Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars | SRS #185

[Music]. Scott potit welcome to the show thanks. for having me this is this is quite a. quite an experience so thank you yeah. you know we uh been looking forward to. this we met at. inauguration and um had a quick I don't. know maybe 15minute conversation there. and I've always wanted to have an. astronaut on the show so um so yeah. thank you for coming absolutely there's.

only there's only like six six or seven. or. 650 astronauts have gone into space so. blessed to have that opportunity and. just excited to talk about it yeah me. too me too but uh so I want to do a life. story on you and uh talk about your time. in the Air Force your childhood get into. space and then who knows what kind of. rabbit holes we'll go down here but uh. but yeah like I said thank you for. coming and I'm I'm looking forward to.

this so everybody starts off with an. introduction here. so Scott Kid potit born in Chattanooga. Tennessee you grew up in New Hampshire. earning a bachelor's in outdoor. education from the University of New. Hampshire before diving head first into. the air force you're a retired US Air. Force Lieutenant Colonel with over 20. years of service where you logged more. than 3,200 flight hours in aircraft like.

f16s a4s and. t-38s over 400 of those hours were in. combat supporting operations like. Northern watch Southern watch joint. Guardian freedoms Sentinel in Resolute. support you commanded the 64th aggressor. Squadron graduated from the elite USAF. weapons school basically the Air Force's. version of Top Gun and even flu is the. number four demonstration pilot with the. Thunder.

Birds you then went into the private. sector serving as Director of Business. Development at dren International and. later as vice president of strategic at. Shift 4. payments you are the mission director. for inspiration 4 the world's first all. civilian space flight in 2021 you also. suit it up as the mission pilot for. Polaris Dawn in 20124 a SpaceX mission. that took you nearly 900 Mi above Earth. the farthest humans have traveled since.

Apollo and included the first ever. commercial. spacewalk you're a triathlete who has. completed who has competed in 15 Iron. Man races including four World. Championships in Kona now you live in. New Hampshire with your wife Kristen and. your three children and most importantly. out of everything we mentioned you're a. Christian amen so welcome to the show. Once. Again if you watch you know everybody.

gets a. gift use these on your next Iron. Man I will I appreciate that vigilance. lead gummy bears I'll give you a couple. more of those to take home yeah those. are hard to come by hand they're made in. the USA and still legal in all 50. they're still legal we haven't made any. changes yet but. uh I don't think we're going to either. but uh then so I have just one more. thing before we really get we get going. here so I have a patreon account patreon.

is uh it's it's a subscription online. community they have been with us here. since the beginning when I was doing. this in my attic when we couldn't get. any advertisers any way to make money um. and they were the ones that like they. were the ones that supported us that. that that got us everything from the. cameras to the employees to moving into. this to to everything and um so one of. the things I do in that Community as I.

uh offer them the opportunity to ask. each and every guest a. question and they had some good. questions I know it's the most. nerve-wracking question I'm sure so this. one's from me. oh is that legal I'm part of the. community too and uh so this one's for. me is that because no one asked a. question oh no no there's the original. question I'll ask you too okay but I'm.

going to ask mine first cuz I've been. dying to talk to an astronaut about this. cuz we do dive into some conspiracies. here as you know did we go to the moon. or what I've been wanting to talk to an. astronaut about this for a there it. is we have not been back to the moon. since. 1969 what why haven't we gone. back why oh man um I think we just.

shifted our Focus as a as a country you. know NASA had different priorities once. we went to the moon which I do believe. we have um you do think we did I do I do. I I don't know I. mean I would. imagine there would been a lot more. leaks out there um yeah I'm with you I. think about that it's really hard to. keep that big of a secret yeah but why. haven't we gone back I mean we don't we.

don't just go anywhere and then like oh. [ __ ] it there's nothing here I don't I. don't think we need to come back to the. boom we we walked on it for 5 minutes. and we're out there's nothing to see. here like really give me a break it's. not easy um there's a sequence of. Miracles that that happened I mean think. about the the computer power of what. they had back in the PO program we have. more in our iPhones these days mhm um so. it wasn't an easy task um and then once. it was a accomplished you know in my.

opinion I you know the the the Focus. Shift to low earth orbit you know. building a station um accomplish the. science and research that has been the. focus for the last few decades um. amazing things have come out of that you. can do a lot more at uh at zero gravity. and um with the science and research and. we we experienced that on our mission. with our 40 40 experiments that we had. lined up um and that's just you know. let's build out the station let's let's.

explore low earth orbit um and now that. we've kind of made this new shift with a. uh opening up a new chapter in. commercial space. exploration you know um allowing these. companies and organizations to to kind. of uh go off on these new tangents and. and. explore we're not only going to address. lower orbit over the next you know. coming years it's it's all about okay. let's go back to the moon the lunar.

surface and let's go to Mars um because. it's human nature to explore in. curiosity and and oh by the way we can. benefit life on. Earth um so you know bottom line I think. it's just a focus um and now that we. kind of shift and let's do more because. we can reusability and technolog is. improving um but it's a it's a heavy. lift it's it's not easy e otherwise we.

would have you know knocked it out in a. couple years it's we're still a couple. years away yeah you know I don't know. what to think it's just what is that. 1969 to the what is that 50 I'm 51 at 73. so that's an extra four is. 55 yeah like 56 years yeah 56 years we. have not gone back that's just odd to me. that's really odd but whatever so you. think we did I we did all right all. right when do you think we'll be back. are we going back well Elon wants to go.

to Mars mhm we're um. the this the the plan is two back to the. lunar surface in. two and and Mars in four back in two in. two years yeah I I do think that's you. know that's. realistic um like I said there's there's. a lot of things that need to be solved. um and NASA's doing amazing work uh to. get us there with the Partnerships and.

collaborations with with SpaceX and. other organizations. um uh but we got to figure out how it's. going to be done and done safely because. it's like with our mission it was it was. a no fail otherwise we're going to set. back these programs years if something. catastrophic happens yeah um and the. Public's not willing you know the risk. we took back in the day you know the 50s. and 60s was a. lot lot uh lot more significant than.

we're willing to accept these days and. you know we're we're kind of risk verese. and it can be a positive and a negative. you know to some extent because it can. be paralysis through analysis MH at some. point we got to put up or shut up and. go um it seems like civilian uh space. exploration. is. like really going becoming a lot more. more advanced than NASA it's it's it's.

almost seems. like. it's it's well beyond what NASA can do. am I am I off on that I mean isn't. SpaceX going up to rescue the NASA guys. that have been stuck in space for like. eight months you're starting off with. the tricky. ones um it's a it's a partnership for. sure um NASA's they do this for 11. they've been doing it for decades 60. plus years whatever it's been it's um uh.

and we typically always want to make. sure that we never lose sight of of. these accomplishments you know we're. standing on the shoulders of giants of. what they've been able to accomplish and. we meaning commercial space collectively. would not be where we're at without. everything they've been able to. accomplish and moving forward it is. definitely a partnership is it a one-way. partnership or is it a two-way I mean. the government isn't great at you you. know sharing I'm just I'm just you know.

is it really I think it's two-way I mean. just look at our program you know we did. the first commercial spacewalk to do. that we SpaceX wanted to develop a brand. new Eva suit extra vehicular activity do. a space walk and that's never been done. in over 40 years the the NASA has the. Emu suit that they currently use um. SpaceX is going to figure it out on. their own so they took their Baseline. suit the Iva suit the one they currently. or two and from the space station and a.

very you know less than three years 2. and a half year um time span took that. suit and. developed the the what we wore which is. more or less the Prototype Eva suit now. to do that on a very streamlined budget. not a you know a multi-billion dollar. program you know they they Monster. Garage this thing to develop a suit that. is extremely viable and and will be you.

know the the Baseline going forward as. far as what they're going to develop. regarding as suit with humans bouncing. on the the surface of the Moon and and. Mars in in capacity not a handful of. Suits like like NASA has this is the. concept is you know these starships are. going to launch hundreds of passengers. um you know elon's Vision he stated in. the past three of these a day with full. of passengers going either to the low.

low earth orbit to a station to the Moon. to Mars you know it's. sci-fi but but that's what we're. accomplishing and that's what SpaceX is. accomplishing and other organizations. are accomplishing cuz I you know when I. got involved with this program years ago. um I didn't really understand the. concept of uh boosters landing on their. own Chopsticks catching boosters. reusability I'm like there's no way this. is like this is farfetched but look at.

us I mean tonight test 8 is launching in. Starship and each time they launch. they're learning new things you know it. it might not land successfully in the. ocean Indian Ocean but um it certainly. well could um and they're going to catch. the booster with the Chopsticks and this. is just a next step to achieve that. ultimate goal of of multiple launches. daily going to the moon going to Mars. what what do you think the why do we.

want to bring hundreds of passengers. into. space. um why not I. mean it depends on who you ask on on. what you believe and you know. justifying these significant projects. and programs. but you know we certainly aren't good. stewards of our planet um we haven't. been um whether you want to call this an. insurance policy or or you want to go. down the the.

Curiosity route of let's explore cuz who. knows what's out there mhm and are those. resources that we could capitalize. on. um you know the population issues the. climate issues. uh you know when is it going to make a. turn for the worst an asteroid you know. mhm uh they're talking about 2024. whatever asteroid name they have. it's supposed to you know a probability.

of 5 6% and by 2032 don't quote me on. these. numbers but that's catastrophic um to. certain parts of the of the planet so. again it's like if we have the. opportunity and the resources and the. intellect to pursue some of these goals. why not hey I'm not against it I'm just. I'm just I'm just I don't have anybody. to talk to this stuff about that's been. up there so. I think it's it's just a fascinating.

subject I mean we haven't we haven't. found any water or anything on Mars have. we or frozen we found frozen water or. anything on Mars I don't know yeah yeah. I mean it's just it's interesting I mean. how would we sustain there with no. nothing we don't know we don't really. know anything do we know anything um got. a couple of robots running around there. but I mean just landed on the the moon. with another robot. company so they're uh they're trying I.

mean it's all about exploration we did. it decades ago with exploring countries. and across oceans so not too much far. off that have we found anything. significant that that would help sustain. human life on the moon or Mars that. you're aware of not that I'm aware of I. mean it's going to re rely upon um. Innovative Technologies to figure out. how we you know cuz it it can't be a one.

in my opinion this can't be a one-way. Mission to. Mars part of the reason I do what I do. is for my family I want to leave them a. better country than the one I was born. into I also want to make sure they are. taken care of financially and that's why. I make it a priority to help protect the. money I've worked so hard to earn and. save and one of the ways I do that is by. diversifying into gold and silver. precious metals have been a store of. value for thousands of years and they.

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yeah and it's 8 months to get there and. it's 8 months home and however long you. need to do do the mission on the surface. eight months it's eight months yeah I. think that's it's a long car ride buddy. long. car well the volume of these vehicles. are are pretty big it's a lot bigger. than what we lived in which is a lot. bigger than you know what they went to. the moon. in how long did it take them to get to. the moon. I think it was two and a half four and.

days a couple. days traveling 25,000 miles hour to. escape gravitational pole damn damn all. right we'll move on this is from Brian. how did you get your call sign when you. got named at your first Squadron and. during your time flying the F-16 did you. ever fly any cast Mission supporting jtx. on the ground. love the JX um that was my favorite.

mission was working with the with you. guys seals the three-letter identifiers. um those were the best missions um. because you're you're smart and you're. supporting your brothers and sisters on. the on the ground doing the mission. um so to answer the second question yes. I did a lot of cast um I flew the F-16. for 20 years and it's a multi-roll. platform so you do air to Air and you. you know this it's the jack of all. trades master of none so you're.

constantly dabbling all these different. modalities and and Mission sets um but. the reason why I chose the. F-16 was for the ATR missions and. specifically the Cass um in fact my last. assignment was Aviano Airbase in Italy. we deployed to. Afghanistan doing Resolute support in. Freedom Sentinel doing counterterrorism. missions dropping dropping bombs and. working with uh working with you guys. and in other agencies and that was by.

far the the highlight of my career um. what year was that that was uh. 15 so it's kind of the height height of. Isis um there wasn't much of that. presence it was more alqaeda uh but we. were just you know working our our way. up the Chain Looking for high value. targets. um trying to beat out the Predators cuz. that was when the Predator was was kind. of making its its big push on. unemployment very very accurate platform.

in fact when I went through weapon. School Top Gun school that was the focus. of my my thesis was integrating cast. missions with with f-16s and Predator. that's a long story. but um to answer his question yeah a lot. of uh missions with jtx controllers uh. doing Cass. um call sign call. sign so it's kid it's Kidd 2DS um I was.

when you go through your career it's. usually something you f up you screw up. or play off your name so I got call. signs like pter which kind of play off. potit um I had Biff for a while and then. I had money um the movie swingers back. in the 90s uh and then I end up getting. married so I was no longer money I was. kind of a small change you weren't a. swinger anymore. was never a swinger okay CL.

vacation um but I lost the call sign. money and then um I got named kid and. and every Fighter Squadron how you get. your call sign it's the naming ceremony. is is always different and I was in the. Triple Nickel 555th fighter Squad very. historic Robin SS from the Vietnam War. best Fighter Squadron in the in the Air. Force um how we did the ceremony is. you're kicked out so they can talk about.

you just um usually it's a drink fest um. so you don't really hear the reasons why. you get named until you you get brought. back into the. ceremony and they've selected a couple. different stories of why there's usually. one that's PG that's uh releasable and. then there's another reason why um so. the releasable story is that kid I. looked young back in the day my first. name is actually William so Billy the.

Kid there was already a kid in the. sister Squadron the 510th the buzzards. um but he was K ID so they added a an. extra D and there's there's other. reasons why it ended up being kid that. uh unfortunately come on the other. reasons come on this was uh if this was. JD Jack Daniels I might be able to well. we got we got. plenty all all right all right I won't. press you but all right so let's move.

into the life story here so I know you. you were born here in Chattanooga. Tennessee Chattanooga when did you when. did you move to New Hampshire so I was. born in 73. 51 we're born in Chattanooga but I was. actually I lived 5 years just across the. border uh North Deep Woods Georgia um. middle to low income. fam um a lot of connections with Fort. oglethorp chiam Maga Park kind of the my.

uncle had a a double wide and uh half. the trailer was a private collection I. think he had one of the largest private. collections of Civil War. artifacts I just remember as a kid. rumaging into you know his collection. there's really cool stuff like um. bullets with teeth marks ceramic bullets. from amputations biting the bullet the. whole concept. so and those are some of my memories as.

a as a kid but uh when I was five we we. moved my dad was um worked for a company. called combustion engineering he worked. there for 50 years worked up from. janitor all the way up to a manager but. he got transferred up to um New. Hampshire SE Coast so we moved to a town. called. Durham and pretty much started grade. school in the town of Durham actually. went grade school elementary middle. school high school and college all in. the same town really um but stayed there.

all the way um what were you into as a. kid what's that what were we into sports. sports I was very competitive um. obsessively competitive um 80s so I was. big into like um the Celtics the Red Sox. we would always go to games um uh. Patriots uh as well as on the Bruins um. but it was it was obsessive to the point.

of you know I would uh sacrifice all my. friends and foes to get to the front of. line for whatever you know line it up. for class and it ended up you know. parent teacher conferences trying to. figure out ways to kind of channel that. gladiator attitude I. had little bit of bribery I kind of was. able to figure out how to channel it to. something a little more um productive. which became Sports so sun up to sun. down um back in the day when you. actually could stay out past Sunset as a.

kid riding your bike and just looking. for my next contest of how to compete. and um that was my childhood and it. became um you have siblings older. brother year and a half older. um great relationship um family was a. little bit. um I would say maybe unemotional um kind. of kept to. ourselves um but I would spend my time. just roaming looking for looking for.

trouble what sports um I played. everything. um baseball soccer basketball was big. throughout my life um I got a job at the. golf course so I I picked up golf. um started um was a good golfer I played. on the high school team as as a middle. schooler but then they cut the team so I. had to figure out another sport which. became running so I actually got.

involved um in running pretty early on. and that became my focus um I wanted. basketball to be it you know Larry Bird. back in the uh Celtics era in the 80s. was a big deal so um but I was a realist. you know 5' n in tall I knew it wasn't. you. know a likelihood of it wasn't in the. cards playing at the next level in. college um terrible terrible student C's. and D's across the board really yeah I.

couldn't um I couldn't focus um before. all the diagnosis um but I just couldn't. pay attention I was really good at. setting athletic goals and succeeding on. the you know pitch the field the diamond. the track but I could not apply those. same strategies in the classroom and it. was by the time I got to high school I'm. like all right I'm not going to college. if I don't figure out a path and and for. me it was like okay I'm okay at sports.

let me see if I can leverage those. talents and and use that as a path you. know to getting to. college so that's when I focused on. running um ended up winning the state. championship race my junior year and it. was It was kind of that performance and. my dedication to the sport that that got. me recruited to run division one at um. at University of New. Hampshire I applied to UNH that school. and uh University Tennessee at.

Knoxville um and that was it and and I. got recruited and and I only got in. because of the. coach um so plan worked so plan worked. um thankfully um but even the college. man academics was it's just the. traditional education method is not my. my jam yeah you know sit through class. pay attention take notes memorize. regurgitate it in an exam that you may.

or may not use this information in your. life um so that's kind of where I found. a different option what what was your. major what did you it's called outdoor. education what is that so it's um it's. um education through experiential. learning so how that is is different is. that you're you're taught a basic skill. set. so um all my classes were like um scuba.

diving rock climbing winter. mountaineering white waterer rafting. Nordic skiing you can get ADV. backpacking I actually had an advanced. backpacking class damn um and you would. go and you would be taught some basic. skills but you immediately go out into. the field and you apply these and you. learn in the field and um it was only by. happen stance um that I came across my. buddy of mine brought me to class one. day in fact I remember it was um I. signed up for ROTC another kind of a.

serendipitous moment that I had um. joining Roc but I was already signed up. and I'm in full service dress um and. it's middle of the winter 3et of snow on. the ground and and he's like hey come. with me to one of my outdoor education. classes I'm like okay I'm very impulsive. so I'm like all right let's do this so I. go to class and it's in a gymnasium it's. not in a normal classro and there's. students in in the back of the class in. the storage locker going through all. this gear and. I'm in my full service just hand-me-down.

polyester uniform a big trench code you. know cheap patent leather shoes and. stand out like a sore thumb um and I we. walk up to the class and the teacher. starts talking and he's like all right. this is Advanced winter backpacking and. we're going to build a Quincy in the. snow for the next 3 hours and I'm like. I'm not dressed for this and I don't. know if this is going to work out well. come to find out my my teacher is a Navy.

SEAL he was he was a Navy SEAL for 20. years um and he takes us out back and we. start building this Quincy and and for. those who are unfamiliar Quincy is like. an igloo but instead of blocks you know. you you build you dig down to the. surface you pile a bunch of snow up you. let it set once it's set into a big old. Dome you kind of dig a little entrance. once you get inside you dig all around. you leave about four to 6 inches for a. wall take a little Pro once you dug it. all out you take a little propane stove.

you light it you glaze heat up the. inside it glaze over and now you have. this impenetrable structure this winter. shelter and you get you know 12 15. people to stand on top of the structure. it's only 4 to 6 in and it it it holds. the weight um and now it's like 20 30°. warmer inside this Igloo that's Quincy. and man I have a blast I am soaking wet. I'm just on my hands and knees digging. this structure and he's giving all these.

life lessons talking about combat and. cuz he's you know I'm wearing this. uniform and it was just like this. profound experience and I'm like this is. the way I can get an education earn a. degree so I can go in the military. because I didn't think I'm you know I've. got three and a half years left to get a. degree um in order to go into the. military because in the r2c program and. I'm like my grades aren't cutting it. right now but you know this is something. why did you pick. Roc what caught your interest in that.

anyways um so uh I was walking a class. freshman year fall semester one day and. and this flyer on a bulletin board. caught my eye and it was um picture of a. fighter. jet and it was just an advertisement um. encouraging students to come experience. the Air Force way of life um uh sign up. to be a passenger aboard a KC 135 air. refueling aircraft at the local. International Guard unit uh out of. Portsmouth New Hampshire peas used to be.

an Air Force Base uh um stratcom they. launched uh f-111s on alert there it was. actually an alternate Landing site for. the space shuttle back in the shuttle. program heated Runway 13,000 ft long. anyways they have a guard unit there um. KC 135 now it's the uh KC 46 the. replacement refueler in the in the Air. Force and uh I'm impulsive I sign up. you know and and when I signed up I I.

didn't fully grasp the consequences of. my actions because um here's a couple. secrets about myself that's probably. going to jeopardize credibility um. extremely prone to Mo motion. sickness what always have been always. will be I you stick me in Uber 15. minutes long I'm I'm done are you. kidding me I still get. nauseous um scared of heights I hate. heights. me too um actually Afghanistan they took.

us up in a helicopter I was a command. position and the the PJs took me up in a. helicopter and they they knew I was. scared of heights and doors open up at. like 14,000 ft man I freaked the [ __ ]. out of me um anyways so and I'd never. flown an aircraft before in my life at. 18 years old we didn't have the money to. go anywhere but um here's my chance I'm. going to sign up and I'm going to go so. I command I sign up and bus takes us big.

old school bus drops us off at the plane. and we board this aircraft and I take my. seat and again I've never been in. aircraft and it's it's hot it's dark. there's no windows in this gutted plane. couple seats up front and I start to. panic I'm like I start sweating I get. you know I get heart rate goes up. breathing shallow and I'm like I don't. want to do do this how do I get out and. but there's a couple cute girls next to.

me I'm I I can't back out now I got to I. got to man. up and so air crew comes out and briefs. us on what we can anticipate and they're. like all right we're going to start off. with some uh low approaches do some. training I'm like I have no idea what. that is but let's do this and we're. going go out to the airspace and refuel. some f-16s and and so close the door and. take off and they immediately level off. and they come back around and they and. take off again 20 minutes in this flight.

I just lose my lunch I'm puking it's. like a scene out alien it's just it's. bad and I pass. out um two hours later crew chief wakes. me up says hey son come with me walks me. back to the the observation where they. do the refueling the boom operator sits. back. there and I'm like working my way up. there just trying not to puke on anyone. or anything and he takes a seat he. starts doing his his pre fueling checks.

and trying to distract me and I take the. observation seat next to him and and. he's like all right there's there's two. fighters on the horizon they're about to. reform I pull up to within a couple feet. of our window and man it's like a seen. out of top gy there's a fighter pilot. he's wearing his helmet his mask he's. you know he's giving me a little shock. eyes and he boom plugs the aircraft and. we start communicating he's asking. questions he's telling us about his. mission and I'm just like that is. awesome you know I that was the little.

spark everyone's got their. motivation um but that was the the fire. that was lit within me and I completely. forgot about the last two hours I just I. wanted to be a fighter pilot I didn't. care what it took um I knew I had a lot. of challenges in front of me uh but I. had to figure out how to how to get in. that cockpit nice um and then I figured. out the education piece with outdoor. education wow wow. so yeah I.

mean but there's got to be a lot of. studying to be a pilot and an astronaut. and so I. mean I would imagine there's a lot got. them fooled so so let's let's move on so. you graduate college then what um I did. pretty well in ROTC anything active I do. pretty good at. um so I was or if I have interest in it.

so I was pretty good Cadet I graduate. distinguished graduate and I get. selected for a program called euron NATO. joint Jet Pilot training. inet and it's um a specified pilot. training program uh out of Shephard Air. Force Base which it all falls and it's. all the NATO countries participate they. send instructors and students who are. going to be flying fighter jets so it's. specific to Flying a fighter aircraft. whereas the other um pilot training.

bases there's two tracks well there's. three if you count. hilos um everyone starts off on the same. platform it's a T6 now I flew a t37 just. a a sideb side little uh dog whistle. loud jet um. trainer uh fully Artic oh the G on set. rate in those aircrafts are. I get chills every time I think about my. first year of pilot training because I.

would puke almost every single flight um. and at the six year or the six month. Point uh for those other bases you split. you go if you go the heavy track you're. going to go fly a c17 C130 C5 you're. going to go um to the T1 Lear jet. looking aircraft if you're going to go. fly Fighters or bombers you go to the. t38 well this program that I went to. there's only one track you go from t37. to t-38s. and and you go in the fighter what you.

end up with after pilot training which. is you know there that's a whole other. story as far as what is required but. it's somewhere around two to two and a. half years to get through the training. process um it's needs of the Air Force. every everything's stratified probably. seals very similar um stratifications so. you're performing number one 2 3 4 all. the way down to whatever your class has. um and when it comes time for your. assign at night it's like all right the. Air Force.

needs two F-16 Pilots four F-15 C's this. many F5 e a10s and you just go down the. list um and you you pick so first uh. first and first ranked student gets to. pick whatever they want yeah and then it. just goes on from there now it's like. f-22s. f35s um so back to your question um I. went to Shephard Air Force Base I did. this program um and I was about there.

two and a or a year and a half um to get. through the training there and then you. go often do supplemental training. depending on what aircraft and survival. training um centrifuge and then you do. all these top off qualifications before. you actually get to combat operations. operational assignments which is at that. two and a half year point so hold on. let's backtrack. so pilot train is how long to get to. pick what you're going to.

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roka.com and use code SRS for 20% off. sitewide at checkout that's roka.com. with code. SRS the actual training is a year but. there are. certain um elements or Milestones you. have to. accomplish like survival training you. might go before you even start pilot. training or it might be something in the. middle might be something at the very. end um centrifuge is something you have.

to go through because you're going to. start flying higher performance. aircrafts that can that you need to. qualify yourself um in these certain. profiles of pulling G's because some. people have a really difficult time if. you don't understand the the G strain. maneuver um it's just some people aren't. physiologically cut out for for pulling. some of those high performance um G. profiles that you'll experience in a. fighter jet.

um so the training is actually a year. it's about a year and a half but then. there's an extra 6 months you'll you'll. have you have to go through to learn how. to fly an F-16 or an F22 or an. F35 so I was there a year and a half. okay before I went off to my base to. learn how to fly the F-16 okay and it. was it was a miserable experience for me. playing the F16 no pilot training why um.

motion sickness academics yeah how did. you get through. the how did you get through the. academics I mean I I thought I was going. to be a pilot just as a you know as a. hobby I was like oh this s might be kind. of cool and then I looked at all the. [ __ ] I had to study and I was like [ __ ]. that I'm not doing it yeah I was like. Ground School no not doing it but so I. mean how how did you it's sounds like. you were a horrible mhm horrible student.

I I man I I was challenged then I was. challenged f-16s I was challenged weapon. school I was challenged space and it it. was it's more my hard-headed mindset um. because if I apply myself I think I. could um do okay um you have to have a. drive you do you have to have a drive. like you really want that end goal and. that's that's the only way you're able.

to to concentrate and get get through. the [ __ ] that you don't want to do like. study and pilot training even looking. back I'm like well I went through weapon. SC I went through space that pilot. training was nothing compared to what I. went through. later um but at the time I'm coming off. outdoor education four years of scuba. diving rock climbing Mountain earing I. mean my final exam in Nordic schi was 5. days in Vermont doing Nordic scheme as.

long as you didn't get get a cold. weather injury you got an A we were in. bed breakfast in a hot tub in the. afternoon and skiing all day long um. little hidden secret but now I go to. Pilot training and the expectation is. dude this is this big boy program you. know um Ando by the way I went right. after graduation cuz I just I was. gung-ho I just want to get get going so. I literally graduate 3 days later I'm on. the road moving to Tennessee or to.

Texas and. um my classmates were all top graduates. at the Air Force Academy so they're. coming off aerospace engineering. astrophysics you know that's one of the. Premier academic programs in the. country and oh by the way these are the. top graduates so this is who I'm. competing against you know and that. stratification and it was it was a steep. steep learning curve yeah that.

thankfully there's the the flying piece. you know you got to apply yourself in. the actual stick and Rudder coordination. piece but there is the the academic. piece you got to prove yourself there. before they're going to put you in a. cockpit and we have these things and I. still have nightmares about them it's um. standup and it's like there's bold face. like you have to memorize certain. emergency procedures for that's specific. to the aircraft and it's like almost a. haze where. you know in the morning you have stand. up and you got a they'll call in you.

they'll randomly select all right kid. back then I don't remember what pter. stand up all right this is your scenario. you got your aircraft and you know you. have an engine failure and you're this. far away and this parameters and it's. just you're in the hot seat and you got. to verbate them give the procedures and. then all the amplifying systems. knowledge and it's just to prove and. test your your level of competency and. that was my nem you know and if you.

don't do well enough you know pter sit. down next guy and you don't get to fly. that day you're grounded until you have. some remedial training I was. Notorious all right P here's your second. chance no [ __ ] dude you you suck sit. down um how did you overcome the motion. sickness um it took a long long time lot. of drun I actually had to hide it from. my instructors I would thankfully the.

the 38 is is you know you know is that. tandem um you know it's front back yeah. and you're separated where the 37 was. next next to each other so you see. exactly what's going on in in the. cockpit but in 38 you're in front but um. I would have to puke and swallow I would. literally puke in my mask and just suck. it up because of you get to a certain. point where. um you know depending on what your issue.

just puke in your mask yeah this might. be TMI but no I'm I'm. like sometimes where does it go it if if. you can you can hold it long enough you. can either you and my recommendation is. if how do you concentrate flying a jet. while while trying like trying like held. up hold vomit down if if you do have to. my recommendation is always eat. something you don't mind eating again. bananas is a good choice.

um I remember one time my you would you. would puke and then swallow it again you. just got to fight through it then I a. great instructor he was Norwegian and. he hardcore dude loved to party um drove. this old 1980s Cadillac with a big old. steer horns on the on the hood hood. ornament he was awesome um he was. sympathetic to my cause so he would know. cuz I'd be doing this heaving going on.

and I'm trying to fly this aircraft and. pay. attention and uh especially the. aerobatics once you got to the airspace. but my first flight in a 38 I thought it. was over it you know 6 months all right. it's getting a little better getting a. little better because eventually you get. to a point where like they stick you in. the Barony chair you know to force it. out of you try to just break your will. um none of that was working for me and I. would just hide it. via techniques already talked about but. um my first flight in the 38 man it it.

came on so quick it just it came out of. my Mouse mask and all over my visor and. I I'm like doing this windshield wiper. trying to clear my visor cuz my my my. pilots in the back and uh you know I. suffered through a sub below well below. average execution on my Dollar Ride My. First Flight and I think I made it I. think I made it and he climbs out of it. and he climbs up to into my cockpit and. he's looking around and he goes not a.

chance cuz there's puke all over the. dashboard of this. uh so I didn't pass that ride um so hold. on does it go is it like an initial. we're talking is it initial an initial. motion sickness and then you puke and. then it's gone for the rest of the fight. or is it like the whole thing it heads. and flows um you know you a little bit. better sickness like you're just you're. in it [ __ ] yeah and you still and you.

still wanted to be a pilot oh yeah holy. [ __ ] man yeah I was I was determined. I stubborn strong willed ego I I don't. know what it was but I'm like I have I. can't fail this. is I got to figure it out cuz there's. one kid um in my class that left he just. I'm done I got tapping out I'm out um. but I just I wanted to figure it out. um I you know you do I mean I I eat a.

greasy pork sandwich and go do. aerobatics as long as I'm flying stick. me in the back seat and someone else is. flying so you have overcome it yeah okay. you know people talk is it phys. physiological is it psychological I. think it's a combination of a lot of. things inner. ear. um thankfully space is not there's no. correlation because space adaptation. syndrome is impacts 50% of astronauts.

what is it called space adaptation. syndrome and it's cuz you we'll get to. it but like you experience all these. g-forces on the way uph and then it's a. long ride so it's about 9 minutes you're. pulling four and a half G's and then. when that second stage. separates you're thrust forward you're. hanging in your straps and now you're in. space floating and so that transition. oh it can force this crosscoupling.

illusion of tumbling and it impacts. everyone differently it can be seconds. it can be minutes it can be long. durations of this tumbling and it's. different axis depending on who you are. you know if you're going to get it. before you go to space so it's it's it's. a big it's a big surprise and and puking. in space with zero gravity oh man you. saw the movies you know Apollo 13 um. I was estatic I was on Cloud9 I was on a.

drugs man I was so pumped once I. realized I got to orbit I'm floating I. get through this tumbling sensation cuz. you're you're forced to deal with your. circumstances there's no like I'll suck. this up for 30 seconds on a roller. coaster or you know you're flying a. fighter jet can you ease off and fly. straight level for a few potatoes no you. have you are forced to deal with your. circumstances there's no there's no. reset button and that's that's very. challenging um because that capsule is.

rotating you know it's got to maintain. line of sight with satellites for for. communication. purposes so it as it's going around it's. rotating so you look outside and you see. the Horizon that makes sense this is the. top of the capsule and this is the. bottom you come inside you float around. and you look back outside and it's. completely opposite cuz it's and now. it's like. whoa after a while your body adapts and. human body is amazing you know I would. be you know couple hours into it I'd be.

on my um iPad laptop whatever um iPhone. doing some science and research I'd be. completely inverted working just hanging. inverted when that's the top and that's. the bottom but it just you lose all. reference um but back to wow back to. motion sickness yeah I more or less got. over it um I still get especially if. someone's shitty driver. [Music].

and wow anyways wow well more. information than any other. hurdles um that was it for pilot train. was academics and the in the motion. sickness Fe Heights I get over it's. planes are fine it's structures yeah. Ledges I have that too okay I figure. that I hate I I. yeah jump school was not fun for me I. [ __ ] hated it yeah terrified of.

heights we we uh went uh free di or free. free diving yeah skydiving um part of. the space training and jumping out of a. plane was oh [ __ ] you had to do it oh. yeah yeah what got you out the door the. only thing that got me out the door is I. didn't want to look like a [ __ ] in. front of everybody else that's that's. it um um but I had a bummed shoulder. this was so this is the only prr I don't.

even know if we want to go here but um. it was with the Air Force. Academy um it's the only program in in. the world that is the first jump is free. fall and. solo um what yeah yeah and you're scared. to death of fights oh man that's I got. to hear this um unfortunately I had hurt. my. shoulder um years back dislocated it and. I actually dislocated it in space.

training in the. capsule um in full-on space suit um and. it's this emergency procedures it's we. got to we just splash down in the you. know in the Pacific Ocean and now we got. to do this emergency egress so it's you. know Rush see how quickly we can get out. of the. capsule so my responsibility is the. swimmer on the with all my Iron Man was. to get out first and I got to throw the.

um the the the boat the um inflatable. boat out in the the water and pull the. cord and as I'm pulling completely. dislocate my shoulder and so this was an. injury from years prior so now I have. this I was able to get it back in. because these suits these are expensive. suits and um the docs came in and were. trying to get my shirt shoulder back in. and but I'm in this suit I mean it's. helmet it's one piece there's no way you.

can get up into the. shoulder so over time we were able to. finally pop it back in and that event. kind of just let. this like you know all stretched out and. yeah so it was um but skydiving didn't. help I actually my first jump I had to. pull with my left hand um worked out. fine but that kind of end my uh my.

skydiving career until I had surgery. post. space damn did have you ever just a. random question you're a diver too right. You' mentioned you did some scuba diving. in school have you ever been scared of. heights. underwater have you ever come up like. you're diving you're diving on the the. ocean floor and then you hit a. ledge no I don't think I've ever been. that deep um Shoreline. in off the Atlantic and the north is.

pretty shallow I get it I get it on that. do you really yeah I never thought. looking down yeah I remember diving over. a ledge once and I was like oh [ __ ]. let's go back over here yeah how deep I. don't know how deep it was I can't. remember but uh I I do remember the. feeling get getting it underwater which. you think you would never get cuz you. have that you know it's not like you're. going to fall but there's that just that. look off the ledge where you can't see.

the bottom of I love watching those free. divers free uh yeah yeah holding their. breath for breath holds five six. minutes that's pretty wild yeah so what. when did you what what what place did. you graduate at were you I. was just I think I was fourth or fifth. out of. 12 and then we had some um some NATO. country. we two Dutch two. Dane two.

German so we had a big class 20 or so I. think I. was fourth fifth sixth somewhere right. around there what's everybody. want honestly it depends on what you um. what mission you want to do cuz they all. kind of function the say I. mean. um well if you ask a pilot who flown. them there's certainly big dramatic. differences I mean are we talking like.

F16 and you know C130 no so so my drop. again Air Force needs my drop. had I want to say 4 F15. C's didn't have any 15 e which is a two. seat strike. platform um it's the mud hand it carries. a lot of Munitions air to ground mission. but you have a wizo you got a a. backseater um four five.

f16s 2. a10s and then it's like uh there might. be a couple instructor to go right back. into pilot training to be an. instructor if you don't end up in a. fighter jet that you wanted it's kind of. an option and then there was some. bombers B52. B1. um and so when I picked I had the choice. between a 15c and a 16 and I wanted a. multi-roll platform I wanted to do air.

to ground I wanted to do cast um but I. also love the the sexiness of an. air-to-air Mission you know um dog. fighting and you know doing doing that. type of mission and the F-16 is is. multi-roll so depending on what base you. go to will be the focus of your mission. like I ended up first assignment was. Korea then I went to Italy and then I. start went to weapon school but um those. first Korea was all about interdiction.

you know there's going to be an initial. air threat uh if we ever go to war with. uh North Korea it's going to be capacity. they're just going to overwhelm you with. these teenage migs these old. Antiquated you know third gen type. platforms no no capability and no. competency but they're just going to try. to overwhelm the South have you ever. wound up in a dog fight no. yeah yeah no um all simulated um they're.

very very rare you know back in yeah. World War II and Vietnam since then it's. been a I figured it's been a handful man. that would be [ __ ] awesome it would. be awesome but technology these days. it's all about not being seen yeah so if. you get to a merch it's it's because. either you screwed up or you know you. just didn't get the information you. needed yeah. um.

yeah so I ended up in the F16 was my. choice and um is that what you initially. wanted you wanted the F16 I did and you. got it yeah so that and part of it is. about the location as. well so you you leave private training. with a specific airframe and then once. you get to that base for training for me. it was Luke Airport Base in Phoenix you. spend 6 months learning how to fly the. 16 to employ it so now you've gone from. the very Basics flying instruments.

flying formation just a little bit of. aerobatic um that's it you're confident. you're safe enough you hopefully won't. kill yourself and now when you you learn. how to fly the F-16 you go deeper you. start doing um bfm basic five Maneuvers. the dog fighting one 1 V one and then. you do um TI tactical engagements now. it's it's working the geometry for a. reform to an engagement a visual.

engagement and then you start adding. more and more aircraft now it's act. where it's like. 4v4 and you're actual you know you're. you're doing long range stuff Beyond. visual range and if you end up in a. visual merge you're you're confident. enough to to do the type of dog. fighting and then you kind of go through. this whole airto a flow and then you got. to focus on the air to ground piece so. you start off by going to a range and. you're dropping these little blue bombs. for scoring purposes and you're trying.

to focus your skill sets on learning the. basics of how to employ um and fly the. aircraft with specific. parameters so you're you're get. comfortable in certain air speeds and. altitudes um and. ranges and and how the aircraft feels. and you're shooting the gun 20. millimeter gun um and then again that. progresses now you're going to do close. air support working with troops on the. ground jtacs and seals are calling in. you know um engagements uh and you're.

employing in close proximity to to. ground forces how F how how what's the. fastest you've gone in F16 um it's Mach. 2 2.05 is roughly two two Mach 2 is. twice two times the speed of sound and. you know it's roughly 700 for for the. Layman's explanation it's around 750 m. an hour it changes based on pressure. altitude temperatures all that um but.

two times that so500 mil. hour whoa um it's all relative milph. it's all relative I mean now you talk. about you know six gen coming online. this you know 3 four mock. it's and it doesn't really feel intense. until you get low on the deck flying fly. fast low cuz you you have that ground. rush you know the trees are going by.

pretty fast um I would imagine but. there's a lot of restrictions so you. can't break the sound barrier unless. you're in a specific restricted airspace. which is few and far between in the. US um so if you're breaking the sound. barrier it's you know above 30,000 ft um. or higher and The Sensation isn't there. you just see a little Buffet on your on. your dial other wise it just you just. continue to push what were you flying in. in regular Pilot.

School the as far as the airf frame yeah. t37 is the first aircraft two seat two. engine very low power jet the next. aircraft was a t38 it's the uh what they. call it the Mig 20 Mig 28 in Top Gun mhm. F5 it's this um NASA FM um very stubby. wing Sleek long uh. um.

airframe um twin engine very fast okay. and then so you do that for 6 months a. piece total of a year and then you go. off and and you fly your platform okay. so the speed wasn't it wasn't anything. new to you no the t38 um I don't know if. you did a mock run I don't think you did. I don't even know if it could handle. it but most of these like older. generation Fighters it's like right up. to the. mock um all the fourth gen except for.

the. A10 um are built to go above mock damn. what's the lowest you've been flying. altitude mock yeah. oh it's hard to get up there it's you. got to do it in a dive just because the. Air's thicker down. low um you're burning through jpa pretty. quick couple thousand feet. nothing I mean 450 500 knots I don't.

know 5 600 M hour on the deck. is is fun yeah um that's. enough because of you know [ __ ] happens. quick when you're going that fast and. low um Thunderbirds is we get we have. permission to fly. low um you know 00 feet pretty pretty. low depending on the maneuver we're. doing the formation that you're flying.

so that's where you really get a. sensation talk about unwavering level of. trust and when you're flying cuz we're. flying anywhere from 3T to 18 in. apart and you're that low and if you're. if you're in the formation you're flying. I mean that aircraft is 18 inch apart. you're wa White Knuckles when you first. started you've been flying this aircraft. for me I've been flying it for eight. nine years very confident and flying it. but when you're that close and that. level of trust and that precise it's.

like White Knuckle you're just death. grip just over time you get really. comfortable you're smoking a lucky EA. and breakfast and you're 18 inches. apart but it's only because you're given. the opportunity to go through intense. training I mean two three times the. amount of flying that a normal fighter. pilot would typically fly in a year 500. hours versus1 50 1880 hours wow wow and. all you're doing is doing one thing not.

cast and interdiction and OCA and DCA. and bfm those are. fun but a lot of that is just employing. using the sensors. whereas Thunderbirds I didn't even turn. that [ __ ] on you know it's all about the. formation so all right so let's walk. back through yeah sorry no it's let's. walk back through so you said OCA and. DCA what is all what is all that what. are those acronyms offensive counter a.

defensive counter a it's just different. Mission sets depending on what the. scenario is so if we're getting invaded. by China or Russia and we're protecting. DC we're going to set up caps with. hopefully we we attack them with other. things and ships and um but kind of the. last line of defense is going to be what. we have in the air in these caps and and. we're protecting in the. motherland and anything comes at us. that's what we're but the focus is to.

stay back defensive posture that's DCA. and then you have different um category. of missions uh called OCA offensive. counter that might be like an. interdiction Mission like okay we're. going to attack North Korea we're not. but if we were there's key targets that. we have pre-planned that we want to go. blow up and we're going to send bunker. Busters GB 24s or whatever whatever we. have these days big 20 2,000lb.

bombs this is OCA this is offensive. counter a interdiction I'm going to. fight my way in deliver my you know my. my munition turn around and leave so we. are you know on an offensive posture. gotcha. gotcha so what what what what section do. you start with in in school building. block it's baby step steps so you'll. start off okay can I fly this aircraft. you'll spend you know 10 12 sorties.

getting comfortable in the aircraft. you'll solo because there are two. seaters um but it's meant to be a single. seat fighter aircraft that was the other. reason why I wanted the F16 is I wanted. to be the sole responsible person. involved. um and then you learn you learn. instruments okay if the weather's bad. can I recover this aircraft to you know. at a base that's socked in so you got to.

learn how to fly instruments got it okay. let's move on let's start doing tactical. stuff and that's where you'll do all. right we're going to fly formation get. comfortable flying formation cuz that. aircraft is extremely responsive like. literally the stick moves like that much. it's all fly by wire uh and throttle. obviously moves a lot more but um versus. like a P-51 or F4 or an A4 um that stick. moves a lot it's. Hydraulics um so flying formation it.

doesn't take much honestly it's like. this thought process you you think about. it and it subconsciously you start doing. it so you you overcorrect in the. beginning you just that's where the. nausea comes in it's just you ppose. because it's it's out of equilibrium. because that what makes it such a high. performance aircraft is that it's it's. it's not a stable platform so you're. constantly looking for that that sweet. spot when you fly after a while it.

becomes second nature now you're worried. about all the [ __ ] between your legs The. Radars and the targeting pods and the. situational display and the queuing. systems all that kind of stuff that's. the focus second nature the flying is. you know you don't even think about it. do you get used to certain planes oh. yeah you do mhm okay so when you deploy. I mean I'm getting a little ahead of my. so but I mean so you really know the the. plane mhm you do um and if you jump in.

another one you you notice differences. yeah everything's set up differently and. and how you flip certain switches and. they all kind of have an. intuitive um infrastructure that you. could easily learn one system to the. next um I don't mean like an F-16 to an. F-15 I mean like like can you. I mean it's it's your plane it's like a. I don't know it's like if you put. somebody else's baseball glove on it's.

still a baseball glove but it's not your. baseball glove you know what I mean yeah. is it do you know if you're alluding you. jump into another F16 is it the exact. same or um or interesting question so. you have like a rifle like I have my. rifle set up the way I like my rifle set. up as a seal yeah and but if I have. somebody else's rifle I'm like oh [ __ ] I. don't like I can use it and I can be. extremely effective with it but I'm I. would rather have mine yeah um it feels.

different it sounds like a Full Metal. Jacket. quote well I mean you know what I'm. saying though my rifle this this my this. is my I said I know my trigger pull I. know I know everything about it you know. and and so you have your name on one. aircraft and you have your confidence. and your rifle like you zeroed it you. set it up the way you like it's set up. you all that kind of [ __ ] if you have. somebody else's you lose that you know. [ __ ] is this thing sided in is it sided. in to me I don't right is it like that.

with the planes um to a certain extent. so you have your name on an aircraft and. you have a dedicated Crew Chief and he's. got his name on on his or her name on on. the other side um and you typically try. to fly that tail but the maintenance of. these airf frames they could be down for. months going through phase they pull the. panels off and they you know all this is. broken we got to fix it so it's. constantly inventory is being moved. around so you know you might fly your.

tail maybe 30 40 40% of the time that's. probably a little. aggressive um except for when I was in. the. Thunderbirds you fly so much and you're. so um queued into that aircraft you know. exactly how it's bent and you know how. to trim up the aircraft CU you know you. can't different air speeds it's going to. fly differently and it's going to lean. One Direction or the other so you know.

exactly how much input you need on the. trim to kind of level it out and you. know on certain Maneuvers when you get. to the top you know you're 18 inches. apart we're doing this this Arrowhead. maneuver where I am I move up I was slot. so I was number four so I was behind. number one so um anywhere from 3T to 18. 18 in but in the arrowhead I actually. slide up up and in so I get even closer. and it's literally as close as this mic. is the.

nozzle the afterburner nozzle of the um. of the boss my the number one. aircraft and when you get up in the top. of a loop you're you're like 150 175. knots so it's it's mushy it's not. responsive like an aircraft would be on. the deck at 450 knots so it takes a lot. more inputs and you're not used to. Flying the aircraft a lot in that. regime so you you know by flying the.

same aircraft over and over and over you. know exactly how much throttle you need. especially if you're you know deviating. to a different Show Site you might be at. 200 2,000 pressure altitude now you go. to like Cheyenne Wyoming and it's 5 or. 6,000 so the pre the the air is thinner. so it's going to respond a lot different. and the more you know your aircraft the. the more accurate and precise you're. going to be able to fly it in those. formations but in a combat situation.

combat unit operational. squadrons you typically don't fly the. same aircraft over and over so you you. will have to set it up the way you want. it and some have different you know just. different things that you like or don't. like mhm but interesting. okay all right so you can get used to. any of them relatively. you have to it's just the nature of the. Beast and the inventory and the phase of. the aircraft but.

um you uh you were asking something. about experience. um you only know. um you think you know more than you. actually do at different levels of your. career like I thought it was pretty [ __ ]. hot coming out of bour F-16 training I'm. going to my first combat unit and then. by the I got to weapon school I look. back and I'm like oh my God I'm glad I. didn't kill myself in some of those. missions KN.

mvgs in South Korea. it's scary type flying and then after. weapon school you know you further along. you get it's like you don't know what. you didn't know back then and you're. just glad you survived all these. different you know phases of your life. going through a career of a you know. flying Fighters yeah. so you get through you get through F-16. school what how's.

graduation uh graduation again seems to. be I don't maybe it's a lot like the. seals as far as there's it's got to be. pretty surreal it is um usually there's. drinking involved. um um you got to let go somehow some way. yeah. um uh yeah pilot training it's a big. deal to get your wings. you know I still have my wings that were. pinned on took them to space.

um um you're just again I don't reflect. too much my personality I'm always. looking I get it I get it I'm the same. way but I mean there's got to be a ton. of tradition right there's got to be a. ton of tradition in in becoming an F-16. pilot or any type of fighter pilot I. mean yeah I think how do they pin your. wings on. um you know that was that was.

anti-climatic um there wasn't anything. too sexy about the. ceremony in Pilot training the real. Traditions that we love and cherish um. are the in the fighter squadrons in the. operational combat units and every. Squadron is different there's a lot of. Heritage cuz it goes all the way back um. to the World War I 2. Vietnam um on up and those Traditions. have long.

lasted um so you said what there's. there's 12 was there you said there was. about 12 people in the original mhm plus. the foreigners which we won't count but. um cuz they don't I mean they don't. we're not training them how to fly f16s. they will go fly um I had a there's a is. it. Turkish Singapore. has a squadron actually at Luke teaches. f-16s um but typically they'll go back.

and and do their own thing mhm um so how. many Americans were there regular before. you moved into the F-16 School you I. think you said like 12 yeah I think so. how many go to F-16 school I think we. have five. five cuz there was maybe it was more. than 12 there was like four or five. light Grays F15 C's they went to Tindle. Air Force Base in in Florida there was. five or six f-16s that that went to Luke.

and then there was two A10 pilots and. then there was a B1 and a B-52 and then. two instructor Pilots that stuck. around I think that's right to whatever. that equals so what's it like showing up. to your command then so you go to Luke. and now it's like that base is dedicated. to teaching it's the F-16 schoolhouse. so there's it's fighter squadrons but. it's still people who you know the. instructors are all operational.

experience. combat and now go back to the. schoolhouse to teach it's a it's a good. you know quality of life for the. families you're not deploying you're. just you're just doing the the N9 to-5. kind of teaching young punks how to be. F-16 pilots and it's a six mon rotation. so it's just constant it's probably. going to um North irand okay cornado for. um instructors I don't know maybe yeah.

that's probably more the weapon school. at Nellis so so you go so it's regular. Pilot School F-16 MH then you teach no. um I was just making a comment about the. instructors that taught us how to be. F-16 Pilots they have experience they. were out in the field doing combat. Missions at operational units around the. world and they'll do that for an. assignment or two. you know anywhere from 3 to six years. and then they'll come back to be.

instructors yeah yeah yeah that's that's. very similar and then and then they. might go back you know do an assignment. there for three years and then they'll. go back into an operational so I guess. what I'm getting at is what's I mean you. kind of said it sounded like graduation. was kind of. anti-climatic so what's it like when you. show up to your command after you. graduate F-16 pilot school so when. you're in you're in there with. experienced yeah fighter pilot you get a. little bit of taste at F-16 starts.

getting this little more combat flare. operational mindset still a Schoolhouse. but there's naming traditions and and. you know Fridays in the in the bar and. you're you're still doing combat. training and then there's a graduation. for that and then it's off to your unit. and that is those are combat units this. is when we're actually doing the no [ __ ]. you know stuff and depending on where. you go I went to Korea Osan Airbase in. Korea um which was to me it's like one.

of those kind of it's a remote location. so there's there's not that many. families you can do a command sponsor. where the whole family will show up but. 69 70% of the Squadron is. Bachelors um um so there's there's not. families there so the the mentality in. Korea is like. light your hair on. fire drinking a lot going downtown.

partying flying awesome combat. missions um it's push it up mentality. and it's kind of one of the only. remaining there's two bases in Korea. kunan Osan I don't know how it's changed. in the last 10 years since I've been out. but that was a good. um um just. a introduction indoctrination mhm to the. combat mentality are you welcomed or are. you treated like an FNG um no you're an.

FNG um but you have your LPA Lieutenant. Protection Association it's it's the. mafia Lieutenant Mafia so there's. there's the the senior level the. lieutenant Colonels the commander the. the director of operations the do and. then you got all the Crusty old. Majors um and then you have captains and. then you have the punk lieutenants and I. think there was nine of us. it was awesome one it was just an. amazing experience especially being in. Korea I mean you saw some crazy [ __ ] in.

Korea uh this was in the 9 late 90s um. what kind of crazy [ __ ] oh. just just crazy [ __ ] like what just. drinking related crazy [ __ ] um you'd go. up to soul for the weekend. um. just when had money to burn. and release some some steam and energy. from from all the combat focused.

training that we were doing. yeah so it's like the seal tapes it's a. work hard play card culture absolutely. absolutely and um all right before we. get into it let's take a break before. before we get into Korea but I do want. to ask you is that you wearing a. brightling I am what is with don't don't. make fun of me cu the battery died on. me so it's perpetually three 20 nice um. it died on Me on the way here um and I'm. too cheap to get a battery to replace it.

what's with pilots and bridling I know. it's a pilot's watch this is my. Thunderbird watch so this is the one. with the Thunderbird patch oh damn. that's cool yeah so it's kind of an. heirloom I took it to space so this has. been to space um I have one from weapon. school it's got my weapon School patch. on it um I don't know they're just cool. watches is it emergency this has an elt. but uh if the battery doesn't work I. don't have you ever deployed one no they. they told us do.

not break glass only an emergency yeah. yeah cool all right well let's take a. break I'm always on the lookout for ways. to get healthier especially now that's. why I'm so glad I discovered armor. colostrum armor colostrum has thousands. of people reporting absolutely. lifechanging benefits tens of thousands. of five-star reviews and. transformational stories armaro. colostrum is a proprietary concentrate.

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vigilance El lead. patreon all right Scott we're back from. the break we're in Korea it's your first. station as a F-16 pilot mhm you met your. wife there I. did how' you guys. me she was she just graduated from. college and her older brother was an. F-16 pilot so post graduation she. decided to go visit her brother with her.

other. brother and we hit it off um she was. actually dating another guy at the time. nothing. happened uh but we stay connected when. she. left um and then we start started. corresponding this was back in the like. late '90s where MCI calling cards yeah. uh um email didn't exist at the time so. there's no correspondence that way um it. was just a couple phone calls now and.

then and wh I decided to go visit her in. Minnesota where she lived um for the. weekend vice versa she came back to. Korea for a couple days we spent a total. of like four or five days. together and then she decided to move to. Italy with me on my next assignment. after living with just spend four or. five days together couple days together. and then she's moving to Italy she's. moving to.

Italy yeah right on we knew we named our. kids before we even you know hung. out right on they call it h hanging out. what was it about. her oh my gosh now. you're man she's she's absolutely. beautiful um she's caring she's fun. um I don't know just. um we just knew um right off the.

bat. um yeah didn't take much to persuade her. and vice. versa um but we we moved to Italy. together um that was my second. assignment so Korea's only a year. because it's remote anything significant. happened in Korea with. F16 blowing [ __ ] up no yeah no it's. pretty stable over there um you're. you're constantly prepared for an.

invasion um big party big party I know. nice parties a lot of um nice traveling. to and from Soul sounds like a ukom in. the SEAL Teams yes maybe a Thailand. deployment Thailand although I. never even today I are pretty yeah. pretty wild okay all right have you been. to Thailand uh. you don't. [Music]. wanta Philippines no I've never been to.

Thailand Japan and Korea where's your. favorite place by far Italy we no [ __ ]. Italy yeah as far as what what's the. criteria you anywhere you've been in. every out of everywhere you've been in. the world Italy that's where you that's. where you like to be yeah why um the. culture um the environment the food the. wine what about the culture they're so.

laidback and relaxed we are so uptight. in the US and it's just. constant coming and going that was the. biggest de that's interesting I mean. you're a super competitive guy since. childhood roaming around the streets. looking looking for people I can be. everyone else just chill out it's it's. me Full Throttle now um we lived there 3. years and and then uh a exra three years. so total of six three with before kids. and three after kids um so we got to.

explore kind of uh two different worlds. I guess two different time frames but um. the culture is just laidback and it's. Aviano is right it's it's about an hour. north of Venice it's right at the base. of the dolomites so everything North is. the Alps and everything South is. Farmland Flats. Vineyards um and it's rule it's there's. no venice's in. ponon is the biggest town it's I don't. know half the size of Nashville maybe.

um and there's no base housing so you. live amongst the the local Villages and. it literally it's you know 1,500 1600s. Villages M and it's just a pocket where. some Creeks meets and you know crevices. in the mountains and we lived in um San. giovan de poano just a small town right. up nestled um actually it's really cool. cuz the hotel. there um musolini and Hitler stayed in.

not that that's cool but um tiny tiny. little town just beautiful and the um. everyone's just laidback just admani ad. we'll get to it tomorrow. admani you know the reposo in the middle. of the day one to three everything shuts. down August is completely shut down so. when you get there it's just like you. have this wake up you know this culture. shock cuz you're expecting convenience.

stores on the corner and 24/7 and get. what you need and no you you go at the. pace of the locals um and once you get. used to it it's just like this is Chill. I biked all up and down where the they. do the jro races and stuff like that. it's just it's just beautiful and the. food it's I swear it's the water that. comes out of the aqueduct underneath the. mountains um so simple very very simple. ingredients um but the food is the best.

M ever and right on same with the wine. right on yeah so we go back once a year. actually oh really yeah going back this. week um my buddy who's on the. Thunderbirds he's the commander of. Aviano the air base there and I'm going. to be speaking at one of his events so. very cool very cool so what were you. doing doing in Italy what was the what. was the mission um so I was assigned to. the Triple Nickel 555th Fighter Squadron.

there's two squadrons there and it's. just this constant rotation um who's. deployed what's tough tough about Aviano. is that it's centrally located in uh U. safy ukom um so you're constantly pulled. in so many different directions because. you're close proximity to more or less. everything that's of Interest so whether. it's a show of force you know the the um. Baltic policing flying it um out of. Romania or Poland um show forces around.

the world Africa we went to Morocco how. how long does it take an x16 to get from. Central Italy. to. Poland um but that's a good ways no it's. a couple it's it's not like we fly super. fast cuz when you do that it's like a. race car you're eating gas okay so it's. not like you have the legs you're. limited on range and and you're going to. be conservative so you're flying Airline. speeds and if you're relying upon those.

tankers then you got to fly their speed. or work some rejoin and. Route so it's nothing everyone ask you. know how quickly can you get across the. country and stuff like that. it's you typically don't gotcha um. what's the typical flight. time um you can stretch it f-16s if you. external tanks depends on how much gas. you're carrying but we would do you. could probably stretch it out 2 and 1. half three plus hours if you're really.

back on the throttle and high altitude. and winds are good and blah blah blah. okay but it's not you don't want to stay. too long the longest flight I ever had. this was actually the one of my favorite. deployments it was Punk. Lieutenant um and we do these Traditions. as fighter pilots we have flat top. February mustache. March and so in Korea we deployed to. Alaska for cope Thunder one just. operation uh uh exercise it's middle of.

the winter so there's no sun so we have. like we're pasty white and we got these. flat tops so we're there for a couple. you know raging as much as you can rage. in you know middle of Alaska and then. we're going to take our Jets and go. shoot some missiles for test down in. Panama City Spring break so you got. these pasty white dudes and these. overgrown haircut flat tops and these we. start to grow these cheesy. mustaches we thought we were.

somebody um so that was that nine core. of lieutenants the LPA um we did that it. was like a month and a half we were on. the road just doing fun stuff so anyways. I can't remember where I was going with. that oh longest sorty longest sorty. coming home from that we launched from. Omaha. Nebraska and we we stretch it all the. way to get home to Korea it's the. longest I've ever been in F-16 it was.

13.2 uh sorty 13 hours wow um it was. extremely painful I'll bet and you know. we got I can't remember how many. aircraft 8ish um eight or. 12 and the one of the flight leads in my. formation I'm a wingman just a young. punk um and it's day and night and then. there's weather now in Korea so it's. raining and you're sleeping you know.

it's it's a you're popping drugs to keep. stay awake and then it's time to get. your game on CU you're going to you're. Landing in weather at night wet. Runway um and we need uh when my flight. Le took off 13 hours prior he had a a a. break. failure and at night you know you. ambient light mvgs you're going to turn. some lights down or turn them off or you. know pop him to pull out the bulb and he. he was getting annoyed by his brake. failure light so he pops it out so he.

doesn't see it anymore 13 hours go by. and he completely forgets about it so. he's in the F-16 in front of me he lands. brick. one puts the nose down applies the brake. and. nothing so backup you know at that point. is to put the hook down and take the. cable and if you take the cable the. runway's completely sh shut down so I'm. this Lieutenant I I'm in the touchdown. approaching his aircraft in front of me.

and I he's like abort abort or I can't. remember what he said but he's like. break failure so you know you know. you've been flying for 13 hours it's. raining the last thing you're thinking. about is your instrument departure when. you're just trying to put this aircraft. on the deck and all you want to do is. get out of this cockpit but pouring rain. wet Runway got to take off and now we. got to divert up to suan which is is. just another base so your asses and. elbows just trying to pull up charts and. land this aircraft safely but that was.

the longest sorty I ever flew was a long. damn time yeah and it's no bigger than. this seat I mean it's I got a fist WID. between the top of the helmet and the. canopy and you got little rails you can. put your arms in I'm I'm not a big guy. I'm there's some I got a buddy who's 6'5. he flew. vipers but it's actually sitting height. so it's from your butt to the top of. your head if you have short stubby legs. you can be. 65 but if you got a or no vice versa if.

you got long legs you're fine if you got. short stubby legs and you got a long. torso that's the issue yeah that's the. reason why the seat is is banked back. there is because it just fits into the. cockpit the Asus 2 seat. interesting so anything significant. operationally happened in Italy. um we deployed this was late '90s early. 2000s before um 911 we were still doing.

operation Northern watch Southern watch. so you had the north swath and the and. the South swath of Iraq that was no fly. zone for them they launched their Megs. to do these mock runs but they wouldn't. get anywhere near and we would sit there. and Patrol you know every once in a. while go after a couple targets AAA. pieces that were getting too close to. the no-fly zone that were a threat to us.

patrolling and then we ended up in uh we. we took on the Sandy roll Cesar as f16s. which is a challenge leave that to the. a10s and the hilos but um we deployed to. uh inser Lake turkey we'd fly across to. the northern watch Kuwait we' do the. southern watch so we did a bunch of. those deployments and then 911 hit um. and I. was I was in my second year I had one. more year left at Aviano uh and I was in.

my. um uh I was in my boss's office the '. 06 and I walk in and he's got the only. TV on base because this is again 2001 in. Italy and they just didn't have that. kind of technology and we're watching. the tower go down and we immediately. went into alert posture cuz we didn't. know what they were going to expect of. us uh you know after you know in. reflection it was it took a while for.

there was any true movement and. deployments and it's not like we can do. much from that location uh takes a. deployment to get and that that takes. some effort and there's a cycle process. there's units back in the states that. are on so it's it just depends on where. you're at same with the seals as far as. when you're tasked to go do something. but it certainly not going to respond. like you typically. would um so as things began to heat up.

I. um got selected for weapon School. fighter weapon school now called the air. force weapon school because there's more. than just Fighters there there's. everything in the Air Force. inventory um has a weapon school now but. back then it was called The Fighter. weapon school it's the Air Force version. of Top Gun but is 6 months long it's. like getting your PhD and all things. tactics so um I was selected for that.

and then I went to Nellis Air Force Base. in Las Vegas which is pretty much all. the all thing tactics what is so what. exactly is weapon. school so it's a six-month long Pro uh. program um you go um under the banner of. your MDS your air airframe for me it was. F16 so I go to the F-16 fighter weapon. school um and the hierarchy of within.

the fighter Community is you start off. as a wingman and then eventually maybe a. couple years you'll go in as a uh two. ship flight lead so now you can lead. around a. wingman and then from there you go to a. for ship flight lead so now you can lead. four. aircraft from there you'll you'll be an. instructor your next step is to be an. instructor and then once you become an. instructor you can be become a flight. evaluator just given exams check rides. um but once you become a seasoned. instructor you can apply and compete for.

fighter weapon. school and the idea behind fighter. weapon school is to um hone your skills. tactics techniques and procedures for. all things f-16s as well as everything. else in the inventory and you become a. weapons officer and so every unit is. going to have a dedicated weapons. officer who's more in charge of that. organization's preparation for combat. there might be a couple patch they're.

called patches it's a bullseye patch. gray um the commander might be a patch. wear the deal might be a patch wear. there might be a couple but the. dedicated position that you're you're. more or less your commitment to go if. you go to this school your commitment is. to be at least for three years a patch. wear a weapons officer okay. and you are the expert you are teaching. your youngest wingman to your most. seasoned IP you're responsible for for.

training them and preparing them for. combat. deployments um and it's cyclical you. know you'll you'll go through different. phases you'll hey you know here's my. training plan for the year we're going. to focus on air to a we're going to. focus on cast during this month and then. we're going to do our combat prep for. the specific Mission we're going to do. in Afghanistan Iraq back and then we're. going to deploy and so he's responsible. for developing that you go to Korea to. be a weapons officer your primary job is.

to prepare for war against North Korea. so he's he or she's focused on. developing those plans interesting so. that's the role behind weapon. school and it's 6 months and it's the. most intense thing I've ever done really. oh yeah it's you sleep eat and breathe. all things tactic. you have no responsibilities other than. just to. graduate um you know the day you show up. you get a manual that's stacked that.

high on the research philosophy or um. radar philosophy it's kind of a haze but. they're like hey here's your manuals you. have two days to study this and you're. going to have an exam you know so it's. just this overwhelming fire hose effect. because it's you know you're taught all. this stuff going through the ranks to up. to instructor pilot that's it's five six. seven years before you get to this point. um post pilot. training um but you take it to a a whole.

new. level um you know you'll fly one Mission. and it and it's phase based it's that. building block approach so you start off. bfm that that 1 V one dog fighting. skills you got to hone those skills then. the the. 2v2 and then the 4v4 and then these huge. massive Employments towards the end of. the graduation to include all the air to. ground missions so you're. you're learning everything you possibly.

can throughout each phase and you might. fly a 1hour flight aorty um bfm 1. Mission you'll put five six hours of. prep into that you'll fly for one hour. and you might debrief it for 10 hours. you're dissecting every single thing. that you did to hone your skills and. become the best tactician that you. possibly can be you can be going to. debrief Sun's setting and by the time. you come out Sun's Rising you go grab.

you know dinner at the or uh breakfast. at the 25 club or something um across. the street at Nellis but that's your. life for six months. and. um everyone's you know on edge and am I. going to survive this program am I going. to make it through yeah because there is. a wash out right and. it's very intense interesting yeah let's. talk. about when is the first time that.

you you flew a combat. Mission. um there's certainly different flavors. of combat um some of the missions up in. Korea you're flying the patrol along the. border those are considered combat the. northern watch Southern watch some every. once in a while you would employ against. some AAA piece out in the. middle um honestly it wasn't till the. towards the end of my career when I. deployed to.

Afghanistan um at the heat of Isis um. 2015 um doing counter terrorism missions. that it was like every day you're. employing you remember the first. one I. do yeah um. so our configuration load out what we're. carrying for for Munitions we have um. all my Bros are going to give me [ __ ] um.

if I can't remember there's a GBU 38 and. a GBU 54 these are 500 lb bombs they're. guided either um coordinates that you. put in or laser you can use your. targeting pod and and a laser designator. with the same prf code and and designate. a Target but those are typically not. fast movers those are stationary targets. um buildings ks19 piece out in the open. or camouflage you know based on the.

Intel you're trying to figure it out. um and we carry a Maverick so that's the. tank Buster um that's I think a 300 lb. um Warhead that uh it's a it's a missile. and that's can be guided I'm saying but. it's typically guided it's it's the way. you employ it is a two ship so you got. one uh aircraft that's going to roll in. 3 to five nautical mile wheel rolling. certain altitude and pointing at the. Target general area put the thing on the.

thing launch the the Maverick and it's. who it just rockets off your aircraft. and the other um wingman is up stacked. up high and through all the coordination. the nine line the the verification of of. Target. identification um the designator is up. stacked up high and he's just staring at. his 4x4 in screen targeting pod he's got. the thing on the thing and he's lazing. that Target 203 second time of flight.

and and shock the target um and so my. first. employment um was against a vehicle that. was on the move and you. know depending on your timing and when. you flew these missions day night um. sometimes it got hot it was like every. time you went up it was kind of your. you're getting. targets and the way that it was run back. then was just kind of a progressive. approach on we're not going to hit your.

average. um what were they called u. ms um male or military average male age. I can't remember the the 3-1 term for. him um but it it wasn't like we were. just going after your basic terrorist. mhm they were progressively looking for. a higher value. Target based on resources and and you. know all the Intel and and scenario what.

was going on at that time in Afghanistan. so um I had one vehicle that. was had five Ms the the the males all. terrorist all. verified um we've been tracking it for. days because how you know they they'. find one guy. hum we'd figure out who it was and we. watch him for the next you know proof of. FL or you know um what is it called you.

were in on this planning process no most. of this was done I did a little bit of. at The Jock at at uh bogam but it wasn't. most of us was we were just getting the. Intel feed before we took off we'd fly a. 4-Hour sorty refuel every once an hour. kind of thing uh and we'd be given a a. region we flew out of bam so we're Cally. located so we were flying all over and. it was pretty hot along the Pakistan. border um up by Taj Tajikistan was. pretty hot um and then some in the.

mountains up in the northeast corner. um. but we would we' have more and more. confidence as things developed and we're. like okay this is a high probability. sorty kind of thing and we get the. initial. Intel and then once you get on on scene. um in the AO they would give you you. know an Intel update and a nine line if. there was a potential for a. Target and now you're building your.

situational awareness over the target. area and uh once you get the information. you put in your systems and now you're. just trying to get eyes on to the Target. and then you got to go through the. verification depending on who you're. talking to most of it we're talking. people who are in The Jock with feed. from you know High dep. Predators. mhm. um and then you know we had a certain. type of.

munition the Predators had hellfires but. depending on how big the target was or. how critical it was you were going to. choose the platform that best suited. that Target weapon are in the the target. set and this was a vehicle that had five. um terrorists in it and uh we decided to. it was on the move so we decided to do a. Maverick attack um and my wingman um was. going to be the shooting platform and I.

was going to lays it and um as as soon. as he rolled in he neglected to go. Master arm. hot so there's there's an option on the. on the master arm switch that goes. simulate off or Master arm hot well it's. just a habit pattern to go into. SIM because training you know 99% of. your flying his train so he goes to sim. rolls in shoots [ __ ] doesn't come off. the aircraft cuz it's loud it.

justos and so he has to recover because. you have a very very small window in. range kind of thing so as soon as he. comes off he Spooks the vehicle so it. stops all five just run oh. [ __ ] so we burned the target at this. point um. and we're like that's that was our. chance um they're they're gone the win. so we leave um and we stand off out of. earshot um but we have enough gas and a. couple hours left so we just wait for.

the next you know update well lo and. behold they decide oh they're gone let's. get back in the. vehicle so they all slowly one by one. come back and they're like holy [ __ ]. this is developing let's get back in. this so we get a little bit closer and. again continue to to earshot um and then. we switch rolls so I'm going to roll in. and employ and and my wingman lazes it. um just but he was.

pissed. hey had his chance so you did it yeah. how'd that. feel um it's pretty. intense you know it's. uh at the time it's like Isis you know. we're watching people orange jumpsuits. stuck in cage is drowned and burned. alive so there was there's a lot of rage. I guess in our mindset changed too.

because what we're taught in survival. training you know be able to talk your. way out resist the the um any torture. you might experience if you're ever. caught and how to evade. and once that all started developing it. was all bets are off man I'm bringing. extra nothing compared to what you guys. are carrying but I'm going to I'm going. to bring extra couple Clips I had one. dude who was carrying a machete that was. strapped on his leg like that's going to.

do anything God bless him um but it was. like if you have to go down you either. get hit your engine. fails good luck yeah you know a fight to. the death kind of mentality. versus you know play your game figure it. out try to manipulate situation until. someone arrives kind of thing but you. know and it was real I mean we had two. guys that got hit total golden bb kind.

of. theory um he was doing an employment and. whether was a AK-47 some guy on the side. of a mountain peing uh you know plinking. shots put a hole in his uh ventral fin. those F in the back of the aircraft put. a big old hole right through that no. idea until he got on the ground and did. his uh postflight check but he's like. holy [ __ ] there's a big. hole and then one guy.

um he was flying too low too long and uh. they took a shot at him and it hit his. um amram his a120. missile um which is on the wing tips. it's for airto a employment which is. never going to happen in Afghanistan but. it hit the missile and the missile. caught on fire so the the the uh wing. tip of his aircraft's on fire um and so. he's emergency he's trying to get back. to bogram and I'm.

sitting um supervisory position um and. so I have a radio with me and I hear. this and I'm going out to see. this um but thankfully the airf flow. eventually put the fire out he didn't. have to punch or anything like that but. we're flying a single seat single engine. aircraft so it's very reliable G and. Pratt Whitney depending on what airframe. you're what what flavor F16 you're. flying but it's still only one engine.

and it you know there's no glide ratio. in the Viper it's going to fall like a. rock and you're going to have to punch. so how did it feel for you though you. described your. wingman's approach and Miss with the. Sims and then you just Breeze right by. your your approach. is satisfying too. grotesque. um you know in combat the highs and lows.

you experience are it's it's all too. familiar with with any type of. combat and I I think the most intense. emotional experience is is having to. make decisions that will hopefully save. the lives of the friendlies on the. ground but you also have to deal with. the consequences of your actions that. you're taking the life of the. enemy. um I I pray that when I meet my day it's.

I'm judged based. on you know making the right decisions. based on the information I had at the. time and um but it's heavy um you got to. deal with it. um it happened a lot uh on this. deployment um you took a lot of. lives there were quite a. you um you. know when did that start to affect.

you what did you start thinking. about answering to God at the. end it's always been there and I think. it's you know was it there on the. approach. no no. there is a moment that and I don't know. if other phop Pilots experience it but. it's like right before you push the.

button squeeze the. trigger there's just this. intense not apprehension but just. massive adrenaline rush. on do I have all the information that I. need am I making and I don't know if. it's the same for pulling a trigger on a. gun but. um I've employed it all I shot the gun. in Anger I've 500 lb bombs Mavericks.

it's. um there's always this I hope this is. the right. decision but. um and I I think you have more time to. think about it when it's those scenarios. where it's an element of. surprise um there are situations where. they're shooting at me and I have zero. hesitation. I wouldn't even call it hesitation it's. just this intense feeling of I hope this. is the right. decision cuz.

it's you know I I think it's one thing. to look through a scope or be close to. the enemy but I'm you know up at 20,000. ft. um did it make you feel like your career. was. complete um yes I'll be honest. absolutely. um you know it time means everything see.

I think there's I think there's. like in any combat role fighter pilot. ground guy tank whatever it. is you know the. mission is to go and to kill people and. there's a selfishness in that and. I. think I think a lot of.

people think they may have a failed. career if they never get the opportunity. to take somebody's life in combat and. that's how we think of it mhm we think. of it as I never got to kill. somebody but is this how we're trained I. think think that I think it is. it it maybe not how we're trained but. it's how the culture is you know. because and how [ __ ] up is that MH if.

you think about it I never got the. opportunity to [ __ ] kill somebody to. employ an anger. y whereas you know most normal people. would say you know I never I never had. to do that I never had to kill. somebody and so I think the. culture you know makes. you it it it manifests that inside of. you but but at the same time you know. when you're talking about meeting.

meeting you know God or Jesus and. answering answering you know to all. those scenarios that you played. out you know what I mean there's also I. mean there is a selfishness cuz I know. what you're talking. about. and but it's also comes down to you know. I mean you're a Christian we're going to. get into you know we're going to get. into that uh your experience mhm later.

but you know I think it all comes down. to what's in your heart right you know. you think you're doing the right thing. right they think they're doing the right. thing. mhm they're just doing what they believe. is right and you're just doing what you. believe is. right right absolutely. and if you don't do that.

thing in. several Employments I had quite a few. it's like if I don't cuz right now. they're getting shot at and who knows. how that's going to develop they're. hunkered down the threat's got RPGs and. you know they're pinned. out and so. if if I do hesitate or I miss a switch. or I'm willing to make that decision. based on.

knowing it's. helping my side I guess yeah no I mean. it's and they're thinking the same thing. yeah if they don't plant that bomb on. the side of the road and kill Americans. and more of them are going to die this. is a it's a it's really kind of you know. it's just fascinating to think. about yeah. and because everybody is legitimately.

just doing what they what they think is. right so who sets the guidelines you. know. who God. yeah but when did that you know when did. you when did that kind of stuff start. entering your head. it was always. there.

um cuz there's always that moment when. you're pushing there's always the freef. fall of the munition you know the time. of flight anywhere from 20 seconds out. to a minute depending on you know how. you're releasing it but that whole time. is just like it's very compartmentalized. mhm it's like. like check and double check that I've. done everything that I possibly can to. mitigate any collateral damage. concerns.

um but then the whole flight home you're. thinking about. it um and then going through the debrief. and and analyzing the. BDA uh after the. fact I mean. you I don't know if you ever fully get. over it other than you know it's there. and I'll have to answer for it well I. mean on the other on the. other you know we're I mean we're not.

talking about civilian casualties here. but then on the on the other hand. everybody's very aware of the. consequences everybody's everybody. involved you know is aware of what the. ultimate. consequences you are aware what happens. if you go down you talk you know or. jumpsuits beheadings burning you. alive whatever. torture and they're they're just as.

aware of the consequences if they get. compromised that there's going to be a. 500b bomb you know that lands on their. vehicle and so you. know it's voluntary mhm. everybody's everybody on both sides is. fully aware of what the consequences of. engaging in war. is I guess that's why we sign up to. serve yep so you.

know I don't know I think a lot about it. but you know the whole thing. is you know Jesus knows what's in your. heart and I think that's all that. matters absolutely. we're definitely influenced by our. experiences.

too and that's. why especially the older I get the more. centered I want to. be. unfollowing Jesus. and I mean look look how screwed up our. world is and it's easily it's easy to. get. caught thinking the sky is falling and. and the world's going to. end but if you're centered in your. faith we're not in control we're all.

sinful we have free will and that's. probably our demise you know but. um we're not in. control I hope I made the decisions that. I did in. combat for the right reasons. how long are you over.

there fighter squadrons typically do. like six. month. rotations um so that time was 6 months. in 2015 before that they were anywhere. from 90 days to 6. months um we were coming and going we'. SP half. Aviano that Central located I mean you. were barely had time to enjoy the. country because you were constantly. coming and going you'd come back to the. states to do red flag exercises big.

Coalition Force type exercises with. hundreds of aircraft at Nellis Air Force. Base in Las Vegas where we. spent six years for various. assignments um but yeah that that. deployment was 6 months. how many missions did you fly do you. know uh I was flying every every other.

day probably every two days sometimes I. was in a leadership position so you know. you got the. squadrons and then above that is the. group and the wing I was at the group. level but flying with the squadrons um I. was just old into my career I was. 20 year point so um I would fly as much. as they'd let me.

yeah yeah it's crazy man I haven't done. one of these type of interviews in a. little. bit yeah. it's that you strike a chord with the. whole feeling complete in a career. and I don't know if it's just the. fighter pilot or the operator mentality. fighter mentality man it is the warrior.

mentality uh because that is certainly. how it is in our world um I've done. things that are that take me off that. track with the Thunderbirds and test and. aggressors. um but it's almost a a blessing and a. curse um. I mean you get to. experience maybe not you get you. experience something.

that I mean there's just next to nobody. that experiences that no in fact I've. been speaking more Keynotes and stuff. and one of my stories is combat and and. it's. like I almost have to take a step back. cuz even doing interviews and talking. about it it's. like you got to put this in perspective. how do you apply this to someone who. doesn't necessarily go to work that's.

life or death situation other than you. know. our Frontline providers. um it's um yeah it's it's a tough. conversation to have. too I'm struggling to articulate exactly. how I feel at this point it's just. because it's definitely there um no. doubt it especially as you get older you. know. and kids.

and would you want your kids to go to. war would I want them to go to. war if your kid wanted to be an F-16. pilot or whatever whatever the. equivalent is. today you call me old you know. it is it is it's a legacy platform would. you want them to have those experiences.

um if you ask me what I want them to. serve I would be honored I I will never. pressure my kids if they want to be. whatever they want I don't I could care. less I just want them happy and to. pursue something that they're passionate. about not some societal expectation um. Sports. employment jobs whatever care uh. academics I just want them to pursue. something they are passionate about um.

because that's exactly what I did and I. feel very blessed and happy of what I. went. through so um if they wanted to serve I. would be very proud and honored um and I. there's a chance couple of my teenagers. might um but if they don't I don't I. don't care as long as they're living a. life that they're happy with I certainly. don't want them serving just because of. me um now to get to your I've been.

avoiding your question would I want them. to go to war I would say no and. that's I don't know if that's selfish. and the fact that I don't want my kids. to at risk and the [ __ ] I've seen and. been through. I cuz there were plenty of times not. even in combat just. I was a split decision of death because. of just the nature of the. business you know I F on a Thunderbird.

show and I delayed a rejoin too long and. the aircraft pulls N9 GS I pulled 10.5. G's because I thought thought it was. going to hit the ground and you know I. recovered 100 feet from the ground which. is in a fighter jet that's that's damn. close and so it's just. like those split decisions is could have. gone completely different I've had. plenty of. people good buddy of mine I was. stationed in um aano chojan Gilbert um.

he was in combat and he was. strafing and recovery for strafe is like. 75 fet so you get in amongst them in a. when you're shooting the the. gun um and he end up dying in in combat. and so it's just. like. it it's it doesn't take much you know. yeah but you can also get hit by a car. walking across the road well I I think. you know I'm I'm more asking would you. you know do you.

want I think about this all the time you. know especially with the kids no and. uh I mean you know who I have on this. show and this the stuff that we talk. about and the toll that it takes and the. burden you have to [ __ ] live with. afterwards and all the I mean I don't. know what I don't know what it's like. for Pilots but I mean the suicide rate. amongst special ops guys is just. astronomical you can see it you can see.

the. load we're all carrying it I mean. immediately and I just I think about. that I. mean it really [ __ ] changes you how. like how do you see it body language. themselves you can see it in their. eyes I mean it's like stoic.

emotionless lack of. humor just a [ __ ] heaviness is that. because of enduring all the experiences. or is it the intensity of the experience. or is it I don't know I think I think. the verdict still out on that I think. it's just all of it I think it's I think. it's resentment because other people. didn't have to experience it they don't. understand I think it's the experience. itself I think it's the guilt it's the.

loss I think it's all of it you know. wrapped up and and that's the product. that you. get I think you guys certainly have it a. lot. worse because you're you're down there. it's a lot different from 20 30,000 ft. yeah maybe maybe not but you know it. sounds like you're struggling with it.

yeah maybe that's what brings me closer. to my. faith hopefully it's not like me trying. to. justify. but. yeah how did you find your faith. um so I grew up we went to church uh in.

Georgia but it was more of a formality I. think the the extended family was it was. part of the expectation but I don't. remember much of it Sunday school. getting donuts and Crispy Cream. afterwards that was about it once we. moved up at age five we didn't step foot. in a church it wasn't just it wasn't a. part of my up. bringing I Always believ There Was You. know something I just didn't I was. ignorant I just didn't have the. education.

or um. mentorship and it actually wasn't. until um in fact I didn't even know if I. was baptized we grew up um. Lutheran. um and then married my wife and she's. very very strong Christian. um in. 2011 um I. was we were I can't remember where we're. stationed um but we were on vacation in.

um Minnesota her parents house living on. a lake cabin on the. lake um and our kids. are I can't remember um two 4 and six uh. two girls and a boy um and our. four-year-old is going to be baptized. and and so that's part of the trip to up. north. and um and so we're up there for. vacation things are all going on and and.

um um it's 4th of July and we're we're. having uh prep for fireworks we get the. whole all the dads are getting together. the kids have been playing on the lake. all day and it's evening now they're you. know Shepherd inside to take baths and. get in their jammies and and get ready. for the fireworks. um and we go out back um not the. Lakeside we go up garage it's like 300. yard away tree lines it's it's out of.

earshot and. everything and. uh my four-year-old daughter Maddie um. she sneaks out of the house sneaks down. to the dock she's looking for a toy she. left and she reaches over and falls off. the dock into the water um. and I'm up completely earshot away um. can't see can't hear anything we're in. the garage working music's going and all.

of a sudden I over I'm overcome with. panic I just complete Panic hair on the. back of my head I just I start freaking. out and I just run out of the garage and. I run around the house and I don't even. know where I'm. going and I just run towards the water. and I'm I don't even know what I'm. looking for but I'm just panicking. starting to yell and all of a sudden I. see a body out in the water and it's. it's Maddie face down in the water about.

I don't know 50 yards off the dock and I. dive in pull her to the dock and. resuscitate her and she you know she. comes back pretty. quick and it just I'm screaming to God. you know please save my daughter um and. we take her to the ER and she gets. checked out and absolutely nothing wrong. no idea how long she was down the doctor. thinks she was down for probably about 2. to 3 minutes. um. and the sheer Divine Coincidence of the.

entire situation is that we were. baptized just hours before. together because she was scheduled to. get baptized and my wife says hey we. don't know if you've been baptized do. you want to get baptized with Maddie and. I'm like sure I'll go along to get along. I believe in something sounds like a. good idea we Bond and this was literally. hours before saving her life and you.

know it that was. God divine intervention I you know. there's no way it wasn't cuz I. was I was heads down in the garage. couldn't hear anything and I just sheer. Panic um so he was getting my attention. and I'm still you. know processing my faith it's it's a. journey um I am fully committed it's you. know common question when you go to.

interviews and stuff like that it's like. what are you reading you know what's the. latest book you read I'm just reading. the Bible uh I. find my guidance and messages and you. name it um I'm reading the Bible just. uh because I think that's the answer to. everything um one did the happened what. what's the timeline here. 2011 201 this was 14 years. ago.

um yeah and so that's what's that's what. brought me closer to Christ. um and it it's only getting more and. more intense. or matured over the years. um you know going to space there's just. moments that you're trying. to make sense of everything and it's. just this um it's a battle it's a it's a. journey it's um it's challenging CU back.

to that whole you know we have free will. we can think we have the freedom to. think anything we want and make the. decisions that we. want but I'm trying to focus my life on. making the decisions that that puts God. first and that you. know it's kind of why I want to speak. more at this point in my life is to. share my stories and hopefully God can. use me as a voice to get his message out.

um have you had any more. experiences um nothing that. intense. um you know there were moments on orbit. where I'm trying to reflect. and you know it's this I had this. overwhelming sensation of of feeling. insignificant on or it just looking down. knowing there's 8 billion people down. there on the planet and you know I'm. traveling around every hour and a half. and 17,500 miles hour and I'm just.

trying to make sense of it all and and. put significance behind it um. and I've been reminded constantly when I. get into the word and start reading it's. just like it's not about me it's it's. stop making it about. you it's there's a greater good there's. a greater cause. there's a higher purpose. um I'm just I'm so stubborn and I I I. need to learn how to listen better.

um cuz that's what I you know that's. that Journey that's that struggle that I. feel is. like we just constantly bouncing off the. bumpers um through life and it's like. it's selfish Endeavors and then I got to. bring it back to more of a centrally. Focus. Faith walk and. um. yeah it's a bit of a ramble well that's. pretty big.

experience was for me um how about that. it. was and you you said your daughter was. in there for they estimate 20 minutes no. 2 to 3 minutes two okay where the hell. did I get 20 minut yeah she was we two. to 3 minutes I mean holy [ __ ] I. mean she was blue when I pulled her up. never felt so helpless in my life you. know feel like you're Invincible what. did you do CPR I started uh. resuscitating she started you know after.

30 seconds or so she starts coughing up. and getting a little bit of her color. back and she comes too and then we're. worried about you know brain function at. that point and oxygen deprivation and. take her to the ER and I check her. out absolutely nothing wrong with her. she's a healthy little four-year-old. pigtails yeah now she's paining the ass.

17-year-old what do you mean reflection. when you're up in. space. um I certainly talk about this when we. get to space but it's it's. um they call it the overview effect and. it affects people. differently um it's the this literally. it's it's a cognitive shift that happens. in your perception of it could be your. perception of visual what you're seeing. of the the planet um life perspective um.

it can be spiritual it can be. intellectual. um but when you see the planet from. especially with altitude that we went to. it's the highest that anyone's been in. 50 years since the Pao. 17 um it's the highest Earth orbit ever. flown. and it's. um and it's almost like this my. immediate response or feeling was like. it's this visual illustration of what.

life must have been like back at the. creation of the heavens and the Earth. because all you can see is oceans and. continents you can't make out any. details you know cuz when we that's on. the the apey the furthest part of the. orbit it's it's um um highly cyclical so. it's um uh pretty close on the Pary the. backside was really close 190 km so it's. 1400 by 190 so it's it's very far and. then we skim and when you're skimming. the atmosphere it's like you can see.

contrails you can see geographical. features all these land masses and but. up above it's it's it looks like you. know what the planet must have been look. looked like its creation. um so when you have this perspective and. you're going through this overview of. fact it's. just. um for me it was it was it was that. feeling initially of of insignificance.

and and trying to make sense of it all. and it's what's unique and it's almost. like this and that's why I so interested. in some of your podcasts like the the. indes and when Pastor Burke talks about. some of the some of the things that he's. interviewed the the. 1500 people with the n experiences it's. like um and this is by no means anywhere. near what they've gone through. um but the the light the radiant light.

projected on the earth versus seeing it. from the surface looking through the. atmosphere and it's filtered um by all. the different gases it's just this. radiant glow and it's almost like this. Transcendence um of your senses it's. it's not just visual it it's almost like. you. can feel the radiant glow of the light. of the planet and it's it's bright but. it's not like looking up at the sun kind.

of blinding light it's just this radiant. and it's constantly evolving because. you're traveling so fast and sunrises. and sunsets are happening every 90. minutes our orbit was 106 minutes just. based on its. shape and it starts off the phenomenon. is called The Thin Blue Line it's the. dawning of a new day it's just this Arc. of a blue purplish Hue as the Sun starts. penetrating the. atmosphere and it just it just grows and. and starts to split into this radiant.

sunbeams and then it starts to light up. the entire planet and then vice versa on. the back side on the on the sunet as you. see the the night start to eat up and. then even at night. so when when at night you're seeing all. the cultural lighting we saw the. Northern Lights so all the green. beautiful uh waves um you see all the. stars billions of stars um because you. don't have the light pollution that.

you're used to seeing um the moon. obviously glowing um you're seeing. strings of starlink satellite. systems um and then you have this. pulsing of the Draco engines it's just. these constant engines that are firing. to keep you oriented in the capsule. based on you know the priorities to. point the satellite uh the antennas. towards the satellite for communication. purposes um so that puts out this like.

constant Hues of orange and yellows and. and all of that together you're just. constantly seeing something new and it's. just it's not something you stare at a. sunset for 5 10 minutes as the sun goes. down it's just this constant evolution. of of this radiant globe. and it just feels like it's it's more. than just. visual that makes any. sense again it's I'm having a hard time.

articulating it's only been you know. five six months since we were up there. and. that's you know the ISS they're up there. for 6 months they're at 400 km we went. an extra th000 kilm past that um so. slightly different. perspective um. yeah does that does that strengthen your. faith.

100%. I I. am firm. believer God created everything I I. don't see how it couldn't it'd. be a sequence of millions and millions. of miracles to happen um. you know you look you look at the planet. and then you look at the other direction. it's it's intimidating I mean it's black. there's to think what's out there.

endless you know it's that is. intimidating. um I'm hoping at some point in my life. I'll make more sense of the experience. and I hope I didn't miss my. opportunity while I was there trying to. absorb cuz we're you know you're very. operated mindset it's you're focused on. the mission we got 40 science research. experiments I don't want to screw it up.

and we got The Space Walk on day three. and the Starling test going on and all. this radiation testing we're going. through and you know that's you got this. Mission mindset. but this is also something that very few. people have. experienced and I I hope at some point I. can communicate and. articulate that impact it had on my.

perspective yeah see I don't know man. you know we're talking you know back to. the decision making and all this you. know killing people. combat what's it going to be like when. we meet him mhm you know things like. that but I. just. one if he was done with you then I don't. think he would have experienced that up.

there you know what I mean. mhm I think he's still working on. everybody no matter what you've. done and uh and it's those experiences. that that draw you to the light and I. you know I don't know I I think about. this kind of stuff all the time and I. think is he still working on you or is. the book's written you're just I think. you're in your next.

chapter I think he's working on you all. the way until the. end It's Tricky world you know I think. there's only two influences in this. world there's [ __ ] good and there is. evil and that's it and it's kind of. weird the way you just describe the. Earth with the lightness and the. Darkness and and continuously rotating. cuz I just I don't remember who I was.

talking to or how this even came up but. I described it. as I was talking to somebody about the. end kind of like Revelations type stuff. like the end cuz everybody's you know is. the sky falling are we in times I mean a. lot of people think we are and. everybody's looking for the signs and um. the way I described it was I think.

if I don't think anybody knows when the. end is I mean even in the Bible it says. nobody Jesus doesn't even know when the. end is and and the way I kind of like. think it's happening is if if you look. at like a marble like a two-tone. marble you know but maybe it's fluid in. there and and the two colors are just. constantly fighting each other for what. takes over the marble you know I think. that's very similar to Good and Evil.

and there are times. that it looks like evil is potentially. taking up more surface area than good. and then and then things start to change. and then you seeum you know what I'm. saying and I I think that's just. constant it's just a constant battle. for total control of the. planet and what that looks like and it's.

it's it's the two influences you know. going to work against each other and and. even like this conversation right now. you know that we're having it's going to. it's going to get people thinking and. people that it's going to get people. thinking that have never thought about. that before the colors are going to. start to change and more good is going. to start to overcome more darkness and. and the way you just describe the planet. with with the with the light and the. dark I mean that's kind of how I think.

of this all man. and and it's just constantly evolving. it's always changing just like that. marble do you know what I mean. absolutely and and. and he knows how tricky. evil can. be I. mean we were both IM immersed in a. culture where that became the normal I.

I I got to kill. somebody I finally got the. opportunity to kill somebody or I never. got to kill anybody mhm you know and. that's that's not [ __ ] a good way to. think. you know but I mean you get you you. enter. into we you enter into the military at a. young age you're with all your Idols the.

people that you want to be the the F-16. Pilots the that that have you know the. lineage all the way back to World War I. and you want to live up to what those. guys have done and I join the SEAL Teams. and I want to live up to the to the. Vietnam generation and the World War II. guys and you know like like it's just it. becomes you it becomes you you immerse. yourself into that culture and then it. seems good it seems good it's a [ __ ].

deception mhm it's a deception whether. you're doing it for the country or what. y yeah we all did it for the country. right well who says the country is good. right you know and who says that country. is bad and yeah we can talk about 9/11. and all that kind of stuff and you know. I mean but but you know what were we. doing there for 20 years. right 20 [ __ ] years you know and. so and so when I say like he's still.

working on. you I mean it's not over you know you're. either going to succumb to good or. you're going to come to evil and I think. I think there's seasons of it and when. you start steering one way the other way. is trying to pull you back and both of. them you know what I mean and and and. they talk about deception and how how. Satan is the master of deception and he. can he can and he uses.

um he uses Temptation you know whether. that's money or sex. or living up to a culture you know and. and and it may seem good it may you know. maybe it is but it's it's it's it's you. know we're just [ __ ] humans man yeah. I love that analogy I mean my first.

thought was and I didn't. even comprehend it until you mention it. but you talk about Good and Evil light. and. dark I felt this warm glow looking on. the planet just loved it was mesmerizing. I want to put my eyes off it and you. look through the fort hatch towards. space and it's it's just this. intimidating it's almost like you're at. that Cliff scuba diving and that black. abyss over the ledge you know feel a lot.

more security probably where that. ambient light's coming from. um yeah there's something there I like. um but how do we I mean you talk about. that marble in the. constant whether it's a struggle or uh. not search. but constant Evolution looking for.

equilibrium and this is rhetorical but. how do we. influence more good than evil as. that morph continues to happen with the. marble of Good and Evil yeah that's a. good question we from God's hands. I mean they say everything's in God's. hands right. but. it I mean I think you know we talk about.

Free Will and I think that is that is. really the only free will that we have. good and evil is good and evil you can. either choose to believe or choose not. to believe because everything else is so. [ __ ] contorted and twisted and decept. you know it's there's just so much. deception out there and I think that. that I think that you.

cannot as hard as this sounds I think. you cannot. succumb you cannot sacrifice your values. for. Temptation does that make sense you. should not or you physically cannot. think I think you should. not because that is staying true to. yourself which is good.

and and temptation is everywhere it's. money it's sex culture it's it's all of. that stuff and. um and you just see people every day you. know they sacrifice their. values for Temptation and they justify. if you catch yourself justifying you. know why you did something or or do you. know what I'm talking about we've all.

done it right absolutely we've all done. it I did this to this person probably. wasn't that great of you know wasn't a. good thing to do but now I'm stuck in. the justification process like well I. had to do that because this happened to. me and that happened they did this to me. and so this is how I justify or or you. know somebody [ __ ] you over or you. [ __ ] somebody over and and you have to. then then you catch them justifying or. justifying to yourself why why you made.

the decisions that you made and that. alone in itself is that's succumbing to. evil. evil do you think I've always tied. authenticity to being true to your. values do you think you can be. authentically evil. or do you think people are. naturally authentically. good and as long as they are authentic.

they can. maintain True Values I think that we. are more evil than we are good because. it takes more effort to be good and not. succumb to. Temptation than it does to be evil and. succumb to all that. [ __ ] because the reward doesn't come. until the end to be good the reward to. be.

evil is immediate it's an immediate. reward so we're evil and weak. [ __ ]. [Laughter]. H. yeah you want to take a. break sure let's take a.

break I know everybody out there has to. be just as frustrated as I am when it. comes to the BS and the rhetoric that. the mainstream media continuously tries. to force feed us and I also know how. frustrating it can be to try to find. some type of a reliable news source it's. getting really hard to find the truth. and what's going on in the country and. in the world and so one thing we've done. here at Shan Ryan Show is we are.

developing our. newsletter and the first contributor to. the newsletter that we have is a woman. former CIA targeter some of you may know. her as Sarah Adams call signed super bad. she's made two different appearances. here on the Shawn Ryan Show and some of. the stuff that she has uncovered and. broke on this show is just. absolutely. mindblowing and so I've asked her if she. would contribute to the newsletter and.

give us a weekly intelligence brief so. it's going to be all things terrorists. how terrorists are coming up through the. southern border how they're entering the. country how they're traveling what these. different terrorist organizations. throughout the world are up to and. here's the best part the newsletter is. actually free we're not going to spam. you it's about one newsletter a week. maybe two if we release two shows the. only other thing that's going to be in. there besides the Intel brief is if we. have a new product or something like.

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that was a good conversation. mhm I have a lot to think. about now I'm. 51 yeah yeah that was.

Heavy where were we I have no idea. yeah any more thoughts on. that. [Laughter]. plenty um. but that's what he's doing he's at. work you. know he's got my attention that's for. sure I just wish I could I mean he's.

trying to save us from. this that's the whole thing mhm. right well look. how stubborn the prophets were man he. had a tough time listening and he's. telling them. outright I'm going to die for your sins. and and they had a hard time. believing and they were with him you.

know thankful we do have the the stories. in the Bible yeah you know he just he. sprinkles these things in our lives like. like your daughter mhm you know and it's. mean that sounds like a very profound. moment you know not just cuz you saved. your daughter's life but spiritually you. know it's we're all looking for some. type of proof right and cuz it is it's.

hard to believe this stuff it's it's. just it. is and but when you get those. little sometimes they're not always. little sometimes they slap you in the. face just like what happened to you MH I. mean that's that's what what that is. it's in my opinion that's what that is. that. is here's what you needed you know so. that you can. believe and from what I've noticed in my.

journey and I'm not very far along in. this either sounds like our childhood. was very similar I mean I grew up. Catholic. and I didn't really you know it was a. hassle to go to church I didn't want to. go didn't want to go to Sunday school I. didn't want to do any of that I never I. never took it seriously until what I. guess about 2 years ago you know and. ever since then like I.

just I'm just always paying attention. and I. see now I even see little things that. get that get dropped you know and and I. just look at I'm like oh. that's all right I'm on the right path. or that's the sign that I needed and uh. I think it happens all the time.

absolutely but we just don't we don't. have the humility yep to listen we think. we have all the answers. yep or we're so distracted in our own. [ __ ] that we're not it's impossible. to see it because we're not we're not. looking and so the. the you know the more I can get out of. the noise and and start paying it's just. like having your eyes wide open you know.

everywhere they they come all they come. all the. time it's pretty cool pretty cool. stuff especially when you know it's real. and you know what it is and you're. convicted yeah. it's just building that conviction is. what's. tough yeah. though that stuff that you were talking.

about with Earth and though that that. just made me I just had that. conversation or just use that marble. reference like I think it was last. weekend I can't remember who the hell I. was talking to but that's just how I. Envision it you know that's just how I. Envision what's going on in the world. and how it's. all how it all plays out yeah. but but what got you so what got you. interested in becoming an astronaut.

anyways um relationships that I'd built. and fostered over over the years um when. I was coming out the Thunderbird. assignment I met a gentleman by the name. of Jared isaacman um very successful. entrepreneur um no military background. but um started his his very successful. multi-billion dollar uh Payment. Processing Company parents basement when. he was. 16 um his passion has always been.

Aviation so um he progressed started the. hobby early 18 years old and just worked. his way up in the civilian. World um and he started a civilian air. show demonstration team former fighter. pilots former. Thunderbirds and I was not a part of. that but I had met them while they were. doing air shows just through the. community um and then that's when I.

first met Jared and then a couple years. later I'm the commander of the aggressor. Squadron for the Air Force so there's. two units within the air force that have. dedicated missions of of doing adversary. support op for just replicating the bad. guys China Russia tactics and um that's. your sole purpose in life versus and. there's only two units one in Vegas and. one in Alaska otherwise if you're like. stationed in Italy or Korea you're.

you're generating your own bad guys. organically so you'd be in your F16 you. dumb it down and and. simulate foreign tactics threat tactics. help me train and then we' swap rolls. next day it's not a very good use of. resources um but there's two units. dedicated to to do this uh and and one's. in Vegas where we have a lot of the red. flag exercises the big Coalition. exercises the weapon School is located. there so there's a lot of reasons why.

people go to Vegas to to train airspace. is good Area 51 area um and I was the. commander of. that um organization so that's that was. my job um and his air show gig when on. for about two. years and he wanted to do something. bigger and he's always been a patriot. service has been a big part of you know. who he is and he had the resources to.

kind of you know develop some of this um. uh novel ideas and one of them was let's. let's turn this Fleet of Fighters doing. air shows into a commercial. adversary organization and now we can. provide this service to the military DOD. Air Force Navy Army in a cast rle and um. and the Marines and it's going to be a. fraction of the cost so instead of doing.

it organically all over the. world you know 20 grand an hour at the. cheapest let's do something where it's a. fraction of the cost using old fleets of. Fighters that he will acquire a4s l159. f1s. countries that are either disbanding. their fleets of old fighter jets not. there's not a big Market out there. people there's not many customers um or. they're upgrading their Fleet of. generation aircraft to the next.

level um so he goes out proactively and. acquires a fleet from New Zealand a. fleet from uh Czech Republic from Spain. from France and builds the largest. privately owned Fleet of fighter jets. wow um and this is while I was in a. aggressor so we had a little bit of. interaction he's just bouncing ideas off. me and just seeing if it's you know what. what's the likelihood of the Air Force. you know interested in this kind of.

concept um and so he builds this company. you know build it and they will come. kind of before he even had a. contract and um they did put in a lot of. hard work and and eventually when I. retired I was coming off Afghanistan I'm. like the last thing I wanted to do is go. fly Airlines that's a typical career. path coming out of the military and long. story short my wife was diagnosed with. cancer when I was deployed right before. I was. deployed and she's got to pick up the.

family A 10 an eight and a six-year-old. mov from a foreign country back to the. US establish care in Boston with her. oncologist and her husband's deployed to. a combat zone so God bless her and in. her service to her country. um so I was coming off of Afghanistan. and I the last thing I want to do is go. fly Airlines I MH it's not my it's not.

my jam I I needed to do something. different so he was building this. company and I'm like hey you got any. room for an old fighter pilot cuz I was. staring at like if I stayed in the. military Beyond 20 it's you know Colonel. you're going to one year remote here and. a joint staff here and you have less and. less control over your career and we. didn't know what Kristen's future was. going to look like with with her. issues um so he brings me on the team um.

and he secures a contract with the Air. Force just a basic proof of concept. contract um and that just ignited the. industry turned into a$6 billion doll. like four primary players in this field. and they would just acquire all these. fleets of Aging Fighters. kind of sweeten them up with with uh. better avionics more capability but the. platform was was still kind of a third. generation fourth. generation um so it gave more iron in.

the sky for f-22s and f35s to train. against so we we we established this. first contract in Vegas started. supporting the Super Bowl of all Super. Bowls um red flag exercises and weapon. school and um we did that for about 5. years um that was a blast U but I was I. started offline but I'm like I kind of. want to do something different so I got. involved in the business development. side uh so I did that um for about five.

years um he ends up selling the company. CU he's going public with his um with. his other. company and uh as soon as he left the. the culture changed and I last about a. month and I'm like I'm. and so he pulls me over to uh Shift 4 to. do business development or uh. strategy Fish Out of. Water um so I was doing fintech trying.

to figure it all out um just learning. from him and his. team um and they're recent recently gone. public it's it's kind of a big deal. company um but he started having. conversations with. SpaceX um so he starts building this. relationship um and it ended up being. the the first opportunity for a.

commercial flight the first all civilian. mission to space so he secures um the. relationship and and and the contract. for this uh. Mission and uh you know he he's got a. core of individuals like me and he. brings us all together and he's like hey. here's here's my. vision and you know we're all excited we. might get to go to. space and he's like no this is not. taking your buddies fishing you know.

this is something bigger we're going to. we're going to make an impact with. this so that's where we started develop. and this was 2020 right in the middle of. Co um we came up with this concept of. the first all civilian mission of space. we're going to randomly select his crew. and within six months we're going to. train them for space take elements of. NASA's training because they take three. to four years before they go to space so. we obviously don't have that luxury and.

uh resources so um and and commercial. space is about to make this huge. paradigm shift in their. philosophy um there's only been there. was only two I think civilians that had. been to space one on a soyu um are both. on a so I think I'm not sure someone's G. to fact check me on that one but um but. this was like this is a big. deal um and so we randomly selected his. crew and we wanted.

to partner with a nonprofit so we could. have a continued impact positive impact. on life on Earth so we um well back up. you in a second um once he pitched this. idea I'm doing whole ftech. of strategy I'm like I'll do whatever. you want this is more up my alley and so. I I take on the role as the mission. director um that's a. little false humility on my part in the.

fact that a mission director sits in. mission control and controls that's not. what I was doing I was doing all the leg. work um the coordination the fundraising. Logistics um sitting through the. training but more as just because I was. doing all these cats and. dogs so to to we ended up partnering. with St Jude Children's Research. Hospital um because he's he's done other. um he supported make a wish he just this.

means a lot to him um and we had this. platform and this opportunity to to. continue to improve life on Earth but. let's you know let's explore what's out. there as. well um so we ended up giving one seat. to St Jude. um and then we were going to do a sweep. Stakes for another seat and a contest. for the fourth seat so we ended up. selecting um Christmas I think it was. either right after day after Christmas.

or not we we have a conversation with. the CEO at St Jude and we end up giving. one seat to Haley. Areno I think she was 28 at the time she. was a um cancer survivor she beat cancer. when she was 10 and um she went on to be. physician's assistant at St Jude because. they saved her life great story she's. she's a rock star um um so we picked her. and then we did a sweep Stakes the Super. Bowl commercial in 21 and that kicked.

off our sweep Stakes to raise money for. St Jude everything 100% for St Jude. whatever we made in this project with St. Jude ends up being $250. million wow um in you know less than you. know a six-month period so we do sweep. Stakes 30 days and then we're going to. randomly pull a a name out of the. hat and you know and each seat had.

a quality or concept behind it. leadership uh hope. generosity and uh Prosperity were the. three seats if you will Jared's. leadership Hope was Haley Pro uh. generosity was the sweep Stakes. donations and come to find out we we. picked a name out of a hat um and the. individual who was. selected medically disqualified. himself and So based on his generosity.

he's like I I got to give the seat back. I I I can't do this flight but I. appreciate them and it and we're like no. this is your seat you can do whatever. you want with it and so he actually. through his generosity gives it to one. of his buddies. um who also made a donation and that was. Chris. somoski and then um we did a contest for. the last seat and that's the whole you. know he was an entrepreneur he had many.

opportunities or he you know through his. hard work created opportunities and. Entrepreneurship and and that he's a big. believer in that so we had a contest you. know someone who was starting a small. business and we social media helped us. all these marketing companies helped us. and um we a panel of celebrities picked. you know the best video promoting their. small business so Dr cyan Proctor was. the individual pick for that seat so the. crew set it's like end of February.

beginning of March immediately pick them. up take them to training and over the. next less than six months they go. through training um and we do various. things um for the. training um centrifuge the. U altitude chamber for pressure altitude. um just getting an idea of your hypoxic. symptoms and stuff like that and then. all the simulator training uh we climbed. Mount rineer for um some experiential.

training some of the things that. astronauts already do we just kind of. fighter jets we trained them Jared and I. obviously flu and the other two crew. members um or yeah we'd swap the three. in our back seats so we'd give them. experience in fighter jets and blah blah. so we go we do this and it's hair on. fire for 6 months just coming and going. constantly going to headquarters SpaceX. headquarters in La uh we go to Johnson. Space Center for training with NASA.

collaboration um elements and then we go. to um Kennedy Space Center Cape. Canaveral because all human space. flights out of. there um majority of the launches almost. 95% of them there's been a couple that. weren't off of pad 39 Alpha but it's the. historic one shuttles. Apollo um right there in Cape. canaval um and then they go to space um. they spent 3 days in. orbit. um very successful splash down in the.

Atlantic and and you know we wrap it up. in. September um did a Netflix documentary. called countdown five-part series kind. of explains the entire project it's. pretty cool. um the week or the the month leading up. to to their launch conversations about. the next project begin because we're. having too much. fun um but this is we never do things. you it's it's always what's the next.

step. up um and so we started to formulate um. a program and which became the Polaris. program um which is a three-part up to. three missions and it's a it's a. developmental space flight. program and uh this is analogous to. project. giny so if you look at NASA's history. you got initial space flight with. project Mercury prove that we could get.

to space um and then you leap frog that. was the 50s and then Leap Frog over to. the late 60s and 70s when we went to the. moon you go the PA. program well in between there um in the. 60s over a 5year span there's 12. missions called project geming and the. purpose behind that developmental. program was to solve some big challenges. they had to figure out how to dock. vehicles in space to do a space walk to. do long duration missions longer. duration missions than Mercury multi.

crew missions these are all things they. had to solve before they headed to the. moon so in a similar fashion we kind of. we kind of built the Polaris program off. of a developmental concept where we're. helping identify what challenges does. SpaceX and and other companies face. trying to get back to the lunar surface. in Mars and. Beyond um the first two missions of the. players program are board the Falcon 9.

with the Dragon capsule and then the. third flight is supposed to be the first. human space flight of Starship which. will might be launching in the next. couple hours test flight 8 wow largest. rocket ever built bigger than Saturn 5. that's the vehicle that will that I. believe will go back to the moon and. that will go to. Mars um so that's the idea behind the. Polaris program and then the first. mission we did in September it's called. Polaris.

Dawn and based on our conversations with. SpaceX and Elon about what do we want to. accomplish again what. challenges well we got to do a space. walk if the ideas that we want hundreds. if not thousands of people bouncing on. the surface of the Moon we got to build. a space. suit um. so what and we got to do a space walk so. let's do the first commercial space. walk well we're pushing the envelope so. let's extend the capabilities of the.

Falcon 9 and and the Dragon capsule and. go further and fast you know further and. further than someone anyone has been in. over 50. years and you know what came out of that. is let's set the Earth orbit altitude. record it was originally set by by giny. 11 back in 1966 Pete Conrad and Dick. Gordon went up to 1368. kilm put that in context um the. station's right around. 400 um star star links right around 350.

3 350. kilometers where do we want to go well. ideally let's let's go touch the lower. portions of the Van Allen Bel higher. radiation level caused by the. gravitational pull um. and let's just let's push the envelope. so it was about the space walk it was. about the altitude and then. communication is a big challenge. especially when we talk about going to. Mars 8 months you know the the Broadband.

requirements and the latency issues. imagine sending back a a combite that's. 30 minutes old if not hours what's it it. becomes obsolete at that point you've. already solved whatever issue you're. working on or you're situation is a hell. of a lot worse um so starlink is the. future of communication with it being. laser based let's see if we can get it. to work from space for the very first. time works on Earth.

great we would take these dishes we. actually took some to the Ukraine in the. beginning of the war um to drop off so. St Jude satellite hospitals cuz they. were getting destroyed in the beginning. so they had to relocate and take all. these patients and kids to Poland and. Macedonia and um we delivered some some. starlinks so St Jude could set up their. hospitals and have telecommunications or. tele medicine capability with doctors.

back at um at. Memphis. um so works on Earth we got to figure. out if it works on in in in space which. was a cosmic feat in and of itself for. the engineers to figure that one out um. and then oh by the way we're going to be. up there for 5 days that's the life. of you know that's about as long as you. can exist up there in that capsule alone. not docking with a space.

station um let's fill it with science. and research and we'll focus those 40. experiments on again what are the. challenges the human body faces for. these longer duration missions in the. future because that's going to be the LI. you know kids opinion that's the biggest. limb fact limiting factor is going to be. the human body M because auster. environment of space is it's tough you. know besides being a vacuum you got to. deal with zero gravity loneliness. psychological issues.

just we are meant for 1G on Earth yeah. so so those were the four main. objectives um and then we spent three. years training for those objectives and. how did you get picked um So based on my. contributions during inspiration 4 and. the fact that I had operational test. background I did a lot of test um. there's a unit called the 422 testing. evaluation squadron at Nellis where we.

do. um we test new weapons new. software uh new computer systems and on. the platform it's not a test pilot. chucker type developmental. test that's done at Edwards that's done. testing on the. platform this is more specific to. weapons and and software upgrades and. capabilities so I've had background. experience in doing operational test and. this being a test.

program it it was kind of a logical fit. um I caveat that with there are plenty. of people in this world that could have. been in my seat I I know I'm very. blessed to have this opportunity and. again God's influence for sure um. especially going through the training um. because you got. Jared uh very experienced astronaut been. a space already already highly.

intellectual individual knows these. systems inside and out and oh by the way. we're going up in the same capsule he's. already been up in so he's he's he. didn't have to study he does cuz he's a. dedicated individual but and then we. have our two other crew members and we. kind of this is a collaboration. partnership with SpaceX so we gave two. seats to. SpaceX um and we selected Sarah Gillis. and Anna Menon and they were both.

Engineers that were involved in the. first mission so Sarah she was uh. graduated CU Boulder one of the smartest. individuals I've ever met um she was. hired as a SpaceX engineer to be the. lead astronaut trainer so she teaches. astronauts how to operate the. vehicle so she knows the systems inside. and out in fact she's teaching our. instructors things as we go through this. program and then Anna menet um she's got. a masters in biomedical engineering she.

used to work at Nasa and she was hired. by SpaceX to to pretty much write the. procedures the nominal procedures. contingencies for our vehicle so again. these two know the systems inside and. out. and then you got kid outdoor education. barely graduates college so I know my. place um it kind of Tainted my my. attitude or approach in the beginning.

and it took some failed training events. to to wake me up and that kind of gets. back to that whole it's not about me. there's there's there's a lot writing on. this and I need to step up because I'm. being way too reliant upon my crew to. pull me along cuz you know we go into. this program it's. developmental we only have three years. to to focus on these huge. Milestones so it's like hey we're going. to assume everyone's knowledge is right.

around here we're only going to focus on. this this top tier stuff and I'm kind of. going along get along I'm also I have. this fear of failure fear of judgment. and doubt not that they would ever judge. me but it's. like I'm hanging on and I'm you know. when I'm asked questions it's like I'll. deflect with humor I'll respond. questions with. questions um phone a friend use way too.

much leverage on the crew not fully. grasping hey this takes a full team this. takes all four crew members because. there might be situations where you know. they Lean on Me in time of need and it. if I fail them because I didn't get my. game where it needs to be this could go. really bad and you know my wake up call. was actually you know it was a training. scenario we're in the simulator there's. there's kind of three levels of training.

that we did we did um physiological. training that's the centrifuge the. altitude chamber the vacuum chamber the. Zerg flights there's the um the. Practical training that we went through. experiential mountaineering um scuba. diving skydiving flying fighter Jets and. then there's the procedural where we. spend a majority of our time in the. simulator and um they would give us very. difficult situations scenarios you know. some very unlikely but you know it's to. test our knowledge and our experience.

and our teamwork and all that stuff um. and one of the scenarios was Jared is. incapacitated for whatever reason he's. out and now we got to do an emergency. deorbit and based on the configuration. of the cockpit or the capsule there's. three displays and Jared and I sit in. the middle as the commander the pilot. and we are the only ones with access to. those three screens and that's where all. the systems and procedures are and then. the outboard seats sarinana Mission. specialist they they can't see the.

screens when they're strapped in their. seat you know 90% of the mission we're. we're out of our seats floating around. and doing whatever and you have access. to the screens you just float. underneath well Jared's incapacitated. well in nominal procedures he's doing. everything and I'm backing him up I'm. just kind of verifying what he's doing. action wise and checks and balances well. he's. out so kids there to save the day and I. fail miserably it's most humbling.

experience because I can't keep up I. make the wrong decisions I can't rely. upon these two because they can't see. what I'm looking at on the screen it was. just it was an epic fail and that was. the attitude adjustment that I had I'm. like I got to step up I got to I got to. change I gotta be more. humble you know have more humility in. the fact that I need to rely upon my and. be honest with my weaknesses and lean on. my crew. members because they got to get help me.

get my knowledge where it needs to be. and I need to be I need to be authentic. in the fact that if I'm going to set. goals to get my knowledge to where it. needs to be I got to be true to myself. and and know where my limits are but. it's it's got to get to a certain thre. old if if you know because again getting. back to this is. 100% this is zero fail we have to you. know have Mission success or we're going. to set the.

entire space exploration program not. just SpaceX but everybody back and it. you we're doing things we're doing some. crazy [ __ ] yeah um anyways that's a lot. that's a that wow and how long was this. timeline 3 years 3 years we were. supposed to launch it the. big the biggest challenge and talking. about space I go on all day long um how. smart these people are um the long pole.

in the tent was the development of the. Eva. suit so they had to build a brand new. suit that you know the Iva suit they. wear two and from the station it's it's. meant to pressurize in in the case of a. um a depressed situation and keep. astronauts alive but it's not in meant. intentionally to go outside of the. capsule in the vacuum of space so they. had to build a new suit so they took the. Prototype the IBA suit and spent years.

enhancing you know with a big focus on. thermals CU a 250 degree plus or minus. swing when you're either in the Sun or. in the eclipse of theow so it's Plus -. 250°. um Mobility is a concern because it's. pressurized so and we had to come up. with a way to bring the entire capsule. down to vacuum cuz we don't have the.

luxury of um an airlock like they have. in the space. station so we have to bring the entire. capsule which means we're all four going. to be pressurized which has never been. done before never had four astronauts. involved in the same. spacewalk so we had to come up with this. novel pre-bath approach profile where. we're going to bring the the the. pressure down in the capsule increase. the oxygen. levels CU we're all we're trying to.

mitigate the risk of. DCs what's DCS decompression sickness so. nitrogen bubbles scuba. concerns um because if we if we do it. too rapidly or cuz cuz on the on the. space station and the airlock they're. going to prere % oxygen it's going to. purge all those nitrogen bubbles out of. your system so DCS isn't a huge concern. it's still minor but it's not huge we. don't have enough gas oxygen on board to.

purge our entire system so we have to. come up with this stair step approach. where we'll increase the oxygen mitigate. the risk bring the O the pressure down. so we get closer and closer so we're. we're climatizing the body to those. lower pressures with increased oxygen. levels and we're not eating up our our. gas consumption too soon anyways. um. so uh back to the suit their big focus.

in the development of over that. three-year period was uh thermals. Mobility they came up with these new. funky joints um uh certain bearings on. all these joints to have Mobility. because you want it pliable when you're. not pressurized you want to be able to. move you know it's a one piece it's got. a big old spiral zipper around the waist. it's just a zipper you know you just. cinch it down as it's maybe almost like. a dry suit okay but it handles pressure.

so we were just over five PSI Delta so. as we're coming down you know we're at. 14.7 it's SE at you know sea level and. then you know as you go up to the Mount. Everest it's I don't know where it's at. you know 9 10 psi and then eventually. you're going to work it down till you. know you can't survive anymore and that. pressure Delta is always going to be a. plus five so as long as we maintain that. plus.

five um the suits pressurize and we can. bring it all the way down to a vacuum. and then open the hatch and go. outside and so that was a big focus is. coming up with all these different. thermal layers like 12 different layers. the the the visor had to be changed they. added a helmet mounted site or yeah more. of a HUD not a queuing system we didn't. laser um it just uh projected like. pressure. temperature um duration um like a heads.

up display y okay it's exactly what it. was a little monocle and it's just this. team was insane they would it's like a. monster garage so they would piece me. I'd be walking around this Franken timee. suit this glove is this arm is. completely different and this bearing's. different and we would be trying out all. the stuff we'd go home on Friday we'd. fly back on Monday for more training and. it's completely revamped hey we're going. to try out this HUD with this monocle um. see what you like give us some feedback.

and and this was what it was like over. the course of of two and a half years. going through this program is developing. and you look at the the. initial like holy [ __ ] I'm going to. space in this suit to the final product. it was like. it it was insane damn and that took you. know decades for other Eva suits to be. developed in billion doll programs this. was done on you know Millions I don't.

know how much it cost but and in two and. a half years Grant I mean it's umbilical. so we're attached to the vehicle to pump. in that oxygen nitrogen Nitro. um but Full Faith and confidence this is. only you know it's probably revamped you. know it's been 6 months they're probably. on you know version six 6 to9 at this. point on a new suit and they'll come up. with some. self-contained they they got it you know.

they're wow like I was like I'm like the. 51 I'm like the oldest dude um they're. all like 20s something 30 year olds. brilliant brilliant very passionate. I just I love that organization cuz Elon. and Gwen they they set the vision. there's no doubt this is the vision for. the organization but they're very flat. um structure where everyone is. empowered and everyone feels empowered.

and that just breeds and fosters this. environment of of passion so you know. they're willing to work those long hours. and long days because they're they're. doing things that are changing the world. you know starlink. and um everything they're doing at space. ax and and uh what they're able to. accomplish in such a short. period and and they have this you know. the fail fast mentality like when you. see Starship if it blows up it blows up.

doesn't matter we're going to learn so. much from that and they'll take it. and make the next damn version even. better. so but what are you telling your family. they got to be worried about this. right I I I'll tell you it. was yeah we had our moments it was it. was. tough yeah um deploying to combat is one.

thing you know when you intentionally. sign up to go to space on a. developmental test space. flight um especially when you thought we. were into our retirement. years um. yeah it was it was tough. um God bless her for for hanging on and. putting up with me is she glad you did. it um yeah I mean. certainly pride is not a great thing to.

to. uh but she's proud of of all the. accomplishments and what we did and. she's very thankful it's over obviously. and I'm safe um like I said she's she's. a Believer and she knew it was in God's. hands um but it's still a leap of faith. especially watching that rocket go. off um being strapped to that rocket is. an unwavering level of trust cuz I'm not. in control you know fighter jet yeah.

yeah I'm doing the inputs I can control. that and oh by the way if shit's not. working out I can punch any. jet rocket ship's lot. different yeah what's I mean how okay so. how long did it take you to get up. there so um and how did how exactly did. this. go was The Space Walk at the same. altitude as the no everything was done. different altitudes.

um highly elliptical meaning we was we'd. go far and then pass on the backside. really close so 1,400 km by. 190 um our. entry um altitude was 1,200 by 190 so. that was just to kind of go through some. checks in the systems and then after a. couple orbits we bumped up we did some. phase Burns to get up to that 1400 we. set the record we did about eight orbits.

at that. altitude to do some um radiation testing. um and then we brought it back down. to 750 is and that's where we did the. spacewalk so was that the last thing no. that was day three so it was 5. days so the first day bleeding into the. the second day was the altitudes and. then we phased down immediately and then.

the third day is when we did The Space. Walk uh and then the rest of the days. we're all science and research Sterling. testing everything. else um let's walk let's walk so initial. entry into. space so even touched on this ear I mean. even the even straping end you know I I. don't know if I told you it's it. produces 1.7 million pbbs of. thrust so that's equivalent of of 70. f-16s 6 69 f16s cuz I'm a figh pilot um.

one F16 is Mack 2,500 mil hour pulling. N9 GS this thing is like the equivalent. of 70 and what's the big Delta people. ask me what's it like compar find a. fighter versus a a you know spaceship um. spaceship. is I'm in control and in a fighter so if. I'm not digging the G forces I can ease. off in in a spacecraft it just continues.

to accelerate doesn't give a [ __ ] how. you feel and it's different G forces so. in a fighter jet it's it's head to toe. this is the z-axis I believe so it's. centrifugal force that you know when you. pull back on that stick it's it's. centrifugal force that causes that G. force and that pooling of the blood in. lower extremities the fear passing out. because the blood leaves the brain so. why you wear the the git and and do the. G strain um to kind of restrict that. blood flow that is a lot different.

because in a spaceship based on the. orientation of the seat the g-forces is. through the chest so it's this and it. and it builds up to about 4 and a half. G's and um so once you you know right. before liftoff. this rocket is alive it's venting it's. hissing it's making all these knocks and. pings it's. swaying so the strong back gets. retracted and it's just sitting there. balancing just waiting to go and you can.

feel this Sway and it's just. man and you're all you're doing is. watching the clock you're strapped in. you're I mean they they cinch on you you. know an Apollo 1 put your foot on your. yanket they don't they don't mess up the. suit but it's pretty damn tight and. bers down and you know here we go you. know by the way how long are you in. there before. takeoff or before launch what do you. call launch that's that's a whole. different story I um I have an old man. bladder yeah I was wondering that I mean.

besides that I mean I don't mean I don't. know how you. work in in premission going to combat. but me I feel like I got to pee like. every every 2 minutes like oh [ __ ] I got. to go again oh [ __ ] I got to go again. like then you hear the hilos oh yeah I. guy got to go people always ask me what. was were you. scared I butan that's a lot of. anticipation dude I I wasn't scared I. was scared about drowning in my own pee.

I peed eight times cuz we we went delay. after delay for. weather and I would I couldn't hold it. so I'm you know we wear these they're. called mags maximum absorbency garment. depends and I went eight times and I'm. drenched and I'm freezing I got trench. foot it's just like pooling and it's. like I'm in the middle of this and I'm. freezing my butt off shaking I'm. literally just shivering I'm like pleas.

let's just get to space so I can get. into some warm. clothes and then I'm thinking to. myself zero gravity is this going to. float up into my. helmet you just see the the headline now. astronaut drowns in own Tang he I don't. know um so that's what was going through. my mind during this Launch. face um but back to the launch it just. you know that once the clock expires.

those nine Maryland engines they just. they just come alive and it's like an. earthquake it just shakes your world you. know you can't concentrate on anything. it's just and it's like slow-mo cuz it. just lifts off and it just slowly starts. to build and Accel accelerate and faster. and faster and the first first uh. segment is 2 and 1/2 minutes and you're. watching the clock and you're watching. your your profile and you're going up um. it's a inclination of 51.6 Dees and it. takes you right up the coastline and the.

reason why is if anything happens the. capsule will eject off the booster and. splash down in the Atlantic Ocean so you. have all those resources along the coast. versus going directly out you know over. the Atlantic and now you're in the. middle of the ocean and you know you. never get recover kind of thing. um so it it just it's accelerating and. you're going faster and faster and. faster and 2 and a half minutes is. you're waiting for Mo main engine cut. off and the g-forces start to build up.

and it's it's 4 and 1 12 G so it just. feels like somebody is just sitting on. your chest and there's a lot of pressure. on the neck so it's hard to talk um and. breathe and it's just it's an endurance. event so in a fighter jet it's just you. pulse 9gs and you deplete your energy. state so you can't can sustain 9 GS but. 4 and 1/2 for two for for 2 and 1/2. minutes is is fairly intense and then Mo. happens and when Mo happens it's just a. big old boom and you get launched.

forward in your straps and you float. because of that de. acceleration because that you know. you're no longer connected to the. booster and you're waiting for the. separation to happen and it's the. longest 10 seconds of your life because. you have to have the adequate separation. for the second stage to light this is a. big old uh Merlin vacuum engine it's. only one engine but it's massive 220,000. lb of thrust for one engine and as soon. as that light it as soon as that engine. light it's just a bam you're back in the.

seat and now you're you're on a. six-minute ride and those g-forces build. back up to four and a half and now. you're just on this trajectory. eventually you get about 200 km and you. you level off cuz you're kind of above. the atmosphere and you're just. accelerating and your trying to get as. fast as possible and you get up to. 17,500 mph is is uh orbital velocity. this keeps you in orbit otherwise you. get pulled back down into Earth cuz. gravity is constantly pulling on you. even at 175 but you're just falling in.

the same orbit all around Earth but if. you go slower eventually gravity pulls. you back into the atmosphere you hit all. the gases in the atmosphere and you slow. down. drag but once you get up there you. accelerate 17 5 mock 25 you're going 5. miles a. second and you're waiting for that SEO. to happen second stage cut off and. that's where that second stage will. separate and when that happens again. it's just this.

boom you separated now you're floating. and now you're in that that um. transition that you know fluid shift. organs are shifting brain. lift um did I explain this I don't even. remember if I did or not a little bit um. I talked about the space adaptation the. disorientation that tumbling um other. things that happen is the fluid in your. body is Shifting so it's free floating. so your organs are actually kind of. moving around and your your brain is.

floating in CSF but gravity's pulling on. it well up there it starts to shift up. and it floats inside your skull and it. causes this like space. fog um it's almost like this fullness. and if you see images of us we look full. like bloated swollen it's almost like if. you hang upside down from your bed that. blood rush it's just. constant um and it's it's something you. have to get used to and it it can have.

an impact like I had this. chronic um headache mild headache I. actually um I did an experimental. surgery for this. Mission um a couple years. prior one of the big concerns is inter. cranial pressure so the fluid in your. spine the CSF in your brain um the. pressure changes zor gravity so it. actually applies pressure to the ocular. nerve and changes the shape of your. eyeball it flattens your eyeball and it.

affects the visual Acuity and it. actually can cause temporary blindness. couple astronauts have had temporary. blindness so you imagine the concern. you're on your way to. Mars and you go blind or you lose. significant ific visual Acuity we don't. know much about it because we've only. done noninvasive experiments contact. lenses that take pressure measurements. um little guns you squeeze and point. into the eye take measurements but those.

are all noninvasive they're. not they're not as as accurate as we. would. like um and and NASA NASA being somewhat. risk adverse um they've never been a. invasive experiment there's no real. volunteers and Commercial isn't really a. thing yet I kids's dumb enough yeah I'll. do it so I signed up for this. experimental surgery where they're going. to surgically implant a transducer into.

my uh underneath my rib cage and that. transducer uh takes measurements and. it's got a catheter that runs up into my. spinal column so they drill the hole. into my spinal column and they slide up. about 10 cm of this catheter and now. that fluid can flow into the transducer. and we have this wand we just you know. brush The Wand Over the transducer and. it takes a measurement so you take. measurements before during and after and.

now you can you can understand the. pressure changes um so we can learn more. about it unfortunately the I did the. surgery um and for some reason the the. the technique used the catheter backs. out of my spinal column and so I just. have a big hole leaking. CSF and that was debilitating I'm I. couldn't function I literally. just you know lay down I couldn't I.

couldn't you know it's just this massive. massive headache and I have the most. utmost respect for hydrophilus patients. the swelling of of the brain just it's. absolutely debilitating so they had to. do emergency blood patch into my spinal. column and then eventually I had to do. another surgery to to remove all the. [ __ ] in. my I had 11. surgeries the one year leading up to. space damn random [ __ ] damn appendix.

gallbladder. ercps this hernas you name. it. old but it was a so you go straight up. to sorry yes yeah you go straight to you. did you said there were some. uh you did a couple of orbits at a lower. altitude and then shot up to what was it. uh 148.16156210.

Cycles on the hardware software as well. as the human body didn't want to expose. too much it was the equivalent of like. three to four months living on the ISS. what they're exposed to in in. our um eight orbits it's pretty intense.

band of radiation called the vanil Li. bels and then we brought it down to 750. is I think it. was you were up there for how many days. three days no up there was just eight. orbits so. 106 minutes * 8 whatever that equals. hour and a half U I don't know 12. hours 12 14 hours so when you were up. there I mean could you see the whole. earth at once uh no uh there was I wish.

I had pictures um do you have pictures. oh yeah absolutely iPhone that's we took. thousands of pictures with our iPhone. can you send me some absolutely they're. they're all over the Internet um we have. a flicker page I'll send you that's got. really cool videos um time lapse the. best pictures actually are from outside. the capsule it looks like CGI looks fake. it's not just like the moon um but it's. this they modified again standard SpaceX.

badass they H had a camera outside a. selfie cam with a fisheye lens outside. the the hatch um the nose cone so it had. this beautiful picture of the The Space. Walk just time lapse of all the you know. the evolution of the light all that. stuff so I'll send you plenty so could. you see the whole no you could see good. portion of it um but you couldn't we.

weren't far enough away there was enough. underneath and the you know there's. Windows aren't that great I mean it's. there's two windows they're about that. big and then the Ford hatch. the actual hatch has a window in. it what's it like looking out into. nothing very eerie um sometimes depend. on the lighting but you could see stars. and sometimes you couldn't um especially.

when the the Draco are firing it all you. see is this Hue of of yellows and reds. from the from the fuel exhaust. um but there were times where it's just. billions of stars I mean more than you. could ever imagine um we did see. constellation of um. starlink it passed like 70 km away is. which it's pretty close I mean. relatively speaking um they track all.

that it's called mmod microm meteorite. orbital. debris any [ __ ] that's you know worthy. of well anything that big would put a. hole in your in your uh Castle but um. what was I mean what was uh what was the. routine up there were you guys. just did you have to be were you doing. stuff or no it was it was constant um we.

packed a. lot 10 lb of [ __ ] into a six lb sock it. was it was a lot um cuz we wanted to. make it I mean how many astronauts have. there been you know it's we got to. maximize this opportunity and leverage. every minute and second we have so we. had a very intense. timeline um and then you talk about all. the adaptation to the environment it's. just like your your challenge to any. downtime sleep I slept maybe 3 4 hours a.

night if I was. lucky it's tough I mean if you're a back. sleeper it's it's okay cuz by the time. you fall asleep you're flat as a board. levitating like Exorcist type above the. B and the these seats are like bucket. seats almost like a racing kind of seat. um but you Loosely connect the super uh. seat belt because you would float away. um but by the time you fall asleep and.

falling asleep is tough because since. you're floating you feel like you're. falling so it's just like once you hit. like REM it's like you get startled and. wake up because you feel like you're. falling and so you go through this cycle. until eventually you get so tired I'm. just you fall asleep and then when you. wake up you're just this flat as a. board wow we'd have these little you. know down sleeping bags just these. little profile kind of things for. Comfort um Jared would sleep up on the.

top I think Sarah slept on the bottom I. slept in my seat Anna you know it was. just wherever you could find Space what. are you guys. eating you know it's like so people ask. why do you m what what is mountaineering. have to do with space fight well there's. there's a lot of consistencies and you. know when you when you climb a mountain. and we did uh one of our guides took us. Ed viser uh I don't know if you know Ed. he's only American to summ at all 14. 8,000 meter Peaks without oxygen.

American anyways he took us down to uh. cot aoxy Ecuador in. 19328 Ft volcano multiple days get up. close to the summit um by the time you. get up there man you're you're hungry. you're dehydrated you're sleep deprived. you're dealing with oxygen you know. issues with altitude you're in confined. space on the tent and very consistent to. how you feel in a capsule and this gets. to your question you're just not that.

hungry you're. eating camp food um because we're going. to bring this entire capsule down to. vacuum so if there's much if there's a. lot of water in any of the food it just. staps it it's just going to freeze it. and you know it's not going to taste. good so we had a little bit of fresh. food to kick off cold. pizza um these empanadas and little. little Hawaiian roll. sandwiches otherwise that was gone I was.

the only one eating I mean I'm you know. being an endurance guy I'm just like and. I felt great so my crew members were. like you're kid and so I was the only. one eating this stuff um but other it's. like Cliff Bars beef. jerky um that kind of stuff just to. sustain till you get five days five days. I mean you didn't really want to sleep. but you felt like you had to do. something you want to make the most of. it um but all of our time was science.

and research and then the prep leading. up to the spacewalk that was a big deal. cuz you guys I mean how how much time do. you get. to look at Earth and look at look. at the vastness of space I. mean gles yeah cuz um in the the. brightness of the of the sun it is. it's you know it's not worthy of picture. so it's not like we're focused cuz it's. so bright and it's dark in the capsule.

so it's really tough um photography wise. it was more the transitions that were. like oh my God that's amazing um The. Thin Blue Line and then as sunrise and. sunsets happen that that was really cool. the low altitudes catching you know. crossing over you know Egypt and the. Gaza or uh Giza and the Nile and Suz and. Israel that was beautiful CU your your.

profile the way you fly around the earth. is it's pretty consistent you're you're. descending over Europe into Africa India. Australia and then you start climbing. back up through the US and then back. back down it's just how the orbit is. with the rotation and interesting this. how long would it take to orbit the. earth it's 106 minutes for hour orbit. it's usually like 90 minutes for like. the. station hour and a half to get around we. were an hour in 46 minutes that's.

because of this highly elliptical. profile that we did with the the. furthest is called the apy and that was. a 1408 and then the the lowest closest. of the back side of that orbit is called. parag and that was the 190 190 km which. is like you're skimming the atmosphere. it's. wow no so we were just doing you would. catch a glimpse while you're doing all.

the science and research blood samples. and simple stuff that we don't think. about that we have to solve for like um. trios. you know you stick a 100 passengers on a. on a um Starship that's headed to Mars. shit's going to. happen cardiac arrests um you're going. to have to incubate CPR whatever those. aren't easy things to do especially in.

the volume of like a Starship where you. don't have leverage per se where's a. small capsule do we had to do a CPR um. test little compression thing little um. trainer kind of thing click click click. and just simply getting leverage to do. CPR for 2 minutes cuz it's equal and. opposite reaction you push and now. you're floating yeah how do you get. leverage you just put your feet on the. ceiling and so you'd have to move the. patient over to one seat because you. can't get to the patient underneath the.

other two seats it's you got to think. about every little. detail um Airway assessment so the shape. everything changes shapewise so your. Airway becomes more constricted so if. you're going to incubate and need to. stick something down someone's throat. it's a different shape so we don't know. exactly what those changes are so I did. a um. endoscop um camera exam of my Airway so.

this camera this long little antenna. just stick it down the nose down to the. airway and you're taking images before. during and after the flight and all the. smart people will go back and take this. information cgms someone's going to have. diabetes who goes to space a simple CGM. little device doesn't work so well in. space so just simple stuff drawing blood. cuz you know as soon as blood it's.

floating so you're so used to gravity on. some of these devices that that draw. blood they weren't working in space so. we had to test new ones to draw blood so. what does there have to be suction. there's a little bit it's like a um. part of it was centrifugal force um the. one we tested didn't. work um it was a device you just slap on. you push a button and it's supposed to. like draw but it it was having. difficulties because zero gravity the.

fluid is just. floating. man another cool test was um it was an. ambulance in a box literally just a. suitcase Pelican case and it had all. these leads and so you you go in cardiac. rest we're sticking all these leads on. doing a um and we can do an EKG and. oxygen um blood pressure pulse anything. and everything all that's fed through. starlink down to the smart doctors on. Earth and they can monitor patients from.

space with this new device it's never. been tested. before so very inter that yeah yeah wow. so let's so The Space Walk mhm. so. um this. was I mean that had to scare the [ __ ]. out of you right yeah. it's I think getting town to vacuum.

especially looking out into. nothing that. was the fear came before that and it was. as you started to go down to to vacuum. because. this suit it's the only space suit that. is a single panel of a visor this. aridium whatever glow gold plated kind. of thing um it is the only suit that is. a single layer you know the Emu suits. they wear they're multi-layered and you.

know different shades and stuff like. that um so it's literally just this thin. between you and death you know cuz if if. you lose pressure pray that it's a slow. leak and you can repressurize the. capsule in time but probably not yeah I. didn't want to think about that too much. um but you're you know you're you're. watching you're watching the the one in. the HUD cuz that's your suit. pressure and it's it it should be.

additional 5 PSID D above whatever the. capsule is so you know if we're at like. 10 I hope I'm reading 15 and then as it. comes down you know eventually I see. five and I know the capsule we're in a. vacuum so we can just simply open the. hatch and so that is just. a and then it's just this whole. compartmentalized the Box breathing you. know I'm.

just because you're in this confined. space and if you're claustrophobic at. all I mean there were there were events. in training where you're you're playing. along with the scenario and you're. rushing around because something. happened is you know emergency situation. and the visor is down and it's 12 layers. thick and the idea is to retain your. heat but that is a huge concern because. at some point you cross a threshold.

where your body can't cool itself. anymore you're just going to cook inside. the suit because it can't cool fast. enough the air flow isn't that great. there's some vents right here on the vi. just right by the V and the gas from the. umbilical but if you catch yourself. overheating too fast it's a point of no. return kind of. feeling and you start to like have this. hyperventilation feeling because you're. just trying to calm yourself down and so.

you would experience this in training. because you're you're jumping all around. and you're at oneg having to fight the. pressure of this suit and it's. just. um so it's almost like that meditative. State you had to get into for the. spacewalk because of you did not want to. like ever get yourself anywhere near I. never did you know you especially where. I was sitting and what I did my role. during the uh The Space Walk cuz I. stayed to my seat so um we only had.

enough gas to send two astronauts out. 15minute in increments that's all we had. but technically the hatch it's literally. right there I mean space is right there. I just didn't get to stick my head out. wanted to but I'm locked in my seat belt. and same with Anna and then Jared and. Sarah were the ones that in the middle. seats did the. swap um so was one at a time one at a.

time that's all it fits cuz you're. pressurized so the volume in the capsule. when you're pressurized especially. Jared's not a not a small human he's six. something. 6'2 um or 6 I don't know what he but he. takes up a lot of that volume you know. I'm just a widow guy so I and I'm over. my side and Anna's over her side and. Sarah's small so but so enough room for. him to get up do his thing 15 minutes. did some uh Mobility testing out there.

um I mean outside. mhm holy [ __ ] by yourself I thought that. I thought you'd have a buddy or. something yeah you have um a Kevlar cord. for uh. tether and then you have the. umbilical so it's. um and then I guess I could I can grab. him if I had to. um what are they doing out there. Mobility test um he got a beautiful view.

so as soon as he opened the hatch well. we actually had an issue with the hatch. opening I can talk about but soon as he. got the hatch open man Earth just filled. that entire it was. it was unbelievable um and I got a great. view of it and Jared got a great view. about halfway through his window Sunset. happened so it got all black so Sarah. actually went out and it was just black. we're were in the eclipse of the planet.

so it pretty dark when she went out. there's ambient light from the capsule. and and there's there's lights up there. and she's got a light on her um visor. but it's um or camera um. but the hatch so um our protocol was. Jared is going once we get down to. vacuum everything's good he's going to. unlock. it break the. seal get out of the way and it's going. to be.

automated because they were concerned. about him exerting too much force and. generating heat and that was a big. concern. um well as soon as he unlocked and and. broke the seal it would. automatically close on its. own come to find out the residual. pressure from our suits was. forcing the the hatch to. close so he would open a little bit more. but it wasn't enough finally you know.

again based on the training that we went. through and the rehearsals and these. scenarios we were it was meant for it um. our backup game plan was just to do a. manual Jared's just going to open the. hatch so that was the the first issue uh. the only issue that we had was he had a. default to a manual hatch opening which. was kind of cool and so he opens it and. and there's. Earth um and he goes. outside first commercial spacewalk it. was wow it was.

surreal and a lot of people lot there. were a lot of doubters out there you. know social media is an evil thing but. um a lot of people doubted. um what we were. doing what SpaceX was able to. accomplish um I'm sure Elon gets it. constantly I. mean just starting the rocket business. and doing boosters landing on you know. on drone ships and now catching boosters.

with chopsticks. it's it's. it's not a matter of if it's just when. when are we going to accomplish all. these. things and so so he comes back back in. and then Sarah goes out and then she. gets her 15 minutes um and then we're. just our roll in and under underneath. was just to manage the umbilical cords. and safety monitoring the systems. because if anything happens it's like. abort abort abort get back inside close.

the hatch. repressurize and we could you know we. could live in those suits for hours if. not days pressurized and we would. eventually you know repressurize and. deal Orit if anything ever happened but. man yeah how long do you think it'll be. before the majority of Americans have. been to. space you know it it's absolutely. inevitable I believe it for sure it's.

going to happen the concept of launching. these starships and as soon as it starts. taking the first human it's it's not. going to be long after that it's because. they're already building out the it's. called EES or the architecture the. infrastructure inside these they have. prototypes of um they got them down at. Star uh star base in in Texas where they. do the. launches um these mockups of what it. would look like in theory and it's. almost like these um little cubicles.

they're spiral stacked inside this. immense you know it's I don't know if. it's 30 by 30 30t diameter and cross but. it's ours was 12 ft I think it's 12T 12. or 14 I think it's 12T is the diameter. of our capsule this is like 30 and it's. like you have all this volume to float. across and and and the idea is these. little cubicles almost like these. Japanese trains that have little just. enough space to lay down but hundreds of.

these spiral stacked up inside this. capsule and you got multiple levels so. now you have all the living quarters and. then you got the eating quarters and. then you got the the operations where. the crew of you know six to nine people. in charge of the vehicle are going to. operate and then you have all these. passengers that. are just going for the ride but I think. we're ways away I I think we're I feel. like my kids are going to take a school.

field trip there to to space to lower or. yeah but. it's this this thing is the lymph the. body um you know 50%. space adaptation syndrome get sick could. you imagine 100 people no and 20 30. people pukin what a [ __ ] show oh it. would be bad so hopefully we can solve. some of. that um I don't know if it's drugs or I.

don't know what's it like coming. back um well another thing we did on. orbit is the Starling tests um oh yeah I. don't I don't I mean I can briefly cover. this but. um so the idea was going to do a a. global music event Sarah Gillis is a. professionally trained violinist. absolutely beautiful um extremely. talented um and we're going to do this. Global event this you know flash mob. where all these orchestras around the. world are going to perform and and she's.

going to perform in space and it's all. going to be. broadcast via starlink um because it's. never been tested up there um and we you. know we weren't sure about the the. probability of. success um it was just an. unknown um cuz you got to it's all. lasers you know and these little. glass uh I don't know what they are on. the on the actual Starling that they had. align all these things and and they're. traveling 175 and you're traveling 175.

to figure out the math to make all this. happen and now you're passing through. their orbit in your elliptical cuz. they're circular they're at 350 let's. call it and you're passing through them. so you got to communicate and it's just. like smart people figure that stuff out. so we didn't know if it was going to. work um as soon as we got up there. they're like um we think your Wi-Fi is. working can you guys get on your iPhone. and see if it's working we.

literally and so the way you communicate. with anyone in space is it's ground. stations strategically placed all over. the planet and as you're going around. you're communicating line of sight to. all these stations or you utilize uh. with what called tedris satellites just. National Assets I think there's only. five or six out there and it's high. demand National Security kind of stuff. and you time share based on if you're on. the ISS and you know if we were going to. utilize that it's going to be about. maybe 80% coverage otherwise we're in.

blackout we're not talking to anyone. kind of. thing starlink is is hopefully going to. change that and so they say hey we think. it's working can you guys get on your. iPhones and check. literally ding ding ding ding ding ding. ding ding all these messages start. populating in my phone and we're like. can we call our families we literally I. call my family so I I dial my wife and. she patches in and we're FaceTime my. kids are at school I got two in high.

school one in college they step out of. their classroom and everyone picture we. have we have like snapshots of our phone. there we are talking to our family and I. can only think back to when I met my. wife and I'm in Korea and she's back in. Minnesota and we're using this MCI. calling cards and I get maybe 5 10. minutes out of it and I well I deployed. to um Kuwait and I got two phone calls 5. minutes each over 90 days and that's all. I talked and know by the way I proposed.

to her the day before I deployed and we. got married 3 days after I got back from. my deployment so and so we're engaged I. talked to her twice jeez anyway. so I think back to to just I don't know. what was that 25 years ago um and now. here we are I'm in. space I'm 14400 miles up I'm traveling. 17,500 M hour I'm currently over Africa. on my way to India and my kids are in.

school and I'm talking you know it's. just absolute mind-blowing. what what we have access to so talk. about information flow I mean. we took some Starling to. Philippines so St Jude could set up some. of these at at remote locations and so. all these people who live in jungles now. have access to this tele medicine. otherwise who wouldn't you know and it's.

just now we got starlink down to our. phones and it's just live in a different. world we do we. do man so coming home. M so. um it's a drawn up process to get ready. because you got to strap everything in. cuz it's a violent ride it's I think. it's more violent coming home than it is. going. up your body is.

deconditioned so you're used to zero. gravity but we've only been there for 5. days I mean these astronauts on the. space station when uh. um when they come when Butch and sunny. come home in a couple weeks um you know. they've been up there for six plus. months they're way deconditioned so it's. it's tough because you're not using the. skeletal system your ligaments your. tendons your muscles like you normally. do it's why they dedicate hours 3 hours. a day to working out up there on the.

station um but our five days you still. feel deconditioned so the moment you. start this re-entry and what happens is. you you turn the capsule around you fire. the Draco engines into the of your. velocity and that slows you down so as. as as you begin to slow down now gravity. starts taking over and and you enter. your your deorbit. profile and as soon as you start coming. down you hit the.

atmosphere and that's what really slows. you. down because you have all this drag. and but it also generates plasma heat. fire. so that's what you enter the blackout. phase so as you start the the first step. of the whole process is to separate from. the trunk so you got the capsule and. then you got this extension it's called. the trunk it's got solar panels CU this. this entire vehicle is energy depleting. so we need the solar panels for for.

energy uh for power so you separate from. the trunk a couple hours prior and it's. just this big old Thum and that's okay. we're committed because we can't survive. in this capsule for for too long we got. to come home so you're coming home. anyways um you get in your suit um you. get your your seat you strap in and. and engines start firing and it's just. this constant. repetitive as these engines are firing.

to slow you down and then it just it. just slowly starts to build this. vibration this chatter and and as you. start to hit the atmosphere it's you got. your two little windows and you can see. just enough and you initially see like. these Sparks almost looks like campfire. Sparks up high and then all a sudden it. turns into like these streaks and then. it just turns into fire you are. literally on fire and it's like I think. it's like 2600 de so it's you're cooking.

you're praying that TPS the thermal. protection system the your protection on. the belly is is working yeah cuz if any. mmod hit that stuff. you didn't know about. it well you probably wouldn't find out. you just you wouldn't survive it um and. then you hit blackout and it's just. you're hauling ass um and it's shaking. and you start to build up those g-forces.

again because you're slowing down you're. going from 175 down to like 350 miles an. hour so this is just massive G forces. again four and a half but it's a lot. longer and the fact that you haven't. been at G's on orbit. mhm 2 feels whoa I feel heavy four and a. half it's like okay I don't know how. long I can sustain this before I feel. like I'm going to pass. out um you're so hyped up on adrenaline.

anyways and then you're just watching. the clock for certain Milestones you're. looking for the drug shoots to come out. and then once the drug shoots come out. it's they'll pull the shoots eventually. and those are explosives so it's another. big old you know the panel gets blown. pulled and you know it's they're. superimposed images on our display so I. can actually see it happen so it's the. first point of relief is okay the drugs. are out they look good they're not. Tangled or anything like that like a.

parachute and then the big moment is. when those shoots come out and it's just. a big ho it's almost like a car crash. it's just this boom big four four big. shoots come out and then now it's just a. soft ride down the the impact is is like. a car crash like a fender bender it's. pretty it's pretty intense that's why. it's only built for water Landings. versus land you'd break your back if you. landed on the on the.

land and then you're just trying to get. used to gravity and you're bobbing you. know um waiting for them to pull the. recovery cuz again it's SpaceX they they. got everything in top fashion they have. this dedicated boat it's literally. within a mile of where you splash down. they know exactly where you're going to. end up um they pull that boat they send. out uh special ops guys a bunch of PJs. they all have military backgrounds. they're on their jet skis and uh and.

their fast boats and they pull right up. to the capsule they they you know do. some sniff tests cuz um hyper gos is a. big concern it's just this fuel that can. kill you if you breathe too much of it. so they do a sniff test to make sure. there's no leaks um put some straps on. the capsule then they pull the big boat. up right behind you they get this crane. and they just literally just pick you up. put you on the deck slide you right up. to a deck where the hatch is and they.

open the hatch doctors come in check you. over give me a thumbs up cuz millions of. people are watching the broadcast and. you don't want. to when you step out or you can't stand. up or for whatever reason and they check. you out and then one by one it's like. wave to the families and crowds and then. they do a med check helicopter comes get. in the helicopter and they fight back. for the reunion the family reunion in. the. hanger how was it to in your family it.

was awesome I think that was actually. one of the highlights cuz it was you. know get motion just thinking about it's. just like this. relief knowing that she's at ease now. because for me I'm living and breathing. man I'm I'm on cloud nine this is this. is this is my jam but uh for her knowing. that it's like it's over and she can. kind of just let go because she's trying. to hold it together for the kids this.

whole time and you know from the launch. to the spacewalk to the splash down it's. just all these and having to think about. the inevitable or not the inevitable but. um God forbid the worst thing that could. happen you know having to live with that. thinking about it for years leading up. to. this um it was just kind of a emotional. it's over for. her. damn well that's a hell of a journey.

man that is a hell of a journey yeah. it's. um it was only September 15th we. splashed down launch on the 10th. we were up there on the. 11th September 11th talked to folds of. Honor in space which was cool we called. Dan Rooney and a couple of the. families the CEO so that was that was.

cool Sarah did her music event and Anna. wrote a book child's uh children's book. for her kids so she read that on on. orbit we all kind of got a little a. little taste very interesting. yeah is there anything I should have. asked that I didn't. ask that was a. lot well you know when we met at. inauguration you would offer to take me.

up in an F16 oh I did you did I'll. settle for the first podcast in. space Oh the first podcast in space I. think that is definitely that's right up. your alley man that would be awesome we. got the connectivity for it for. sure yeah [ __ ] we could do it live why. not you got to pick your uh who would. you. interview all right let's turn the.

tables let me let me uh ask you. questions who would. you interview in. space well I mean you know. Elon seems pretty. fitting so but man that would be that. would be really something wouldn't it. yeah. but would you. go yeah to. space that was actually one thing that.

that upon reflection getting down you. know I'm trying to make sense of it all. and I keep. on ego wise or bring it back to myself. and what was the what was you know you. know the significance of it all and blah. blah blah and then I have the. conversation with people and they're. like oh my God what was it like they. immediately go into this mental. simulation where they put. themselves in the. situation and it's a hell no there's no.

way I'll go I just don't know if I could. do that or I'll sell my firstborn to go. to space kind of. attitude and that's what makes me. realize. okay stop making it about yourself it's. it there it's so much more than that. it's about inspiring this next. Generation to want to go to be that. person um I talk to my wife about this. all the time I mean I I think the. possibility of our kids going to space.

is greater than them. not things are just evolving so fast you. know I think it'll become the norm. before I die. if I live up you know yeah and it's not. it's not just the moon and Mars it's. going to be low earth orbit as well I. mean they're going to create habitable. structures whether it's a bunch of star. the volume in a Starship is equivalent. to the.

ISS so the entire structure of the ISS. up there is the same as a Starship wow. so. now SpaceX has dozens of these lined up. down there and just waiting to launch to. test they can manufacture these and they. give us the numbers when we go down. there for tours and stuff it's it's it's. crazy it's mindblowing how quickly they. can build these. rockets and they're only getting more. and more efficient you know that's his. business model it's like okay widget X.

the production of widget X by company Y. is slowing us down let's bring this in. House 3D print it and do it ourselves. and that takes out that whole delay so. you know they become more and more. efficient and they're again these. Engineers are empowered to do that you. know with the. um with the ability to take risk as as. needed you know safety always being. primary concern to to be able to create.

all these starships and and it will be. you know reality when they're. launching all the time yeah constantly. and now you you take these Starships one. of them how about docking three four of. these together and now you have three or. four space stations up there create. hotels and you know whatever research. labs and 3D prints some organs. [Music]. and it's a fascinating subject it's I.

guess you know the New Frontier. MH well. Scott what a uh what an interview man. well covered a lot of ground there and. um man it was an honor to to sit here. with you and and um learn about your. life and got into some pretty deep. discussions and talking about space and. God and everything man it's.

been it's been an honor thank you well. honor is mine man I just appreciate the. opportunity um what you're doing is is. absolutely amazing and all the power to. you. um I wish you a lot of success and cuz. you're changing lives and just getting. the message out what whatever it might. be you know. it's this is. um this is the message that people need. to hear not necessarily my story but but. all the things and people you interview.

and you know you've talked about like. like DJ you know he he would never have. a platform like this and now everyone. knows his story and the sacrifices that. he's made. and there's dozens and dozens more like. like DJ that you're allowing this. opportunity so it's just we owe you the. thanks brother it's cool to be able to. do it thank you thank you but all right. Scott God bless brother all right.

[Music]. BR no matter where where you're watching. Shan Ryan Show from if you get anything. out of this please like comment. subscribe and most importantly share. this everywhere you possibly can and if. you're feeling extra generous please. leave us review on Apple and Spotify. podcasts.