#478: Scott Kelly — Lessons Learned from 500+ Days in Space, Life-Changing Books, and The Art of Making Hard Choices

Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris and welcome to the Tim Ferris Show, where it is my job every episode to deconstruct world class performers of all different types to tease out the habits, routines, favorite books, who knows what that you can hopefully emulate or apply in your own lives. My guest today. is none other than Scott Kelly at station CDR. Kelly on Twitter and elsewhere. Scott is a former military fighter pilot and test pilot and engineer, a retired astronaut and retired US Navy captain. A veteran of four space flights, Kelly commanded the International Space Station, ISS, on three expeditions and was a member of the year long mission aboard the ISS. The single longest space mission by an American astronaut. In October 2015, he set the American record for the total accumulated number of days spent in space.

Go for Launch, How to Dream, Lead, and Achieve is Kelly's two hour audio course available exclusively on Knowable. In this candid and entertaining audio course, Scott shares instructive stories from his childhood in New Jersey, his days as a US Navy test pilot, and his year hurtling around the globe at 17,500 miles per hour and teaches hard-earned lessons on perseverance. Personal motivation and the human side of success drawn from his experiences in the most competitive, extreme environments imaginable. You can find it now at Knowable. That's K. N O W A B L E F Y I forward slash Scott. You can find him on social Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.

At station C D R Kelly. And before we jump into the interview, I want to play you one lesson from Scott's audio course. The lesson is titled The Smartest Person on the Mission, and it really highlights decision making under pressure. A superpower of his also. After the interview ends, I'll share two more of Scott's lessons, so be sure to stick around.

Sometimes in space you get a call from a third grade classroom that wants to see what it looks like to go to the bathroom in zero gravity. Other times? You get a call from mission control saying there's a hole the size of a golf ball in a heat shield. and you might burn up on re-entry.

I got that call a day or so into commanding my first and only space shuttle mission. A similar issue had killed seven of my colleagues on Columbia a few years earlier. We could do a space walk to try to repair the heat shield. But spacewalks are extremely risky on their own, and there was always a danger we could just damage the heat shield more while trying to fix it. But if we left the hole as it was

The heat of reentry might tear the space shuttle apart. As commander, I had a lot of say in what our approach was going to be. It would have been tempting to make a quick decision on my own. But over the years I've spent leading and following I've learned that the best decisions aren't made that way.

Instead I found a good time to take each crew member aside, one by one. In private. I kept a picture of the heat shield damage and a printout of some analysis from the ground in my back pocket. So I'd be able to take advantage of a quiet moment. I made sure I spoke to each of my crew members individually to get their honest opinions.

I took this to such an extreme that I asked everyone I could I even asked the astronaut and Russian cosmonauts who weren't coming back with us on Endeavour. Why not call a meeting? Why not make a decision together? As a group.

Well I've seen what can happen when people try to make decisions in groups. One person will offer an opinion And if that person is knowledgeable or well respected Everyone else might go along with what they said.

Group Think sets in. People aren't even conscious of doing this sometimes. It's something we do as a social species to get along. And it's often a useful instinct. But in a case like this

It could be deadly. There's a sign on the wall in a meeting room at NASA. Нас і за дз. And it's a lesson NASA had to learn the hard way.

It's part of what went wrong with the Columbia accident. And with Challenger before it. People who raised concerns were silenced. Because Group Think had taken over. With the input of my crew and after thorough analysis, we decided, along with flight controllers and leaderships on the ground,

That coming back with the hole in the heat shield. posed less of a risk than attempting a repair. Right. And the uh the gouge goes pretty much through the entire thickness of the tile itself is uh one point two inches thick. We fired the D orbit engines.

And as we came out of darkness and started hitting the atmosphere. The plasma field, the fire outside the space shuttle. Pretty soon we were in a three thousand degree fireball, falling towards Earth at an incredible speed. Me and my entire crew were mostly silent as we approached the point where the space shuttle Columbia had come apart.

As we transitioned through that altitude, my pilot Scorch said, passing through Pik E. Understand, I replied. I let about twenty seconds go by and add it. Looks like we dodged that bullet. As we all reflected on the loss of our seven colleagues.

About thirty minutes later we landed safely at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But this kind of decision making can help in other places too. Places like a level one trauma center in Tucson, Arizona. when my sister in law congresswoman gabrielle giffards was shot in two thousand and eleven I was in space halfway through a six month mission.

My brother Mark was constantly having to make difficult decisions about her care. He found himself in meetings with many of her caretakers, trauma surgeons, brain surgeons, neurologists, But instead of just hearing out the top doctor or more experienced expert Mark would go a step further. He would find one quiet person in the back of the room and ask them who they were.

I'm just an intern, they might say. Or I'm just a nurse. But Mark didn't care what the person's training was. What do you think, he would ask? What are we missing?

What are we overlooking? Even if they hadn't been there long. Their opinion mattered and he learned valuable information by gathering as many perspectives as he could. I learned as much as seeing from how he handled Gabby's care as I did from anyone I flew with in space.

The smartest person in the room? I've learned. Is usually the person who knows how to tap into the intelligence. Of every person in the room.

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At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. And I'll answer you a personal question. No seen that. I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoscal. Sure. Scott, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, Tim. And I wanted to start not with space. But with West Orange. New Jersey.

In I suppose the sixties and your mom specifically Could you please speak to your mom's experience? With joining the police force. Well, that's a uh that's a good place to start with my mom because we all started with our moms and really this this all happened kind of in the late seventies and throughout the eighties where

My dad was a cop in New Jersey, and he was In my home town of West Arms. He was one of those like stereotypical like Irish cop guys you'd see on TV. And uh my mother was a secretary and a waitress. various jobs she had at different times.

And about the time my brother and I were becoming teenagers when she could spend more time at work. She decided that she wanted to have a career like my father's and was going to uh attempt to become a police officer in in our home town. Had never had a female police officer before. At the time there were very few in the uh state of New Jersey.

You know, it was a challenging thing for her, especially the physical part of it, because You know, at that time it was the physical fitness test was really designed for the men that were or Trying to become You know, policemen and firefighters, the civil service exams that included physical fitness portion and

It was a a a challenge that for her was not easy, but You know, I saw her work really, really hard at this and you know, my dad helped her by setting up this obstacle course in her backyard and You know, when she first went out there she was not uh very successful and You know, I was a little bit skeptical, like I remember, thinking is she gonna really be able to do this? But she uh Yeah, she had a goal that she wanted to achieve, a plan to get there, and uh she was successful.

And it was the first time in my life that I I saw the uh The power of having this goal you think you might not be able to achieve. a plan to get there and then working really, really hard at something. I always wanna thank my mom for giving that lesson to me and uh and my brother Mark. Is it true that

The family or she built A mock up. Wall? in the back yard to practice climbing over in preparation for

The police exam? Yeah, like I I was saying, my dad helped her and he he built the whole all the the activities she would have to do in her in her back yard, including a wall. That was seven foot four inches tall. He actually built it an inch taller without telling her.

So she thought she was practicing on a You know, a seven foot four inch wall and she was practing on one that was an inch taller. My dad thinking that might help her on the on the real day. When she had the scale this thing that she would be Overly prepared. Yeah, the first time she went to climb over that. She

Probably got her foot a foot high, then uh fell off, fell back into the dirt. But I can remember her picking herself up. You know, brushing herself off and You know, just saying I'm gonna s just try to

Touch the top. For now. And then You know, once I can do that, I'll see how long I can hold on for. Maybe someday, eventually, I'll be able to do a pull up. And quite possibly at the end of the summer.

Perhaps be able to get over this wall. You know, some of the other tests was she had to drag a uh hundred and thirty pound dummy. A hundred feet. And uh we just happen to have a long backyard. I happened to at the time weigh a hundred and thirty pounds and also

And also fit the role as a dummy. I wasn't particularly good at school. So Yeah, so with my help.

And uh a summer of really hard work on her part and when she went to Actually did better than a lot of the men did and Became a Very first female police officer in my hometown, one of the first in the entire state.

She was off to the races. You you just mentioned school, and that's that's where I wanna go next. I think that many people listening have a certain I suppose archetypal narrative that they would impose on astronauts in terms of life story, and they see star students knocking it out of the park, knowing from the age of three they want to be in space, et cetera. You mentioned you weren't necessarily the the best in school. My understanding is you graduate in the bottom half of your high school class. And

Uh it had various sort of misadventures along the way. What? happened in terms of course correction, if there was a particular course correction, it was there a point at which you learned to study, was there a catalyzing event? for you that reoriented your focus.

Yeah, so you know, most people would would think as an astronaut you must have been the smartest guy in the class, the overachiever. And that is certainly the case with a lot of my colleagues. I mean, I know folks that uh I've worked with that Saw Neil Armstrong walk on the moon and when they were little kids and decided right then and there that's what they were going to do. And they did the best at everything.

From the there on out. Until they became an astronaut and was flying it were flying in space. Which is great. I wish I could have done that. I think it's kind of a boring story though. I think it's much more interesting when it's Someone like me who

Couldn't pay attention in school. I've spent probably the first uh thirteen years of my education staring out the window. Winning when is this gonna be over? So I can get out of here. And it was Felt like it was impossible.

For me when I was a kid to pay attention. Not like I didn't want to. I always went into the new school year with the intention of doing well. And three days into school I'd be three days behind and then The rest of the year was just basically on

Autopilot not really learning much, not paying attention a whole lot, not getting good grades. I think Back then it seemed like it was easier to do that. Then I think what I've noticed with my kids today. Uh, I don't think you'd be able to get away with you know, the amount of effort I put in then. But I could just remember it being impossible for me to pay attention, basically having the feeling that

If you would have I held a gun to my head. To force me to pay attention. I wouldn't have been able to do it. That's how I felt.

And I think, you know, I probably have like ADD or ADHD never diagnosed. So that's Probably why I had such a hard time. And it wasn't until I got to college and I was still uh you know, still struggling. Didn't know how to study, really didn't do well.

Eventually I'm not even going to class, uh anymore, uh, or at least much. Basically, you know, on a fast track of uh how a lot of kids experience their first year of college, you know, basically one and done. You know one year and and you're done. And then I was just walking across the college campus. Just happened to walk into the bookstore, uh not to buy a book. I was probably

You know, go in there to buy gum or Some other Nine educational related thing.

Maybe they sold beer there, I don't know. Who knows? But I I I remember seeing this book on the end of the aisle, you know, where they highlight the stuff that they're trying to sell. I think they call it like the M cap or something of of a Bookshelf and Yeah, there was this book that had this

Very patriotic red white and blue cover, a cool title. Caught my eye. Made me pick it up. Wasn't a big reader at the time, so it's kinda unusual for me to Actually buy a book like that then?

And uh read the back. Found it interesting, looked through the first few pages. Took my gum money or my beer money or whatever it was and uh Bought the book. Walk back to my dorm room.

And then uh opens it up and Basically didn't get out of my bed for the next few days just reading the uh the stories of the fighter pilots. military fighter pilots and test pilots that became the original Mercury Gemini and Apollo astronauts and The book was The Right Stuff by Tom Wolf. You know, something in that book just really sparked my imagination. I think it's probably partly

His uh creative non fiction writing style that was Just really Caught my attention and My imagination, it was the fact that I felt like I could relate to the

People in the book. The guys that were he was writing about. They were all guys at the time, not anymore, and you know, they're obviously a lot of female astronauts now, but Back then there was only men and uh felt like uh I had a something in common with them. And You know, with regards to like risk taking and

Putting myself in challenging and risky situations, uh You know, the the adventure of it really spoke to me, but then I realized I am not a good student. And these guys, you know, most of them went to the Military service academies. I think uh Pete Conrad went to Went to Princeton. I mean they were very accomplished uh students before they were pilots.

But I thought to myself, you know If I could just fix that one thing about me, you know, if I could Learn how to Pay attention and study and do better in school. Perhaps I could

Change colleges, change majors, become a Get an engineering major, the place I was at wasn't quite working out for me and Get a commission in the US Navy and go fly Fighter planes off an a of an aircraft carrier. Maybe become a test pilot, maybe quite possibly an astronaut someday.

So you know that inspiration, I think, is important. That's what I told. Kids that also a lot of parents, you know, if their kids are struggling, I think You can tell them all you want that they have to do better, but you really have to show them why they need to do better. You know, there has to be that thing, that inspiration.

That spark that just provides inspiration to get people moving in the right direction. That's what Tom Wolf's uh right stuff was for me. And later. You shot him an email from space with a photograph of yourself with that book, if I am getting my facts straight.

Uh, which just is such a an incredible full cycle sort of return to the origin in a sense. Yeah. And Uh incredible prose writer, as you noted, just a a wonderful craftsmen of of nonfiction. What happened or what

Did you change after that inspiration? Was it valuable because it aligned your academic focus in a way where you were simply choosing courses that were more oriented towards that path and that is what helped you To then Find a different. sort of vector of of progress. Was it just

Despite your difficulties with attention. Was it just doubling down because now you had a a better reason? What changed? Well Hey, let me just comment first on you what you mentioning the that email, which his response was

So Tom Wolf like in that He had words in there that were not really words. and outrageous punctuation. Oh.

It was pretty cool email to get back from him. But you know, in my case it wasn't really focusing on like new subjects that More and more in line with being an engine or a pilot because those were really the subjects I had the most challenge with like math as an example. It wasn't really a great math student or actually I wasn't great at anything.

But for me it wasn't necessarily like a change of course or like you said a vector or doubling It was more the doubling down on the fact that No matter how hard I've tried in the past, that didn't work. And I just have to try A lot harder.

To force myself to learn how to learn, really, was The first challenge of the next year. After I read Tom's book and I decided that this is what I'm going to do. I um Yeah, I just had to

do it kinda brute force method by myself. I think today you would have a lot more help. Especially if you have diagnosed A D D or ADHD, you would be There'd be ways to get support and assistance, but For me.

Strictly the brute force method, like chain myself to my desk. Don't move until I can figure out how to do this. pre calculus problem. I remember that being a big struggle with the Yeah, school I was at. But eventually, you know, like like many things, you know what I what I've always found in my career

Whether it's in the military, in the navy, you know, flying airplanes, whether it's at NASA And that is how good we are when we start something. It's not related at all. To how good we can become at anything. When did you first and maybe you just had the confidence from the get go after reading Tom's book.

Was there a point after you chain yourself to the desk, you double and triple down with this brute force method? Was there a particular point where you thought to yourself, I can actually do this. I I believe that I can forge a path that will take me Two

Where I wanna go. Well, I don't know if confidence is the right word. I don't I've I've always felt that Kind of like a below average guy performing at an above average level. And I think that's a good place to be. 'Cause if you get too confident, I think you get lazy.

And Yeah, once I figure it out. What I needed to do. I always felt like I needed to work harder.

than other people because Maybe I didn't have as much natural smarts or talent or ability. So There was never a moment where I ever got confident. There was kind of a turning point, and that is From a

learning and education perspective, and that is Eventually I figured out how to study well enough that I was able to change schools. I changed majors, I became an engineering major. But now I'm starting my freshman year all over again. But still haven't really cracked the code on what it takes. It was coming up on Columbus Day. I went to a school called the State University in New York Maritime College. It's in the Bronx.

It's a college that has a military r regimental system, which I felt like I had to have that. So That was the primary reason I went there. The other reason was it was really one of the few places I could get into. 'Cause I had such bad high school grades and my first year college grades weren't all that great, but I needed that. kind of discipline and uh structure. I felt like I did.

My brother, who was on a completely different trajectory. Once we went into high school. was at the US Merchant Marine Academy and and asked me a little bit later how he became on a upon a different trajectory. Because it's actually kind of a funny story, but He was across the river, actually the Long Island Sound.

at the U S Merchant Marine Academy and he's he was a year h wound up a year ahead of me because I I took that first year Mulligan. I'm calling. Ha. But we were coming up on Columbus Day weekend, so it's kinda the beginning of the school year almost.

And I call my brother up and I say, Hey, some of our our friends are having a um a a frat party at Ruckers. Some of her high school friends. And I was thinking of going there for the whole weekend, you know, leave on Friday, come back on Monday. And I called my brother and said, Hey, you wanna go with me?

And he's like, Yeah, I got some work to do. I get some tests next week. And then he says. Use it. Hey, b have you had any tests yet? Like a calculus test. I was my my first year of calculus and I

I said no, we we have one next week. And then he like immediately like cursed at me. Yelled at me. And so basically said, What the hell are you doing?

I mean you've never been good at this. you have this motivation to like change your path in life. And you're thinking about going to a frat party and spending the weekend at a at a frat house? And I go, Yeah, well, you know, the tests at the end of the week I'll study on uh You don't want to get back.

He says to me, he goes. You should be doing every single problem In every chapter Multiple times. Until you can't stand it anymore.

Because that's what it's gonna take. And I Remember thinking to myself I'm not too sure I'm gonna listen to him. I actually really wanted to go to this frat party and But I decided he had gotten good grades through high school and was doing very well.

where he was in college and I thought, Well, maybe I'll listen to my twin brother after he was yelling and cursing at me. On the phone. And uh yeah, I did what he said. And then at the end of the week I took the test and I got a hundred. And then from then on, I basically knew what it took to do well.

And that is for me. What has always taken for me is just Know as much as you can about anything you're doing. And then Even if you fall a little bit short.

You're still not gonna fall so far that you're failing. Or doing poorly. Yeah. Yeah.

That story also Makes me think of someone I know named Jersey Gregorek. He's a Polish born Olympic weightlifting champion has a few world records and his expression is easy choices hard life hard choices easy life so uh be flashing back choosing Two

Do those problem sets. three, four times instead of going to the frat party. I mean that's sort of a seems like a defining example of The hard choice. At least the emotionally hard choice.

I'd like to ask you about failure and how you relate to failure. So I'm gonna take a take a left turn. Cause I know you've spoken a lot about space. This doesn't have to be space specific. It could be related to it, of course, but how has a how would you say a failure or apparent failure has set you up for later success? In other words, do you have any favorite failure in retrospect. That in some respect kind of planted the seeds for

A greater success later. Well, you know, failure is an option. I think it's uh Something that uh we all probably experience

And hopefully we learn from it. and and move forward. Certainly my early education was one big failure after another. I'm not proud of that. Wish I could have a do over. It's actually one of the greatest regrets of my life. And that is sitting in class for thirteen years.

Not paying attention. You know, talk about a colossal waste of time. I wish I could add up a do over on that. You know, other failures that would set me up for success. The first time I qualified to land an F fourteen Tomcat on the ship, I disqualified.

My first landing, the hook of the airplane, the tail hook. Actually hit the back of a Aircraft carrier the stern. You know, the part that goes down towards the water. And uh

I was one and done. On that. Sent home. You know, had a stern talking to. I was given an option of Actually going to fly a cargo plane that

The uh Commanding officer thought, Well, maybe that would be easier for me. 'Cause my first uh experience at the ship was so ugly. But You know, I was given another chance and uh You know, in this situation, I just thought

To myself, I'd never flown a big airplane before. Didn't even know if I could do that, but I thought You know if I'm gonna fail at something. I might as well fail at something that I think I might not be able to do. Rather than something that's easier. Because at least this way you kinda know what your

Where you stand, you're like what you're capable of. I always feel like if we're not Always moving that bar. Higher. And risking Failure.

Then we're not really reaching our potential. And the people I've come across not only at NASA in the military and industry Are The people that are really successful are the

People that are willing to take the risk of failing. And Oftentimes I'll come across Kids or adults that

Yeah, they don't want to do something because they think they might not be able to do it. But what if they are able to? They would never know. So to put yourself out there To expose yourself to failure.

I think is something that everyone Should strive for because If they don't They're never gonna be able to see what they could possibly achieve.

Now now hopefully the the the risk taking I'm talking about is not Something that would Get you killed. It almost got me killed on a number of occasions, but um yeah, hopefully it's not those kind of risks, but Career risk.

you know, other kind of risks and putting yourself out there for Maybe getting a degree you don't think you're capable of applying for a job you think you might not get. Those kind of risks or something, I think people should be challenging themselves like that all the time. It it makes me think of uh this quote from Larry Page, one of the co founders of Google, that I'm paraphrasing here, but he often observes that Yeah.

something it's easy to miss is that if you aim really big, it's quite difficult to fail completely. Now, there are examples, uh, certainly within the context of flying where that does not apply. But in a lot of these other areas, like you mentioned, career decisions, et cetera. even if you fail, meaning you don't reach your objective, there can be a lot of carry over benefits that you don't get if you aim really small, but let's go back to the F fourteen Tomcat. How Fast are you moving.

When you land such a plane. I know it's variable because it's changing as you're on the approach, but what's the range of speed as you're My understanding is the F fourteen time cat is about fifty feet wide, and how wide is the aircraft carrier or the landing portion? I'm not sure how why The landing area is

But it's not much wider than the airplane. You don't have a whole lot of margin. Uh the airplane lands, it depends on the weight.

What weight you're landing at. But it's somewhere around a hundred and fifty. miles an hour. Not the fastest landing on the on the ship, you have to land relatively slow. The T thirty eight that we flew at Nassau would land at like a hundred and Seventy knots.

So the F fourteen's a little bit slower. But the thing about the Tomcat or any airplane that's landing on the ship is not only are you trying to land on this very small runway, but But that runway is constantly moving up and down. Heaving up and down, it's pitching. bowed astern, it's rolling left to right and it's uh

moving away from you because the deck is angled as the ship is going Forward. So And then sometimes it's dark, so you can't really see anything either. So it's uh it's pretty challenging piloting task. Actually it's it's harder than landing uh the the space shuttle, believe it or not.

Difference with a space shuttle is You're not feeling well, you're dizzy, you might be nauseous. You don't have a second chance, uh, in that it's a glider. A big lighter. with uh very poor flying qualities and you're only gonna get to do this once or twice in your life, you know, everyone's watching you, so it's a lot of a lot of pressure.

Different kind of pressure in the F fourteen. Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens.

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So make an investment in your health today and try the ultimate all-in-one wellness bundle. Support your immunity, gut health, and energy by visiting atleticgreens.com slash Tim. You'll receive up to a year's supply of vitamin D for free with your first subscription purchase. Again, that's athleticgreens.com slash Tim. I Aside from your own books, Uh

What what are the books? that you've given the most as gifts to Other people. And why? Do any come to mind that you've got to be a little bit more.

Given to more than one person? I'm looking at my bookshelf. in my office here. Yeah, certainly the right stuff. I've given that to people. Uh Shackleton's or uh Alfred Lansing's book Endurance

Which is uh Partly where the name of my book Endurance comes from because that book about Ernest Shackleton and his voyage with his crew of endurance. The ship. to the Antarctic in the uh

beginning of the last century. Was really one of the greatest examples of Leadership. in a very challenging and dangerous environment that I could ever imagine. I mean it's just extraordinary.

What Shackleton as the leader of that expedition was able to do when they're Ship. Endurance got stuck in the ice, eventually crushed. And they spent

I forget exactly how long, but it was almost like two years saving themselves That involved, you know, living on ice packs and uh transits of hundreds and hundreds of miles and lifeboats. In the Arctic. A uh crossing of South Georgia Island in the winter. That no one had ever done before.

But Shackleton and a small team of his guys did that, uh as at the end of them trying to save themselves. And he was able to do that and uh No one Died. None of his crew members died. Everyone survived.

That book is very meaningful book for me that I have actually Giving it to other people. Hemingway fans certainly, uh, you know, the old man in the sea is a favorite. And I'm also looking at uh Pearl Bucks, the good earth. I think I've given that book to other people.

What is the good earth about? Yeah, so it's about uh Pearl Bucks the good earth. It's it's brilliant. It's about this guy named uh This farmer in China, this peasant farmer. that I haven't read it in a long time, but I think his name was Wang Lung. He goes from peasant farmer and survives all these famines and eventually becomes a major land holder

Really a great book. Incredibly well written. And a uh great example of like what life was like in that time during China before the revolution and and when they had Many, many.

Years of famine. And you know, having massive numbers of people having to migrate as a result. Highly recommended. One of my favorites of all time. That is uh nonfiction or fiction? It's nonfiction. Let's talk about scientific literacy for a few minutes.

Yeah. So So I am not a scientist. I support a lot of science. I have a basic

level of I would consider it scientific literacy. They're is a lot of froth and noise. Out. in the the world today, certainly magnified by social media and so on in many respects.

Could you speak to what happened with respect to Steph Curry and the Moon Landing. Except this may be an entry point for discussing how people can develop the greater ability to separate fact from fiction.

I'll tell you what, I'm not a scientist either. Although I do play one on TV occasionally in space. I do other Yeah, a lot of people think, hey, you're an astronaut, you must be a scientist. No, I'm not a scientist. I've I've done a lot of science. I think I'm a science minded person. I know um

What science is, I know what it isn't. And unfortunately I think in Today's society a lot of people Have lost their

reality in some ways. Where all of a sudden in our society like science is now opinion or politics. It's not, it's subjective observation, і с евиденс, із experimentation. It's critical analysis, it's peer review. It's always evolving, but it is the truth as we know it at that particular time.

Yeah. Science deniers we have in our society now are dangerous. It's like I used to kinda goof around with the the flat earthers. Now I don't even like acknowledge their existence and I probably shouldn't even brought them up because I don't

believe that they should even be given any kind of Acknowledgement'cause it's just so Absolutely outrageous. It's like If you're a flat earther, well why don't you just deny that the sun is in the sky. I mean The earth is round. I mean you can go up in an airplane.

And look out the window and see that it's round. You gotta look pretty closely because you're not very high. But if you do look closely You can see we lived on a curved planet, not to mention That you know thousands of years of science. has determined that the earth is round.

And of course I've seen it from space and it is pretty Round. It's not flat. Wouldn't the edge be like the most popular tourist attraction on earth?

I would just go set up a like a taco truck and you know make a billion dollars. With my uh, you know, edge of the earth tacos. Yeah, so I generally don't give those kind of folks any acknowledgement because I just think it's so outrageous. And I know some of them do it kind of as a goof and they think it's funny or it's cute or whatever. You know, some people really believe it. The danger is

If you're willing to believe that the earth is flat What else are you willing to believe? That vaccines don't work. That we are not living in A pandemic where people

by the thousands are dying every day throughout you know around the world. That climate change is a hoax. So it's a it's a risky thing. You know, with regards to Steph, Steph is an awesome guy. I think he's a smart guy. I think in his situation he just kinda got caught up in one uh in a thing where he said he just agreed with somebody about the moon landings, probably would not even give it a whole lot of thought. And then he got a lot of heat for it.

And I felt bad for'em'cause I like'em. I'm a fan. So I just reached out to him and I said, Hey You know, if you want to talk about the moon landing, I'd be happy to Share what I know. with you and uh he was very happy have that conversation and to Take back his

what he said about that because and I and he did he he wasn't doing anything malicious. He was just kind of agreeing with the guy A guy who said that and then he was kinda on to the next thing, but a lot of people gave him a lot of heat for it, so We'd talk about it, I think. He understands now. If we look at the spectrum of

Let's just call it. So scientific Not scientific, but sort of detached on some level rational skepticism, et cetera, the ability to navigate the world and to the best of our ability separate.

fact from fiction. It does seem to me that There are people out there who are not, let's just say, flat earthers, right? Or or or people who are try to convince you of of God knows what that is just it seems clearly at face value ridiculous. to the people in the middle who really

Don't know. how to best discern what is true and what is not. And I think vaccines are a great example, uh, in the sense that I have many friends who I would consider Yeah.

many, many domains to be very smart. high performing. effective people who do not even know where to begin. with vaccines just in terms of Claims from friends.

Certainly. They're Facebook friends that are claiming to be experts on this stuff? Yeah, or they or those Facebook friends link to a site that seems to have citations and they just I mean, I will I will just say like these people I'm talking about, some of them are not I they're not people I would consider broadly stupid people at all. So how can someone who wants to become more discerning And capable in sifting through

The noise. become better attuned. Do you have any suggestions for how they can cultivate That Yeah, absolutely. I mean

I'm not an expert on many, many things. And then the you know, there are things that I know a lot about, things I don't know a whole lot of about. But when I don't know about those, I ask the rocket scientist of whatever that thing is. I get my information. From trusted sources, government agencies that are the authority on

the pandemic like the C D C the World Health Organization, these kind of places, media outlets that you know have been there for a long time and that have a reputation. Not your crazy uncle on Facebook, not people you've never heard of, so It's just shocking to me that people will just discount. Things that are

The truth Without Even Trying to go find out what the real story is. And just saying, Well, I I just don't bel I don't believe that. I don't believe that.

Yeah, you don't have to be a a scientist to understand science. And even if you don't understand it, you know, find the person that's the expert. And believe them because they're the experts, right? Let's talk about something that You are I would think very qualified to comment on.

And that is Possible future missions to Mars. I I would love to just hear Your thoughts on the feasibility. Or

attractiveness of future missions to Mars. In part because there are many diverging opinions here. You have, for instance, you have Elon Musk on one side Of the spectrum, you have then also people like Jeff Bezos, who I believe have publicly said, you know, the last thing you want to do is have to deal with

gravity and the environment on Mars, like once you get into space. you want to build communities in space as opposed to on another planet for a host of different reasons. And if you you mentioned Shackleton, so you yeah, if you like the idea of being on Mars, you should try living in Antarctica for a few months and then let me know how you feel since that's pretty temperate. And forgiving compared to

the ecosystem on Mars or the climate at least. How would you suggest people think about or how do you think about Uh missions to Mars. Yeah, so you know, a few things come to mind. You know, one one is and I'll I'll quote my brother and give him credit for this'cause he said it and that's the only place I've ever heard this.

And he says Going to Mars is not about rocket science. It's really about political science. Because You know, we know much of what we need to know technically about how to do it, but

If we're gonna really do that someday, put people put boots on Mars It's really more about having The money The political support and the public support is gonna take people to vote in

to office, you know, science minded people that feel like this is important. You know, I Do think we can do it. We could probably do it pretty soon. There are f some challenges. I think we need better life. You know, our life support systems probably need to l be a little bit More robust. We certainly have to

Protect the crew from radiation, whether we have some protective materials or we just get to Mars quicker so they're not exposed to radiation for that long. But it's something that we're absolutely capable of doing and I think we should do. I don't think though we need to look at Mars as a lifeboat for planet Earth. Now I say that having been wrong about things that Elon has said before, so

You know, when he was gonna land his the first stage of the uh Falcon rocket on a ship and reuse it. My initial thought was he's crazy. But then he went and did it. And then we did it again. And again, and again, and again. So I will never say Elon's crazy again. But I always think it'll be easier to live

On earth. regardless of what bad thing might happen to it. And I th also think it's important that we need to recognize that Really, this is our home. We need to take care of it. We're not gonna move the whole planet to Mars. I think it's important to go to Mars.

And uh, you know, establish a foothold. Uh, it's great that we've had a foothold in space. We're coming up on the twenty year anniversary of having people in space. Continuously. So Kids that are alive today. I've never been on planet earth with everybody else.

And I think we c should continue to do that. I think we should go to Mars someday. I think we should have people living on Mars, but I don't look at it as a Plan B. Necessary is a planet B kind of thing. Yeah, I do think. Yeah, this planet could be

pretty well destroyed and and I don't think we should do that, but it could be, and it would still be easier than living on Mars. Living here. What are the most compelling arguments for the importance of getting people Tamaris or more simply asked why do you think it is important? Because it w would involve, of course, very significant cost. Yeah, I I think going to Mars is you know, it's gonna be expensive, but that expense is paid

With uh You know very uh high paying jobs that Recently there was this NASA study that talked about the return on investment, so

You know, NASA Is a money making Prospect in that It generates more tax dollars than it It uses.

A mission to Mars would be the same thing. A mission to Mars would develop technologies that we May not have today. Maybe it won't, I don't know. It may, it may not. It'll definitely push our envelope of what we are technically capable of doing.

I think it would be A great way to cooperate internationally, you know, we have a lot of conflict here on earth. We've been flying on that space station with the Russians for last twenty years and it gives Countries that are

sometimes in conflict with each other, a place to work on something that is peaceful that benefits everybody. I think that we're explorers. I think it's in our nature, our DNA. I don't think we would have developed To be the species we are today. If we didn't explore, I think it's part of who we are and we should continue to do it. And then I think if everything I said was wrong The fact that

That kind of mission that Going to Mars, going to the moon, the space station, the space shuttle. The space program in general. It Inspires

Kids not only in the United States. But around the world. To be better students. To study math and science and STEM careers. To be

better at those In those areas of study that are so so important to our economy because all those people, all those kids around the world that Or so inspired by NASA, they're not gonna work for Nassa. I mean some of them will, but all of them aren't. Yeah, they're gonna go into other fields that contribute to our economy.

Our society and our way of life. And if that's all we got out of it. That's worth every penny. I mean if the six or s Whatever billion dollars we spend a year on human space flight. If the only thing we got out of that is that kind of inspiration for her kids, which I don't think it's the only thing we get out of it.

But if it was Worth every cent. Here, here. Thank you for that answer. Let's talk about

Go for lunch. So subtitle How to Dream Lead and Achieve. This is your two hour audio course. unknowable. Why did you Produce this audio course. And what do you hope people will

gain from it. You know, I think you know, my my life story has a lot of lessons in it that I think will help other people and inspire Other people that they can do things that maybe they didn't think they were capable of. They can take risk, they can challenge themselves, they can I'm hoping that people will look at this as a way to

Find uh maybe more success in their own lives and I've done that. with the public speaking I do. I've done it with the books that I've written. And this is just a a new way of reaching a a different audience. I didn't really didn't know much about Noble. Before I was approached to do this, but when I learned about it, I was like, Hey, that's a really good idea. You know, people like to listen to books on tape.

No. Especially a lot more recently. And why not listen to something that is not a book, but has a uh you know, particular lessons uh from different kinds of people. So for those that don't know, uh Knowables it's a it's a new app that gives exclusive audio courses from different types of experts. Chris Paul is one of them, Alexis O'Hanian

Me, a whole bunch of Other people. It's basically kinda like listening to uh Spotify, but it's for learning something. And uh you know, hopefully People will learn something that will help in their lives from the audio course I was able to put together. They can Find this course unknowable.

Dot F Y I Forward slash Scott. At least that's what they told me. Uh where you can find her.

Hope I said that right. And uh yeah, I hope people enjoy it. There's some some humor in there. I tell a couple of jokes every now and then. I hope people find them funny. And uh hope they enjoy it. Yeah.

And we'll link to that also for everybody in the show notes, since that's heavily trafficked at Tim.blog forward slash Tim. So we'll link to everything, including noble.fyi slash Scott for folks. Just uh maybe two more questions and then uh we can bring this Round one to a close. Wait, round one? There's It's a round two.

I always want you know, I like saying round one. We we I could say this conversation, but if it gives you More anxiety that you enjoy. I could say this is round one of seventeen to the forthcoming indefinite series with Scott Kelly. No, this is this is the end of the conversation. So I always like to say round one, just just in case there is a round two. Right there when you said round two. I'm out. Understandable. Understandable. So two questions. The first is and these are sometimes dead ends, and I'll take the blame if they are, but we'll we'll give it a shot. So the first is If you could put anything on Yeah.

Gigantic billboard. This is metaphorically speaking. to get a message or a question, an image, anything out to billions of people. What might you put on that? Something non commercial. Right now, I'd say something like science is real, believe it.

Science is real. Believe it. Yeah, what a world we live in. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. Imagine Galileo coming or Newton coming to this uh This world now, they would lose their minds.

Yeah, the uh I saw a cartoon at the beginning of the Pandemic. which featured this guy, clearly that sort of the husband and wife couple and the husband sitting at his computer and he says, Honey, it's amazing. Last week all of my friends on Facebook were constitutional Lawyers and this week they're all epidemiologists.

So Search for the signal, folks. All right. The second question. Is Then this might seem like a bizarre question. But I'm curious, when is the last time you cried tears of joy?

That you remember. This might be a answer you're not expecting or weird, but I don't think I ever have. Maybe uh. Yeah, I don't think so. Tears of joy.

No. Yeah. I'm not a I'm not I'm not much of a crier. There's no crying in space. Ha.

No crying in space, no crying in baseball, people. All right. Well Scott, is there anything uh that you would like to say just as closing comments, any recommendations or ask of the audience that you would like To add before we close. Well, you know, sh certainly I think you know having this platform and an opportunity to speak to your viewers and that is

We're living in some really crazy times right now and uh I've had the privilege to see people work in some really challenging environments in uh Things that that are very risky Things that you might not even believe is possible.

We're able to be successful. Success requires teamwork. And I think our country just needs to realize that we just gotta have to start working together. I mean we can't Live in this divided society where people are in conflict with one another because we have some serious challenges and the way you meet those challenges is is with teamwork. And that has been my experience my whole career at NASA. And I just wish more people would just kind of come together.

Identify problems. Do it in a thoughtful way. Believe in science. solve those problems and then move on to the next thing and um I'm just very hopeful that we can get there.

And uh hopefully get there soon. Science is real. Believe it. And uh This is a great place to end. Well, Scott, thank you so much for taking the time today. I know this is a long form conversation and I appreciate you carving out the time to have a chat and to share your life lessons and to answer my Sometimes, sometimes peculiar, sometimes in the middle questions. So thank you very much for

Carving out some space to do this. Hey, thanks for uh having me, Tim. I uh very much enjoyed it. Thank you. And to everybody listening. You can find show notes, links to everything we've discussed, Tim.blog Forward slash.

Podcast. at noble dot f yi fort slash scott. And until next time. Thanks for tuning in.

I'm grateful that throughout my twenty years at NASA I had the chance to work with a wide variety of people from different backgrounds. I flew in space with a French engineer. A school teacher from Idaho, a Swiss astrophysicist.

And more Russians than I can count. He spoke different languages, believed different things. Problem solved in different ways. And when you're trying to do something as challenging as flying in space, you need as many different strengths as you can get. And then

I met Katie. Mm. When I was preparing for my first long duration space flight I was slated to overlap for a majority of the hundred and fifty nine days with Katie Coleman.

Katie was a military officer in the Air Force, a chemist, she was a veteran of two space shuttle missions just like me. But Katie and I were as different as two military officers can be. In fact Some of our colleagues were seriously concerned that we might kill each other. For months we would have to cooperate and live together in a space the size of the inside of a 747 filled with stuff.

So when Katie first arrived I could see why people had been worried. Katie didn't entirely live her life by schedules. And I would often find her in the little window filled module called the Coupola. Looking at the earth and playing her flute at three o'clock in the morning. Throughout the workday

I always knew what Katie was working on, because she would leave experiments and projects half done. Or there would be scraps and remnants of her activities. Just floating around. I used to call it a Katie Trail. But whatever else she needed to do, Katie always made time to speak with people on the ground, especially school children, even beyond the many events that NASA schedules us for.

Hi, my name is Shake, and my question is how do you dispose trash on a space station? Shake, you have an excellent question for exactly this week. It is very difficult. She made time for art and music. Even playing the first Earth Space Duet on our flute with the founder of the band, Jeff Rotal. It was one more aspect of our personalities that couldn't be more different. I had always seen the public relations part of my job as a nuisance. It needed to be done because the public has a right to know what's being done with their tax dollars and to feel involved in the space program.

But I'm not a newscaster or YouTuber. And I didn't really enjoy being pressed into service as one. I felt that my job was to command the space station. carry out the many complex procedures and experiments I was tasked with. To run a tight ship.

To keep my crew safe. And obviously To keep everything from exploding. One day we had a standard public affairs interview. Here's what I sounded like. Answering questions in my factual, straightforward.

Are we done yet, Tone? We got up here about uh a little over a hundred and something days ago. Not that I'm counting. But uh felt like I picked up just where I left off last time.

This was not my favorite part of the day. Later. Katie confronted me. She said. You know, if you don't sound excited about what we're doing up here

No one else will be either. She was right. I learned a lot by watching Katie. And by the time I flew a year long mission on the space station, You could certainly hear the difference. And you actually packed a gorilla suit in your gear, which is incredible.

You know, it's it's interesting when you vacuum pack something, it doesn't take up a whole lot of room and uh You know, for one, when you try to get kids attention and and teach'em about science and math and engineering and things like that, the first thing you have to do is get their attention. And nothing gets people's attention. Like a gorilla in space.

Oh. By this time I'd figured out Twitter and Instagram? I've been building up the year in space hashtag. I did a Reddit AMA. I showed off the first flower we grew in space.

I played water ping pong and had a Super Bowl party for one. A juggled fruit. Which is still impressive even though the fruit just kinda hangs there. I also explained how I had to clean up a gallon size ball of urine and acid. I explain that space smells like burning metal.

And that my favorite David Bowie song? Is not space oddity. Uh probably. Under pressure.

It wasn't what I thought I had been trained for. But this kind of work was able to bring all kinds of people into the experience of our mission. And bring them closer to science, engineering, and the amazing things we accomplish when we all work together. But it was Katie with her flute and her always positive attitude that made that possible. We all learned a lot from each other up there.

In training to fly in the Russian spacecraft, I spent a lot of time in Russia. Getting to know the culture and learning to speak the language. Not very well, I might add. I've had the chance to get to know Russian literature and history in a way I never expected. There's always potential for conflict and challenges, particularly with the Russians.

Our countries are not always the friendliest. I guess you could call us frenemies. But in space you set all that aside. Because we rely on those cosmonauts. And they rely on us.

Space is a great place to do that, because no one owns it. It's a common ground where peaceful scientific collaboration can occur. I've learned from my colleagues who grew up in different cultures, practiced different religions, and were born with different sexual orientations. It's only been very recently that NASA has recruited astronauts who openly acknowledge a same sex partner. And I hope to see a transgender astronaut in my lifetime.

I have a transgender son who is one of the smartest and kindest people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. And it would be a loss to NASA if they didn't choose to include people like him among their ranks someday. retrospect I think the people who told Katie and me we would kill each other in space Underestimated both of us and overlooked the power of our differences.

I try to keep this in mind when I see people who seem very different working together, and I want to encourage them to see their differences as strengths. And what we referred to in the military As a force multiplier. Katie and I are now lifelong friends, and when I think of the mission we flew together, I hope she remembers as fondly as I do the times I'd find her playing her flute in the cupola, and couldn't help but tell her.

Katie. Go to sleep. It's a school night. I don't care if you're friends with Jeff Rothall. Sometimes people are incentivized to dodge blame or even cover up their mistakes.

And I've seen this in action as well. The Russian space agency has a very different way of managing and compensating their cosmonauts than NASA does its astronauts. And part of that has to do with how blame is distributed. Both astronauts and cosmonauts are paid extra when they are flying in space. In the case of the cosmonauts.

they get a significant bonus of somewhere between three hundred and fifty to seven hundred US dollars per day. Depending on how experienced they are. So for someone like my friend Gnaddi who has spent eight hundred and seventy nine days in space That can really add up. By contrast, American astronauts are paid the government per diem rate.

Five dollars per day. But our salaries are much higher to begin with. Which means we are less dependent on that bonus for our livelihoods than the cosmonauts are. Which is where the problem comes in. Cosmonauts are given higher bonuses for their achievements.

Like a successful spacewalk and lower bonuses to reflect mistakes. For flipping the wrong switch. Missing a step in an experiment? Or similar everyday human errors. And you might not believe this.

But there's actually a real person in Russian mission control whose only job is to track the mistakes of cosmonauts. And when each cosmonaut comes back to Earth. They have to sit in a room with the mistake tracker and an accountant. To determine what their bonus is going to be. I've experienced firsthand the way this sort of negotiation is supposed to work.

When I was preparing to fly on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. I trained with my crewmates in a simulator. Much like the simulators I've trained on in Houston to fly the space shuttle. After our final simulation flights in Russia. We would have to answer to a panel of Russian space agency officials about our performance.

Kind of a Public stoning, I would call it. It took me a while to understand that we were actually expected to create an elaborate excuse matrix about how we hadn't done anything wrong, how everything was somebody else's fault. And that no blame should be attached to us. I came to think of this practice as blamesmithing.

And some people were quite skilled at it. bending the narrative of events to always move the blame away from you and towards some other poor bastard. I was terrible at this, but that was fine with me. And I think it annoyed the Russians that during the public stoning, When it was my turn to make an impassioned speech about how I didn't flip the wrong switch.

I just say Yep. That was me. Now once we were in space, the question of blame got real for my Russian friends. They're always dealing with the possibility of losing their income to the smallest mistakes, and

So I tell them to blame me. As far as I could see it, it was a win win. They wouldn't lose their bonus and their control center wouldn't spend a day trying to figure out what went wrong because they were avoiding responsibility. Real teamwork means it's crucial for everyone to admit their mistakes. If you want to solve problems, move fast, and make sure everyone's doing their best.

You can't punish people for speaking up. That's true in space, but it applies any time. Anywhere. In my experience as a space shuttle crew member and later as commander of the International Space Station I learned how important this was.

On the space shuttle. If I had actuated the wrong switch at the wrong moment, always a possibility with two thousand of'em. I might have caused a hundred people in mission control to spend hours or even days trying to figure out why their data looked funny and not focusing on what is important. It's so much better to just be honest and move on. And if that doesn't work, you can always say, the American did it. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share

The coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up. in the uh the world of the esoteric as I do, it could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off. for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out, just go to fourhourworkweek.com, that's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out, and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by 99 Designs, the global creative platform that makes it easy for you to find and work with amazing graphic designers online. Longtime listeners of this podcast know how much attention I pay to detail, how obsessively I approach nearly all elements of my work, because the small things often end up being the big things. So whether it's your logo,

your business cards, website design, even your email templates, all of these visual elements tell your customers, tell your users who you are and what you're about. So I think it's worth sweating the details. I've been using 99 Designs for years now to ensure that many of my creative projects, whether big or small, are as cohesive, professional, and beautiful as possible. I've worked on draft mock ups of book covers, I've worked on all sorts of things. Most recently, I've been working with a designer at 99 Designs to update the illustrations and layouts for all of my downloadable ebooks. I've developed a really great working relationship with the designer who goes by the username Spoon Lancer, and I int to continue working with him to bring ideas to life one project at a time. I've also used 99 designs for all sorts. of high-end illustration for different books like the Tower of Seneca. You can see a bunch of examples on my Instagram that I've put up. and they've turned out better than I possibly could have hoped. So from logos to websites to packaging to books, 99 Designs is the go-to creative resource to build your brand on any budget. So check them out. Right now, my listeners, that's you guys can get$20 off, plus a free$99 upgrade.

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