Enduring Astronaut

GROUND CONTROL: It has been waaaaay too long since we've hung out with an astronaut.

Seriously, our astronaut deficit stretches back months and months.

We righted that wrong last night, thanks to an appearance by Scott Kelly in Seattle. 

 He's on a tour promoting his book "Endurance." 

I'll let the kids tell you a bit more about the encounter, with CJ up first. ... 

Scott Kelly recently held an event titled “An Evening with Scott Kelly” in the University Temple United Methodist Church in the University District. The event was a small interview about what being in space for a year was like; It was somewhat of a paraphrased version of the book that was available signed with your ticket. Scott Kelly’s interviewer seemed to be doing a lackluster job during the event. He was very quiet despite having a real microphone (someone in the back of the church asking for him to be louder was actually louder than the interviewer himself) and started asking Kelly about things like the air from different countries instead of going to the ISS for a year. Scott Kelly has a good sense of humor, but he also seemed rather disappointed in the interview questions.

He talked a lot about parts of his book and how he thinks it’s amazing that even when in politics our connection with Russia is unstable, we’ve worked together and will continue to do so in the name of science and space exploration. He talked about how he made good friends with all his crewmates despite speaking different languages, having different customs, and even different emergency procedures. At one point, a Russian satellite was on a collision course with the ISS. The US procedure is to close and seal all internal hatches on the ISS, so if one part was hit and collapsed, the others would be ok. Scott Kelly’s Russian colleagues, however, were having lunch and just decided that if it hit them, they could escape in the Soyuz. The satellite miraculously missed the ISS, and while his teammates resumed lunch, Kelly spent the rest of the day opening the hatches again.

He told a few other stories, most of which can be read in his book “Endurance”. He has also released a children’s book titled “My Journey to the Stars”. Although the event was only ok, Scott Kelly is a remarkable human being and I highly recommend learning about him.

I have to give CJ props. He is totally right. The interviewer was OK at best. 

Astronauts are not created equal (thank goodness, because missions require all sorts of different skill sets.)

While Scott Kelly was a great story teller once prompted, he's not the Chris Hadfield/Garrison Keillor type natural 'let's sit by the fireside and swap stories' at ease storyteller some others are, so the event was somewhat dependent on the interviewer.

Despite the interviewer on Thursday night, it was a wonderful event. Annabelle has this to say. ... 

Scott Kelly is a NASA Astronaut who is best known for having spent nearly a whole year in space (340 consecutive days) from 2015 to 2016. Scott Kelly was chosen for NASA's experiment because he has an identical brother, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, who spent the entirety of Scott Kelly's year in space on land. Both Kelly brothers will continue to be NASA test subjects for the rest of their lives.\

Yesterday, I got to see a presentation by Kelly, accompanied by Andrew McIntosh, at the University Temple United Methodist Church. The event, officially known as "Scott Kelly in conversation with Andrew McIntosh", was an hour long, and was part of a promotion tour for Kelly's latest book, "Endurance".

During the event, Kelly read the first few pages of Endurance to the audience (a full audiobook narrated by Kelly can be purchased on Amazon). The first pages of Endurance describe how Kelly felt upon returning to Earth from his year-long trip, as well as some of the things that led to Kelly becoming interested in becoming an Astronaut (For example: Seeing the Moon landing on TV, and reading The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe while in college). We were able to get two signed copies of Endurance prior to the presentation.

 The lighting in the venue for the talk was terrible (from a photography standpoint). I apologize for the crappy photos. In the one below, Kelly was describing hunkering down, waiting for a maybe collision of a satellite while on the International Space Station.

Kelly imparted many interesting anecdotes and factoids, but one of  the things he said that sticks with me most was that he was in the bottom half of his high school class. He said he would have been diagnosed with ADD had he been in school these days

He said after reading "The Right Stuff," he was moved enough to upend his everything and the result was he became a NASA astronaut. 

Quite the reboot!