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Chapter 1: What is the significance of Butch Wilmore's 464 days in space?
Butch Wilmore. Yes, sir. Welcome to the show, man. Our pleasure to be here. Thank you so much, Sean. You're welcome. It's an honor to have you here. The whole team's been looking forward to this one. It's an honor to be here. 464 days in space. Yes, sir. Wasn't planning to be that long, but here we are. Yes, sir. Indeed. Damn. Yeah. Damn. You know, Sean, it's a privilege to serve your nation.
You know that. In whatever capacity it is. And things, you know, I got extended on deployments. I'm sure you did as well. And even through that, you know, it's a privilege. That's really the baseline. That's the foundation. And so when things don't go as planned and you're continuing to serve, even if it takes time, a couple extra days, weeks, or months.
I mean, in the big scheme of things, it's a privilege, and I said that four times now, because that's what it is. And that's really where, you know, the start of the conversation, where it all stems from, is that that's why I first joined the Navy. I felt that patriotic tug do my part for my country. And I really, really, really wanted to do that, and the Lord allowed it.
And here we are 40 years later. And again, like I said, it's been a privilege. Well, so you were a test pilot, you've been to space. I'm just curious, what do you like flying better? Or where do you like flying better? You like flying on Earth? I guess you would say on Earth, maybe not. That's a great question. Within the atmosphere or outside of it?
So for all of our fellow Americans that have served our nation in the military, NASA has its high highs. It certainly does. There's no doubt about it, right? I'm grateful for every moment, all the 25 years I've spent with NASA. But if I could live one life and I could be a naval aviator operating off aircraft carriers or I could be an astronaut, what would I choose?
There is nothing like operating from and training for the pointy end of the spear. on the aircraft carrier and all that's associated with that. No shit. Day to day, my personal level of job satisfaction is higher when I was a fleet aviator. That's not to say anything negative about NASA. I don't mean that at all. But if I got one life to live,
I'm going to serve my country in the Navy, flying aircraft off carriers.
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Chapter 2: How did Butch Wilmore's military background influence his career?
Why? Because, like I said- I would imagine it's a major rush, no matter- Well, it's not the rush. It's not the rush. You know, I joined the Navy. The reason I joined, because I had the patriotic tug. I'd grown up in this country, grew up in Tennessee. I went to state schools. And as I neared the end of my college years, what am I going to do? I mean, I was an electrical engineering major.
Am I going to go and design circuits? That would have been fantastic. But I had that patriotic tug, do my part. At that time, of course, I didn't know what that would entail. And in my mind's eye, I thought maybe the best way I could use this hard-earned degree I had was to maybe fly. And it wasn't easy. Life is tough. Every phase of life is tough. The Navy wouldn't take me initially, but...
Perseverance continuing to go forward. And finally, I warmed down at whatever you want to say. And they took me. And the journey has been amazing. And if it had ended in the Navy alone, knowing what I know now, it would have been more than thrilling, more than satisfying. So doing your part for your country, potentially going to harm's way, which you're familiar with.
is there's nothing better from that patriotic tug. And that's one of the things I respect the most about individuals that I know. There's a handful of individuals that I would say are great Americans and that I've known personally. And I respect those individuals as much or more than I have anyone in my entire existence.
I think you may have heard I'm a man of faith, and Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. And from that respect, my Lord is everything. I can't separate... that who I am from what I do.
But as far as the world goes and the issues that take place in our lives, if I were to just look and say, these are the people that I respect the most, some of the guys, Andrew Lewis, Woody Lewis, and others, great Americans who I've had the privilege of serving with and watching them, watching them honor their families, their wives, their children,
while serving their nation and going into harm's way i got the greatest respect for those individuals than anybody i've ever met right on man right on yeah ready for an intro ready butch wilmore a recently retired nasa astronaut and retired u.s navy captain a combat naval aviator and test pilot with over 8 000 flight hours and 663 carrier landings
One of the rare astronauts to have flown in five different spacecraft. Space Shuttle, Soyuz, International Space Station, Starliner, and Crew Dragon. A total of 464 consecutive days spent in space. 286 of those days came unexpectedly and are the subject of your new book, Stuck in Space, An Astronaut's Hope Through the Unexpected. a husband a father and most importantly a christian amen amen amen
But before we get too far into the interview here, I got a couple of things we got to crank out. Oh, my. Let's do it. That's right. We got a Patreon account. It's a subscription account that we've turned into one hell of a community. And so they get the opportunity to ask every single guest a question. Okay.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Butch face in his journey to becoming a NASA astronaut?
That's getting framed. This hasn't been in space, but it's a naval aviator wings on the chest. It's a little astronaut, blue astronaut, and it's got a big bottom, so you know it's me. It's a butch. It's a butchy butch. That's awesome. Thank you. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Very cool. Yeah, this is awesome. Yeah, that's, yeah. I mean, I only have three. And now I have two. One's for my two daughters.
My daughters each get one. They don't know. Well, they know this now. But I was going to give it to them when they graduate college. It's in a safe at home. Those two are. And that's the third one. So, yeah, for you, my friend. Thank you. Indeed. Yes, sir. That's amazing. Yeah. That is amazing. Yeah. You know, something that...
Something that everybody kind of wonders is what you guys are carrying up there. From outside, people see spaceflight as rockets and launches, but they rarely understand the actual technology astronauts live inside of.
Can you walk us through the most advanced space tech you personally relied on, your suit, onboard systems, and any gadgets or tools that are incredibly engineered but the public almost never hears about, and explain how they actually function during a mission? I'll give you a couple of quick examples. Perfect. Space shuttle launch.
It's the first launch, 2009, November 16, 2009 was my first launch into space, launching on the space shuttle Atlantis. There are literally hundreds of items that have to go right, exactly right, every time you launch. At the base of the force, the two solid rocket boosters, there are four bolts.
They're 30 inches long with big old nuts on top of them that are holding the space shuttle on the pad. At the time of launch, there's power techniques that fire that take the nut on top of the bolt, this huge nut, and they break it in half. The bolt falls, eight of these, four on each solid rocket booster, and then the rocket goes. That's one example of things that have to go right.
If those solid rocket boosters fire 3.3 million pounds of thrust each, 6.6 total, just from the solid rocket boosters, once they fire, if those bolts don't drop, you're taking part of the pad with you. Wow. And that could be a very bad day. Yeah. So that's one example of one of hundreds of things that have to take place every time that you see a launch.
There's those type of items that are taking place. The spacesuit itself, you know, I don't know the exact cost, but it's in the range of $5 to $7 million. Five to seven million dollars? You got to realize these are one-man space capsules shaped like a person. They're all self-contained. It's got the air, the pressure, maintaining the pressure, CO2 removal system.
We have water that circulates to keep us cool in the vacuum of space because the temperatures vary plus or minus several hundred degrees depending on if you're in the shade or the sun. And so they're very, yeah, they're not cheap and they got to work, right? You can't be on a spacewalk And we do train for failure scenarios where we have issues with our suit.
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Chapter 4: What unique experiences did Butch have during his space missions?
I mean, when I was in space, everything broke. Hurricane came through, I'd get a new roof, and my wife handled it all. My dryer that I bought in 1989, chugging along for 35 years, finally said, I'm done, while I was in space. So she's got to go through that whole process. So these wings represent what I do, but this is as much my wife involved as them. So this is a moment, or a...
An emblem of their dad and their mom's service to the country that I hope they will cherish. And that's so that's what I took with me for my family. Did I take a couple of pictures? Sure. Yeah. But that's really the meaningful thing. That is really cool. That is really cool. And so what would happen if you would happen if I mean.
you landed in Russia or China, some kind of a hostile environment, maybe, you know, somewhere in the GWAT, when that was going on. Yeah, they would... Did you guys talk about that? The powers that be would try to get us immediately. This is, of course, national significance.
This would be up at the highest levels in both the Russian government and our government and whatever other nation that was with us. You know, we have a conglomeration of nations in the International Space Station program.
uh many European nations and such they would be involved at the highest levels immediately and of course the search would be on uh if that certain situation were to occur because of the you know the visibility at all the geopolitical implications and all that as you know as you're aware yeah there's historical documentation that some Soviet cosmonauts carried firearms in their post-landing survival kit after off-course landings in remote areas
In modern astronaut missions today, do crews carry any form of weapons or defensive tools in their survival kits, or has recovery technology made that unnecessary? Weapons. Yes, the Russians did fly pistols. Did they really? They did for survival scenarios where you would need them. But they don't anymore. Like aliens. That was ended. Aliens. No, it wasn't for aliens that I'm aware of.
But yeah, they did. But they canceled that before I flew the Soyuz. Okay. So that was done before I flew the Soyuz. I'm like, hey man, we don't know where we're coming down. We might want one of those. But they're like, no, no, no, no, no. We don't do that anymore. Man. But yes, we did. They did, but not anymore. Well, we got you a little something. Oh my. So yeah, I got a buddy over at SIG.
His name's Jason. And I told him you were coming. Yeah, yeah, hold it up. I told him you were coming on. He wanted me to present you with one of these. Oh, my. So maybe the next time you go up. Yeah, if I go up, we'll put this on the docket. It kind of looks like a space gun. It does. It's the SIG 211 GTO. Amazing. It's got a compensator on the front. I'll have to read up on this one.
New optics line, 9 millimeter. I can see that.
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Chapter 5: How did Butch Wilmore feel about being one of the few astronauts to leave Earth?
And at the time when I launched on the space shuttle, I was the 505th person in the history of human space flight to leave the planet. And I know that because NASA keeps records and they told me. I didn't look it up. The guy sitting behind me, our MS2 was Randy Brasnick's. He was 506 because I was a nanosecond before him getting to space. And we had another guy on the mid-deck.
He was number 507 getting to space. And to think about that in light of history and the billions of people that have survived on this planet, millions of which current day would love to have been sitting there, and it was me sitting in that seat. Sean, that's very humbling. to take all that in and realize. And I remember those thoughts vividly, training for it, preparing for it.
This is a lifetime. My wife sacrifices and all that goes into that. My daughters were born, though they were young, five and two at the time, and realizing they're out there watching all this as we lay on our backs and get ready to go. Wow. And then when I got to space and, you know, the launch went well, the solid rocket boots were separated about two minutes in.
You got another six minutes of powered flight. And then you separate from the external tank. And that's all. All these events are jarring. And the pyrotechnics are firing. And boom. There's blast going on. I'll share that. So we finally do all that. We're in space. We're separated from external tank. And I look out the front window. I'm the pilot. Best seat in the house, right?
Chapter 6: What challenges did Butch face during his space missions?
I'm still strapped in, but we're zero gravity. So in zero gravity, your muscles, your tendons, everything goes to a neutral position. Because there's not gravity pulling it down. Like you sit here like this, your gravity is pulling your arms down, pulling your legs down.
But in space, if you don't have tension on your body, it's going to go to whatever that neutral position is for your tendons and muscles. And feeling that for the first time and looking out the window. Sean, looking out the window, you got 870 pounds of thrusters in the nose and they blast. It's like explosion. And there's orange blast going up as it's maintaining its attitude.
Eventually, in the space shuttle, you would transition to the Vernier thrusters. In comparison, 870 pounds of thrust. In comparison, they're 24 pounds of thrust. You didn't even feel them or hear them. But initially, when you first get there, these blasts are going off, maintaining attitude.
When you separate from the external tank, water vapor separates from the tank, crystallizes into ice, and there are thousands of diamonds floating out the window. The sun's behind us, so it's coming this way. These diamonds are out there. I'm feeling this weightlessness. Diamonds. Wow. That was my first experience of space.
And I look out my right window and there's the earth in the most magnificent, brilliant colors I could ever imagine. And I'm like, Lord, why me? That was the first space, Lord, why me moment. I've had many, but that was the first. Why me? How did I get here? And for anybody that's watching to try to relay that and the appreciation, this is our nation that gives us this capability.
This is what freedom brings. Going back to our forefathers, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, all those individuals not envisioning something like this as they're building the foundation of this country.
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Chapter 7: What was the emotional impact of being stranded in space for 286 days?
But realizing where we have gone from those days and appreciation all the way back for centuries as you sit there in this situation, taking it in, and the Lord, you know, is the one that allowed you to be in the seat when there's millions that would love to be in there. Talking, again, humbly and just, wow, special, special memory, special moment.
I'm grateful that you give me the opportunity to share it because it's not about me. It's about our nation, about our Lord's providence and allowing things to happen, allowing our nation to to prosper and do the things that it has to this point. And, oh, what a privilege we all have. I've talked about privilege with me.
What a privilege we all have to be a part of this country with its current leadership and throughout the history and where we have come from, where we were in comparison to other nations. We are indeed privileged. Man, I can't imagine just looking out and seeing the planet. I never could have either. That's what made it so special.
My first sight of the planet, as soon as when I finally did unstrap, as I'm sitting there, just to continue real quick, Mike Foreman, our premier space walker, was strapped in on the mid deck. There's a ladder over here, comes up from the side of the ladder where we would climb up all the time. Well, you don't need a ladder in space. Mike, I look over, He levitates up. I'd seen it in videos.
I'd never seen it in my own eyes. He levitates up, just levitates up from the mid-deck. It was the strangest thing I'd ever seen. I'm like, wow, because I'm strapped in, so I'm not floating. A couple minutes later, I look back. Leland Melvin, you know, the external tank separates. You remember Columbia tragedy. There was external tank issues that impacted.
I'm sorry, the external tank issues impacted the shuttle. Damaged the wing. Columbia broke up on entry back in 2003. So since that time, this is 2009, we took pictures of the external tank to see if there was anything with the tank that might have impacted the shuttle that we couldn't see.
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Chapter 8: How did Butch maintain contact with his family while in space?
So he's floating back there in the windows in the back. I look back, he's levitating, floating, horizontal, taking pictures out the window, video and pictures of the external tank as it floats away. My mind is like, this is not normal. Now, within time, we're all doing it. It became absolutely normal. And every mission after that. But the first time I saw it, it was amazing. Absolutely amazing.
And then in space, of course, you're Superman. People say, what's great about space? You're Superman. You fly. You get in a pool and you float. You feel the pressure around your body. In space, there's none of that. And you literally push off and you fly like Superman. Amazing. That is wild. It is wild. It is. It truly is. I mean, does it feel empty out there?
I mean, once you get over the initial, holy shit. You look out, you see the vastness and you realize how far the universe goes and how far the stars are. You don't need to go to space to know it, to realize that, but you see it from that vantage point. Yeah. Yeah. It feels, it feels very empty and you feel like, wow, we're just a little speck and all this big everything.
And we actually left the planet there. It goes zipping by below. It just doesn't seem right. But here we are. What was the point of that mission? We were installing. We were in the process of building the space station, the final phases of building the space station.
And we took up several elements, truss elements that we actually took the robot arm and attached an element, this truss, to the truss segment. And it was full of spare parts. It's just external parts, you know, pumps and gyros and you name it. Everything that you might need to replace on the outside of the station because things fail, right? Things are not going to last forever.
And so in subsequent years, we installed two of them, the ELCs they were called, express logistics carriers. We installed a couple of them. And in the soon years, things fail, we go out and they've gone out and grabbed them off these ELCs and installed them. So that was what our mission was as we built the space station. So you did the final phase of the space station.
We were in the very final phases. I wasn't the last mission. I was the capsule communicator, the Capcom for the last two missions where you're talking to the crew during launch and during entry, which is a very challenging position as well. But I don't know. We were like number six to the end or something like that.
But the very final phases of, yeah, building the space station before the space shuttle program ended. Damn. Yeah. Yeah. Thrilling mission to fly the space shuttle. I mean, I've asked people this. You think, okay, I get one chance to fly in space. You get one chance to fly in space. What are you going to do? Are you going to fly a spaceship or are you going to do a spacewalk? You can only do one.
Which do you choose? And I said, what do you think I would choose? And they all invariably, 99, 98% will say spacewalk. I'm like, oh no, I'm a naval aviator. You give me a choice. I've done both now. But if I can only do one, I'm going to fly that spacecraft. That's the way I'm wired. Don't get me wrong. Spacewalks are amazing.
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