Before His Second Flight

01Houston, we have a podcast.

02Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, Episode 190, Before His Second Flight.

03I'm Gary Jordan, and I'll be your host today.

04If you are new to the show, we bring in NASA experts to talk about all different parts of our space agency, and sometimes we get lucky enough to bring in astronauts to tell their story.

05So today, we're talking with Mark Vande Heide.

06He's a U.S.

07astronaut who's about to launch to the International Space Station for his second long-duration space flight.

08He happened to be one of the very first guests we had on the podcast back in Episode 13, before his first flight, which happened to be the title of that episode.

09So in this discussion, we talked about his background and anticipation of heading to space, basically continuing the conversation from 2017.

10We discussed how his first flight ended up going and what he did aboard.

11We discussed his return and what he's been up to here at NASA since landing in the Kazakh steppe.

12And of course, what he's looking forward to this time around and how the landscape of the International Space Station has changed.

13in the few short years he spent back on the planet.

14So here's a little bit more about astronaut Mark Vande Heide.

15Enjoy.

16Mark Vande Heide, thanks for coming back on Houston We Have a Podcast.

17Mark Vande Heide Oh, it's good to be here.

18Thanks for inviting me.

19Mark Vande Heide Hey, I'm just going to pick up from where we last left off.

20You were one of our first astronaut guests, actually, on this podcast.

21You were episode 13.

22We called that before his first flight.

23And really, we had that conversation up through the moment right before you were heading over to, I think it was either Moscow or Baikonur at the time, but really just before your first launch.

24I want to pick up the conversation from right there.

25So from when you last left the studio and you were getting ready for your first launch, what were some of the things you were doing, some of the thoughts going through your head?

26Mark Vande Heide Oh, gosh, that's a long, a lot's happened since then, of course.

27So before a launch, there's a lot of ceremonial stuff, along with the final exams, of course.

28I guess I'll just go to the really interesting part and try to keep this answer short.

29The launch.

30So the launch for me happened, oh, dark 30.

31I can't remember the exact time.

32I just do remember it was a, it was a not a normal time for me to be awake.

33Very emotional when you're driving away to say goodbye to everybody.

34And there's a huge crowd of people cheering you on and you feel like a rock star.

35And then it was, it was shocking though, how excited you could feel.

36And then it gets really quiet on the bus and it's dark out and you're driving out into the desert in Kazakhstan to a rocket that's all by itself.

37And then we got out to the rocket and we got on and I remember thinking to myself, oh my gosh, this thing's leaving in, I can't, it was less than two hours.

38And I thought to myself, I have a lot to do.

39So we got onto the spacecraft and they close us in, get us securely buckled down and then everybody else leaves and you're just sitting out there.

40So I guess what I'm trying to convey is a sense of tremendous community and celebratory and then shockingly quiet and isolated.

41Wow.

42And so that was an emotional flip that I didn't expect.

43Once you get into the process of just going through all the checklists to prepare for the launch, that starts seeming, you've practiced this multiple times, you're very focused.

44And even the launch, the launch was so smooth that the biggest shock to me was that nothing went wrong because all of our training has things going wrong every moment.

45And so I was constantly scanning, looking, trying to, trying to find the problem that was in the system somewhere because that's what I was trained to do.

46And there was always something hidden if I just look carefully enough, but nope, everything worked perfectly.

47So I kind of wanted a better story.

48It wasn't shaky enough.

49It wasn't violent enough.

50It was, it was really smooth.

51And then when you get to orbit, uh, and the thrusters are turned off, you really are in a free fall.

52That's what being in orbit is.

53You're just falling towards the earth, but constantly missing it.

54And it shocked me how it felt just like being at the top of a roller coaster when you're coming up over the top of a roller coaster and you rise up in the straps.

55Of course, I was strapped down very tightly.

56So when you're in a roller coaster, hopefully you're strapped down very tightly too.

57And if the roller coaster comes over the top and goes from going up to down rapidly, you'll rise up in the seat.

58Well, that's what I experienced.

59The reason you feel that in a roller coaster is because you're in a momentary free fall, very short time.

60For me, it was, it was exactly like that, but it continued for hours.

61So that was just a strange sensation that it was kept going and also kind of had this feeling like I was rotating forward, but very slowly I was rotating forward too.

62Uh, the sunlight was, uh, interesting.

63It's gorgeous, very bright, but there's something a little unsettling about it.

64And I actually went to a, uh, preview in, in Washington DC for first man.

65And I watched the movie and I, I was really impressed with how they conveyed that feeling in that movie of being in a capsule.

66And I said something about the lighting that you guys did was great.

67And, and the director told me, Oh yeah, we had a NASA consultant.

68They said, make sure you use spotlighting.

69I said, spotlighting.

70What are you talking about?

71I said, yeah, spotlighting because the sun is a spotlight when you're out in space.

72And it occurred to me that every time I've experienced any sunlight before I was in orbit, it was always scattered by the atmosphere of the earth.

73So you never really get sunlight.

74That's just direct from one spot.

75It's always coming from multiple directions because it hits other parts of the atmosphere and gets reflect, uh, bent in your direction too.

76So that's why there was, it was beautiful, but weird, if that makes sense.

77And I couldn't put my finger on what is unsettling about this.

78So it was very stark brightness and stark darkness in the shadows as we quickly would move as the spacecraft would go to different angles with the sun.

79And they had this little, little window next to me, getting to the space station.

80Um, I'll never forget looking out over my left shoulder and seeing the solar arrays much bigger than I ever expected them to be.

81I lost my composure a little bit because I was so excited and said, wow, during a moment in the space flight when we were all supposed to be very quiet and concentrating intensely on the data that we were seeing or the telemetry, uh, life on the space station was really busy.

82Got to do lots of space walks, uh, a vehicle did one vehicle capture, um, coming back to earth.

83I guess I really, what I want to do is tell you a few things instead of going on for 25 minutes.

84And then if there's something that's interesting to you, then you can ask me more.

85So I'm going to very quickly go through this.

86Okay.

87Um, the landing process, um, I didn't realize how afraid I was, um, while I was waiting for the parachute to open and had nothing to do, but wait for the parachute to open until the parachute actually opened.

88And I felt so giddy because I was super, super happy.

89That was the first time I had let myself realize that this was actually going to succeed.

90I was also very shocked with the impact with the ground.

91In fact, my immediate emotion was, I felt angry.

92I felt like someone had just hit me in the back of the head with a two by four because it, it, it was, uh, it was a hard hit.

93We were fine.

94Everybody was safe.

95It was very safe, but it was shocking.

96Yeah.

97They say it's like, uh, something like a 30 mile an hour car crash is like the, is like the kind of a feeling.

98I've never been in a 30 mile an hour car crash, but, uh, it certainly caught my attention.

99In fact, I made a mistake.

100Uh, one of the things that Russians tell you to prepare for that landing is make sure your head is back in the seat and your mouth is closed.

101You don't want to bite your tongue if you hit hard.

102And I thought to myself, well, my muscles will probably be weak enough.

103I won't have had to balance my head.

104So keeping my head in the seat shouldn't be a problem.

105So just remember to keep your mouth closed.

106I did remember that I should have my head in the seat, but the, I thought we had about 10 seconds before we hit and I looked up to check something out and then we hit.

107So I, I hit my head really hard.

108Yeah.

109So I actually, uh, was wondering if I made a big enough mistake that I was going to have a concussion, but I was fine.

110It was no big deal.

111The, uh, while you were in space though, you had, um, I mean, it was a hundred.

112Let me see.

113I have the number here somewhere.

114Talk about number of a science experiments.

115Uh, I was going to say number of days, 168 days, but I'm sure you did a couple of hundred science experiments.

116I don't know how many I personally did.

117I know as a team, some of which happened to be without our interaction, even there was 234 science experiments that happened while we were on board.

118Yeah.

119I like the way you described it too, because I think you've, you've done multiple interviews since you've been back.

120And, uh, you know, one of the top things is, you know, what, what are some of the science investigations, uh, that you did.

121And you always describe yourself as, you know, I was, I was more of like a, there's the lab hands, you know, I was just like the hands just kind of doing the work.

122That's, that's how you felt, right?

123Yeah.

124I was, I, I call it being a laboratory technician.

125My job was to make sure that all the science experiments had the resources they needed.

126Uh, very rarely was like an observer.

127Um, a lot of times, uh, I was just making sure the videos were set up so that they could do the observation.

128Certainly wasn't doing any data analysis or writing papers like a scientist would do.

129Yeah.

130And there was, but there was a lot of work, right?

131Cause you were just, you were the one lab technician for all these different scientists that had all these different priorities that they wanted to do.

132Uh, I would, because there's so many experiments, experiments going on simultaneously.

133Yeah.

134There's, there's a, there is no lack of work.

135In fact, uh, there's more work than we can get done.

136Yeah.

137Always a task list, right?

138That is just hard to, hard to get to.

139Um, you did a couple of spacewalks as well.

140And I know those were, uh, those were a highlight for, for you during your first expedition.

141Yeah, they were fantastic.

142Yeah.

143Good experiences.

144Everyone I was happy to start and everyone I was happy to finish.

145What were, uh, what were some of those lessons that you were learning?

146Cause you're about to go back, uh, to the international space station.

147I don't know if spacewalks are, are, are on the table, but they certainly could be.

148So some of those things, you know, you're going to take forward with you on those spacewalks, given your recent experience.

149So if I do another spacewalk, things that, uh, I w I will continue to do differently than my first spacewalk is, uh, move gently.

150So if you can imagine, um, training underwater, you overcome water drag.

151So every time you want to start moving, you import a foot in part of force and the water is going to stop you.

152So you have to keep adding force to continue moving.

153If you keep adding force to continue moving in space, you're just going to keep accelerating.

154That's undesirable.

155So my first spacewalk, I put in a lot of force to start moving.

156I had to take out all that force in the opposite direction to stop moving.

157So I worked really, really hard.

158So when I get back there, I'm sure I'll very gently start motion, make sure I maintain contact, but you can just keep fingertip contact as you wait to get to the right spot.

159Assuming your aim was good enough.

160Yeah.

161Um, another thing that became very helpful, helpful on spacewalks after my first was, uh, instead of, uh, being really, really afraid of letting go with both hands from the space station.

162Um, now just in case someone's concerned when we let go with both hands from the space station, it's only after we put down a tether that keeps the space station within arm's reach.

163So I'm not talking about just letting go and, and hoping that I just stay in the vicinity.

164There's lots of safety features to make sure we stay safe, but there's a big difference between, uh, being in the middle of rotating yourself and then letting go while you're rotating, because you'll start to just do a spiral.

165Yeah.

166That's very uncomfortable versus stopping yourself for three seconds, making sure there's no relative motion between you and the space station, and then slowly letting go with your fingers.

167Because once you're done letting go, you'll stay exactly there with a, there's a little bit of force from the safety tether, but that didn't seem like a big impact to me.

168And that makes it much more casual.

169It sounds like there's a lot.

170So you trained a lot in the neutral buoyancy laboratory.

171There's a lot of things that are there's a lot that you can learn underwater, but it seems like all these lessons are just that little gap between doing it underwater and doing it for real.

172Absolutely.

173The motions that you make.

174I mean, that, that's, that's really the difference there.

175Yes.

176Every, the NBL does an incredibly good job of training us.

177There's just a few little nuances that, uh, they can't quite replicate and, um, yeah, you can learn a lot.

178Well, let's go back to, you, you had that, you had that hard landing, uh, over in Kazakhstan.

179What have you been up to since, uh, since you've been, since you returned to Houston?

180So everybody who comes back from a space flight does a process of, uh, debriefings, uh, rehabilitation, uh, and also public, public events.

181You travel around for a bit to, um, share your experience.

182For me, that ended with me going to Washington DC to work as a technical assistant for Bill Gerstermeier.

183So I did that for a while.

184That was super interesting.

185I got to, uh, see how things work in Washington DC at NASA.

186And I very much appreciate the hard work that those folks do.

187And then I came back to Houston again and worked as the EVM robotics assistant to the chief astronaut until I got this assignment.

188Wow.

189Okay.

190So you, I mean, it sounds like a lot of that time has been, so some of those lessons that you learned from, from your spacewalk, what do you do as the, I guess, uh, leading EVAs and robotics?

191What are some of your tasks?

192So, uh, one task is giving recommendations to the chief astronaut for who will do spacewalks.

193Oh, okay.

194Um, and of course that comes along with staffing it with the trainers and staffing it with the flight directors to see if anybody's got concerns, but then giving, giving the, uh, chief astronaut a recommendation that will actually work.

195Same thing with robotic operations on the space station.

196A big part of the job was also, um, providing some continuity, uh, in what the ground team should expect from astronauts.

197For example, we had a lot, we had 13 spacewalks in a year recently, and there was a lot of desire to do spacewalks really, really quickly.

198And my job in some cases, what was to share what situation that would create for the people actually executing the spacewalk and to talk to them.

199If we ended up doing things pretty rapidly, or it, maybe we decided we're going to go ahead and have to do it this quickly, make sure everyone understood that this is something we haven't done before with space station crew members who are different from space shuttle crew members because space shuttle crew members used to get trained multiple times on a very specific EVA, whereas space station crew members don't get trained as much, uh, on a specific task, but they'll get trained for years on generic tasks and have to adapt to whatever we tell them they need to do.

200Of course, they're also spending more time in, uh, in space.

201So that has effects as well.

202And then, uh, training wise.

203So we had an ask, uh, astronaut candidate class that was finishing up as I was, uh, was still working in that job.

204And what does it mean to say that somebody's certified to do EVAs or certified to operate the robotic arm, things like that, and making sure we had a consistent grading and we're fair, both maintaining a really high standard, but also making sure it's the same standard for everybody.

205That's very true.

206Yeah.

207And I didn't really think about the, uh, the tasks of a spacewalk, I guess you're right.

208I mean, when, when you're doing a shuttle, you train exactly for what you're going to do.

209There is a lot of challenges, not only, and you described it so well, not only with training, providing a generic training so that you can adapt to whatever task needs to be accomplished.

210But, uh, if you're talking about so many EVAs, so many spacewalks in a short period of time, when you yourself are in space for a long period of time, it could feel a little bit draining.

211I don't know if you experienced that yourself in space.

212Um, just having to do so many tasks.

213We talked about spacewalks.

214We talked about, um, different science experiments.

215If you felt a sense of, man, there's, there's a lot to do in just these short six months.

216I definitely felt like there's a lot to do.

217Um, I felt very fortunate because I think between my first and second spacewalk, there was, it was a five day center to center.

218So hatch opening on the first spacewalk to hatch opening on the second spacewalk was five days.

219I thought that was perfect because it, that also over, uh, happened over the course during that time.

220I had a weekend off, which gave me a whole weekend to study for the next spacewalk and to think about it.

221So that was ideal for me.

222I, and I, I think had I had spacewalks four months apart, it would have been harder to carry the lessons learned from the first spacewalk into the second spacewalk.

223So they were so quick for me that that was really helpful, but far enough apart.

224I was, well, I didn't have any lingering effects.

225I didn't have, sometimes people lose fingernails after a spacewalk.

226You can have a lot of hand soreness.

227I had enough, I didn't have anything serious enough that I wasn't completely recovered before the second spacewalk.

228But so we got to pay attention to that having physical recovery and enough mental, mental time to, uh, get mentally prepared for the next thing too.

229But for me, it was, I was very fortunate months later.

230I did another spacewalk.

231Um, I think, I can't remember how quickly they were in succession, the third and fourth one.

232Um, but I was definitely a fan of being able to, once I start spacewalks, focus on that and do nothing else ideally, as opposed to flipping between science and spacewalk stuff.

233Yep.

234A lot has happened since you've returned.

235You talked about, you know, your, your main task, you've, you did a little bit of time at, at headquarters and then you came back and you were working EVAs and robotics.

236Um, but a lot has happened, especially in the astronaut world.

237We have commercial crew astronauts.

238We've assigned astronauts to walk on the moon.

239There's, there's just a lot happening in your office.

240Uh, talk about that landscape from when you landed to, to right now, just like how the astronaut office itself has, has really changed.

241It's interesting.

242You mentioned those things as changes to the astronaut office, because I, I think the thing that feels like the biggest effect is COVID right now, because we're not seeing each other.

243I'm, I'm fortunate because I've been going to training and I get to see people that are making sure they're well-protected and then I'm well-protected, but I get to interact with people.

244But if you're not assigned to a flight, you're, you're doing your job from home, just like everybody else.

245And it's challenging just like for everybody else.

246Um, it's a very dynamic time in the astronaut office, which if I was a new astronaut, I would think it's the perfect time to be here because the opportunities are just going to blossom.

247Uh, we're, there's going to be challenges, but that's also always opportunities for growth and, uh, gives you great ways to contribute.

248So I, I, I think there's a lot to look forward to right now.

249I know, I know you're not really together then because of COVID, right?

250You're not seeing each other as often, but I wonder if, if you've experienced, you talk about the newer astronauts.

251I'm thinking of the astronauts that came in 2017 or as candidates and now they're, now they're astronauts.

252And some of them have already been assigned, uh, to a few flights.

253I wonder if you're seeing that from, from that class of astronauts, a sense of excitement on, on what, what we have ahead of us.

254Oh my gosh.

255Yes.

256Many of them are assigned to that Artemis team to be ready to walk on the moon someday.

257That's certainly exciting.

258Um, some are assigned to be, be ready for Soyuz, potentially are back or there's, there's some are primary crew members for, for Dragon spacecraft if I understand correctly.

259Yeah.

260There, there's a lot, there's a lot going on.

261There very much so.

262Now, now going back to you, um, you, you have this, this flight coming up, you're going to be flying Soyuz again.

263What are some of the next things that you're looking forward to?

264Is it, is it much of the same?

265Is it changed a little bit?

266It's going to, it's going to be very different for me, knock on wood, being on that Soyuz crew, because this time I'll be in the right seat as opposed to the left seat.

267The left seat was being a co-pilot.

268So I, I was fully engaged last time in flying the spacecraft.

269And sometimes a lot, most of the time I was pressing the buttons on behalf of the commander, something I definitely didn't want to mess up.

270Uh, this time my responsibilities in the Soyuz are going to be very minimal.

271I, at, I think every two hours, if I remember correctly, I have to pump the condensate out 120 pumps in two minutes.

272All right.

273That's my job.

274And I jokingly will be like, is it time?

275Is it time?

276Can I pump the condensate yet?

277Um, so I'll be a lot more relaxed.

278Um, when I get to the space station, I'm hoping that will continue.

279Uh, my, my goal is to do what people tell me and I expect a lot of changes.

280I expect again, things change, but, uh, I, my hope, my contribution is going to be just rolling with those changes and keeping a real steady sense of joy about this opportunity and doing my job.

281Uh, I'm probably, uh, spending, I have fewer personal goals this time when I go to the space.

282Like last time I had all kinds of things I needed to take pictures of this time.

283And that actually became a stressor because I had limited time.

284And every, every weekend I had a to-do list I was trying to get through this time.

285I just want to be a little more peaceful about the whole thing and try to enjoy it.

286Maybe I didn't journal last time.

287I would love to start journaling more and try to capture rec for me.

288Uh, my assumption is that this is going to be my last opportunity to do something like this.

289So I want to do as good a job as I can to record it for myself if no one else.

290That's some incredible personal goals.

291It seems like you've put a lot of thought into, into the things that you want to do.

292Um, are you sharing this with, uh, I'm sure there's like, I'm going back to the, uh, to the newer class of astronauts, right?

293Uh, you're thinking about this as your last flight.

294And I'm sure that a lot of the, uh, a lot of the newer astronauts are looking forward to doing exactly what you did on your first flight.

295Like I have so much I want to do.

296I have this huge task list.

297I wonder if there's, um, there's a benefit to that and say, you know, absolutely.

298You should do that on your first flight or maybe, maybe this next flight that you're talking about, take it easy journal.

299Um, you know, decrease stress, maybe overall in your workload.

300Maybe that's a, that's a benefit that you can pass on to some of the newer astronauts.

301Actually, it might be good to take your time.

302It depends on the person.

303There's a, there's a, Nodoshige Kanai was on the space station with me.

304Yeah.

305Um, he would work on the weekends and work on the task list on the weekends.

306And I, I just didn't do that.

307That was my free time.

308And I had my own personal task list.

309Uh, and then I pulled him aside one day and said, Hey, his, his call sign is Nemo.

310That's how my classmates all call him Nemo.

311I said, Nemo, you know, you don't have to do this on the weekend.

312Right.

313And he said, yeah, but it's actually more pleasant for me to work when I can do it at my own pace.

314So he had, he gained a sense of peace from getting things done, but without any stress of needing to get it done.

315So that's why I say everybody's different.

316Um, Nemo was different from me as far as what our needs were.

317Um, and I would say even my needs on that first flight might be different from my needs on the second flight.

318So we're constantly changing human beings.

319Wow.

320Yeah.

321You just find that thing that, that gives you that sense of peace.

322Cause that, I guess it's, that's an important thing to carry with you.

323You know, you're going to be on station for a long time.

324So you have to find that thing, whatever it may be, because it might, it sounds like it's unique per crew member, but the thing that's going to keep you, uh, you know, keep you going for, for those, for that long period of time.

325Yep.

326Very cool.

327Well, Mark Vanahe, I think that's all the questions I have.

328I want to wish you the best of luck on your journey and, uh, and Godspeed.

329Thanks for talking to me today.

330Thanks very much for having me come today.

331I appreciate it.

332Good talking to you again.

333Thanks.

334Hey, thanks for sticking around.

335Really enjoyed this conversation that I had with, uh, Mark Vanahe today.

336I hope you did too.

337You get to watch his launch live on nasa.gov slash NTV.

338So make sure to go check out that schedule, uh, to see when you can tune into the launch of Mark Vanahe and his crewmates to the international space station.

339I'm sure he'll be sharing his journey in space.

340Uh, if you want to follow his story, he's on Twitter at astro underscore Sabo, S-A-B-O-T.

341Uh, you can check out us and many other NASA podcasts at nasa.gov slash podcasts.

342And you can talk to us, Houston, we have a podcast on the NASA Johnson space center pages of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

343If you want to talk to us, use the hashtag ask NASA on your favorite platform, and you can submit an idea to the show or ask a question.

344Just make sure to mention it's for us at Houston.

345We have a podcast.

346This episode was recorded on January 14th, 2021.

347Thanks to Alex Perriman, Pat Ryan, Nora Moran, Belinda Pulido, Jennifer Hernandez, and John Streeter.

348Thanks again to Mark Vanahe for coming on the show.

349Godspeed.

350We'll be back next week.