Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Clayton Anderson: Former NASA Astronaut on Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams coming back to Earth from ISS after 9 months

Transcript

Clayton Anderson: Former NASA Astronaut on Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams coming back to Earth from ISS after 9 months · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This has going to be a movie one day, hasn't it?
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: After nine months stranded in space, NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: and Sonny Williams will be back on Earth today. Their
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: stay on the International Space Station was only supposed to
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: last eight days, but their mission had to be extended
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: after the spacecraft they arrived on experienced technical issues, so
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: then it ended out being nine months. We're expecting spashdown
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: just before eleven o'clock. I'm joined now by retired NASA
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: or astronaut Clayton Anderson CLA. Clayton, Good morning.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: To well it is it? Good morning, good night, good
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: day in.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: New Zealand, whatever you like. You're in space, man, every
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: day was night and every night was day. So you
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: spend one hundred and sixty six days up there? Could
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: you have done nine months?
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Good question. My wife and I talked toward the end
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: of my five months day because there was some uncertainty
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: going on and between the two of us, given her
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: role as the general down on Earth with my family,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: figured we could go one or two months after but
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: if we had to go much longer than that, it
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: would start to strain everything.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Hell, what was the strain I mean, you're up there,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: you're having the world's most extraordinary experience, you'd know that
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: there's a risk of it all. So how does it
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: strain things?
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, if you think about Butch and Sonny,
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: since that's kind of the topic of the day. You know,
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: when you don't know the end date, it can make
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: it harder, it can make it easy if you don't
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: focus on an end date, which is what I did, right.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: I tried not to think about the end because I
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: didn't know when the end was coming. That would that
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: made it easier to deal with missing the wife, missing
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: the kids. But you know, I was counting on my
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: wife to do a lot for my family, and that
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: you know, nobody talks about the toll of the wife
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: and the family down below. Uh, you know, she was
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: the mom, the dad, the driver, the coach, the nurse,
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: the she did everything. And my wife was a NASA employee.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: She cut her job down. She had to have a
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: signed agreement with NASA to allow her to reduce her
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: work week to thirty hours per week so that she
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: wouldn't get in trouble because she had so much to
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: do to take care of my kids at the time,
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: So you know, that's a big sacrifice for the other
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: half of your family.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: It does kind of show that, Butch and Sonny, if
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: they've got through it, well have what it takes, the
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: right stuff, you might want to say. It's also, i mean,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: apart from the Boeing ship breaking down, it's also in
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: my view, American exceptionalism because no one was expecting people
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: to be there for nine months on the eight days,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: and yet you kept them supplied with food, you keep
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: them supplied with oxygen. It was quite a remarkable thing.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, yes it was. But the supply process
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: was never affected by any of this. So supply ships
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: are typically cargo only things like a Russian progress that
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: come up and bring things on a regular basis. An
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: uncrewed dragon capsule can bring supplies lots of ways to
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: do it. That was never affected. So even though they
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: had two extra guests on board, it probably wasn't a
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: big deal for them to keep them supplied with food, water, oxygen,
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: and clothing. You know, it might have been a little
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: tough at first until the first cargo ship came up,
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: but I'm sure they were scrambling on the ground to
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: make sure that Sonny and Butch got some stuff of
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: theirs on that cargo ship to bring it up. So
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: you know, it's a process that's pretty well understood.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, Clayton, Yes, exactly right, and they showed
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the right stuff. And thank you to our listeners who
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: said the Bone Capsule came back to with without astronauts
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: about three months after it reached for more familiarly edition
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: with Ryan Bridge.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Listen live to news Talks it Be from five am
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: weekdays well follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.