NASA's Curious Universe - Curious Universe Live: Art and Science with Astronaut Matthew Dominick

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

NASA has a long history of bringing together science, engineering and art. Space exploration is a human endeavor—one that requires creativity. In this special live episode, NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick and comedian and musician Reggie Watts talk flow states, aircraft ejector seats and more. Plus, a new NASA tool that lets you make music from iconic Hubble Space Telescope imagery. 

Hey, space nerds. It's your host, Patty Boyd, here with something special. Recently, our team took the show on the road. We brought Curious Universe to On Air Fest in Brooklyn, New York for a conversation connecting science, art, creativity, and space. And we got a chance to share a brand new tool that lets you make music from the universe. Today we're sharing an edited version of that live show. You'll be hearing from NASA astronaut Matthew Dominic, musician and comedian Reggie Watts, and podcast producer and host Simone Palanin. Okay, this should be an amazing conversation. Here we go.

Hello, everyone. Good morning. I am so happy to be joined today by Matt Dominic and Reggie Watts. And we are also going to be previewing something really cool from NASA later on. But first, I wanted to talk to you guys about art and science and creativity. because as we know, these things all intersect. They will be intersecting very explicitly here later as well. You know, NASA does have a long history collaborating with artists. In 1962, they launched the NASA art program where they commissioned different artists to try to translate

and capture the experience of space travel, preparing to go to space. They worked with artists like Norman Rockwell, Annie Leibovitz. But as we also know, art is very intrigued by space and space travel. I'm sure you guys have your own favorite space-based franchise if you want to shout out what you like to watch. Everyone said Xenon Girl of the 21st Century. That's awesome. Yeah. You guys both sit at the intersection of art and science in your own unique ways.

I kind of want to start by talking about that. I'm really curious, Reggie, how does science show up in your art? Matt, how does art show up in your science? Reggie, why don't we start with you? You know, for me, it's like growing up, I grew up, my dad was in the Air Force, and I was always fascinated with science and space exploration, aviation, that type of thing. I grew up on Air Force Base, Malmstrom Air Force Base. or next to it.

But so I was always fascinated with that. And that, and I think it's that wonder that always made me come back to my instrument and project that wonder through the music. I was either learning, even when I was learning classical music, it was a language that, it's a mathematical language, even though I was, I didn't really think of myself as a mathematician, but learning music and the structure of music is math-based. So the wonder that was created from,

knowing that we've gone to space, seeing footage of missions, hearing Carl Sagan talk about the wonders of the universe or Asimov or anybody that was interested in it, and seeing movies and TV shows and Ballastar Galactica. So I was always fascinated in that and that definitely had a huge effect on my imagination. Yeah, how about for you, Matt? How does art show up in your science? I know you are an experienced photographer. That's one way.

So art is so many things. I'll start by saying my background is in NASA, predominantly engineering and science, but you can't go anywhere without art. Art is a communication medium, right? It's an entertainment medium. And for me, I imagine a triangle of engineering, science, and art. And my training, my background, what I do is predominantly as an engineer. But an engineer takes what scientists teach us about the universe around.

us and they the engineer has to be a bit of an artist to find ways to combine what we know about the universe in the laws of physics and laws of nature to create these things for humans to go explore the world around us right explore the universe around us and so we use art like the art of combining the scientific worlds into something new and an object a tool a spaceship that goes to space right like I think about how what the art history required to you have a limit about a mass you can get into space into orbit and this thing like We launched on the top of a rocket.

We went really fast. We went through the atmosphere, have all this drag. We now have to spin around the earth, go around the earth, every 90 minutes for eight months. And then we have to come home and go through this atmosphere. And now we're going through an atmosphere like a plane. So the spaceship is a spaceship and now it's a plane, and then it's a boat.

We land in the water. So the artistry required to make all of that work, the trades of like, well, sorry, we can't, we need to make your seat weigh one kilogram less, because we need to save that kilogram for. for a parachute. So that's an art. And so I think about it that way.

But then I also think about it as I'm incredibly lucky. I kind of opened up a candy bar one day, and I found the Willy Walker ticket, right? And I got to be this human that got to escape the surly bonds of Earth, right? To quote the poem. And I got to go to space. And I have this really deep feeling inside me

that I have to share with the world what I saw. And I do that through art. We do that through art. We have to do that through art. because I couldn't take it. I would love to take all of civilization with us, but I can't do that yet, yet. We're trying.

But so, you know, the human eyes is this incredible thing, but it only sees in 400 to 700 nanometers, but we do have an incredible dynamic range that cameras haven't met yet, and so trying to capture the views we got to see at the window of 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every day, you can only do that with art, right, in how you store.

Storytell, right? Storytelling is a big art form and how I tell that story. Or if I have an image that I took, I can show you the image and you'll see something. But if I tell you a story about that image, there's an art to that. Yeah. I'm really curious to hear you talk a little bit more about why you feel like art and storytelling are particularly effective tools. And this could be for either of you to try to, like, yeah, translate these things that are so, difficult to capture otherwise. What is unique about using art and these more creative mediums?

I think what's interesting about my path is that because I'm interested in engineering and design and science, I just, I met so many of my friends who are initially not interested in that. I mean, they're interested in it, but not really in a way that's like conversational or it holds a fascination in a way that I might. But what I love doing is showing them why I'm excited about what it is that I'm excited about. And if I can get them to see that, then at least maybe it cracks it open a little bit to kind of share that,

because it's another source of inspiration. Science is another source of inspiration. The failures of science are an inspiration. All of the wavelengths that we're using to be able to get information back, whatever that is, whether it's on the smallest nanoscale of like trying to see individual, you know, subatomic particles and things like that are evidence of those things or how those are captured and or the

the telescopes that see the most detail and the furthest that we can. I love that whole range of human exploration and then all the devices and techniques and the ways that things are put together. So for me that's the same thing. What is what happens when I'm improvising? When I'm improvising, I'm taking all the data around me and I'm channeling it in a way that self-organizes and And since so far as like I'm allowing it to kind of organize on its own. And so I'm using all the information around me. So I think of that as a form of engineering. Even though it is art, I do think of my, kind of an engineer first approach to almost everything that I do.

And I think that that is a great way of looking at things because now I have a lens. I can, whatever I'm looking at is interesting. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up improvisation because I'm sort of curious like how how that shows up. I love this idea of improvisation as engineering because I imagine you need to improvise quite a bit in your role.

But also I imagine improvisation requires some preparation as well. You have the note cards. Why don't you talk about preparation? I wrote with two different pens. Anyways, you know,

something we were talking about before we got on stage was how creativity is like so crucial to both of your processes whether that's you know you're troubleshooting something or you're trying to sort of pivot in the moment so with that in mind I'm really curious to hear how you guys prepare like before you are stepping on stage before you are launching into space what are you nailing down what are you leaving open you know to the moment and when do

find yourself leaning most into this like creative headspace? So there's this phrase I don't know where I learned it, where it came from, but I've heard it throughout my career. So my background was flying for the Navy, I flew airplanes for the Navy, then it became a test pot for the Navy, and then I joined NASA. And so I belong, you know, it makes me feel old, but I'm approaching 20 years of doing that. And having a long career of dealing with highly technical things in a fast-paced environment, moving fast where decisions have to be made very quickly or you lose lives.

And so that's, you know, that's one of my backgrounds from my career. And how do you prepare for a moment where you only have a couple seconds to make a life or death decision? You do that by preparation. And so one of the phrases I can't remember where I picked it up, but it's used frequently and it's, we call it failure of imagination. And so when we look at an engineering problem or a, you know, a structure or something we're prepare to go do, we try and think of all of the failures that are going to occur.

Like what it's going to break, what's going to kill us, what's going to cause us to fail a mission. And so, you know, I will, like, I will go for long walks, right, when I'm thinking about tough problems. And that's how I manage, you know, I try and go let my creative mind. I will go have conversations about something wildly different, right? Like I'm super excited to be here because this is not the normal group of people I get to hang out with, right? Like this is a room filled more on that triangle full of artists, right? But I will have conversations today.

I'm super looking forward to conversations to hear about how people work and how people think and prepare because I might hear something new and that will go into my brain and then sometime a year or two year, five years from now, that piece will assimilate. Like you assimilate all these different things that allow you to improv, right? You have an incredible skill to improvise, you know, do improvisation on the spot. And so you try and get as many pieces of the puzzle together so that when you do have to improvise real time, you've thought through the foundation, right? You've thought through a thousand possibilities. And now this thing that's occurring, you've never thought of before, but it's like just one little tweak different than this thing you've experienced before. It's only slightly different, and you can apply it or combine a couple different things.

And I know that sounds really big picture meta, but that's really how it actually works. And so we commonly, I will sit in meetings where we're discussing, you know, a new spacecraft design, and we'll talk about, okay, where is our failure of imagination? Where are we failing to imagine this future thing? and we stand on, like, it's a common phrase from Newton, I think it's Newton, smart dude. We stand on the shoulders of giants, right? And those giants are all the people you interact with.

Or the books you read, like I go read books that are nowhere near the topic that I'm working on, but I will find answers in that book for the problem I'm working on. Man, I, this is a question for both of you. It would paralyze me to think through all of the possible ways I could die. I understand how essential that is in preparation, but I don't know. The way I'm built, I'm like, I feel like I would have a really hard time processing that. And then conversely, I would have a really hard time, I think, taking in all of these different data points in my space

and figuring out on the fly, how am I distilling these? Which one of these am I, like, trying to translate? So I'm very curious to hear about how you deal with processing this data, because you guys seem super chill up here talking about all of this. When I'm on the inside, I'm like, oh, my God, that sounds terrifying. Tell me your secrets. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you know, it's funny. I think of it as, like, time dilation.

It's almost like buffer memory If everybody remembers CDs CD players with like a minute of buffer memory But it's pre-scanned The music that you're listening The music that you're listening to in real time Is actually kind of in the past Because it's already preloaded

In the buffer memory So I think of it, improvisation in that way Where sometimes you're improvising But you're listening As though it's already been written You're slightly ahead experiencing what you're doing And I think there's this time dilation that happens and the concentration that happens where you just go into this like flow state and then all of the experience you've ever had comes into action and into play.

And so that you're able to make these micro adjustments in these really crucial times, whether it's improvising for 10,000 people and not having an idea what I'm going to do as I'm walking up stage and like grabbing the microphone. I don't know. I guess I don't know how I'm going to start. you know, and then something happens, and then I'm doing it. But I know that I'm in the flow state, I guess, when I'm actually observing the performance. But we do that all the time. We do it when we're washing dishes. You're like washing a fork, and you're not, you're thinking about something else, but you're just automatically washing a fork.

That's like a form of flow state. Flow states happen on micro levels all the time. So it doesn't have to be this grand example of like, I'm going on stage in front of 10,000 people. It could be you improvising, grabbing your keys when they slipped out of your hand. because you felt them starting to slip. I see. When I ask you to do the dishes, I'm inviting you to enter a flow state.

So that's one way to reframe it. Inter flow states, execute dishes. Yeah. Since we're on the topic of flow state, I'm curious, what parts of your work do you feel like you enter that state most? So I'm a person that's got a thousand ideas going through my head all the time.

That's my nominal state. until I enter stress mode, right? And so then you kind of snap into hyper-focus, right? And so stress, I love stress, because it allows me to hyper-focus on things, right? Like, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You're all over the board. I've met you backstage. You're all over-board with a thousand ideas.

Sorry, I'm not your therapist. I'm the one on the couch. Anyway, you and I are clearly all over the board. I'll say it for myself, right? Like, we're all over the board. But then as soon as stress hits, you hyper-focus on something, right? And it's super awesome. And so the government has known this for a long time, or professional organizations that do that

know about stress and stress inoculation, and you get inoculated to that stress. Right? It's the same thing. You just get exposed to stress, get exposed to stress, get exposed to the stress, until you're like a vaccine, you're immune to this stress thing. So we do a lot of that. We constantly expose our group people to stress, so you're just used to it. And then you love it.

micro dosing stress. There we go. That's the term, microdosing. Are you also, are you microdosing confronting death? And is that how you're able to sort of game out these different scenarios? Sure. You're trying to keep me on track? I had this really clear memory when I first started flying airplanes that had ejection seats.

So an ejection seat, they're typically for airplanes that don't do well without engines. no airplanes do well without engines except maybe gliders, but there are airplanes that are really bad without engines because they don't glide. Typically fighter jets, yeah, like that. That's a very excellent model. And so you start flying these airplanes that have ejection seats, and you're sitting on like a bunch of explosives

that propel you out of the airplane and a parachute opens and you land safely. And so I remember the first time I started flying airplanes with ejection seats, and we would always brief before the flight, okay, you know, if you lose this, this and this, we'll just go ahead and eject, and they would move on to the next topic. And we're like, hold on a second. We're just going to gloss over the fact that we're going to eject?

Hold on a second, but it was just this very common, like, okay, yeah, so the first step for ejection is you separate here. And I would sit in the airplane, and there's this little yellow and black handle that sits right between your legs like this. I'm flying this airplane. I keep looking at this thing. And then after a period of time of flying with this weird handle between your legs that just says, I'm going to blow up this airplane,

and I'm going to fly out at a fireball. Like, why do we put this handle right here? That seems like a convenience spot. Now I'm just like, oh, yeah, that's that thing. Whatever. But you love stress, so you love it, right? Now I do, but that was like years of training. It's like having your, it's like your finger on some like the nuclear,

like a nuclear weapon. It's just right there. This is the wings fall off switch and this is the airplane blow up switch. We're just going to sit you right here. Yeah, it's just right there. Just so you know it's right there. My intrusive thoughts remember. I know, I went 10 years, 15 years doing that.

And then I joined NASA. And we have airplanes with ejection seeds. And we started flying with engineers. So I started flying with engineers and scientists in the airplane. And I got to watch them go through that process. It was so fun. They were, I'd see them like doing the awkward move.

And they're like, you just glossed over the ejection. Yeah, it's fine. We're just don't pull the handle. What's the question? Yeah, totally. Man. I feel like we don't have enough time. I can ask you so many more questions about that.

I do, though, want to turn to our demo that we're going to do here. today. Okay, here comes the demo. This is Patty again. At On AirFest, we debuted a new NASA tool, a data sonification app called Hearing Hubble. It lets anybody turn the iconic image data from the Hubble Space Telescope into music. Now, you can't see the screen above the stage like our live audience could. So here's what the Hearing Hubble app involves. A Hubble image appears on screen, like a gas cloud, a cluster of stars, or a galaxy. There's a sidebar with menus and buttons to adjust the instrument playing,

the mood of the harmonies, and so on. When you click the play button, a scanner sweeps across the image, just like a needle on a record player. And based on your selections, the app translates the image into music. If you want to give it a spin, we'll link the app in our episode transcript

at nassad.gov slash curious universe. So we got the app up on screen and handed the controls over to Reggie Watts. Remember, he's a musician. Oh, great. Perfect. Yeah. So we've got these awesome images taken from the Hubble telescope. We've got these little knobs that we can play with on the side.

But before we get to previewing that, I'm curious for you guys. What do you think changes for us to see or hear data arranged in this way? Like, how does this, like, how does this for you change your relationship to how you're thinking about space? Well, I mean, you know, I have a saying as well, which is, well, actually, I don't think it's my saying. I think it's humans have said this. But everything is everything. Oh, I've never heard of. You haven't heard that?

Okay, cool. All right, cool. Right on. But for me, it's like, you know, when you, whatever you do, as long as you're involved, involved in the level of understanding how things happen with whatever you're doing, you can apply it anywhere. So for instance, a synthesizer, this is just a synthesizer that's using different data points that are triggering whatever it's assigned to that makes noise. And that's kind of it. So you're just using a data set. However, it makes it interesting because the

data set is once you decide what the maths are for what it is that you're seeing and how that's interpreted into the data set, then this is just an interpretation of that using a synthesizer overlay. So it's an exciting way of creating synthesis because it's slightly randomized, but it's based off of the space data, which is pretty sick. Matt, what's your reaction to our sonification tool here? I mean, so many reactions. I thought about it, and I immediately brought back the cosmic background radiation of the universe that's left over from the Big Bang 14-something billion years ago, you know, if you have a classic analog TV, you can see like one, you know, a small percentage of the static that's on that TV that you're seeing on that TV is from the Big Bang, right? It's like, I don't know, it's a small couple percentages.

And so just the idea that we are changing, like the Big Bang happened, microwave radiation came out. it's impacting the antenna and it's being translated into a frequency or a wavelength that your mind or ears can hear, right? So like the human eye can only see 400 to 700 nanometers, right? The Hubble can see infrared and ultraviolet, but your eyeballs can't. And so we're translating, you know, the incredible electromagnetic spectrum, which goes from very low frequencies to very high frequencies, that we can't see or detect as humans, into a range that we can see and feel, right? So here we're taking Hubble, which can see in infrared and ultraviolet, and we're converting

it into the 20 to, you know, the 20-000-hertz that the human ear can see, right? So that's our hearing range. We're just putting it in a way that we can see, feel, in an artistic way. And that's the nerd in me coming out. Awesome. No, we love it. Let's play around with this. So Reggie, as our resident musician, improviser and vibe cab.

I'm going to ask you to play around with this tool and can you compose something that matches our vibes right now? Sure. And I'd love to hear you talk through your process as you're going through it. I've never used it, but let's see how it works. Okay, so here we go. Oh, I see. Okay. All right, so right now the notes are playing based off of the brightness. we've got our harp going, a smoother sound wave,

but these are all things that you can adjust. Ooh. Let's try harsh. There we go. Get her done. Ooh, it got very, like, spiritual. I like that. At our spa, we believe that all of human consciousness is...

Let's try gentle. That's nice. A little piano? Oh, that's nice. Oh, yeah, here we go. Ooh, tense. What's our... What's our vibe, Reggie?

I thought it said hauntina. Honita. Oh, that's interesting. Very hauntina in the room today. This is my daughter, Honina. Boo. Yeah. Yeah.

This feels like it matches. Yeah. Kind of hauntina. Sassy. How do you write a, how do you write music that's sassy? I think you just got to, you got to go for it. Oh, here we go. Let's go fast.

That's nice. That's so cool. This is really cool It's giving like chaotic meditation Yeah well it's also so fast So if we take it We're back at the spa Amazing

And let me know if the pressure's too much Okay well So you take your time and I'll be outside And just has some water Unfortunately that's our time guys I wish we could hang out here all day Thank you Matt Thank you Reggie

It was so great talking to you guys And thank you all for being here with us. Thanks, Simone. Keep it going for Matthew Dominate, Repro Watts, and Simone Polaro. This is NASA's Curious Universe. This episode was recorded live at On Airfest in Brooklyn, New York, and produced by Christian Elliott.

Our executive producer is Katie Conan's. My co-host is Jacob Pinter. The Curious Universe team also includes Maddie Olson and Michaela Sosby. Christopher Kim is our show artist. Our theme song was composed by Matt Russo and Andrew Santaguita of System Sounds, which is actually the same team

that also built the Hearing Hubbell app. Special thanks to the On Air Fest organizers for inviting our team. If you want to turn space into music, search for Hearing Hubble or click the link in the transcript for this episode. As always, if you enjoyed this episode of NASA's Curious Universe,

please let us know, leave us a review, and send this episode to a friend who needs more wild, wonderful adventures in their life. And remember, you can follow NASA's Curious Universe in your favorite podcast app to get a notification each time we post a new episode. Oh, and what you're listening to right now is an original composition by musician Jacob Rudin performed live at On Air Fest. It's music based on Hubble imagery. We'll leave you with that today. official NASA podcasts.