? What is that cosmic perspective that you've developed? Well, I think that's the, you know, I forget which chapter it is and where, you know, what page in the book that it is. But there's a, you know, there's an interesting, I think, and, you know, like darkly funny excerpt from a George Carlin skit. But, you know, the bottom line is, you know, Earth's going to survive us, right? And the things that we're doing to it right now that put our lives in jeopardy, the lives of, you know, the other creatures we share the planet with in jeopardy, right? What we're doing is we're, I mean, we're impacting the things about the life support

system on this planet that supports our life. And the planet, you know, we're like the, is blip, right? You know, it's kind of like when you're talking about how much money does NASA get from the government where it's not even a line on the pie chart. It's the same thing with us, right? We're not even a line, you know,

we're barely a faint little blip on the timeline of this planet. And, you know, it's survived worse than us. And the problem is, you know, if we don't address what we're doing to it, we put our, you know, the peril is for us and for the other life we share the planet with. And the time that it will take the planet to recover may not support us. So, yeah, I think the peril is ours.

And you talk about the, you know, kind of this false dichotomy or false choice that, you know, we have to preserve the economy, preserve the environment, and they're sort of incompatible. And whether or not that is actually a false dichotomy is very, interesting to me. And yet, I often find, and my motto in this channel is, in my many models, is, you know, debate is pointless. Like, it's very rare you're going to convince someone by arguing at them or with them, et cetera. On the other hand, if you can ask sort of what questions could it take to change their minds or their perspective, what would it take to convince you of X, Y, or Z? I think what I'm curious about is what would you most like people to change their

minds about after reading this book. Obviously the fans and the people that already agree with the thesis presented in this book, well, follow along with it. But those that may be doubters, I don't know, I hate the word deniers, I really refuse to use it. But those that may be skeptics and maybe in a good way, maybe not. But what would you say to them? What would you say to convince them that maybe they should consider an alternative perspective? Yeah. You know what you were first saying at first about this kind of conflict between economy and nature and can they not overlap. I think that, you know, one of the people I interview in the book is Mark Tursec, who was the former CEO of Nature Conservancy. And what I love about, well, there's a number of things. You know, one is he went

from being, you know, a vice president at Goldman Sachs where his life was about making money, you know, making money for his clients, right? And he was on a vacation with his family and had, you know, one of epiphany perhaps earthrise moments where in a very life-changing way he discovered man I can be using these talents I have you know from the financial world to look at the way we treat nature you know and start to look at nature as as a commodity with value and that that we should be and these are his words you know we should be protecting nature for us not from us right I don't think there's anybody you would meet that would be opposed to enjoying some natural setting, would be

opposed to having a nice time on the water, would be opposed to clean drinking water, you know, I mean, these kind of clean air to breathe, those kinds of things. And I think in the end, what it comes down to is in whatever way it takes, quite honestly, for us to help everyone establish their own relationship with earth as our life support system. And that sounds a little bit weird, but, you know, the simplicity of something like, where does this clean drinking water that's coming through my faucet come from? How are we maintaining this air that's clean for me to breathe here? And yet I know places on the planet that's not happening. And at some point, that's going to impact me. Yes. And I honestly believe, like you said, you know, pounding

the fist, you know, nothing but a scare tactic, trying to guilt someone into, you know, changing their ways, especially if they are comfortable and they don't get a sense that that comfort level will change. That is, that's, that's not going to work. I think, I think we have to latch on to the things we have in common, like lift those up, look for the messages of hope that our scientists are giving us as well, which they are. I mean, yeah, you know, the headlines will be insect apocalypse. And yet within that paper or that expression of the science, they're giving us the solutions too, right? And we just need to figure out how to get everybody on board as crewmates.

And I know that's an oversimplification, but it's incredible what we do is six or seven people on a space station. And I want to talk about... And how that can parallel what we do down here. I want to talk about that next, but I want to remind people we're talking with my friend and former past guest on the show. This is Astro Nicole on Twitter, and she is Nicole Stott. I want to read her biography. She was the second astronaut to come on into the Impossible podcast. Since then, I've had Jessica Mayer, who was my first guest live from the ISS,

but she came back in late December on Earth, closer to what? where we are now. And she also was joined or followed by Nicole and then by Dr. Scott Parazinsky, who I've invited to come to join us if he's available. Dr. Scott is a friend of the show. He kind of makes me a little jealous because he's like my mom's favorite guest that I've ever had. And she just loves him. I love him too, but I get a little nervous. She's your mom's favorite guest, not your mom's favorite. Host. Fun.

Yeah. That would be embarrassing. On Monday, or rather Tuesday, we have Commander Chris Hadfield on the podcast, and he has a book out called The Apollo Murders. So, Nicole, do you have a murder mystery? Do you have a sci-fi fantasy? Do you have any other books coming down the pipeline after this wonderful book, Back to Earth? Not myself.

I have some in my mind that I'd love to, you know, love to bring to life. but nothing in the works yet. I am, you know, this is a, this is a pretty incredible process that you have to, you know, that you go through with the kind of the proposal stage and this, you know, manipulation that happens of what the story is that you really want to put on paper and then the agent publisher, actual writing process.

And now I, you know, I'm really, I'm trying to savor, I think, this, you know, having the book come in the mail and hold it physically, in my hand and then know that other people will be doing the same thing. Yeah, I think I need to get through this whole thing. Enjoy it, yeah. Promoting a book is as much work as writing a book. So Nicole, I just want to remind people, she's an astronaut artist and a mom who spent

over 100 days in space aboard the International Space Station. She had a 28-year career with NASA, and then she founded the Space for Art Foundation. We'll talk about that in the minute. She speaks to audiences around the world, including the Vatican, the UN, at the historic Paris Agreement. And she is featured in National Geographic's one strange rock in the painting that she created in space is displayed at the Zazonian Air and Space Museum. She lives in Florida with her family.

She's a speaker, and now she's an author. Really, you just do so much. You're such a Renaissance soul. You really inspire me and make me feel like even more of a slacker than I actually am. you mentioned before this crew aboard and I saw the book maybe unintentionally, maybe intentionally as a leadership book and although there is no like real hierarchy like you might have in the military on this ship you guys are having this motto that you talk about in the book you know all for you know earth essentially talk about this kind of hierarchical versus

non-hierarchical structure why does NASA do it that way why do they you know and not have a commander of the ship, so to speak, as the military would do. What is the underlying benefit of that? And maybe are there consequences? Like it's maybe there's efficiencies that are lost or something. Talk about leadership in space. Well, you know, that's a, yeah, that's a great question. I think that, you know, as a crew, we do, we do have a commander on the space station. And, you know, this is an international group of people, you know, on board this station, right? And it's one of the things I think is like its legacy, you know, besides the outstanding science that's being done there will be the way we've established and maintained these international relationships, the way we've brought five international space agencies representing 15 different countries together, you know, peacefully and successfully to this mission working off.

the earth for the earth. And so in this crew that's on board the space station, you know, it's seven people now, I think is the normal size crew. It was six when I was there. We represent all 15 of those countries, even if there's not somebody up there from, you know, one of those five agencies. But there is a commander and they rotate that through, like each of the different countries, you know, in some way, at some point gets a commander role on the space station. The rules of engagement are all in place, you know, with the teams on the ground about how problems will be resolved and and somehow, you know, this is another thing that just stands out to me, somehow the heads of all these agencies and the people that run them were able to, I'm imagining,

sit around a table or, you know, through some video conference, able to establish these rules of engagement that while it's not always, you know, flowers and, you know, you know, you know, you know, happiness, they have a way to work out the issues. And that then translates, I think, to how the crews work together on board with a commander, knowing that in some ways, there is a hierarchy there. You know, how you have all of your flight engineers and your commander, and yet the day-to-day action on board that station is with everyone understanding their role. with the tasks that are sent to us on the schedule, with the way we work together on those,

the communication with the ground, and all of that. And it's a pretty rare thing where the commander either has to, you know, take some overarching action or communicate with the ground, you know, independent of the crew. And I think that's because the, you know,

these ways that we work with each other have been just established so nicely that it just, flows and we train together you know we train together in some pretty challenging situations we go out into the wilderness and you know discover each of our own strengths and weaknesses and how we're gonna balance those in succeeding at the mission we train in every emergency situation that the ground team can consider might happen to us and it's incredible how

When you get to space, the way you trained comes to life and is just like this effortless motion of six crew members floating around the station coming together to solve the problem in whatever the humanly possible way is to do that. And I think that was one of the things I was most proud of as a crew was seeing that happen. You know, when the emergency alarm is blaring at 3 o'clock in the morning and you all float out of your crew compartment and the, you know, you're like, okay, Don't leave a crew member behind. You're accounting for all your crew members.

Everybody's getting to the place where they know they're supposed to go to deal with the emergency. They're doing it. And then you're, you know, you kind of chill afterwards and you're like, oh my gosh, we just did that in a way that was probably, there's probably no better way to do that. And you can be really proud of that kind of thing. And we can rally the same way here on earth for, you know, for any emergency alarm that's going off. I think we have the ability to do that. We have to find the will, I think, to really come together and do it. And one thing that has united the planet, for better or for worse, in some ways,

is, of course, the COVID pandemic. And that actually, I remember, affected the astronaut crew. Obviously, they were completely isolated, the most isolated people on Earth. There were similar people above the Earth, the most isolated people on Earth were at the South Pole, where I've done some work, but above the earth were the denizens of the ISS. Talk about how, you know, that experience and perhaps the lessons of, you know, kind of spaceflight and crewing and leadership and also the side of fear, which I want to get into next, the topic of courage, fear, et cetera.

How does that play into your thought process now and maybe within the realm of, of even the NASA philosophy itself, if you would. Yeah. You know, as this whole last, gosh, it's almost two years now, this whole, well, let's not go there yet. No, this whole year and a half that's gone by where, you know, all of us, you know, all of us were put into, and the all of us is all of us, like, you know, all the earthlings, right, put into a very different situation than we're used to. And, you know, as that was all going down, you know, my family and I here in Florida, you stayed as close to home as you possibly can do during that time.

We tried to respect all of the, again, you know, the rules of engagement that we're in place to keep ourselves and, you know, everyone around us safe. And I found myself thinking about that, you know, that isolation that happens to crew members on board a space station that just separates you from the planet. And, you know, the things we do there to stay connected, I found myself wanting to do here. You know, I wanted to know that I had a way to communicate with my mom and my sisters and my in-laws and my friends. And to even maybe more actively engage that, you know, to make sure they were doing all right when you couldn't physically go be in those places with those people. I found myself looking out my window and, you know, spending time in my own yard in a way that was like, man, there's there's awesomeness and wonder around me, you know, even in this place of isolation. And the same is true on a space station. You know, you get your face in front of the window and you get sucked into that view and then, you know, you got to set the alarm to remind yourself to go back to work. It's a it's a transcendent kind of thing. So I was hopeful and tried to share with the people that I know. And through some media stuff too, because we were getting asked the same question, you know, is how do we leverage these kinds of things in us to, you know, to stay healthy, to stay connected?

And I think, I think you're right. What we just saw and are still experiencing around the world and the way humanity generally rallied, right? You know, we had people staying in their homes and coming out, opening their windows, putting their windows and singing with each other, right? They couldn't get down in the street and be together, but they made these connections, the kind of these human connections, they found new ways to do that when you couldn't physically be in the same place with somebody. And it became really important to do those things. And it became important for us, just like with some of these other challenges we have, to acknowledge the science behind it, right? That sounds so simple, right?

Okay, you know, you and I have some respect for science and we want everyone we know to have that respect. And, you know, and to leverage it in a way that can lift us out of these problems that we're having. And I can't speak for you, but I have to believe that you know, we have all the technology we need to solve the problems that we have on the planet right now. Yeah. We have people, some of them in, you know, in this book I wrote that are already implementing those things, you know, and trying to do so on a planetary scale. And we just need to be, you know, putting ourselves in a position where, regardless of what country you're from, which, you know, curve on the planet you, you know, live in, you know, this is, this is our one shared home that we have to come together to, you know, protect for the sake of all life that we share it with. Absolutely. Nicole and I talked last time, because I'm a parent and you're a parent, and we talked a lot about courage and fear. And I remember being really just leveled and affected by your statement that you never really feared for yourself.

And it was always sort of more of a fear for your son and what would happen, God forbid, right? talk about that. I want to read just a quick statement that I found and I think of you whenever I read it. Let's see if I can find it. It's a quote from C.S. Lewis. Let me see. I put it on here. C.S. Lewis wrote, Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point. Try living in with moderation. Try being honest. Try pursuing knowledge. Try doing any of these in a world that has forsaken, wisdom, self-discipline, and justice. And see how far you get without. of courage, you'll be mocked. I want to know, do you feel courage is kind of the opposite of fear, or do you feel like they are not necessarily even on the same spectrum of emotions? Well, you know, that's a difficult question.

You know, the fear thing in the way that you describe it, yeah, I mean, for me, and I think this is true for, I'd like to think this was true for my colleagues, my crewmates, is that because of all that training we just talked about, you know, where you've, you've discovered all of what we know to be the humanly possible things to overcome the problems we might have and figured out how to work together to implement that. I think you feel prepared to deal, you know, to deal with what might come during the mission or as you're getting there or coming home. You know, and that's not

to say that we don't understand that there's risks associated with, with what we're doing to get to space, live there and work there for even a short period of time and come home. It's just that, I think within the realm of what we can do about any of it that might go wrong, we feel comfortable. There is a total respect for, you know, for the kind of the overall risk of this kind of thing. But yeah, I found myself feeling like, man, on the launch pad worried about my son and my husband watching me. And I think that's where I thought about courage. Like how courageous is this seven-year-old to be able to stand and watch his mom,

you know, launch on a rocket and, you know, to be there with his dad doing that. And, you know, we have to give our kids credit. I mean, they understand what's going on around them. You know, a seven-year-old gets what's happening. when a rocket is launching and you know and what that might mean for you know for his mom that's on board or for for his family for him and um so that at the same time i'm thinking there had to be a he had to be feeling fear as well but he didn't run from it you know he didn't leave his dad standing on the launch control center you know roof watching it alone um he didn't

He stood by my husband in a way that I think speaks to how the rest of us can, you know, deal with the things going on around us, that we shouldn't, you know, run for cover when difficult things are happening in front of us, right? And there are difficult things happening in front of us on Earth right now, on our planet. And we can't be running for cover. We have to find, you know, what is it in us that will help us stand and, you know, take the action we need to, you know, to recover from whatever it is. You mentioned the frequent, you know, kind of tropes leveled against NASA that I think are based upon the fact that most people overestimate NASA's budget by, you know, a factor of a thousand.

At least. What do you make of NASA's brand? I claim it's probably the most powerful brand, you know, in terms of investment to return on investment. And that I see people, you know, walking around with, you know, NASA T-shirts and hats and everyone's fascinating. fascinated with space and from the world's most successful, billionaires that are competing for NASA's partnerships

like Elon Musk and Bezos and Branson. But talk about the NASA brand. Is it on the way up? Is it sort of being burnished properly? What do you think about the stewardship of the NASA brand? Is it better than ever? Or is it sort of maybe living on the fumes of glory from when you were in the active astronaut corps?

No, I think actually I think it's always getting better and I think it's you know you mentioned like you know seeing people in a NASA t-shirt I was just in Dubai and there were kids with NASA T-shirts and they knew what it was it's not like oh somebody gave him a t-shirt and they just wore it I mean they knew what it was they wanted it they were excited about it and I think that has happened everywhere I've gone on the planet you see you see some of that I mean I get I get even when I was in the office astronaut office and even now I'll get requests for auditors from places that, you know, you just can't imagine a space being a thing that would be thought of. And it is. And I think NASA represents all of that. I'm also a firm believer in the fact that, you know, NASA right now and always, I think has done a really great job, primarily communicating to people that already love NASA, right? And where it's starting to improve is in addressing the audiences that might not even know there's an international space station. And that's where I think, you know, more work, things that I'm happy to see happening are, it needs to continue happen.

We need to be reaching out to the communities, the audiences that don't know there's an international space station. Don't know that we have, you know, this plan to go back and settle on the moon permanently and why. You know, the bigger question of why we would do that, why that's valuable. They don't know that everything that these representatives of 15 different countries on the space station are doing up there is ultimately about improving life on Earth. And that's the kind of messaging that needs to get out more and more. And I'd actually like to see that coming out more and more from the names you mentioned. like the Bezos and the Branson's and the musks.

You know, there's some of it there, but I think underlying all of them, their motivation is very positively about how do we improve life on Earth, whether that's multi-planetary species kind of thing or lifting industry off the planet to, you know, a benign environment in space. You know, all of those things are about improving life on Earth. Next, I want to turn to,

two of your very closely held causes that I know about from our previous conversation last summer, which is having to do with art in space and also women in space. First, let's talk about how you painted this magnificent painting in space. I'll have a link to that in the video show notes. But how do you actually paint a watercolor? I could maybe spray paint some graffiti on the side, you know, tag the side of the ISS. I'd probably get kicked off. But how do you paint a watercolor?

I mean, that's almost impossible to do in 1G, let alone zero. How that work? Yeah, watercolors are difficult just to make it look like what you want it to look like, right? You know, it was really fun. And I think, and we might have talked about this before, but I really, gosh, I wish I would have activated my brain cell to videotape the whole experience of painting with watercolors in space. because I think it would have been such a wonderful way to just describe what it was like to live in space in general, right? You go up there, the expectation, at least in a microgravity environment, is that everything's going to be a little bit different, right? You know, no matter what it is, how you wash your hair, the way you do science, you know, the way you move,

it's all a little bit different in a microgravity environment. Doesn't mean it's more difficult. It's just different, you know, and you've got to think about it like it's part of the adventure. So painting in space with watercolors was certainly that. You know, it like was full evidence of how everything floats. You know, you're floating, your brush is going to float if you let go of it. You might lose it. And you don't have a cup of water to dip your brush into.

So you've got to like squirt out little balls of floating water to dip your brush into. And because of the way surface tension behaves in space, you know, even before you get the tip of the brush to the ball of water, it's moving. like it's like it's attracted to and wanting to move onto the end of the brush and float around it. And then you mush it on the colored, you know, the colored paints and bring that colored ball of water up. And all the time you're having to be really careful to transport that ball of water to the paper now because if you move too fast, it's just going to, you know, splatter all over the place. And I would get in trouble, just like you spray paint inside of the space station. You know, I'd get in trouble if I was splattering watercolor paint all over the inside of the space station.

It might actually might look kind of cool, but, and just the whole like process of it, the difference in the way the brush and the paint and the water behaved was just a really special part of it. And, you know, it I think brought like the creativity in it to a new level because you were having to do it differently to try to, I don't know, paint a painting of something you'd seen out the window. And I don't know. the way I think about it, people look at my painting, they'll probably think, okay, what kindergartner did that, you know? But in the end, I'm not really worried about whether somebody likes it or not, right? I want them to look at it, and it's like what we were talking about with NASA. I want them to engage with me in the backstory. Like, you know, what was the subject that? Where were you? You know, I could talk about being on this place, you know, where we're doing all these things

off the earth for the earth and perhaps engage somebody who didn't know about. what we're doing in space in a way that, you know, that they're wanting to know more. And I'll tell you, I have experience where, you know, you talk to somebody about that app, you know, spot the station app where you can put your zip code in and it'll tell you when the space station's gonna be flying overhead and where you can watch it come from

and travel to to the other horizon. And that just, that's so attractive to people, I think, because it's another way, right, to, to establish a relationship with this place that you might not have known anything about. And then as you watch that dot of light moving across the night sky, you're like, oh my gosh, there's seven people on board that space station representing 15 different countries somehow for over 20 years working peacefully and successfully in that place. And oh my gosh, look at that. And you do. You establish a relationship with it. And it's kind of like painting in space.

You're going to talk to Chris who played his guitar and sang, on board the station. You know, other astronauts since the very beginning have been doing creative things in space. And I think it's because we want to bring our humanity with us. It's a difference than send in the robots, right? We want to bring human, we want to put the human in human spaceflight. And I think that's a really, that's a really compelling thing to think about as we're exploring further and further off our planet and establishing these relationships and knowing

that everything we're doing needs to be coming back to Earth. for the benefit of all life here. So we're gonna take some audience questions in just a minute, we have some on YouTube, we have some on Twitter spaces. I have some questions from my own family. I wanna take one more opportunity to discuss a topic that I know is near and dear to your heart,

not just this week, which happens to be a special week that you can explain to folks the, what is the nature of this week, International Space Weeks as designated by the UN, and how does that play a role in the lives of potential female, both astronauts and non-astronauts? 35%, as I understand it, of the astronaut office as female, compared to 13% of the engineering workforce in general. So by, you know, just numbers appear three times as good almost. But what's left for there to do and what role do you see yourself? and others playing during this week,

which October 4th through the 11th, International Space Week, what participation is ongoing to ensure to reach the broadest panorama of the human intellect? Well, I think that, you know, like World Space Week, first of all, with a Women in Space theme, you know, the W and WSW is world. So the, you know, the audience is international.

And I've already participated on several different, you know, panel sessions with other women, you know, India, Europe, Africa that have these events going on where I think the key in all of it, and it's what we need to continue to do, and I think is what has allowed us to engage and invite to encourage more women, young girls to participate in these kinds of fields is being present for them, right? And that's what's happening during this week, during all these sessions. You know, really incredible women from all kinds of different backgrounds in space, you know, not just astronauts.

And in the end, it really isn't all about the astronauts. You know, we tend to be this kind of focal point for things. But everything that's being done to get us to space, to do the work in space, you know, that's really the valuable, most important part of what's going on. We are like the implementers of it, right? The hands of the scientists, whatever, until that day when we can actually be sending the scientists themselves, you know, take me on that flight with you, please, to do their own work on the space station or on the moon or on Mars or wherever else it might be that we are traveling in space. But I think the key is this presence, especially for young girls. I think, and I have a son who is now 19, just started college.

You know, God bless them. And I watched at school how the boys reacted on career day, right? You know, it didn't matter to them if it was a man or woman standing in front of the classroom talking about something. They're just looking at it like, oh my gosh, is this cool? Is that something I might want to do? And, you know, I'm thinking about it that way. Whereas for the most part, and while I don't like to stereotype anything, for the most part, young girls are looking there and saying, okay, you know, they're looking for somebody similar to them.

They're looking for somebody that kind of represents them to say that might be possible for them. You know, sadly. So we got to be there. You know, we've got to be out there being present. And I think that's going to continue for a while. And I hope there's a time where we're not talking about having to, you know, highlight women or men in space because we're needing to encourage them to be there, that it's just, you know, a mix of humanity happening. And you're right. And the NASA astronaut office, you know, 35 plus percent,

you know, female representation now across the human spaceflight program, you know, those numbers are probably on par. And yeah, you can tell the, you know, how we encourage women to enroll in programs at universities. Somehow we need to be getting them better in the middle school time frame, I think, being present then to encourage them to keep pursuing, keep aiming higher. And there's a really wonderful event going on in Atlanta this weekend, in parallel with World Space Week and with International Day of the Girl and supporting the upcoming Artemis mission, you know, the themes behind the artist mission, this mission where, you know, NASA is looking to put the next humans on the moon, of which that will include the first, you know, female astronaut.

and person of color. So lots of great things to look forward to. Your summer starts now with Memorial Day deals at the Home Depot. It's time to fire up summer cookouts with the next grill, four-burner gas grill, on special buy for only $199. And entertain all season with the Hampton Bay West Grove seven-piece outdoor dining set

for only $499. This Memorial Day get low prices guaranteed at the Home Depot. While supplies last, Price and valid May 14th or May 27th. U.S. only exclusions apply. See Home Depot.com slash price match for details. In space. And I think it'll encourage other industries as well.

So we are going to take some questions from the audience. And we have one about presumably from somebody who either has a healthy dose of self-confidence or his parents pick the name that I was going to choose for one of my kids, Prince Charming, who wants me to ask you about space. I guess this would be a way to reduce the cost you know to nothing once you build the elevator I suppose what is what is your thought about the ultimate reduction in the cost per pound to take items to space using a space elevator is it feasible yeah I you know in all honestly I don't know if that that will be feasible I there's a lot of

mines greater than mine that are are looking that and kind of evolving the idea of that technology over time. I think that in the end, there is there is feasibility to it. I think they've shown that. It's more about how do you, what are the protections you put in place with respect to how that elevator is deployed, right? You know, how do you protect, you know, already when we do launches, we have this range control system, right? That, you know, clears out boats and planes and everything from the surrounding area for where you're going to launch a rocket and protects in case there is an accident what that you know debris field might be in the surrounding area and so that same kind of thing is going to have to come into play and perhaps even with with a lot

more thoughtfulness when you talk about deploying something like you know a thin line that's going to you know go between point A and point B A on the planet and B and B be someplace in space and how do you manage that both physically and with respect to what could happen with it. Right. Next, we do have on Twitter, we have a request from Joe Sue, I guess. Do you think ultimately the sacrifice for getting both you individually and humans as a species to get the cosmic perspective, as past guest Neil deGrasse Tyson says, do you think it's worth it? It's an awful lot of money. And what do we get in return?

Is it worth it for us integrating over the entirety of our species? Yeah, I think so. I think we could talk all day about this quite honestly. There's all different kinds of levels of this. You know, one being this, what you just said, this cosmic perspective, this, in the words of Frank White, this overview effect, this, this. sense of who and where we are in space together, even though, you know, we should know that without

having to travel to space. But I don't know of anyone that has traveled to space and not come back to Earth with a little bit of a shift, with, you know, something life-changing for them that really drives, it's like a call to action. It's a need, you know, not just to share the experience that you had, but to put, you know, put something to work, you know, that's meaningful that encourages other people to, you know, to do things that are meaningful, to, you know, again, for the benefit of all life we share this planet with. So that alone, you know, in addition to the fact that as humans, we are going to explore, we're going to do it, you know, with, and I think regardless of what it will cost. But, you know, it's, you know, but,

And I won't get this totally right, but I think this is something interesting to me, and my husband who is like the sci-fi expert of the world. But author and I would say philosopher, Larry Nibben, has a quote that's not typically attributed to him. A lot of people use it and don't maybe even know where it came from. But it's something like, you know, if the dinosaurs had had a space program, they wouldn't have gone extinct. And if we don't have one, it'll be our own fault. So again, I think all of what we're doing at a relatively, in the grand scheme of things, low cost to explore space, to bring those lessons back to Earth is something that we just will need to do from here on out.

And, you know, this multi-planetary species thing that we talk about in terms of taking ourselves, you know, humanity continuing. You know, at some point the sun is not going to be so kind to us, right? And if we're still just here alone in the solar system, you know, just going to Mars isn't going to save us either. So we've got to, again, we've got to bring that Star Trek reality to life, right? That's right. That's where we began with Captain Kirk, who boldly went where no human had been before. And I want to close, again, with this wonderful theme that runs throughout this. truly delightful book and we're speaking about back to earth. I'm going to have it floating here in zero G. It's it was it's such a it's such a delightful read. It's full of images of Nicole. I have the

hard copy, the Kindle copy, and I will get the audio copy I'm sure because because of that is the way I like to do things. This book really does convey on a personal level. I think you know people when they oh, an artist, or, you know, she's a mother. I mean, Nicole is hardcore. I mean, you were one of the toughest badasses that I've ever known. And it was funny because your publicist didn't know that you'd already been on the show. And she's like, would you be interested? I was, yes. I saw Nicole, yes. This is like six months ago. So I love this book so much. Back to Earth, it's the story of what life and space taught her. But really what it teaches all of us about how our home planet and our mission to protect it is so vital and so crucial. And you,

have a theme that runs through the book, and I just want to close with that, this theme, off the earth, but for the earth. What does that mean to you now that you're on the earth? Is your perspective forever changed? Absolutely. And that off the earth for the earth, it's the motto of the international space station. And my friend and astronaut classmate and crewmate, Kevin Ford, coined that, that on his mission patch when he was getting ready to fly to the space station. And the space station program loved it so much, they're like, oh, we got to keep it. We got to keep it for the program as a whole because I think it's so, it's just so beautifully fits everything we're doing in space.

And the whole point is to bring it back to Earth, is to take the lessons we learn there, about how we work together, about the science that we're investigating to improve life, on Earth. And everybody should know about that. And everybody should take that as, yeah, I mean, my hope in reading this book is that people really will. They'll read it, they'll reflect on what I experienced, but they'll make their own connection,

their own relationship to the stories, and they'll discover their own way, their own call to action to behave like crewmates and not passengers here on spaceship Earth. Oh, it's truly delightful, and it's delightful and really an honor to talk to you. Nicole Stott, who is, as I say, a hero. She's just so genuine, easy to talk to. We didn't geek out about aviation this time. I refer you to my previous conversation from last

year with Nicole last summer, which was really a highlight of my podcasting career. And I wish you great success with this, and I want to encourage my listeners to buy this book. And also to stay tuned on Tuesday, we'll have Commander Chris Hadfield on for his new book, The Apollo Murders. It's so scary but it's appropriate for Halloween month right Nicole yeah absolutely and I'm I'm really excited about that you know Chris Chris's book Apollo murders mine back to Earth and then you need to get Eileen Collins on with you her book please would connect me with all three launching on October 12th with William Shatner Captain Kirk going in space that same day too we have an abundance of astro explorer authors if you would put me in

touch with Eileen I would be forever I would be happy to do that and I want to Again, thank you and encourage folks to tune in. Do you have any questions you want to ask Chris? Because he's my next guest on the show. Any questions for Chris? I'll ask him after he's on your show. Nicole, thank you so much for joining us. Please everybody follow her.

Before to meet him in person. Yes, I know. I'll be in Florida maybe early next year, so we'll be in touch. Maybe we could do a live episode and the follow-up. That would be fun. That would be fun. And thanks to all the listeners, really appreciate your support. It's so much fun.

Yes, thanks everybody. Have a wonderful weekend. Bye bye, bye, guys. Thanks, Nicole. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Please support the show by rating, commenting, sharing, and leaving reviews. We appreciate hearing from you, and it really helps keep our universe expanding. Watch our YouTube channel at Dr. Brian Keating. That's DR. Brian Keating and join our premieres Tuesdays at 8.m. Pacific Time. Follow Brian on Twitter and Medium and support us on Patreon at Dr.

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