Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell Interviews NASA Astronauts

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SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell Interviews NASA Astronauts · Elon Musk Podcast

0:03
Station, this is Houston. Are you ready for the event?
0:13
Aunt. SpaceX.
0:19
This is Mission Control Houston. Please call station for a voice.
0:23
Check station. This is Gwynne.
0:26
Shotwell from SpaceX. How do you hear me?
0:32
Hey, Gwen. We hear you loud and clear?
0:35
It's so great to see you both the last time we saw each other
0:39
was like 19 days ago. I think a quick 19 days ago in
0:43
the suit-up room before you lift it off from 39a.
0:50
I'm so pleased but that's just like it's gone.
0:54
No go. Sorry.
0:58
No, I was just going to say yeah that's it's amazing that that
1:00
was 19 days ago but I got to say, big shout-out to everybody
1:06
at SpaceX, you know, through your partnership with with NASA.
1:10
You're the reason we're here, you're the reason that we had an
1:13
incredible ride up to the space station and you're the reason
1:16
why there's seven people on board station right now.
1:19
And I got to tell you, it is exciting up here right now,
1:21
there are so much happening there is every calm Loop every
1:25
video Loop, you name it. People going everywhere.
1:28
It's exciting to be up here and it's so big big, congratulations
1:32
to all of you at SpaceX. Thank you so much.
1:36
I can't tell you how pleased and relieved.
1:38
I am that the mission. The uphill part of this Mission
1:41
went as smoothly as it did. By the way, my employees are so
1:46
excited for this event, we got hundreds of questions and we,
1:50
unfortunately, we had this skinny, it down to just a few,
1:55
but I'm really looking forward to sharing what our great SpaceX
1:59
team is thinking about for you guys.
2:05
Great. You ready?
2:06
Yeah. Excellent.
2:07
We're excited to answer. Yes, we are ready.
2:10
Fantastic. Okay, so the first question
2:13
comes from Eric Ruiz who's a propulsion technician in Raptor
2:17
Machining and his question is, what were your thoughts as you
2:22
were walking across the crew access arm?
2:29
So my initial thoughts were don't trip.
2:34
No, actually, you know, it's one of the things you're thinking
2:38
about is, is this really happening, right?
2:40
Because it's a long process from the time.
2:43
You start training to the time you actually lift off.
2:46
And, and so, you know, we had some launch Loops along the way.
2:50
And so, as you're walking across that arm, you're still not sure
2:54
if it's really going to happen because there's a lot of launch
2:57
criteria that still have to be met before you before you lift
3:00
off the pad. So that's at least what I was
3:02
thinking. And I was thinking all of that
3:05
and I was also thinking about sort of the historic nature of
3:10
walking across that access arm to the White Room.
3:13
My first launch was out of baikonur and now I got to launch
3:16
out of Florida. So being able to launch where so
3:20
many of my fellow astronauts had launched previously was with
3:23
something really special. Great.
3:28
Okay, from Justin Owens, who's a CNC programmer?
3:31
CNC is computerized numerically, controlled programmer in the
3:36
Machining Department. My son Mason would like to know
3:39
if the SpaceX suits are comfortable, and you can be
3:42
totally candid here, by the way, and how they, compared to
3:46
standard or other space suits with respect to comfort.
3:53
Well, I think the first thing to know about space suits is there
3:55
really made for to fit you when you're sitting down.
3:58
So, when you're standing up, they not quite tall enough.
4:03
And so they're not quite as comfortable as they are when
4:05
you're sitting in the spacecraft.
4:06
Would you agree there? Yeah.
4:08
And then I would say that one thing that I have found about
4:13
the SpaceX space suit is to me. The helmet feels very, very
4:17
heavy. It's there for your head
4:19
protection, which is hugely important.
4:21
But But I think it's going to be even more heavy when I land
4:24
after 6 months. Yeah, I found I found the suit
4:28
very comfortable, big, shout-out to Chris, and Maria and Eric and
4:32
the entire suit team. I think they did a fantastic job
4:36
with it. I do, find it fairly simple to
4:38
get in. It is easier to get in in space,
4:41
then it then it is down on the ground and get out of it.
4:44
So overall, I think a great suit Okay, that's great to hear and
4:51
there's good feedback in there too, so I appreciate that.
4:55
Okay. Colin Gibbons, who was a lead
4:57
site reliability engineer in software?
4:59
Development is asking what were each of the cruise?
5:03
Well each of your biggest impressions of the experience
5:07
and Sensations associated with the Falcon 9 ride to orbit.
5:11
This question gets asked a lot actually.
5:13
So how does it feel to ride in a dragon on top of the Beast named
5:19
falcon? Yeah.
5:23
Wow. Hi.
5:24
I tell you, I don't know if there's words really to properly
5:26
describe what that felt like you talked about sitting on a dragon
5:31
on top of the Beast. And it definitely was you.
5:34
You knew you were going somewhere, you know?
5:36
It actually all started earlier than that when we were doing the
5:39
fueling operations and it's talking to you the whole time.
5:43
It's very, very interesting to hear all the noises that are
5:45
going on from the fueling. But then once we lifted off the
5:48
pad, man, it was it was exciting, it was an Incredible.
5:52
Incredible ride the throttle down the when it, when it
5:56
throttled back up, boy, you felt, you knew you were going
5:58
somewhere. The staging was incredible.
6:01
We were all just smiling and beaming and high-fiving.
6:04
It was, it was an amazing experience and I would add to
6:09
that everything that he said, and then just the g-loads that
6:12
you get. And compared to the soy cheese.
6:14
It's a completely different experience in the Sawyer's.
6:16
You'll Peak at about 4 and half G's in the geez.
6:18
Drop off. And that's all you get through
6:20
the three stages. Has the two stages on the on the
6:23
Falcon you're just increasing your G, love the whole time.
6:27
So by the time the first stage engine into your about 3.3 G's
6:31
second stage, it just keeps going up and up and up till
6:34
you're about four and a half. But the time you spend between 3
6:36
and a half and four and have Jesus is quite long.
6:39
And so you feel like your face is being pushed back?
6:43
Well, you look great, by the way.
6:45
We were, we were inches away from our computer monitors
6:48
watching you guys and we all appreciated the high fives, as
6:51
well. Okay, a question from the enta
6:55
who is a PCB designer in the avionics core.
6:58
Engineering team, what is the major difference between?
7:01
Well this is now redundant. Sorry.
7:03
What is the major difference between writing the soyuz and
7:06
the crew dragon to the ISS? We heard a little bit about the
7:09
G loading, but there are other other other elements about the
7:12
differences Yeah, you know, it's interesting.
7:17
This is my second flight, right? And so I would say, one of the
7:19
big differences, I was probably more aware of everything on the
7:23
second flight than the first flight things happened.
7:26
At least for me happened faster on that first one, I was able to
7:33
keep up with things and feel things and be aware of things.
7:35
Probably a little bit better on this flight than I was on the
7:38
other one. And of course, the other
7:40
difference for me. And when we talk about all the
7:42
way to station, you know, my soyuz flight was only Towers in
7:46
this one was a little bit longer, so we actually had to
7:50
live in Dragon for quite a while and I have to say it was it was
7:54
pretty comfortable. I was, I was very happy with how
7:58
it worked out in terms of, you know, when we needed some
8:01
privacy, we were able to get that and do everything that we
8:04
needed to do during that 27 hours to get the station.
8:09
If I would agree, it's a little bit more spacious than a.
8:11
So use my ride to the station on the soyuz was two days.
8:15
And so, only a little over a day was, was much better, but you
8:18
have more room to move about in on the Dragon.
8:22
Okay. Great.
8:23
Listen, I appreciate that. All right, Mitch look.
8:26
Mitch Cleland. A senior test development
8:28
engineer here in McGregor. Texas is asking what appliances?
8:32
So this is more futuristic. What appliances would you
8:35
include in the cabin of the Next Generation spacecraft for
8:39
greatest quality of life on long-duration voyages?
8:49
Yeah, that's a that's a great question.
8:51
So when you talk about long-duration to me that's we're
8:53
talking about something a little bit different than Dragon, which
8:57
is, of course, meant for the short duration.
8:59
And so you know, we talked about long duration up here on the
9:02
International Space Station, one of the things that it's kind of
9:06
a simple thing. It's a day-to-day type thing,
9:08
but it's something that we're constantly having to figure out
9:13
or find ways to do it, and that's just general hygiene and
9:16
things of that nature. We don't really have A place up
9:18
here that's dedicated for that. And so, you know, we're we're
9:22
kind of having to move around bags or you're trying to do
9:26
storage operations and at the same time someone's trying to
9:29
clean up after a big workout and all of that.
9:31
So, I would say, at least for me, I think some of the simple
9:33
things are important, they sometimes can get overlooked,
9:37
but I think you need to spend some time on them and having a
9:39
place that's dedicated for hygiene and those kind of
9:42
activities. And when I say that, I don't
9:43
just mean going to the bathroom, obviously, we need that but I'm
9:46
talking about places where you can Clean up wash your hair.
9:49
Do those kind of things? Exactly.
9:52
If you're talking long, long duration like on a trip to Mars,
9:55
you will definitely need a hygiene station and you're going
9:58
to need things. Like, how do you do laundry on
10:01
station? We don't do laundry.
10:02
So we wear our clothes and after a certain amount of time we
10:06
throw them away. Well, that's not very efficient.
10:08
And if it's really, really long duration then you're going to
10:11
have to figure out a way to deal with all the trash that's
10:13
generated. And there is a lot of trash
10:16
that's generated near not, the least of which is your clothes,
10:19
your food trash which will smell over.
10:21
Time and just all kinds of things.
10:23
So, trash trash compaction, trash something trash management
10:27
needs to happen. That's super helpful.
10:31
Actually as we're working on Starship, that's great.
10:34
Okay. Ben Arquette Elite avionics
10:36
harness technician is asking what is something you learn from
10:40
your trip to the ISS as the first fully operational?
10:43
Four-person crew dragon mission. So maybe something that you
10:47
learn new compared to Bob and Doug's experience.
10:51
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Ilan. Backblaze.com Ceylon.
13:05
I think, I think one of the things that we learned in really
13:08
to care with was living in the dragon and how you do that since
13:13
we spent a whole day there, you really have to have a lot of
13:16
choreography and and planned choreography to do the things
13:20
you need to do getting out of your suits, getting in your
13:22
suits, Distributing food to eat. Because while it is more
13:25
spacious than the soy use, it can get pretty crowded when you
13:28
have a bunch of stuff out there. So managing your stuff, how you
13:32
deal with it and how you deal with it with four people.
13:36
Yeah, I think exactly what Shannon said, and I'll maybe say
13:40
it in a little bit different words.
13:41
I think you have to be deliberate everything that we're
13:43
doing up there from the time after separation when we're
13:47
getting out of the suits. And and we're having our first
13:50
meal or we're changing into our clothes.
13:52
All of that had to be very deliberate in who was doing what
13:55
when and because if we weren't that way, it would have been
14:00
just a bunch of you on the video cameras, you would have seen
14:02
just a bunch of arms and legs and, and yeah, it had been it
14:05
has been Chaos. And and the reason for that
14:08
though is because the whole time, we also need to be ready
14:12
for any kind of an emergency that could pop up.
14:15
And and so that means as you do certain things you clean up
14:18
immediately afterwards as well. And so I think having four
14:22
people on board, really emphasized the need to do that
14:25
because you just don't have as much space as you think or as
14:27
much time as you think, if something like that should pop
14:30
up. Got it.
14:33
So a question from Jesse leather Woods daughter.
14:36
He's a project manager here in Texas South Texas actually.
14:41
So my daughter Chelsea would like to know approximately what
14:46
day into the mission starts feeling routine as opposed to
14:51
just a normal day as opposed to my goodness.
14:55
I'm here on station. Everything is totally new.
14:57
So, like, approximately, what day do you feel settled in I
15:03
guess more than the days. We've been up here now.
15:05
Nothing for me. It's never routine.
15:08
I guess in the sense of every day is exciting, right?
15:12
Every day that you wake up and you get to float to go down to
15:15
the bathroom and and to breakfast.
15:17
And all of that is a little bit exciting.
15:20
So so from that I'm still not there.
15:24
Yeah. It turns getting settled in.
15:26
I think we get settled in pretty quick.
15:29
Yeah, I would agree. It's always still exciting to be
15:31
here. We get the giggles we're like,
15:32
oh, we're doing Is that son, exciting task but we're doing it
15:35
in space but by the same token since it's our second flight, it
15:39
feels very familiar and so it was easy to get into the routine
15:42
of what the ground needed us to do.
15:44
And we've been working hard and have some really long day, so
15:47
it's a combination answer. Okay.
15:50
I thought that was a great question from from Chelsea.
15:53
Okay. Shannon, this one's for you from
15:56
Mary Toledo whose electromechanical technician on
15:59
the starlink program up in Seattle.
16:02
She says it's It's truly incredible to see a woman fly on
16:05
the NASA crew. One mission and service flight
16:07
engineer. What advice do you have for us
16:10
to reach our dreams? Whichever that maybe in our stem
16:13
careers so we too can reach the Stars like you You know, that is
16:20
such a great question. I think.
16:23
First and foremost, is to not be afraid to go after your dreams
16:28
all too often. I encounter people that say to
16:31
me that they would really like to be an astronaut and that I
16:33
asked him will have you ever applied?
16:35
And the answer is almost inevitably.
16:36
No, they haven't. You've got to go.
16:39
You got to go get it because whatever you are looking for in
16:41
the world it's probably not going to come and reach out and
16:43
pluck you up for to do that to do that job.
16:48
I think the other things You need to do or be aware of is
16:52
believe in yourself. I think all too often people,
16:55
especially women are their own worst critics.
16:58
And most people are much better than they than they think they
17:01
are. And so you've got to believe
17:02
that you've got to do things. You like if you're passionate
17:08
about, what you do, you will be very good at it.
17:11
You will do well, and people will notice you.
17:13
And then, I think the last thing that which is kind of important
17:18
is that if you're a Today. And you're trying to get to
17:20
point B know that from A to B is not always a straight line.
17:24
In fact, sometimes it's better not to be a straight line.
17:27
If you deviate along the way towards your goal, you're going
17:30
to gain so many more experiences that are probably applicable to
17:33
whatever you want to do in life. That's awesome.
17:37
She had and that's a great answer.
17:38
Thank you. Okay, I've got another question
17:42
here from Amanda Vargas. Who is a CNC computer?
17:47
Computerized numerically controlled machinist in our
17:49
panel shop in Hawthorne? What was the biggest factors for
17:54
your successes? So I think for me anyway, it's
18:02
probably just having that little bit of grit, you know, that
18:07
that's kind of as Shannon mentioned following your dream
18:09
but then never given up on that dream and I think Shannon and I
18:13
were both tell you that along along our career paths, we've
18:16
had some setbacks and it's what you I think really those
18:20
probably helped Define you more than your successes because when
18:25
you have something that doesn't go quite right, and yet you're
18:27
able to overcome that. I think oftentimes that says
18:30
more about you. So anyway, that's I would say a
18:34
little bit of grit get you there.
18:37
Yeah, I would agree. And then I guess just even
18:39
starting out I had a very good family that that was supportive
18:44
and willing to believe in me and so finding a circle of friends
18:47
or family that will help you achieve what you want to do is
18:51
important to and it's very worthwhile.
18:54
Great. Okay, final question from the
18:57
employees and if we have time, I'm going to ask one of my own
19:00
if not totally fine to skip. This is from Ruben Chef, the
19:03
senior propulsion analyst in the liquid engine development
19:06
program. What do you believe are the most
19:09
important reasons? This is a great question.
19:12
What are the most important reasons for human space
19:15
exploration? Well, I think the boss your boss
19:23
says it pretty well. And that's it, you know, we want
19:25
to become an interplanetary species.
19:27
And I think that is true. I also do believe that it's in
19:31
our nature. We're just curious, humans are
19:33
curious. And so, I would say if not us,
19:36
who then, right? So, so let's, let's, let's go do
19:39
it. Yep.
19:41
Those are pretty much my two reasons.
19:42
There's no one reason to do space exploration, but it is we
19:47
need to get out there. We need to understand the
19:49
universe. And we need to survive as a
19:52
species and space exploration is going to be part of that.
19:56
Fantastic. Do I have time?
19:58
Okay, quick question. Do either of you have a personal
20:05
thing or statement that you make to yourself before you launch?
20:10
We call it at SpaceX launch Juju, do you do anything
20:13
regularly before launch I know I don't watch that often so I
20:22
don't know if any of to is gonna be worth much.
20:27
Let's see, don't fall asleep, I don't know.
20:32
Actually. Okay so a it is kind of an
20:34
interesting question. So you know I think our
20:36
experiences from earlier in life and going all the way back to
20:41
high school to college help prepare us for these moments.
20:44
And for me I oftentimes go back to my experience at the
20:47
University of Illinois and playing football.
20:49
Ball and things of that nature. And so the way I prepared for
20:53
football games, when I was playing, there is oftentimes
20:57
very similar to to getting ready to go out for the launch,
21:00
getting ready to go out on an Eva or things of that nature.
21:04
The way you mentally prepare the way you physically prepare.
21:06
And so, I kind of just followed those same things that I've been
21:10
doing all my life. And, you know, you talked about
21:12
walking down that tunnel the access arm and it kind of
21:16
reminded me of walking out a tunnel getting ready.
21:19
For a football game and getting ready to run out onto that
21:21
field. And a lot of those same emotions
21:23
are there as you're getting ready to it.
21:25
And so believe it or not, that was experiences.
21:28
Help you handle the emotions of the moment when you're getting
21:31
ready to launch, for example, That's that's great.
21:37
Thank you, bowls. I'm getting the wrap up.
21:41
I'm getting the wrap-up, be quick, thank you for this time.
21:45
Okay, I know that everybody is SpaceX, is is hoping and praying
21:50
for your successful downhill. Part of this flight and success
21:55
on station as well. Yeah, I do want to say thank you
22:00
on behalf of the entire crew on behalf of NASA, on behalf of the
22:04
Nation on behalf of our families.
22:06
We certainly are very happy with the first half of this Mission,
22:10
but obviously it is a long Mission.
22:12
I did want to add just one little thing.
22:14
I also wanted to say thank you for letting me sleep in dragon
22:18
in case anybody is curious as well.
22:20
Resilience, snores and talks talks in her sleep a little bit.
22:25
And so I'm still getting used to all of those things, but It is
22:29
nice to have a room with a view. And again, I just can't tell you
22:34
how excited we were to launch on that vehicle.
22:36
How excited the ride was up to this space station, how excited
22:40
we are to be here on board the space station again.
22:43
There is just so much happening on board right now and we can't
22:47
say thank you enough. Thank you, thank you.
22:49
Thank you. Thank you and we'll see you in
22:52
April. Station.
22:58
This is Houston ACR, thank you. That concludes the