Field Notes: Astronaut Shannon Walker

01Snowy vistas.

02The Australian outback.

03And far beyond our atmosphere.

04NASA experts travel to some incredible places to learn more about our universe.

05As scientists have started venturing out once again, we're restarting our Field Notes series.

06These special episodes offer a look into the people and places behind some of the wild work NASA experts do.

07Beyond our offices.

08Astronaut Shannon Walker has traveled to the International Space Station twice in her incredible career.

09She's now back on Earth with a unique perspective.

10From her home state of Texas to floating far above the atmosphere and so many destinations and adventures in between, come along with us as Shannon describes just a few of her out-of-this-world experiences.

11The space station in so many ways felt exactly the same when I was there the second time as I was the first time.

12The difference, however, was there is so much more stuff on the space station.

13I swear everybody on the ground acts like they're a pack rat and don't want to get rid of anything.

14And so we've got cargo stowed everywhere.

15And we've installed so many computers and so we've got wires strung everywhere and cables and everything.

16And so it's a more crowded space, but a very familiar space to live.

17My name is Shannon Walker and I am a NASA astronaut.

18I have flown to the space station twice.

19The first time I flew was in 2010 and the second time I flew I launched the end of 2020 and landed in 2021.

20So I've been home just over a year from my last flight.

21First time I flew, I actually flew round trip with the Russians.

22I was trained as the pilot, essentially the pilot seat on the Soyuz spacecraft.

23I spent a lot of time over in Russia training for that flight.

24I spent a lot of time in this country training for what we were going to do on space station.

25I spent a lot of time in all our international partner countries, Canada, Europe and Japan.

26So that whole training part took roughly three years before I flew a six month mission.

27When I was on the space station at that time, we were just finishing up building of the space station.

28And transitioning into all the science that we're doing up there now.

29It was kind of a mix of maintenance and making sure the space station was ready for all the science.

30And then just starting to do some of the initial long term science we're doing.

31Fast forward, it didn't seem very fast, but fast forward 10 years later for my second flight.

32And I was able to travel to and from the space station on the Crew-1 SpaceX Dragon.

33That was their first time they sent people to the space station for six months.

34And so I was part of that crew.

35At 7.27 p.m.

36Eastern Time this evening, NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi will lift off from this historic launch complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center and begin their six month journey.

37Did a lot of training ahead of time, although COVID had just hit the world.

38So training was very, very different.

39We've gotten quite a bit smarter on how we need to train people for space station.

40And so instead of three years, if it's a normal expected training flow, we're talking about a year and a half, two years, depending on which position you have within the capsule.

41And then train some for what you're doing on the station.

42Now it was mostly science because we've got the space station built up and running.

43And so a lot of my time up there was doing all the research that needs to be done.

44There's so many things that are so neat and so fascinating about living on the space station.

45You have to go back and think, wow, how normal it feels to be in space.

46That's what strikes me that once you're up there and you've been there for a short while, you realize how normal it is to float all the time, to float in your sleeping bag when you're sleeping at night, to get out and to float while you're putting on your clothes and float down to have breakfast with your crewmates.

47I mean, it just it just becomes a normal way to approach your day.

48And that still fascinates me that you get to do that and it just feels normal.

49Beyond that, some of my favorite activities of, you know, of course, looking out the window.

50It never gets tired to look at the Earth and there's always something to see.

51On the space station, we have a place that we call the Cupola as the best thing ever because it is a set of windows that are on what you would call the bottom of the space station.

52So they are facing Earth and you can have this wonderful 360 degree view of looking at the Earth.

53So it's not like looking out a window on an airplane or something.

54You get to look down at everything.

55And it was just so amazing to see the beauty of the Earth.

56My first flight was over a summer time period.

57I launched in June, came home in November.

58Second flight launched in November, came home at the beginning of May.

59So I had all the seasons.

60The first time the Northern Hemisphere, spring, summer, green, you could see everything.

61Second time it was winter in the Northern Hemisphere.

62And so everything is frozen and how much ice and snow is everywhere.

63It was interesting because I don't live where it snows.

64Houston doesn't snow normally.

65To see it from above and to see how much of the Earth is just covered with snow and ice was really interesting.

66Looking out the window at night is absolutely fascinating because it has always struck me how many lightning storms are going on all around the planet all the time.

67And especially the middle north of Africa.

68Africa has got the most amazing thunderstorms ever.

69And every night if you fly over Africa, you can just see lightning going off all over the place.

70It's fascinating and really cool to watch.

71Earth during the day is great because you can see what's going on with the rivers and the oceans and things.

72And at night you really get to see not just the spectacular shows of lightning, but you can tell where people are.

73You can tell where people don't live and all the city lights and the little roads connecting all the cities.

74I mean, it's just a fascinating place to look at.

75You can see how tiny our atmosphere is.

76And it's just this little tiny band that you see on the edge of the Earth.

77It drove home to me.

78It reinforced really how fragile our Earth is, looking at how tiny, how thin our atmosphere is.

79You know, Earth's big compared to our atmosphere for sure.

80I would love to talk about launches because those are so awesome.

81They are amazing.

82So it takes about eight and a half minutes to get into space.

83Now think about that.

84Eight and a half minutes.

85You're sitting on a launch pad.

86Eight and a half minutes later, you're in space.

87That means that you are going to be moving fast.

88If you're in the launch pad, you don't get a countdown.

89There's nobody in your ear saying, three, two, one, launch.

90You're just watching a little timer.

91Right before T0 happens, fuel starts flowing.

92You hear some stuff.

93You're on top of all this fuel.

94You know stuff is flowing.

95You got these engines.

96You hear some rumbles.

97You can kind of feel vowels moving.

98So there's some vibrations and there's some noise.

99And then, okay, the engines have lit.

100Big rumbles start happening.

101And you can tell you are moving up.

102You are starting to get faster and faster and faster.

103And you know that not just by the noise.

104You know that because of the G loads that your body experiences.

105We're sitting just so in the spacecraft that you feel the G loads perpendicular to your chest.

106So it feels like somebody is sitting on your chest.

107It makes it a little hard to breathe.

108On the Soyuz, they have a three-stage rocket.

109You go up a little ways and then they get rid of the first stage.

110So you're sort of here and feel these explosions.

111But the central core of the rocket is still going.

112So the engine is still going.

113And you're getting faster and faster and faster.

114On the Soyuz, you will get about four and a half Gs.

115So get a couple of your friends to sit on your chest.

116And that's what four and a half Gs feels like.

117And then at the end of that, it's the end of the second stage.

118There's this explosion that you feel where they get rid of the second stage behind you.

119There's a few seconds and then the third stage lights.

120And you're always like, okay, is it going to light?

121Is it going to light?

122Believe me, you know when it lights because then you start moving again really fast.

123And so you ride that all the way into space on the Soyuz spacecraft.

124But the G loads don't get nearly as high again.

125On the Dragon, you got two stages.

126And so the first stage goes up and they throttle their engines to maintain the G load between three and 3.3 Gs on the first stage.

127And they do this to make sure that basically you're not going to shake anything apart.

128You do that for a while and then that stage cuts off explosions and then the second stage lights.

129There is a bigger pause between the first stage and the second stage on the Dragon than there is between the second stage and the third stage on the Soyuz.

130And so the commander, Mike Hopkins, and I both had flown on a Soyuz before and so we're like, is it going to light?

131Is it going to light?

132And eventually it does.

133And boy, is that a kick in the pants.

134By the end, it felt like I was in this little cartoon, you know, where all the cartoon characters are going really fast and their faces are being smushed back.

135And that's what I felt like.

136But then engine cuts off and boom, you are in space for both of them at the end.

137As soon as the last engine cuts off, you're floating around.

138And it's pretty amazing, that eight and a half minutes.

139A lot of noise, a lot of rumbles, a lot of fun.

140I was born and raised in Houston.

141And so I did grow up with the space program, the human spaceflight program, in my backyard.

142What really sparked my imagination as a kid was our first moon landing.

143Okay, Neil, we can see you coming down the ladder now.

144Neil, we can see you coming.

145And I have these memories of my parents taking me and my older sister out into the backyard.

146And the moon was coming up over our roof and them pointing up there and saying, we have people there.

147And at four years old, I was like, wow, that just sounds like the neatest thing ever.

148And that's what I want to do.

149That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

150I get to tell that story just about every time I'm interviewed by somebody.

151I think it's neat because it really shows how some small thing or big thing or something in somebody's childhood can really set a path and a dream that you don't know how you may end up there.

152You know you may not ever end up at that particular final destination, but it's something to work towards.

153And it's something to sort of provide direction, I guess, in somebody's life.

154It's important to know these big things that we do, these big, huge, important things that benefit society.

155Take a long time and it can take a long time to get there, but it's worth the effort.

156It's science.

157It's helping the world understand its place in the universe and helping people in society with technology just keep moving forward.

158Any kid that wants to be part of NASA, I really encourage you to follow that dream and passion.

159And I also want to point out, NASA does so many things.

160It's not just the astronauts.

161It's not always the science and engineers.

162If there is something you want to do in life, we're doing it at NASA.

163I can guarantee you.

164I mean, we have photographers that work for NASA.

165We have scuba divers that work for NASA that help us prepare for space flight.

166We've got all the technicians.

167We've got people that sew our spacesuits.

168I mean, it's just amazing the breadth of jobs available at NASA.

169And there's so many ways to be part of it, even if you don't want to or don't have the opportunity to go into space.

170My pitch for come work for NASA.

171Shannon has spent a career total of 331 days in space.

172Since her second trip, we've kept her busy, training the next class of astronauts, assisting with launches and landings, and helping out with future missions, from trips to the space station and the moon, looking all the way to Mars.

173SpaceX also recently named a new recovery vehicle in her honor.

174The Shannon and the Megan, named for astronaut Megan MacArthur, are ships that assist in picking up our astronauts once they splash down back to Earth.

175Thank you, Shannon, for your hard work and for sharing your stories with us.

176This is NASA's Curious Universe.

177This episode was written and produced by Christina Dana.

178Our executive producer is Katie Atkinson.

179The Curious Universe team includes Maddie Arnold and Michaela Sosby, with support from Erica Kreiner.

180Special thanks to Courtney Beasley, Megan Dean, John Stephen, and the Johnson Space Center team.

181If you liked this episode, please let us know by leaving us a review, tweeting about the show at NASA, and sharing NASA's Curious Universe with a friend.

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187And then I ended up leading a group of engineers that are in the control center daily.

188You never see them on TV, but they are responsible for the technical health of the space station is how we would put it.

189Anything that breaks on the space station, we got to figure out how to fix it.

190That was an awesome challenge to do a whole bunch of problem solving in the early days of the space station and just figure out how it's going to work.

191You were in the Houston, and in Houston we have a problem.

192I was.

193I was.

194I often tell people that if they've seen the movie Apollo 13 where they have the problem and these people in a room and they dump a bunch of equipment out and they say, we need to make a round one of these fit into a square one of those.

195That is exactly what we were doing.

196It's like, okay, what went wrong?

197What do we have on space station to fix it?

198What do we need to launch if we can launch something?

199What do we need to reprogram?

200That is exactly what I would do.

201It was great.

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