Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It was a beautiful day down in the Gulf off Tallahassee,
Florida too. I hope you had a chance to see
the splashdown of that space capsule bringing R two astronauts
home via SpaceX after having been stranded basically on the
Space Shuttle, or not the Space Shuttle, but the International
Space Station for almost ten months, over nine months, and
(00:24):
we're joined for a few minutes this morning by Nebraska's
own astronaut, Clayton Anderson. Clayton, Good morning, morning, Gary. How
are you wonderful that that was the most beautiful picture
of the year so far? That was amazing. Can you
tell us how the mission happened? How difficult was it?
And it seemed to be flawless?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, I think that. You know, any astronaut that is
prepared to go to space is excited to do that job.
Their expectation was eight to ten days in space, which
turned into months. While they were very professional and did
a great job with what they were tasked to do,
it would have been difficult for me personally. Once I
(01:10):
got that first word that says, hey, clay you're one
in two months of fun and space is now going
to continue and you may be there till February or
March of twenty twenty five. It would have taken some
time for me to come to grips with that. I
would have had to chat with my wife. But eventually,
you know, the anger, the frustration would subside and you
(01:32):
just do the job. And that's I believe that's what
they did. Although Sunny, you know, she her happy places
space and that's where she wants to be. But you know,
nine months up there, it can get boring, it can
get dull, and it can get tedious. So I'm very
glad and very proud of them for their work in
space and that they're safely on the ground.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
How long were you up there when you were.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
There first time? One hundred and fifty two.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Days, five months, And that's close to the max, right
because we're hearing all these issues that these two are
probably going to have physically having been up there as
long as they were.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah. I'm not a I'm not a doctor or anything,
but I believe, given my experience in what I've heard
and read about others, is that I think our body
has some kind of threshold marker in it that says, okay,
if you're in space from ten days to five months.
It's it's this, it's going to do this to your body.
(02:34):
But if you make me stay longer than X, then
other things begin to happen. For example, some astronauts have
stayed a lot longer than me came home and had
feet issues. I never had that. Yeah, some astronauts have
eyesight issues. I never had that. So that's part of
why we do this right, is to learn what it
means to the human body to be in this position,
(02:56):
in this situation.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
What about what's kind of symptoms, if any, did you
have when you came back.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
You know, I felt every pound of my two hundred
and five pounds. You know, I walked for the first
I don't know, six hours. I walked like an old
man like mister Higans and Carol Burnett, ye know, double
his feet around the desk. But I recovered relatively quickly.
Within twenty four hours. I was standing, sitting, walking pretty good.
(03:27):
But if you asked me to run two miles or
to bench press, I was not even close to the
levels that I was when I left the ground. And
that tack took me about three weeks to gain that
part back. But then my bones and muscles my bones especially,
took over a year to recover to the full level.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
So these two, but and Sunny, they've got they've got
a bit of a challenge ahead of them.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I think they do. I know that, you know, Butch
was a college football player in Tennessee and Sunny's a
great distance runner. So they understand the training aspect, they
understand the rehabilitation aspect of this, and if they take
if they take that seriously, I did about two two
and a half hours a day beginning the day after
(04:15):
I landed from space. And if they take it seriously,
which they will, I think they'll come back relatively quickly.
But I simply don't know how quickly. The weight machine
that they have in space now is much better than
what I had, and so I've been told that astronauts
sometimes come back stronger than when they left.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
So what do you think about the future given that,
given those facts that you just laid out, because we're
talking about potentially, you know, trying to do a mission
to Mars or or much longer missions than even these
two were up there. What has to happen technologically so
that humans can survive that.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I think there are a couple of keys to this.
The physical mentality of it is one of the first keys, right,
and we're looking at that as we begin to send
astronauts to the Moon, and maybe we'll be having a
small settlement on the Moon. I don't know. But that's
the first part. We have to figure out how to
make astronauts physically capable for a six to nine month
(05:20):
journey to Mars, six to nine months on the surface,
and six to nine months to come home. But the
second part we don't talk about much is the psychological
part of this. As soon as I leave for Mars,
within a couple of weeks, Earth becomes a dot behind me.
You know, I could look at the Earth every day.
I could imagine my beautiful bride, Susan, and my kids
(05:42):
on that Earth. I could see the beauty of it
that inspired me to be there and work hard and
do the right things. But if I take off for
Mars for a long time, I'm not going to be
able to see Jack. And that's a psychological thing that
I don't know that we're totally addressing yet.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Wow, the mental toughness that it takes to UH to
even imagine doing something like that. I wish we had
more time to chat Clayton, but this was a great
day for America. Yesterday I thought, I mean that was
just because every step of that was fraught with danger,
and yet it came off perfectly. Thank you for the
time this morning, and you bet let's stay in touch.
(06:23):
Nebraska's own astronaut, the Pride of Ashland, Clayton Anderson here
on Ka Bab's morning News
It was a beautiful day down in the Gulf off Tallahassee,
Florida too. I hope you had a chance to see
the splashdown of that space capsule bringing R two astronauts
home via SpaceX after having been stranded basically on the
Space Shuttle, or not the Space Shuttle, but the International
Space Station for almost ten months, over nine months, and
(00:24):
we're joined for a few minutes this morning by Nebraska's
own astronaut, Clayton Anderson. Clayton, Good morning, morning, Gary. How
are you wonderful that that was the most beautiful picture
of the year so far? That was amazing. Can you
tell us how the mission happened? How difficult was it?
And it seemed to be flawless?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, I think that. You know, any astronaut that is
prepared to go to space is excited to do that job.
Their expectation was eight to ten days in space, which
turned into months. While they were very professional and did
a great job with what they were tasked to do,
it would have been difficult for me personally. Once I
(01:10):
got that first word that says, hey, clay you're one
in two months of fun and space is now going
to continue and you may be there till February or
March of twenty twenty five. It would have taken some
time for me to come to grips with that. I
would have had to chat with my wife. But eventually,
you know, the anger, the frustration would subside and you
(01:32):
just do the job. And that's I believe that's what
they did. Although Sunny, you know, she her happy places
space and that's where she wants to be. But you know,
nine months up there, it can get boring, it can
get dull, and it can get tedious. So I'm very
glad and very proud of them for their work in
space and that they're safely on the ground.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
How long were you up there when you were.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
There first time? One hundred and fifty two.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Days, five months, And that's close to the max, right
because we're hearing all these issues that these two are
probably going to have physically having been up there as
long as they were.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah. I'm not a I'm not a doctor or anything,
but I believe, given my experience in what I've heard
and read about others, is that I think our body
has some kind of threshold marker in it that says, okay,
if you're in space from ten days to five months.
It's it's this, it's going to do this to your body.
(02:34):
But if you make me stay longer than X, then
other things begin to happen. For example, some astronauts have
stayed a lot longer than me came home and had
feet issues. I never had that. Yeah, some astronauts have
eyesight issues. I never had that. So that's part of
why we do this right, is to learn what it
means to the human body to be in this position,
(02:56):
in this situation.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
What about what's kind of symptoms, if any, did you
have when you came back.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
You know, I felt every pound of my two hundred
and five pounds. You know, I walked for the first
I don't know, six hours. I walked like an old
man like mister Higans and Carol Burnett, ye know, double
his feet around the desk. But I recovered relatively quickly.
Within twenty four hours. I was standing, sitting, walking pretty good.
(03:27):
But if you asked me to run two miles or
to bench press, I was not even close to the
levels that I was when I left the ground. And
that tack took me about three weeks to gain that
part back. But then my bones and muscles my bones especially,
took over a year to recover to the full level.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
So these two, but and Sunny, they've got they've got
a bit of a challenge ahead of them.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
I think they do. I know that, you know, Butch
was a college football player in Tennessee and Sunny's a
great distance runner. So they understand the training aspect, they
understand the rehabilitation aspect of this, and if they take
if they take that seriously, I did about two two
and a half hours a day beginning the day after
(04:15):
I landed from space. And if they take it seriously,
which they will, I think they'll come back relatively quickly.
But I simply don't know how quickly. The weight machine
that they have in space now is much better than
what I had, and so I've been told that astronauts
sometimes come back stronger than when they left.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
So what do you think about the future given that,
given those facts that you just laid out, because we're
talking about potentially, you know, trying to do a mission
to Mars or or much longer missions than even these
two were up there. What has to happen technologically so
that humans can survive that.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I think there are a couple of keys to this.
The physical mentality of it is one of the first keys, right,
and we're looking at that as we begin to send
astronauts to the Moon, and maybe we'll be having a
small settlement on the Moon. I don't know. But that's
the first part. We have to figure out how to
make astronauts physically capable for a six to nine month
(05:20):
journey to Mars, six to nine months on the surface,
and six to nine months to come home. But the
second part we don't talk about much is the psychological
part of this. As soon as I leave for Mars,
within a couple of weeks, Earth becomes a dot behind me.
You know, I could look at the Earth every day.
I could imagine my beautiful bride, Susan, and my kids
(05:42):
on that Earth. I could see the beauty of it
that inspired me to be there and work hard and
do the right things. But if I take off for
Mars for a long time, I'm not going to be
able to see Jack. And that's a psychological thing that
I don't know that we're totally addressing yet.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Wow, the mental toughness that it takes to UH to
even imagine doing something like that. I wish we had
more time to chat Clayton, but this was a great
day for America. Yesterday I thought, I mean that was
just because every step of that was fraught with danger,
and yet it came off perfectly. Thank you for the
time this morning, and you bet let's stay in touch.
(06:23):
Nebraska's own astronaut, the Pride of Ashland, Clayton Anderson here
on Ka Bab's morning News
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