SmartLess - "Jessica Meir"

Episode Date: April 19, 2021

Jessica Meir is truly out of this world. NASA astronaut, marine biologist, physiologist, and role-model-for-all, Jessica joins us this week and shows us how to use our brains for the first time in lightyears. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, welcome to drive time with Shawn, Jason and Skeeter Arnett. Welcome everybody. It's going to be really fun today. How's your traffic? Incredible. Bumper to bumper all the way to Mexico. Weather looks great on the 7s. We'll be right back after these words from smart.

Hey, here's a kind of fun thing. Last night's got to be fun. It's better be fun. Good. No, it's not going to be fun. Here's something fun. Last night's got to be like, uh, what do you want to watch? I haven't seen a thriller in a long time, like a really good one, like get out or member

fatal attraction or something like that. You know, in Canada, it's called get out. They spell it the same though. They do actually. Say it again. They say get out. Get out. Get out.

O-O-U-T. And it's like that show that was on Fox. It was House. House. That was a big show up there. O-A-O-A-U-T. Yeah. So you guys want to watch a thriller.

You and Scotty. You're sitting here. Yes. We were like, let's watch it. There's nothing what's got like high rating because it's, you know, it's hard to find a good thriller. So Jason Bateman, we watched the gift last night. Oh boy.

It was really good. You were really good. I'm glad you don't have notes. Look how surprised you want to do. I do. Is that locked? Yeah. We are locked.

So please save your notes. Okay. So no. Jason. Jason. It was pretty good. Was it kind of a gift? It was a gift.

It was really, really good. It was really good. We really, really liked it. Well, thank you. Yeah. Joel Edgerton did a really good job. That was his first film he directed. I think it was great.

I showed my 14-year-old daughter Pulp Fiction last night for the first time and realized about a half hour into it that there might be some stuff that she might not be ready to see. I just couldn't remember. Like the needle in the heart? Well, it had been so long since I saw it. Did she like a good OD scene? Like where somebody ODs?

You know, but it was pretty tame. You know, parent of the year is still open. So I mean, this, we can submit this. No, I'm going to go ahead and not submit this one. Yeah. My dad won last year. Oh, again. Yeah.

Fifty. Fifty in a row. Yeah. Hey, Sean, look how handsome Will looks this morning. Is that because you're three hours, oh no, you're not three hours ahead. You're in Los Angeles now, aren't you? Because he's drinking some milky kind of coffee. What's going on?

Would you spend some extra time in the Schwitz yesterday? Could you look like you dropped a bunch of water weight since the last time I saw you? Good for you. Gosh, you know what? I'm going to jump in here because our guest is a female today. Oh no. Yes. So excited for you guys to meet this woman.

She's incredible. She's so incredible. Your balls are going to fall off. She's smarter than all three of us put together, but then so is a trash can full of nothing. She's a marine biologist, a physiologist and an astronaut for NASA. Wow. So, might I add here- A real ding-bat.

Wow. Might I add here, she has already been so kind to appear on my other podcast, Hypocondry Actor, which premieres on May 5th. That's 5-5. It's a medical podcast that I host and me and this person chatted a lot about what the body goes through in outer space. And so that's why she was on that show. But here she is-

Are you planning a trip? What? Jesus. But more about her. In 2019, she and Christina Koch were the first women to participate in an all-female spacewalk, which is totally rad. And by the way, she also plays the flute, the saxophone, she scuba-dies, she has a freaking pilot's license, and she speaks fluent Russian.

But today we're hoping she speaks English. Please welcome Jessica Muir to the show. Wow. Jessica, look at this girl. Wow. Hello there. Hello. I'm so sorry for the language.

I know. That's okay. Right up my alley. By the way, we can talk about water, weight, and space, and if that, what happens with that? You know, I will say, yeah, we can go right to the puffy thing. I do notice that at zero gravity, y'all will get puffy for those little links back down to Earth when you say happy Christmas or whatever, everyone's looking real puffy.

That's your takeaway. That's your takeaway when the astronauts come back. But I've heard that that is a thing, that it's common knowledge. Astronauts know that. Why is that? It is a thing. It's not meaning more water. It's just because you have this upward fluid shift.

So you know, without gravity, right now gravity is pulling all the blood down to your feet. But once you take that away, everything kind of comes upward. And so you get a lot more blood in your head and you can feel it. You feel a little bit congested. You get kind of a puffy face. Some people more than others. But usually it's worse at the beginning and your body adapts a little bit after you're up there for a little while.

I wrote about seven jokes while you were talking. I know. This is such a dangerous area. This is such a dangerous area for all of that. But although now, Jessica, I can say to Jason in the morning, like, oh my gosh, have you just come back from outer space? Exactly. You just put this right into your repertoire.

Are you doing a live hit from space right now? Wait, Jessica, I can't be the first person to say your last name is pronounced the exact same way as the space station, International Space Station. Like I didn't realize that until last night. I was like, Jessica, mirror, it's the mirror International Space Station. Well, the mirror space station was separate from the International Space Station. That was just a Russian space station. That was it's not around anymore.

Now it's been replaced by the International Space Station. But you're right. They were both space stations. Did they ever consider International House of Space Stations? I tried. I pushed that really hard, but apparently there was some kind of copyright infringement. Just pancakes galore. Jessica, let me just say, so you are an incredibly accomplished person.

You're an astronaut. And Sean mentioned you have your pilot's license. So I kind of always want to know. And she's a marine biologist and a marine biologist. So what comes first? What was your first thing in the sort of the site like in that area? Were you a pilot first? Was that your trajectory?

No, I wasn't in the military. So now the astronauts are kind of 50-50 in terms of whether or not they have a military background or a civilian background. So I'm a civilian. I was a scientist previously. That's the marine biology physiology part. So I was working in academia doing experiments with penguins and seals in the Antarctic and diving physiology and then high altitude physiology and that kind of thing as a scientist.

But I always wanted to fly airplanes. So I did actually get my pilot's license back. I started taking lessons when I was an undergrad and then had my private pilot's license and my instrument rating. And then when we actually become astronauts, we fly the NASA T-38 jets. They're really cool little trainer jets. And so I feel like I really beat the system because now, you know, my dream was to always fly a jet, but I did that without having to join the military.

So I won on that one. That's so cool. And you know, you heard to Sean early on that he last night, he and Scotty watched the movie and they did some high altitude testing too, right before them. Hey, oh. Jessica, how do you manage the disappointment that your parents must feel your lack of accomplishments? Do you send them really nice postcards in the holidays just to keep their spirits up? You know, if you call every now and then from the space station, it kind of makes up for

it, I think. I hope you don't have any brothers or sisters that have to live up to your mark. I have four siblings, actually. I'm the youngest of five and I was always trying to live up to them. So I think that's why I ended up where I am. I'm the youngest of five. I knew we had so much in common shop. Let's look at your accomplishments next to Jessica's.

There's a podcast. Oh, you got two. You got a medical podcast. Two podcasts. Two podcasts. Yeah. He's got two podcasts. So he's kind of doing okay too, Jessica.

So wait. So Jessica, tell us about the, I know this is kind of a boring question, but as a kid, like what drew you to look up and go, gosh, that's super cool up there. I wonder what it would be like to go up there and like what inspired you? I first started saying I wanted to be an astronaut when I was five. So I don't actually remember that. My mom tells me that part. Then in first grade, we were asked to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we

grew up, like most kids. And that one, I actually remember drawing that iconic image of the astronaut in the spacesuit next to the flag standing on the moon. And I think I just never stopped saying it ever since then. And I don't know. There wasn't any one particular thing that I didn't meet anyone from NASA. You know, I was in a really small town in Northern Maine, right on the Canadian border. Well, yeah, practically Canadian, I'm an honorary, but that's a separate topic.

We welcome you. Thank you. Can you guess my birthday? Your birthday is, are you going to say that it's on Canada Day? Is it really? It's Canada Day. Yeah. July 1st?

For real? Yes. Yeah. Well, I think that makes you prime minister, technically. Well, I lived in Canada for three years and it was so wonderful because there was always a big celebration for my birthday. Of course. Wait, where did you live in Canada?

Just sidebar. Where'd you live in Canada? I did my postdoc in Vancouver at University at UBC. Oh, Vancouver is technically not Canada. Yeah. So, yeah. It's Hollywood North, right? Yeah, it's Hollywood.

If you get on the other side of the Rockies there, then it's just a bunch of wingnuts. I can't wait for the letters, by the way, from Vancouver. So you study, you do all this stuff, and then what's the moment where you go where it becomes an option astronaut? Yeah. Well, since it was something that I really planned on or hoped to do since I was five, I tried to involve myself in any kind of space-related activity. I went to space camp when I was in high school.

Not the real NASA space camp, but there was a space camp at Purdue, and my sister was there in grad school. And then I did some programs in college and that kind of thing. So just kind of tried to expose myself to as much of it as possible. But I didn't think that it would necessarily ever happen because we all know it's really a very, very small chance no matter how good you are. So I ended up actually coming to work at NASA previously, like 20 years ago, as a scientist. So I was coordinating life science experiments, the kind of experiments that were the subjects

for as astronauts now. I was working on the ground side for that way back then, I was here for three years doing that before I actually went to graduate school. So now I kind of look at it as full circle where, well, first I used to coordinate science on other astronauts, then I went to grad school, did all these physiological experiments in planting animals with certain electrodes and measuring these things, and they were my subjects. And now it's full circle where I'm the animal on the other side being poked and prodded on

the name of science in really the most extreme environment in space. So it's just me kind of paying my dues, I guess. But you don't really, you have to, you just apply to be an astronaut, so nobody comes looking for you. Right, but there must be a day where like the letter comes in the mail where they go, you're an astronaut. Yeah. So I applied a couple of times actually.

I just got one of those. You did? Yeah. I just got one. You weren't supposed to tell anyone yet. Still a secret, Sean. Sean applied just for the poking and prodding. Oh my God.

But wait, I have, I have, I have a million questions because the guys know like the space is like my porn. Like I, I love, I could talk to you for nine hours about anything that has to do with space. I just love it. Talk us through like the experience of launch. So when you're on that freaking spacecraft for the first time, do you have like to go, do you have to do like some major like Zen work and get to like a calm place because that's got to be the most stressful like flight anyone can take.

You probably just put a Zanny under your tongue, right? And it's fine. Yeah. Just like flying to Atlanta. Yeah. And you're pretty senior there. Yeah. It's really pretty interesting because for me, so I launched with the Russians on a Soyuz

spacecraft and a Soyuz rocket. So I was in Russia for much of the lead up like the year and a half before learning how to fly that rocket and doing that all in Russian, which was incredibly interesting. Yeah, because, you know, at the time the space shuttle had already been retired back in 2011 and we didn't have SpaceX online yet. Like we do now. We were exclusively launching with the Russians really since 2011 until now we've been doing that to get to the space station, but that was one of the best parts of the experience

for me. I mean, living and working over there. How janky are their spaceships? Be honest. Are they kind of, are they a little thread bear or is it like held together with duct tape? You know, the thing is that Soyuz has been flying for decades. So it is the most reliable rocket available on the planet right now.

And so that was, I had no problem stepping onto that incredibly reliable rocket. And it is interesting. There is a big difference in the engineering on the American side and the Russian side, where their strategy is more something simple and robust that works. You know, they don't keep changing it. They have something that works and they don't have to put a lot of bells and whistles on it versus, you know, the space shuttle. That was one of the most complex flying machines ever made.

And you know, that's one of the reasons why it had some of the problems that it had, but it was a really kind of, I think we have very different engineering philosophies. That's how they describe my mail order bride that I work from Moscow, robust and works. But wait a minute. Reliable. Yeah. But Jessica, is it like, I always think like when Americans, American astronauts like yourself talk about Russian astronauts, you meet in space or you meet before obviously

and whatever is, does any of the kind of tension that the political tension, like I imagine it's obviously goes away because you're meeting the person, but is it weird to meet somebody with so much, you know, through their country having so much political tension between the United States? Yeah. To me, that made it even more special and interesting, you know, to be living and working over there as an American, you know, given the political climate and also just historically, if you think about it.

So we're over there training in Star City and the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center. That's the same training center where Yuri Gagarin trained, you know, the first human that ever went to space. And that city, Star City, was actually not on the map. It was a secret city because they were trying to keep it secret from us during the space race. So it was really interesting thing to know that we were there, you know, I'm there as an American woman training and working there, you know, with the Russians in the same place

where Yuri Gagarin was. And to me, that just made it so much more special and incredible. Talk about the change to the extent you had any, the change in perspective of being somebody who lives and breathes and walks on this planet. After you had that perspective from space, looking back at this planet, I've heard people talk about that there is a different perspective that can be somewhat distracting for astronauts when they come back because they've sort of seen this as not the end all be all, but just another planet.

Yeah. It is really interesting. And I think it definitely changes you as a person and we even have a name for it and called the overview effect, which Frank White described and really how it changes you essentially as a person when you've looked down the planet with your own eyes. And you know, I think for me, I had thought about a lot about that before I went up and it was pretty true in terms of the things that I saw. The first one was, you know, I've always been a very, a very strong advocate of the environment.

And so that's just plain to see. I don't think you can come back from space and not have a much stronger appreciation of how beautiful and fragile the planet is and how we need to protect it. And you see this really thin, tenuous band of an atmosphere and you realize, I mean, you can just see how special it is and these continuous bodies of water and the land and that's the other. They say you can see Jason's water weight from space. No kidding.

Really, from space. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The lighting has to be exactly right. Yeah. The lighting's never right. I guess, and sort of expanding on what Jason was saying, like, but that feeling, does your

day to day, I mean more like your interpersonal relationships, of course, you know, that sort of the regard for the planet and for the environment, but just in terms of when you start getting back and you start having interpersonal relationships with people and people are like, hey, this is bothering me. And you have such a bigger perspective. Does it change that you kind of go like, hey, it's not making such a big deal about the fact that I left the cupboards open or whatever, right? Yeah, that's the other big part of it is that perspective shift in terms of, you know, looking

back and realizing how insignificant even we are as humans or our planet is and the scope of the solar system and the universe. And I think, you know, I say that all the time, I wish that every human could experience that perspective shift because it does make you appreciate what's important and especially for me when I was up there. So I launched in September of 2019. There was no COVID. And we watched COVID unfold from the space station.

And when I landed, so there were six of us for four months of my mission, then for the last two and a half months, there were only three of us. So there were three humans up there. And we're watching things get, you know, of course in the beginning, like everybody else, we didn't think it was going to be as bad as it was, and we're watching things get worse and worse. And then suddenly we're feeling like it's, we're the characters in this bad science fiction movie where you pan to the space station and then the entire planet is wiped out by, you

know, a meteor or something. And you guys have to keep the race going. Right. And I have to now procreate and the, and bring back the civilization and I'm responsible for repopulating the entire human species, but there were only three people up there at the time. There were only three of us. Yeah.

Do the math. Three, three females or was there a male up there? No, I was the only female. It was, yeah. Oh boy. Me and two men. So yeah, I would know. I was looking around and I was thinking.

That's that moment in the cartoon when you turn into a rack of lamb, you know, right, right. That must have been, that must have been so surreal to be up there, watching it unfold down here. What are you guys watching on? You watching like MSNBC or CNN? What do you got? Yeah. So we get some new sources.

We don't just have a constant stream to the internet like we, like we do down here, but we can have different news programs uplinked and sometimes we can get a real connection. So whatever we ask for. You guys got 5G up there? No, no. Sorry. Yeah. There's certain, certain, certain sections of the rotation where it's like, service

is terrible when we're crossing over Europe. But so you were up there for, my math is not great, but did you, were you up there six months? Almost seven. So I was there for 205 days. So it was almost seven months and it was the middle of April when we were landing last year. The middle of April was when things were really bad.

So we were returning like right into the thick of it and it ended up even being really a major accomplishment for NASA and for the Russian space agency and just figuring out how to get us back in the Soyuz we land in the middle of nowhere in Kazakhstan. And then we send a NASA jet over to pick us up. But you know, given all the restrictions with, with all of the flight regulations, it was really difficult for them to figure out how to even pick us up. So we had a little bit more of an exciting return to earth and normal where it was kind of like a planes, trains and automobiles version where we, we first had a helicopter

which is normal, but then we rode in an ambulance across the Kazakh steppe for three hours before we got to our NASA jet and finally got back here. But that was the thing that was, you know, such a difficult transition. It's hard enough to come back from space after seven months, but suddenly I came back in the middle of a global pandemic and I couldn't even hug anyone and I'm a hugger. You know, I couldn't even see people or was it a part of you that was like, you know what, I think we're good. We're just going to stay up here for, just ride this thing out.

Like I would be, you know, yeah, you're up in space, but also at the same time. A little late checkout. Yeah. You know, let's see how this thing works itself out. Yeah. I would have stayed longer. I absolutely wanted to stay even without, even without the pandemic. I actually wasn't ready to leave.

I would have rather stayed for like a year. It was, it was just so incredible. Jason, would you go to space and, I mean, would you, do you think you'd give up show biz for six months? Can I get alerts from deadline? Tom Cruise is going to film a movie up there soon. Maybe you could just film a movie up there. Oh, wait, is that true?

So do you know anything about that, how they're going to, the logistics of that, Jessica, the Tom Cruise movie? Well, tell them what, who is it and what is it? I don't know that it's finalized yet, but, but you know, we've been hearing that it might happen. Yeah. And the Russians are talking about doing it too. So they might beat us to that.

I think it's Tom Cruise, isn't it? It is Tom Cruise. When, on the Russian side, they've got some Russian actress that, that I think is involved. But I don't know who's going to get it done first. We'll see what happens. Wow. It's another space race. It's the space Hollywood race.

Are they, are they planning on shooting it in the international space station? You know, that's the part that I don't really understand because as you guys know, it takes a lot more to shoot a movie than just an actor, even if it's Tom Cruise. Not much. So I don't really know logistically. Not too much. So I should know this, but how did you land? Is it a water landing?

No, it's a land landing. So the SpaceX Dragon, if you've seen that vehicle, that does land in the water. Actually we're about to launch another SpaceX coming up here in just a couple of weeks and I'm involved in that one. So I'll be going to Florida to help launch that crew. And then shortly after the crew that's on the space station now will be, will be landing in water. But the Soyuz lands on land.

So basically it comes through the atmosphere, which is, you know, it's this incredibly dynamic process. I mean, you're literally burning up through the atmosphere. So in the window that I can see right here next to my head, there's, it's just all this plasma, this orange flame all around you. Then their parachute comes out. So the parachute slows you down significantly. And then the Soyuz has these soft landing thrusters.

So when you're really pretty close to the ground, then these thrusters fire to give you a little bit of momentum going back up so that it's a, what they call a soft landing. And it's, you know, people described it to me as being at a car crash because obviously it's not that soft. You're still falling back to the earth, but it was actually softer than I anticipated. You fit pretty well in your little custom made seat. They actually, it's really interesting. In Russia, there are these little old Russians in white suits in this room and there's like

this little bassinet and they put you in it and they pour a mold around you to make this custom fit seat liner. It is like straight out of a 1960s movie. It's, it's really kind of. Oh, that sounds so comfy. And then it's like little springs underneath the seat to absorb some of the impact of landing. The seat cocks. It moves up to, yeah, to help absorb that impact as well.

So the seat does help, but I was actually pretty surprised how soft it was. But let me ask you something. You're a marine biologist, which is amazing. How can you talk about your relationship between learning stuff deep in the ocean and space and how it's similar and any experiments that you've done in space that you can share with us and the results of that? Cause that's fascinating to me. So I think, you know, there are definitely a lot of parallels to me.

I think that's why I've always been really interested in all these different realms. And to me, it kind of just all goes to exploration and looking around the corner and having that scientific curiosity. But really the thing that's appealed to me the most in my previous research and in being an astronaut is this kind of extreme level where when I was a scientist, I was looking at the most extreme divers. So Emperor penguins can die for 30 minutes on a single breath, elephant seals for two hours and they're air-breathing breathhole divers just like us, but they can die for

it for hours on one breath. And so we were trying to figure out why and how can they do that? How does their physiology allow them to do that? And then I worked with a bar-headed geese, the geese that migrate over the Himalayas. So they're flying over the tallest mountains on the planet twice a year. So same kind of thing, this real oxygen limitation. I know how they feel. I've been holding my breath for like two years, waiting for Will to make something of himself.

I was holding my breath till this show was actually scheduled. I was so excited about it. Sorry, we were running late. That was on me. That was on me. I'd like to know the answer to that. What is the physiology that allows a creature to just use that limited amount of oxygen for two hours?

Yeah, so it's not just one thing. So these animals, for example, that are really good divers, they have, first of all, larger blood volume. So even on a mass-specific basis, they have more blood and then they have more hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen in your blood, and more myoglobin that carries oxygen in your muscles. So they're able to carry more oxygen on board, and then they use it really, really effectively. And then the third thing, which actually some of our research uncovered, was that they can

tolerate way lower levels of oxygen than we can. So for example, if you hear about not holding your breath and hyperventilating before swimming underwater because you can have shallow water blackout and that kind of thing, that occurs at a certain level of oxygen when your brain just gets too little oxygen for your brain, and that value in these animals is way lower. So they can really push it way, way, way, way down and still be swimming and looking for their prey and foraging around. So if you combine all those three things, you have more oxygen, you use it really effectively,

and then you can tolerate a much lower level of oxygen, then obviously you can die for a much longer time. So is that the same sort of, that kind of idea of holding that in that oxygen is the same like when Sean walks in a room, it feels like all the oxygen has been sucked out of the room. Is that the same? It's very similar. Yes.

Some of these animals, that's a great segue. Some of these animals actually have a higher affinity hemoglobin. They can hold on to oxygen more tightly than another animal. So kind of like Sean. So that explains it. Yeah. We should study his hemoglobin. I'm going to stop saying he's just holding on to more hemoglobin and like, here comes

Sean. He's about to hold on to more hemoglobin as he walks in the room, you know? What do you do when you're up there for seven months and you've run out of an experiment to do and you're looking to just pass some time, do you fire up a conversation, do you read a book? I can't possibly bring seven months worth of books and TV. It's called Kindle Granddad. That's a great point.

That's a great point. Can you imagine just turning a page and the book starts floating away? Oh, where was I? So first of all, we don't have a lot of free time because we, particularly during the time I was up there, we had a lot going on. So like you mentioned, science, that really is the main objective of the space station. So we're doing scientific experiments ranging from how spaceflight and microgravity affect our human body, so physiological and medical experiments, also combustion experiments,

even flames burn differently in space, material science, radiation, everything, you name it. So all types of really cool science. And then we also have to do a lot of repair and maintenance. The space station's actually over 20 years old now. So we have to be able to fix the toilet and change the light bulbs ourselves. We can't call a plumber or an electrician. And do we have a structured 10 hour work day? Do we have a lunch break?

Yeah. So our day, any day consists of, you know, you wake up, you look at your computer and it tells you exactly what to do, all the information's there. Maybe one hour you're doing it, an experiment, the next hour you're fixing the toilet or changing something in one of the systems. The next hour, you know, you might be doing actually an outreach activity. We might be doing a spacewalk one day. So I was super lucky to do three spacewalks while I was up there when we need to repair

something on the outside of the space station. We might be flying, oh, this one's for Will. We might be flying the Canadarm. I was about to ask you about the Canadarm. What the hell's a Canadarm? I mean, this thing. That is Canada's contribution to the International Space Station and it's this large, it's a big robotic arm on the outside of the space station.

That's all they just can tell them throughout us. They also have some incredible astronauts. Tell them, Jeff, first of all, some incredible astronauts from Canada first. Secondly, the Canadarm, which all every Canadian, you know, as a kid, we grew up, you watch this, the Space Shuttle launch and on the Canadian broadcast, CBC or CT or whatever it is, they'd always go in there as the Canadarm, you know, and like, okay. I mean, look, I'm not saying it's not great, but I'm just saying like, Canadians always feel the need.

Anytime you mention anybody to go, he's Canadian, you go, okay, man, great. Why are you, and I can say that as a Canadian. This is a Canadian on Canadian crime that I'm committing here. But the Canadarm, it's great or it's okay? The Canadarm is great. And so we use it for spacewalks. So when I was up there. Why are you winking at me?

You're saying it's great, but you're winking. Why are you, I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. So when I, so I did three spacewalks, but I was also up there when the other two crew members up there were doing a spacewalk to fix the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. And during those EVAs, spacewalks, you know, we have a lingo for everything. Those are EVAs when, when I was flying the arm for those spacewalks. So in that spacewalk, my buddy, Luca Parmitano, an Italian astronaut, and then one of the

times, Drew Morgan, an American astronaut, they were actually on the end of the arm. So I had to fly them around and really carefully to make sure that I didn't, you know, bump them into the space station. And then other times we use the Canadarm to capture visiting vehicles. So we have a cargo resupply vehicles that go up just to deliver supplies without any people on board. Those get up there really in close proximity to the space station. And then we use the Canadarm to come, we, we fly the Canadarm over and we grab the cargo

vehicle and then we bring it down very gently and very equitably. The Canadarm, it's very, it apologizes a lot. Super friendly. Always saying sorry. And a little passive aggressive. Always saying sorry. By the way, if I was on the space station and I came back, every time I landed back on her, I would, I would demand that they play Duran Duran.

This is planet earth. Do a pop up. Sean, do you know it? Jessica, talk to me about like being, doing the spacewalks. I can't even conceive. I mean, I've seen them movie gravity with Sandy Bullock and Sandra Bullock, sorry. And George. Look who's Sandy.

Look who all of a sudden is Sandy Bullock. We don't look like Sandra Bullock when we come out of the space suit. I'm sorry. We're not wearing those little tiny boy shorts and of course, but that's hilarious. But no, what is it like to be out there? Because there's no sound. There's no, I mean, it's just infinity in every direction. Is there a fear that like, oh my God, what if this cord comes off?

What if I, I mean, what is it, what emotionally? What is it like? Yeah. It's interesting. It's kind of like the question that I didn't answer earlier, I guess, about launching. I think all of it goes back to the training that we have. So we have done all of these actions so many times on the ground for the launch sequence in a simulator for the space suit, we're in a space suit, the same space suit, but a downgraded

version from the flight version. And we do that in a big pool here at NASA in Houston. So we're so used to all of the muscle memory and everything involved. And our training, you know, literally I trained for like six years before I went to space. So I had all of that mechanical memory. So because you can rely on that training, you kind of just automatically do these things and it helps you kind of separate some of the more, some of the other thoughts you have. So you don't freak out in the moment.

Right. Yeah. But then can you enjoy the moment too? Yeah. Are you just so focused? No, absolutely. So it is really different for different people. I mean, spacewalks are a really special thing where some people, you wouldn't expect it.

You know, some big, tough jet pilot goes out on a spacewalk and is terrified, you know, some people feel like they're falling. Sure. It's just a weird, like you actually, when you're looking out a window on the space station, of course you can feel that sense of motion, but it's much more so when it's just you in a space suit and you look down and the earth is going past you so fast. I mean, we're going around the entire planet every 90 minutes. So you know, you're, it's moving really quickly because you're carrying the same speed you

had when you broke through the atmosphere. That coupled with the fact the earth is rotating the opposite direction at what roughly a thousand miles an hour. It's because of the altitude of our orbit. So that kind of dictates your orbital velocity, how fast you're going. And at low earth orbit where the space station is, it's about 250 miles above the planet. And so that's where we're going 17,500 miles per hour. So you feel that more when, you know, you don't feel like you're, you know, moving because

you're moving at the same speed as the space station is, I'm holding on to it. But when you look down, you kind of can feel that more, but it is. So does that mean that you've, sorry, that you've broken through the atmosphere at 17,000 miles an hour and then you can shut off the engines and since there's no gravity, it'll just carry that speed forever? No. So when you launch in the spacecraft, you're actually in space only after about eight minutes. And so those engines have gotten you out of the atmosphere.

And I actually don't even know what exactly that that peak speed is for the Soyuz in terms of the launch. But then when you get out of the atmosphere and past all of that, depending on where you want to end up, what orbit you want to end up in, you'll do some little mini burns. And so of course we want to then rendezvous with the space station. So all of the orbital mechanics. I do a lot of mini burns on this show, just like a little mini, just a little mini burn to get you where you need to be.

So when you're up there, do you guys, are you exposed at all? I mean, did you follow at all the whole thing with like the, with the nerd lux and when they played basketball against Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan? Like did, did that, that's no, well, that's space jam. That's a space jam. But they must have seen part of it when you were up there in space with, no, no, no space jams. That's a cartoon.

You know what I did try to do? I, I do have to get this in, I think, because I actually tried to call Will from space. And he didn't, he wouldn't take my call. So this is why I had to, you know, come on this podcast to ask Will Arnett to speak to me. Yeah, this is true. So, so as astronauts, when we're up there for a long duration mission, part of our like psychological support is that we get to ask two celebrities, we get to have a call arranged

like a video chat to the space station with some kind of celebrity. And I figured, you know, instead of maybe some kind of world changer, I wanted someone to make me laugh because this was a long duration mission. So I chose Will. World nonchanger. I know. I know. I know.

Obviously it was a mistake. He was not available. Did the call not go through? So I don't know. Well, I didn't know your number. So basically the people, so my psychological support people were working at trying to work it through their contacts, but apparently they tried to get a hold of your agent or something, but we never heard back.

So. No way. Yeah. We could have done this from space. When I was floating and my hair was up like this, it was much more interesting. I have to go through his agent to get a hold of him. How mad am I? Thank you, Jason.

How mad am I at Peter Principata right now? Could have been Sharon Jackson. I think that sometimes we might not have the right contacts and then also sometimes people don't think the emails are real. So I did one of mine with Tom Hiddleston and he said that. He was like, yeah, we got this email and we're like, this isn't real. This has got to be fake. But in the end, I ended up talking to David Attenborough instead of Will, so it was still

kind of weird. Oh man. A lot of laughs, you know, from David Attenborough. Okay. It wasn't real. It didn't have the same comic value, but you know, it was still pretty incredible to be looking. Listen, like you're high enough out to do, it's like when you watch a movie on an airplane,

like you're just, you're goofy enough that you'll laugh at anything. I mean, Attenborough kills in space. Are you kidding? I can't believe an astronaut tried to call you from space. I know. Well, that is, you're done. You can't get better. Well, now I have better context.

So if I get to go to space again, you know, you guys will be my top choices. Great. This is great. Yeah. We're going to have you, how about this? Next time you go to space, we'll do a live pot, we'll do the podcast from space. It'll be the first ever podcast in space. Let's do that.

That's a pledge. That'd be really fun. I'm in. Hey, I want to know when you're, when you're out on those space walks and you know this, you know you're going to get this question from me, if, if any question. Do you, have you seen any bullshit with UFOs and all that crazy thing? You could say that louder on that question. Sean would like to know if you saw any UFOs up there.

And what do you think about the Pentagon releasing all that UFO stuff because it's, you know, you read it, you look at it, you're like, okay, well, that's happening. Well, people ask us about aliens a lot, but it actually, sometimes people laugh, but it is actually a really good question. Cause if you think about it, statistically speaking, there absolutely is or has been life somewhere else, you know, it would be way too egotistical to think that we are the only planet and we're so special that we're the only one with life. So I am absolutely sure that there is or was life somewhere else, but also statistically

speaking, given the dimensions of time and space, you know, we might not ever actually have proof of that or proof of each other, but it absolutely has happened or will happen. And unfortunately I don't have any proof of it. I didn't see anything special from, from the space station, but I'm sure it is. Well, then this interview is over. This interview is probably over. No, but do you watch movies like interstellar and things like that? Do you watch them and laugh and go, Oh, look at these morons.

It depends. So you guys mentioned gravity earlier in that one, cinematography wise, in terms of what space looks like in the field, they did a really good job of capturing that. But the plot was really not very great. But then you didn't buy George Clooney tapping on the window and saving the day. He was hardly in the movie, right? They killed him off really early, which was very sad for me. There's always in those movies, there's always, you know, this magical gravity that's on those

ships that the actors walk around freely and with their feet on the ground. Is it ever possible to achieve some kind of gravity and outer space one day? Technically engineering wise, it could be done, but it's also really, really difficult. So if, how you would engineer that would be, you would really, you know, really big space station, something kind of rotating probably. So I think, you know, in all of the science fiction movies, you know, or even the early books like Jules Verne, you always read about stuff like that. And so I think it is technically possible, but I think it's been an engineering limitation.

So we don't have that, but I wouldn't want that because I'll tell you, floating all the time is so much fun. I mean, it turns everybody kind of into a five year old gear. Just, it gives you this sense of playfulness and levity and you can bounce around or do somersaults or shoot down the module all the time. I remember, I actually, the closest I came, I saw, I saw the dead ones out at Long Island at Uniondale at NASA Coliseum, speaking of NASA. And I was floating the entire time.

It's a lot like that feeling. Yeah. So that brings me to this idea too. I'm so glad you said it because anytime I see you guys up there bouncing around or whatever, I'm always like, oh my God, is somebody's ass going to hit the oxygen? What are we going to do? Like, I feel like you're going to hit something that's going to trigger something because all, everything's exposed.

So why is it, why is the International Space Station at any spacecraft for that matter? Why does it always look incomplete? Can't we dazzle it up a little, make it look a more attractive, get an interior designer in there? Like close those walls up or something. Put the buttons behind the panel. Yeah. Yeah.

Maybe on the movie set that they create for these upcoming movies, they'll Hollywood it up a little bit. Yeah. But why, why, why isn't it more attractive up there? We'll paint it a different color. Well, you know, I think if you look at it, SpaceX is making things a lot more attractive, right? You know, NASA's kind of, we've been doing things a certain way for a long time, but

that's all Elon Musk is making things all pretty and flashy. But aren't you worried about covering things like everything's exposed? We cover things. I guess I don't really know what you mean by that. Yeah. We don't know what you mean, Sean. A toggle switch that can make everything explode. Yeah.

This is not really a thing. Everything's exposed. That's not out there. Elon Musk, he seems, is he too goofed up all the time? This guy, he's talking about doing podcasts. It seems like that's all he does. Does he need to spend more time working on the SpaceX stuff? No.

SpaceX is an incredible company. I'm calling him out. Why am I calling out Elon Musk? He's really a visionary and he has, I think he is absolutely transforming space exploration for everybody. Of course. I'm sure. There's news coming out.

They're going to actually be launching four space tourists this fall. So now there are going to be people flying a space that aren't astronauts. So it is really changing the whole landscape of everything. And he does things all the time that people have said that could never happen. If you watch the Falcon, the first stage of the rocket land, everybody said that was not possible. Mind blowing. Every time I watch it, it looks like it does not look real at all.

That's what it takes though, right? It takes guys like Elon Musk who are total visionaries who have the money, the resources to pour into things that everybody says can't be done and just go, well, why not? Why not just try, right? Is there one general end game goal for all of the research that we do in space? Is it to eventually explore habitating up there? Yes. I had the same question.

Or is it just about going further and further and just kind of, just out of curiosity, seeing what it's like further and further out? Or is there an end game goal? How will we know when we have researched enough in space to answer a central question? The research that we do has a lot of different objectives. And so part of it is just understanding more about what happens to us in space or what happens without gravity on any system. So if you think about it, every experiment that's ever been done in the history of the

planet has this one omnipresent gravitational vector as always part of every scientific system. So it's kind of like the elephant in the room. If you suddenly remove that, who knows what different kind of results you might have, what different applications there are. So even commercially, I mean, there are different types of products and materials and plastics and metals being investigated in space because without gravity, you can do different things. You can grow larger protein crystals, which has a huge impact in the pharmaceutical industry. So with a lot of these things, you have a direct impact to helping benefit life on earth.

So some of the stuff we do because of that unique environment of microgravity, we can actually do things in a different way, which can have really direct intangible results back on earth, like pharmaceutical development. And there would be an ability to perhaps replicate that type of situation down here on earth. So we could grow the larger protein crystals down here. Yeah. Well, I don't know if you could grow the larger crystals, but what you are able to do in space is understand more about the structure of that crystal.

So then you might be able to make a target therapy. So there, for example, there was a Japanese experiment recently that now there is actually a drug for Duchenne's muscular dystrophy that's in trials right now based on that research. So there are some really direct benefits. Part of it though is just understanding more about us if we want to spend more time and explore further in space. So when we understand more about all the physiological and medical effects on us for a six, seven month mission, of course that has direct applications to going to Mars eventually, which will be

a three year journey. So understanding more about that. And also in growing sustainable food systems, I think that came from an earlier question too. We actually grew lettuce during my mission and that was so nice because you had something green and growing that you got to take care of and we got to eat it. And then the Russians immediately boiled it, is that right or did I hear that wrong? We didn't let them boil it, but it was a delicious salad and we had to send back half the samples.

But to be able to develop these sustainable food systems, when we go to Mars, we're not going to be able to bring all the food we need for three years. So all these things are really important for life back on Earth and for us. Jessica, with all of your accomplishments and you're not even middle-aged yet, I mean you look like you're in your upper 20s. Oh, keep it coming. This is great. No, I mean honestly, what are you looking to do when you grow up?

I mean like how much higher could you possibly reach? And I don't mean that literally obviously because you've been to space. But like what do you want to do? Well I am much older than that, but thank you. I think for me the next thing would be kind of what's next. I noticed right when I came back from space, like I said, I didn't even want to leave. And so I was ready to go back and I was thinking more about going back to space than I was about integrating to this completely changed planet that I had come back to.

And right now at NASA, we have the Artemis program and we're working toward going back to the moon. And so for me, that was actually that childhood picture that I drew that I described earlier was being on the moon and that would be my big goal. I think hopefully we'll get to Mars in the future as well, but the moon is that next step and I would love to be a part of those missions. What are they saying that the plans are for visiting the moon again, what are they looking to do?

Is it really to set up kind of like a station for Mars? Well kind of all those things are true. So it's the Artemis program and it was announced by the previous administration. And basically the goal of the Artemis program was to send the first woman and the next man to the surface of the moon. Actually the new administration, the Biden administration has now changed that wording. Just yesterday I saw to the first woman and the first person of color to the moon. So there are a lot of different objectives all rolled in here.

But really the main goal is to go back to the moon and that is for, to me, three main objectives for exploration. That is just an inherent part of us as humans for science. There is a wealth of scientific data that remained to be discovered on the moon. And then also for all of those intangible benefits, like all the results of the Apollo program, you know, there was this huge burgeoning of all of the STEM fields when we were in the space race. And during the Apollo programs, science, technology, engineering, math, all of those

fields were just, there was a huge amount of resources put in and we're still benefiting from those effects in all different disciplines, far outside of space. So I think we can anticipate that with Artemis as well. And I think they got to clean up that par putt. I think that that guy hitting the golf balls around there. I don't think he's, he's still waiting for that floating way. He's still got to make par on 14. I went to NASA once I stated the sandals at, at Atlantis and it was all inclusive.

And can I tell you something? Can I tell you something? Incredible dinner buffet. We can see guys, Jessica, this has been a dream come true for me and for us truly. I literally, I meant it, like I just, I could talk to you for hours. It's always fascinating to me. I love everything about. Next time you go to space, call me.

I'll take your call. No, no, no, no. No, Will, you're done. I did grow up, you know, watching Silver Spoons and your sister on family ties. I mean, like. I can make sure she's around too. Oh, you're going to rope Justine into this? Yeah.

I'll do whatever it takes. I want to call from space. Yeah. God, I blew it. I really blew it, didn't I? You really did. I had no idea that my people, I'm so removed from normal life because I'm just surrounded by people.

Jason keeps pointing out. So then I'm just, I'm so insulated because I'm, I'm too sensitive for this planet. That's why. I think that's a thing. You know, it's, it's a Canadian thing. It might be. It might be. Right on.

What a delight. Thank you. Thank you so, so much for joining us. We could quite literally talk to you for hours because you are so smart and we're so smart less. Nice. Yeah. That's true.

You've achieved. And, and thank you for your service and all the, all the stuff and the research you're doing on this planet and way up there, too. And for your patience with our dingback questions and our, and our high jinks. Thank you for, for classing us up about. Appreciate it. You're so welcome. I mean, I, to me, Arrested Development was the funniest show ever on television.

That's nice. I did watch Will and Grace too, Sean. Don't worry. Don't worry. Go Sean. Yeah. Go buddy. She faxed you, but she called us.

Yeah. She was very, very, very nice of you. Thank you so, so much for joining us. Yeah. Thanks, Jess. All right. Thank you guys. Bye.

Have a great rest of the day. All right. Take care. Sean, how did you? How do you know an astronaut? Yeah. How'd you land somebody so? How do you guys not know one?

You know, I spoke to one of our producers, Michael, and I was like, I really want to chat with somebody from NASA. I like the idea too. You sound like a petulant child who's like eating a bowl of cereal and going, I want to have an astronaut. Yeah. And I don't want one of the fuddy daddies. I want someone who's recent, just fresh from space.

I want a hot dog and a hamburger and a bag of chips. You'll have nothing in my kit. Name the movie. And I want it now. Name the movie. And you want, I want her to be compelling and smart. And I also want her to be a marine biologist and an astronaut. How about that?

Yeah. Can you know Russian too, please? I got everything I wanted. I got it. Boy, Sean, you're, you know, we got to tally up these guest lists. I have a feeling you just sprinted into the lead there with, with interesting, Jessica Mir. Yeah.

That was, that was very, very, very cool. I love her. She's great. She, you know, you guys know, I, I could, I love that stuff. I, I think it's fascinating, endlessly fascinating. Me too. Me too. I could, I could slush Ied all day that.

Sorry. That's a Russian for listen. Do you, do you think that that's a real story about how she actually tried to call Will Arnett from space? First of all. Kind of hard to believe. Take the disgust off your face. Hang on a second.

If you're on a, I said you can talk to anybody. Yeah. You're off the planet. You can call anybody on that big blue ball down there. What number on the list do you think you, just don't weigh you were in the top five or 10. It sounds like I was number one, bro.

No, no. You were down in the David Attenborough league. David Attenborough came, was her fallback from me. Yeah. Because you were number 745. He was 46. David Attenborough was like right at the top, he's like, of course the person you want to talk to.

But before that, in the top spot, guess who, busy, okay, too busy to take the call. Wish I'd known. Yeah. She wanted to call me of all the people on that planet. Just don't buy it. There's just no way. There's just no way. And it's so, and it really puts it, talk about perspective.

You know, it really puts it in perspective that, you know, in the whole unit, literally the whole universe, she wanted to talk to me and it's tough to, tough to be humble. God. This is the last thing you need. No, it's tough to be humble. You didn't hear the phone ring because you had your headset on playing Call of Duty. There's a good chance. Okay.

God, that's so impressive. No, he probably had his headset on, listening about all his voiceovers, that he's done. Yeah. I don't listen to him all the time. No, you know what? I'm probably too busy reading like Proust or something, you know? That's usually what I'm doing. You know what though?

I think one of the most interesting things about her is in addition to her being an astronaut, she was always, oh, um, a marine. Bye. God, I smelled you a mile away. Smelled your bite. Smart. Smart. Smart.

Smart. Smart. Smart. Smart. Smart. Smart. Smart. Smart.

Smart. Smart. Smart. Smart. Smart. Smart.