9to5Mac Happy Hour - An interview with Astronaut Reisman, ‘For All Mankind’ consultant for Apple TV+

**Interview with Dr. Garrett Reisman: Exploring Space and Beyond**

In this episode of 9 to 5 Mack Happy Hour, we're joined by astronaut and engineer Dr. Garrett Reisman, who shares his insights on space exploration and its potential impact on our daily lives. The conversation is filled with excitement and curiosity as Dr. Reisman talks about the upcoming TV show "For All Mankind," which he's involved in creating.

"I'm very happy with how that's coming along," Dr. Reisman says. "It's going to be a tremendous amount of fun, I think. We've got 10 episodes in the first season, and they're all about an hour long. But under an hour, it's like a movie would be to three hours – you just couldn't fit this much information and personal stories of people into that time frame."

Dr. Reisman explains that the show is designed to explore what could have been if we dedicated ourselves to space exploration instead of getting bogged down in more divisive issues. "We're going to show you what it could have been like," he says. "And what it still can be like, if we really dedicate ourselves to exploring space and pushing the boundaries of what's possible."

One aspect of the show that Dr. Reisman is particularly excited about is the way technology progresses in this alternate universe. "By spending all this effort on space exploration, our technology progresses faster than it did in reality," he explains. "So you'll start seeing things like personal computers appearing, and we're going to be like, 'Oh, wait a minute, we've got that now!' And then we'll keep ramping up the timeline, so by the time we catch up to real-time, our present day is going to be a more glorious technological future."

Dr. Reisman also shares his enthusiasm for the show's themes and messages. "I hope people take away from it just what it's designed to do – show you what could have been like," he says. "And that if we really dedicate ourselves to exploring space, we can achieve great things. And I hope that people will take these bold steps and make a real difference in the world."

**Behind-the-Scenes with For All Mankind**

As we talked to Dr. Reisman about the show, it was clear that he's passionate about the project and excited to share its possibilities with the world. "It's going to be fun," he says. "I'm really looking forward to seeing how it all comes together."

Dr. Reisman also talks about some of the personal stories that will be featured in the show, saying that they're designed to give viewers a sense of what life is like for people working in space exploration.

"I hope people take away from it just what it's designed to do – show you what could have been like," Dr. Reisman says. "And that if we really dedicate ourselves to exploring space, we can achieve great things."

**The Future of Space Exploration**

As we wrap up our conversation with Dr. Reisman, he offers some words of encouragement for those interested in pursuing a career in space exploration.

"I think there's going to be a tremendous amount of fun ahead," he says. "We're on the cusp of something amazing here, and I hope that people will take notice and start to get excited about it."

Dr. Reisman also talks about some of the ways that technology is advancing our understanding of space exploration, saying that it's an exciting time to be involved in this field.

"I'm so happy to be a part of it," he says. "I think we're going to see some incredible advancements in the coming years."

**Getting Involved**

As we conclude our conversation with Dr. Reisman, we want to encourage everyone who's interested in space exploration to get involved. Whether you're an astronaut-in-training or just someone who's passionate about the subject, there are plenty of ways to get involved and make a difference.

Dr. Reisman offers some words of encouragement for those who are new to this world.

"I think it's never too late to start," he says. "There are so many amazing things happening in space exploration right now, and I hope that people will take notice and start to get excited about it."

**Where to Watch For All Mankind**

For all Mankind is available to stream on Apple TV+, with new episodes dropping every week. If you're interested in watching the show, be sure to sign up for an Apple TV+ subscription today.

As a special offer, new customers can get a free 7-day trial and then choose their plan at checkout. And if you're already an Apple Music subscriber, you'll also get access to Apple TV+, including For All Mankind.

**Follow Dr. Reisman on Social Media**

To stay up-to-date with the latest news from For All Mankind and Dr. Reisman's adventures in space exploration, be sure to follow him on social media:

* Twitter: @GarrettReisman

* Instagram: @GarrettReisman

We'll also be sharing updates from the show and behind-the-scenes insights into the making of For All Mankind, so be sure to tune in for more news and excitement.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis week on 95 Mack happy hour we were joined by a very special guest astronaut Garrett Riesman he was selected by NASA yeah he was liked by NASA 1988 in his first mission in space was aboard the space shuttle Endeavour in 2008 so 10 years later it's bent 95 days on a mission aboard the International Space Station second mission was aboard the space shuttle Atlantis in 2010 I saw Atlantis fuchs ago and over in Florida I feel good doing good ok and then and you've performed three spacewalks operated the space station robot arm we were a flight engineer aboard the space shuttle and for this podcast what we're interested in especially is that you're a technical consultant for the film at Astra and more specifically for us technical advisor for the TV show Apple TV plus for all mankind which we are crazy about we've talked about it weekly from the time it came out currently dr. Royce Richmond is a professor at in astronautical engineering professor at the University of Southern California a motivational speaker senior advisor for Elon Musk rocket company space X and now 9:00 to 5:00 Mack happy hours first guests and over to the episodes Wow this big deal man I'm on how come how come not until now and how come me well we do other podcast with guests but for happy hour it's just me and Benjamin talking about the weekend Apple news every week and there's never been the feeling of like having a guest before but we were just one thing led to another and and we that we learned about you and it's like this would be really cool if we could come together and happen and and you were nice enough to join us so really appreciate that I'm hope you're all right yeah and I will say if anyone hasn't seen for all mankind there will be spoilers ahead we warned everyone last week to do their homework and I've been rewashing and it's so much fun and before we get into that I wanted to ask a few questions because oh my gosh is the first time I've spoken to an astronaut before it is spoken to a lot yeah I can imagine I think I've got you down for over 20 hours of doing spacewalks at ISS and I've spent my time of like watching the spacewalks happen over you know seven or eight hours as they do what is that feeling light because I can't imagine and I know that you prepare for ahead of time but it just feels like looking at it unlike anything else on earth of course oh man it's a it's incredible by far and away the highlight of my my career is not my life I mean that those experiences of being able to go outside in that suit and have nothing but it you know a glass helmet between you which is like a fishbowl you almost forget it's there by the way kind of so you've ever come scuba diving for a long period of time and you kind of forget that you're wearing a mask and you think it just you become one with your coral reef or whatever it's like that it's like when you've wearing glasses for years on end and then you just kind of forget over exactly that's another good analogy very good so yeah just forget that the helmets there and it's just nothing between you and this entire planet it's really remarkable and and and just a sense of being out there outside the vehicle floating up in space and working in this crazy suit it's just a remarkable experience and the visuals are absolutely stunning but you have to get a part of this equation is that you're busy working right okay and in fact there's a tremendous amount of pressure which which tends the more that the sheer enjoyment of the moment right because you have to you have to get this jump and you've been training for years to do this and this is the hardest thing you as a mission specialist or astronaut are going to do on this on this mission and you have lots of people caring on you it's extremely expensive not only from a dollars and cents standpoint but from also from a resource expenditure standpoint so and it's the most dangerous thing we do other than launching it and Edric so the pressures that are on you as you're about to do this I've never played professional athletics just collegiate okay so I don't know for sure but I've talked to people who are professional athletes and they kind of agree now they've never done the spacewalk but we read it it's similar to like going out to play for a championship whether that be the World Cup or the World Series or the Superbowl or whatever your Stanley Cup whatever your sport might be your about as you're about to take the field you know that you might only get one shot at this you might only get one chance to compete the finals of the World Cup in your whole career and here it is in front of you and whatever happens in the next couple hours is going to define you as a person right you're going to be old and sitting at a rocking chair in reflecting back to this moment you never forget yeah yeah it is good but here's the thing you can be reflecting on this moment either with a tremendous sense of accomplishment that you won the championship well you took your you took your chance and you made it or you can be looking back there's a tremendous sense of regret like you blow in amid history for the wrong yeah yeah but whatever it is it's something you're never going to forget and so it's like it's like that when you're about to go out to did the spacewalk that's that's kind of what it feels like and I could tell you the story I'm the most challenging spacewalk I ever did was the first one I did on my second mission so the three spacewalks I did it was the second one it was just very very difficult to test we had to do the timeline was very challenging the complex interaction of the robotics and the space walking was very complicated and getting everything to go right was going to be hard and we really focused more on that whole mission that was really the crux of the whole mission was at one spacewalk and so I have all these thoughts going through my head and my commander their student me happened about to put me in that in the airlock could see by looking in my eyes you know this stress yeah and thoughts and and and because I'm coming I'm kind of a goofball so normally I'm joking around I'm not joking around at all at this moment yeah candor commander what he did was he came up and he grabbed me in the suit by the shoulders and there was a valve that was hoping that puts a hole through the helmet and he came up over by that Valve so I can hear him through my closed helmet and he yelled really loud into that orifice he yelled by squeak whap squeezing my suit as hard as it could he's a guy that is awake and and I just are laughing yeah Helen it was perfect it was actually exactly what I needed to kind of break me out of that Punk and head head that and not take myself too seriously and and I guess that's why he was the commander he knew exactly what but um that was like I mean that's that sense of humor must come in use when you're in an environment that I guess could kill you so if you really can't think about those factors there this another question on that sort of specifically is time keeping with that D do you see what time it is and how long you've been on your spacewalk or is it are you relying on like someone to tell you or a Dean she's not notice the job yeah you know you don't really have a watch right yeah so you but you have a whole giant team of people who are really very watching that clock very carefully starting with your we have a one crew member who's on board is kind of like the choreographer the manager the coach and they're the person that has a checklist and everything and they have a clock right in front of them so they're calling it out - yeah okay and then the ground of course the ground is hyper aware of how much time not only how much time has elapsed but also how much co2 you have left in the tanks chair how much more carbon dioxide scrubbing capability you have and how much more water in the tanks to provide your cooling so there's a lot of there's a lot of different clocks to look at and uh and they integrate them all and make sure that we don't we don't bus do not good and run out of oxygen yeah they kind of show you that in the in the show like in the episode where they go down the the crater on the moon and the UM you know he takes the woman's down there and and ed Baldwin's like you've got to come up now you got a comment now and you've got everyone in the in the Space Center at home you're telling them that their clocks are on air they've run out of oxygen so that there's like that pressure of you know we've come all this way and we're not actually gonna get anything out of it but at the same time you know these are like our vital signs essentially now yeah that scene was actually really realistic because they said exactly what I'm describing it and then they have all the data they know how much time is left and they were getting very concerned and the other thing was very realistic about that is you never really want to come back inside that hatch yeah you know any more work yeah you want to be more work or you just want to have a moment one last time out of there you get so focused on doing the test that you almost can forget to like soak it in and so one great piece of advice I got from a senior spacewalkers just made one or two moments along the way where you get a chance to really experience it and I have certain you know memories that are the last forever I remember kind of like Leo DiCaprio in Titanic I'm holding on to the whole space station which is behind me yeah I'm on the very very front tip I can't see any of the space station in my field of view and so for all I know alone up there and as I watched the Sun come up over the horizon of the earth and that was spectacular and I was very fortunate my third spacewalk I had I had great partners for all three but on that third spacewalk we were ahead of the schedule and the ground even ran out of stuff for us to do which never happens right and and and we knew that the mission the pressure was off because we knew that we had made all of our main mission objectives at this point and we had a chance to do stuff like you know just to take a look at that sunrise and we we went up to the windows in the back of the Space Shuttle when we were inside the payload Bay we knocked on the glass that's inside really oh my god they're aliens house anyway the closest I can relate is like going on a work trip to New York or California and if ever I was ever going on like a just a vacation it would be totally enjoyable but because it's for work you're thinking you don't get time to stop and just enjoy your environment so it's not the same place but I can appreciate what you're saying and and one more thing I wanna mention before we get into the show too much is that I saw as it broadcast the season from the series finale of The Colbert Report oh wow yeah and so I was just gonna be watching that this week and then every watched your appearances there from when calling from space it's like to be I guess my question here is like what was it like being on that final episode because that's that's almost as amazing as calling from space where you you know you're like in the same room as like Willie Nelson to Peter Frampton and George Lucas and like all these people yeah that was incredible that is like the world's best cocktail party yeah like there wasn't a single person in the room that you wouldn't like give a right arm to have a chance to talk with and hang out with you know as like it wasn't just you know there's some like kind of a list celebrities or like James Franco was there and I'm trying to remember who else was like a big star Patrick Stewart I guess there there are lots there lesson but there was also like all the comments from the New York Times share now and it was like Ben and Jerry from Bennett Gary and then it was like the artist that made the hope poster for Obama and and because everybody and I was hanging out for a while with Tim Meadows uh-huh so night live a comedian and actor and we were talking and we were joking around that actually our biggest fear was you know not talking to somebody there because we didn't know exactly who they were and not discovering that I was standing right next to the guy that invented Wikipedia yeah yes the time of day you know is right is that we were terrified we know James Franco you know Willie Nelson you know um and I was obvious because I was wearing my blue NASA Jack yeah and Paulina Porizkova she was pretty easy to pick out too there it is you can't miss Big Bird right sorry but your other guy is that like like I was talking this one guy and it turns out he it was Eddie stris who was a mountaineer who some did Everest and was a kind of rescued almost all those people if you read Krakauer spoke into thin air about to tragedy unfolded on Everest he was a guy who went and dropped the IMAX camera and saved like a dozen people that day and the stories he had were just incredible and you know you walk right by him on the street you have no idea excuse me that was incredible that's awesome yes so can you just give us it like a an overview to start with of what your kind of role is as a technical advisor on from a kind is incredibly broad which I love right so it started out I was in the writers room as they were first coming up with a very basic idea so Ron mooring and and and Ben and Matt are executive producers plus the entire all the writers yeah we have is really funny this is building in Burbank California and it looks like a completely nondescript office building like you would go in like maybe to go visit your orthodontist or your accountant or something right good and and you walk in and then suite 201 instead of being an orthodontist it's just as 201 you open the door inside just like all these covered machines and and beanbag chairs and pictures of Apollo's stuff all over all the walls and that's the writers room for all mankind and as where all the magic happens and then turn think as I was leaving I looked at sweet - OH - it's just a - OH - and one of the guys said oh that's where we write Outlander so you're in there and and you're you have all these whiteboards and we were from the very beginning sketching out not only season 1 but like a lot of seasons a whole story arc and and then eventually they all have their own each season had one whiteboard and then we got the season one and each episode has its own whiteboard and got more and more granular as we as we started working and they started writing scripts and I reviewed every single script line by line and give notes on everything and then they start shooting and then I get questions from you know it's great because I get to get a direct with like the prop guys so they'll be like hey there's a stick that you use on the space shuttle if you can't reach the controls what does that look like how is it how we do we saw a picture of it is it 18 inches you know how do you when do you use it and I get questions from like the hair makeup people like what does the women do with their hair when they do a spacewalk and I'm like you're asking the wrong person but I got friends like at night so so it's all kind of the prom that they stunt guys are like okay we're simulating walking on the moon and we just got these wires how do we do that Sofia work with the stunt guys you work with the art department and and then you start shooting any work with the actors and I met with all the principal cast before their first shot and so I could give them advice on like how to basically fake like you're in zero gravity and it gives them a feel for what their characters are thinking at different moments and then and so you work with the cast and they need a show up on set and you watch them film and you're like yeah that you know sort of couldn't really reach that under six G's you know is that kind of and then you help them shoot it again and he try to get as much of it right as you can and then and then it goes into post-production and then you get then you trying to help out with the guys in the visual effects and the audio effects so the cool thing is is this job I get to see the entire production from the very first very beginnings to the end and everything in between and and so it's fascinating it and and it's also all that stuff that I just described are things that as a mechanical engineer I would never in a million years ever really be a part of right right yeah so I describe this experience of people's like you know like you can go to like these fantasy baseball camps or guitar camps in where you like get to play catch with the with the New York Yankees or you get to play guitar with like I don't know Eddie Van Halen or somebody right and it's like they treat you like an equal even though you know you're not be paid a lot of money go to this camp you know so it's kind of like that where I get to like do these things with these people who are at the top of the game like Ronnie Moore yeah yeah has made some my favorite shows and and uh and he got man these guys that that really the writers that the everybody worked on the show the cameraman the visual effects guys are at the top of their game in the whole industry and you get to work with them like you belong there and that cracks me up all the time yeah so you're gonna from the very beginning which was that must have been more like late 2017 early 2018 timeframe let me think it would have been this it was right after the SpaceX so that would have been summer 2018 yeah yes ironic because I think one of like this shows like so timely as well in the you know we're on the precipice Lake for you know at least most of my lifetime I'm 25 like space has been kind of out of the picture really and only in the last few years kind of is it really like we're back on the you can feel it with your fingertips almost that we're probably going to go back to the moon and we're gonna have you know launches from America hopefully in the next year or so like it's kind of its kind of crazy outs will come together and the show kind of like celebrates that as well as the history as well right like it's the it's the timely moment you know it's interesting that the very first involvement half of the show is I got a call from Ron Moore one day and he said hey Garrett I'm thinking about doing it another space show I like to bounce some ideas off of you wish you wish thrilled me that he would think to call me and do that so inviting him to come down to SpaceX we had lunch right in the SpaceX cafe I hear my tour the whole place first and then we sat down had lunch and he gave me he did I got two ideas one is like to do basically a madman a period piece percent at NASA in the 70s so instead of you know Madison Avenue and a bunch of mid-century modern furnishings we would have seventies lapels and and heavyset at NASA as well that sounds cool and they said but then I'm also talking that this idea of doing an alternate history where things are different and they're Russians you know beat us to the mode and and I said oh my god it's such an awesome idea and I immediately fell in love with that with that premise and and we the more we talked about it the more he fell in love with it and then he pitched that to Apple and now we have for mankind so yeah I but it but caught up in that whole like you're saying about how things are really no pun intended taking off right now yeah personally I've always been sort of interested in spaces just like you know if you ask me like space yeah it's cool you know like more I think space is cooler than like I don't a tennis or something but I've not ever been super just enthusiastic and knowledgeable and it's kind of because it felt like history something that happened way before I was born and this things that are not happening on the news today and so it doesn't feel like it's the future and so this like 2018 was was pretty impressive all on me because you had Apollo the 50 the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 in the moon landing and just for that reason like for you know one day in the middle of summer we're all thinking about the moon landing again and so I went to the Infinity Science Center near where I live in South Mississippi it's like my first time there and it turns out they've got this whole museum this like you know I real this right across the street from Center Space Center's like a real Space Center with like history in and then I I've I've lived here on my life and I gotta learned that there's like the me shoe plant you know where they make engines and all the stuff and so that was cool but then a few months go by and that was kind of it and then for all mankind comes out and I'm really into it I got invited from NASA social to go see a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch and down in Florida so that was really cool and just being around like space people they they all knew a lot about what they're talking about and to me like if you were talking about Apple I would be that way but with space stuff I didn't I was learning things like you know about Space Launch System and Artemis and things that they was brand-new to me or even like SpaceX what it was and how long it's been around like I would have thought you know maybe eight or ten years and not you know since the early 2000s so having all this stuff be you know historical anniversaries are cool and but but having it being the pop culture you know and seeing like fraud mankind reduced it in a way that's like relatable so I pulled back into the public eye yeah it's really really neat yeah it's really interesting that yeah and by the way you haven't seen anything yet difficult decision this year I predict is going to be a really turn big turning point yeah because it's just in crazy all these things are going on and it just so happens all the stars are aligning all the schedules are aligning it looks like everything's going to happen this year yes I think SpaceX and Boeing will first have the first crew twice this year I think the same thing will be true for Blue Origin and virgin as well as all of a sudden you're going to have four companies operating out of the u.s. doing you're sending people into space when you know right now we have zero right so it's going to be an unbelievably exciting year and and and and hey you already mentioned NASA and Artemis and everything they're doing so 2020 we're going to look back at 2020 I predict and say that's when everything really got moving yeah and it's so cool that that's all happening with frog mankind and like you know you mentioned that there are seasons to come I think ron moore's mentioned that he's got like you know at least seven seasons are like you know planned out so that's really cool and i've you know just mentioned here for the first time publicly that I've pitched our publisher on a space site because we've got an Apple vertical at Google green energy with Tesla and with our electric sight and I've been you know just from the seeing a rocket launch in person and then learning all that stuff about it's like a lot of stuff happened over the last decade that I didn't know about and I was alive for like history and I didn't know a whole lot about the space shuttle program and because I was like ten twelve you know and and like my memories are like you know 9/11 happened I have that memories of like playing Pokemon like my friends and you know middle school is like that but but you know not not history as it was happening it's like we've got to start covering this stuff from our perspectives because like we're about to see a lot of cool history play out in real time that's right that's right and and and that and as we mentioned and with regard to for all mankind is really fascinating is to be hit to play between science fiction and science fact and the very first time I spoke to run more it was from the space station I was up on the space station the way just hold my relationship with him began was they asked me one after other new celebrities you'd like to talk to night kind of as a morale booster they will go you know arrange phone calls and I said yeah I want to talk to Ron Moore and David Icke the creators of I also khalaqtu Co which at the time was like my favorite show and we had this great conversation basically over Skype from the space station and we talked about how we were both like I was inspired by Star Trek and Star Wars and then later Battlestar and that led me into to inspire me to to do what I do as far as being an astronaut and being an engineer and Ron's saying that he was inspired by Apollo and and shuttle to do what he did which was become you know a writer and a creator of our galactic ghosts are trekking and and it's kind of really neat give and take or yin and yang played between fact and fiction and how we inspire each other and then he invited him to come to my last launch and so in 2010 he was down there in any wrote this great description of what it was like to stand there and watch the Space Shuttle take off so so we've been kind of going back and forth between fact and fiction and and now Apple is paying both of us okay I like a lot of like sci-fi but for mankind's really kind of the first like alternate history show because as much of it is like made up for for the drama there's also a lot of it is like grounded in reality or reality that's you know 20 years ahead of what the timeline is like even the start even the premise to show you where the like the Soviets land on the moon first like that's not completely out there right that was you know possible in fact that initial conversation with Rondon SpaceX I told I told how I was in Moscow and I saw flight hardware that they had built for the their lunar lander so they were much further along than most Americans on the West really knew at the time and even appreciate today they were closer to them than we thought to challenging us and I think that that that defected that it could have happened as part of I think like what you're saying by the way you know with for all mankind is we wanted audience to have the reaction like okay we know this didn't happen yeah but it could write as long as is plausible that like oh it could had gone this way that's that's where we're aiming for yeah just from being exposed to all this and just being really interested now it's a good rocket class over the weekend that was the history of rockets over at the Infinity Science Center and part of the class they gave us a printout of the space race timeline it's like a column for the Soviet Union to call him for the US and there's like so much stuff in the Soviet Union column that came before anything for the US or just like by comparison it's like you know it really was a race it wasn't just a given and and so taking that and and the show is like this you know when you're watching it as news like in your living it then it's like you know it is it you don't know how it's going to go and so that that's part of what helps the show I think is that like if you don't know the history very well it's like then you can kind of go back and learn like how close it really was and then there's even things from the show where if you've no history than dislike you know sort of like inside jokes of the show like it went differently this way you know with Benjamin being in the UK I asked him was like you know with the Chappaquiddick situation like were you familiar with that like you know learning in the UK yeah u.s. politics so no idea yeah yeah yes yeah there's there's certain little things in there that kind of Easter Egg that not every is going to get but but then there are other larger geopolitical stuff that that book would that comes out especially okay I gotta keep catching my time because because we're doing work we're hearing about it right now yeah yeah but one of the things that like eliminated me was like the Von Braun stuff with the you know the German connection and like I when I saw that in the show might in my like instant reaction was oh they just kind of like I did that in as you know backstory of like you know entertainment to cause some conflict and stuff but you know that's like Grand in truth again so I mean remember that scene where they bring out those photographs and that in the conference chamber committee chamber those were real photographs yeah not that that was not our art department in fact that then the interlude where the fellow playing the piano was singing that song about von Braun yeah that's real funny that's archival footage that you know so yeah all that all that stuff was actually about von Braun was sadly very accurate yeah he had something like with sci-fi you know I enjoy sci-fi but with with this sort of crossover genre of like alternative history it's like you can you can appreciate you can look at it appreciate it and then go back and like it's fun to find out what was real what wasn't real in actual in the history because you know you can know a little bit about it but you know when you learn a lot about us like oh wow and then you've got any appreciation for the show so yeah it's this neat especially in the early parts of season want like when when they were talking about Apollo 10 could they have landed right right yeah yeah that was that was all very very even the numbers that are bandied about about how much fuel on how much weight are right on the money you know Kirkley researched and accurate and and so especially the beginning now the for the further we go along now we're in season two and as we progressed it's going to diverge more more and because we'll get beyond but eventually we'll get beyond the current day we hope yeah if apple sticks with this yeah géza used to having is continuing it and then of course we have more liberties and even even in season two it's easier to say well in our alternative universe this and that because we're searching more and more but but uh but season one especially we worked really really hard to to to be very very close to actual because our divergence from actual history was still very displayed at that point yo it was any like offset by few years or like things that happened in smaller scale were taken to a big thing like that the the woman in like in space program wasn't there something in like the 60s where there was a oh yeah oh yeah our character Molly Cobb was based on a real real person and her Jerry Kemetic memory serves me correctly so we could get the rights to use her actual name we wanted to make her and historical figure just like we have a Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and like sleepy enough and that these are all real people we wanted to have the this the real Jerry Cobb but um but but anyway that didn't work out so so so we have Molly Cobb but yeah she's based on this person had was part of this this group of women that right around the time the Mercury program at the Lovelace clinic were put through the same tests as a fascinating story in and of itself and that all happened and then it got shut down by politics basically in society saying and now we don't want women and the excuse was that they weren't test pilots but but they passed you know all the same physical tests and they had they had and so you know a lot of what goes on in the show is also some of it is you know especially the geopolitical tensions are things that go worse than actually what what really happened the some does also like saying well if we lived and if our better angels prevailed yeah maybe it would have been like this and so there's a little bit of that because I'm the show thank yeah even just jump into the the post-credits sequence where I finished the last show like the hour came out and then I went to bed and Benjamin was like did you see the post-credits sequence and I said no I did inside to go back and like rewatch it on Apple TV Plus and you know that ship coming out of the water like I watched the knee they sent me a link of like this you know it didn't happen obviously but this is what that reference does you know it's like a sea dragon things CJ yeah yeah yeah we based on a real development project it never got built so he had we never actually did launch a giant rocket like that out of the ocean but it only a lot of the engineering analysis was was done and that was you know that would have never made it never made it all the way to prototyping but but the research was there to say hey this could be done it was based on a real project in yeah so a lot of stuff we do is all based on on things that he maybe didn't happen but really really could have happened or were planning to have happen yeah that's something that I'm really excited with the show because you know I can talk to my family we're watching the show together my wife and my kids and we can talk about it and like say this is the history this is what's you know they're playing with this alternative history and it's kind of just cool to have for all mankind be a conversation point of talking about the topic and I can't wait to see where it goes in season two and beyond you know because like you know real things that happen the sort of the premise of the show is that you can give if reality was more interesting than alternative history then there wouldn't be needed for the show but I think the reality is a you know the space race did and and you can say what could have happened if it didn't and then this is the show but you do get to a point like when were history where we haven't seen the show yet where the space shuttle program is really interesting and like it's having you know I've been learning a lot more about it lately just because I did live through a lot of the years but I was young and don't have recollection and so just learning it's like wow that's really is astonishing that we've got this life this glider and this you know this machine and like there's a number of them and you know I can't wait to see when you start to mix the show with you know alternative history but also the amazing things that we did do before you even get to the you know future beyond where you are today yeah it's really interesting that this shuttle is the most remarkable fine machine we've ever come up take a large like a rocket I am like an airplane to a spacewalk kind of it's got robot arm can carry a Hubble Space Telescope in it trunk you know all kinds of stuff like that and the remarkable things to think it was designed in the in the 70s right right it's incredible that and we today we're not even building anything that could do all those things yeah yeah but so in the station also you know Space Station is also another incredible achievement and when you go when you're going up to the space station and you're docking with it in the shuttle it divorce the shuttle it's kind of like it's kind of like the Death Star you know thing and it's really incredible but at the same time we wanted more you know when I say we I mean the people that grew up during Apollo expected more I should say and because you know you're extrapolate from Apollo and what we did in those in ten years time and then know if you keep going you think oh we're going to be living on Mars by now and we're not right right so there's this kind of sense of disappointment that things didn't go further and that is a large part was driving Ron to imagine the show because a well at least at least in the fit in fiction we wanted we want to think about what could have been an intimate and also it's interesting that like Jeff Bezos and um musk and Richard Branson yeah are driven by that same thing by the sense of a bit of a sense of disappointment that we didn't go further and a sense of urgency as they are getting older to say it's time we got to do it now let's get on with it that's that's that's to the large extent why just like as we talked about in the beginning of the podcast that there's so many incredible things happening yeah all good the show and SpaceX and Blue Origin really all driven from the same sense of loss that these guys all felt a lot a lot of stuff happen really fast and then you know like you mention the special design of the seventies and then that carries us through the 2010 you know a time frame and then now as far as I knew like this you know Space Shuttle and that was it and we have no new plans and it's whatever private companies are doing and only from exposure to for all mankind and seeing a rocket launch do I learn about space line system and like how long that's been talked about and planned in Indiana you know and how it ties to politics and how it you know you get you get numbers like you know it launching by 2019 and then that went away and now we're in 2020 and you know I feel fortunate I can down the street there's sinned us and there's the course day just like that's really cool that's like history right now then you hear that thing when that thing like stuff that's gonna make a lot of noise that's right that's right that's so good earplugs oh yeah and I'm so happy that I'm learning about this now and not whenever it is history because you can't go back it's like but but just how even when when NASA can give a timeframe of we want to you know have the first woman in next man land of the moon by 2024 like you know until it happens until there's money behind it and it's like you know on the news you're not really sure yet you know it's not started and things are just likely to move back you know to take longer than expected or you know hopefully gets funded so but it's just it's neat like the seeing this become part of the pop culture is really cool and I don't know from your perspective what is the what is the last decade for you feel like you know what when when shuttle program is retired and and then it's think think we're just having a plain cake for a long time well when that decision was made it was very bittersweet because you know I remember staying there I'm looking at that Landis realizing she's only gonna fly maybe one more time yeah and Henry and how much sitting on the runway still you know venting and making all all and the machinery is all still turning you realizes a lot of life left in that vehicle and sure enough we only you know that those airframes were certified for I think a hundred missions and not if amare came anywhere close to reaching that so there is a there was a lot left but at the same time when I talked before about how incredible the shuttle is and how we might in our lifetimes never see machine as capable I've done all those things in one machine yeah but at the same time it did all those things and there were two negative consequences one was money the shuttle is ridiculously expensive to maintain spending I say three billion a year or did just to keep it going learn whether we watched it or not just getting a standing army together and all the facilities that required they were required for to make that program run that's a lot of money and then on top of that and also because it was so complex and so expensive it also wasn't the safest you know we lost to it and we can do better than that so I think that the decision to stop when we did as painful as it was was the right decision I do believe that and I think that that finally did the the proof of that will come this year when we have two new vehicles flying to replace it and and and hopefully with with a much greater safety and much more cost-effective vehicles and and so that will be the reward from this painful gap that we had to go through about flying yeah it's kind of a neat parallel where were forming kind the premises what if Russia won the space race went on the moon first then war would it take us sort of the the history that we're now is what if Space Shuttle ends and then America doesn't have a vehicle to launch into space you know Americans into space and we've got over land in Russia then what happens and kind of the answer to that is well you've got SpaceX and you've you've got you know Boeing working on their thing and it's like that's kind of this the happening today like the alternative history of like you know you can imagine Space Shuttle District place with something bigger and better but in reality now we've got you know what Falcon nine and Falcon Heavy and and the starship you know big things coming it's like well you know we've got entertainment with from mankind and alternative history and it just helps you appreciate what we're actually living through today that I don't think a lot of I don't think it's quite mainstream enough yet that you know I talked to my family like as I'm learning things I'm like am I just an idiot and didn't know this stuff or does nope like do people just not know this yet it's like we have no idea what you're talking about and I felt good about it you know but it's it's deep I think from mankind to will continue to serve a purpose of like you know a jumping-off point you know you watch the show together you enjoy your family that you can say by the way this is what's going on today plans and everything yeah and again I'm restricted and what I can tell you is this spoilers but good ok I can predict for you that as as we go forward into season 2 and beyond yeah that he'll get more more relevant to the present day oh and and I think that that's going to be has to be pretty cool that's awesome that's all I can say yeah yeah yes obviously you know as a technical adviser you are like a stickler for the facts right but at some point you have to balance like you know having the entertaining show versus actually being like directly to connect it to what it would be feasible will be possible was there anything you can think of in like season one where you know you really put your foot down you're like I really want this to be this way or was there something we were like oh it's better you know better if we go off course like that kind of thing oh yeah there are examples in both in both directions so so for example the original for episode 9 that whole kind of rescue thing the original idea was that for that to happen in between the earth and the moon and I had to say like there's really not practical even if you have a being a launch vehicle stacked on the pad ready to go at a moment's notice and something happens between here at the moon you can't catch up you can't let go faster and then have it because of the vehicles designed to go in a certain speed you can't speed up because any have to slow down otherwise you can just go blow by the moon and use up all your propellant so you don't have the propellant to slow down so that doesn't work so so then I said well what if the emergency happens into Earth orbit well they can keep going around for a while while they have time to mount you know a second a second flight and so that's how that that's that's how the story of C of episode 9 kind of changed so that's it doesn't is the example in that direction in the other direction there's there's lots of things that I've come to appreciate where there's real-world constraints for example you got a cast that's a certain size and you can and those actors need to work with each other so you have this ensemble cast and they need to be in the same scenes you can't have them so it's like you know we have the NASA Administrator spending a lot of time in Mission Control you know directly implement and that's not entirely false their work in the early days exact some examples of that but but but by and large the administrators in DC and Wernher von Braun for that matter as that he was you know responsible for the 7/5 he was over at Huntsville at Marshall he wasn't like attending you know Sims and in the Mission Control Room at Johnson Space Center and supervising you know helping helping young flight controllers become flight directors and hey it was like he had nothing to do with any of that but the thing was that if you had these actors and Wernher von Braun was over Marshall the whole time and never was in the room with the other actors you can't have a show yes yeah okay so that was an example were like okay no that's not really real but let's just go with it because you know we we we have at the end of the day you're making a TV show not a documentary yeah so so yeah and the other thing is that for me that's very important is that the thing that is that people will come light may for example in and after we also had some violations of orbital mechanics and when we when we premiered that it had a bunch of my USC students were actually there and and in a lobby afterwards they were they were grousing about because they're all bunch of nerds like I am ever crossing about you know one of the orbital mechanics violations and I had to look at them and said listen nobody decides to go see a movie it's pretty for Potomac annex they go see a movie for the story for the cinematography for the acting there's no Academy Award for orbital mechanics so they told us you're giving out in that category so yeah you have to get you know you know you want to violate it so bad that they that the audience has a hard time suspending their disbelief and it becomes laughable you don't want to violate it like that but at the same time you don't want to be such a stickler for for the truth that you end up making a boring story because you say is the story that that's the that's the most important thing yeah I think for Benjamin myself like the closest we can relate to today understanding is if you know we can look at like an app design or a product design and know if it's if it's good or bad where and we can see like a bigger average of people not care about smaller details so I imagine for you like and people like you like your students you watch a movie you say things that we cannot see and so it's got to change the viewing experience um and I've seen you rate movies based on like how realistic things are yeah I didn't used to be that way I mean apparently Neil Armstrong was that way there was a great talk I heard from his kids about like they hated watching any kind of science fiction movie with their dad because he complained like won't be it on to the set design if there was one instrument that was in the wrong position on an aircraft cockpit instrument panel that he would be furious area and I'm just trying to watch the movie and he'd be like DME they specifically said bow so Galactica yeah since its meal I'm thinking it was the original Battlestar Galactica but he's like why are they putting these spaceships in these catapults like it's on an aircraft carrier and launching them you know they're in space they don't have to get a certain airspeed to get airborne they're gonna flop them out and it would be fine yeah and then and I like yeah okay and I never used to be like that is like I look I like the movie gravity a lot and nothing violated the laws of physics terribly compelling story right but now then I have this job I find myself because now right now I'm like training myself to do it I find myself being more and more critical and looking for those little things yeah that I try I catch myself sometimes when I'm watching other science fiction and like stop doing that just dissing pleasure showing yeah don't drive yourself good you can understand why it's made that way yeah like one kind of question I had on that kind of thing is in the show obviously attitude switch towards gay people LGBTQ we're not the same in the 60s and 70s they are today but what we see in the show is a depiction of like a fake wedding where they try and you know pretend to be a straight couple to stay in the space program is that does that have a basis in history or was like you know like brought in uh you know it's hard for me remember I told a lot of stories in the writers room has hardly know some of that stuff kind of evolved and got incorporated in summer story but one of the stories I told was that there there was is my Russian instructor when I was at JSC and at the time in Texas you know still it was it was even just ten years ago it was different as far as I had to storage LGBTQ yeah and and certainly there was no back then there was no same-sex marriage anywhere in the u.s. around if I remember correctly but certainly not in Texas so so what what I did was I flew promised rings for him and his and and his his partner and I flew these two rings I up to the space station took a photograph of them floating it with the earth in the background when I came back I went to a ceremony it couldn't be it couldn't be a wedding Brad because that would be illegal but we had a promise ceremony that was a winning ceremony and everything but name and legality yeah and I presented those rings at a certain month I gave them their rings and they put him up in and his then was something I was very proud of and and and I told that story and that might that story about attitudes in my era at NASA I think I think in some way um God you know attending to that yeah turn into a little bit the story of the Wilsons yeah that's part of the something that's interesting with the show is stuff that can feel like ancient history like the way things were 10 years ago can feel like it's something of the 70s you know but really it's just it's the 2010s in like the 2000s and 2010's we're not as modern as we as like you know last year it really does it chain takes a long time it does it does but the fact that it is so different just ten years later is a very good thing yeah only we're heading in the right direction and I just hope we keep heading that way because obviously there's counter forces yeah kind of one more point on a kind of thing we've seen the show where ed Baldwin's left on his own which I should never happen in real life right you would leave the Astra on his own in in space on the base you know I don't know what we were doing has such a crazy scenario like what happens and I guess this episode he yeah so I can't say never but certainly the plan is always to at least have not prepared I never have anybody alone even when we do spacewalks it's always a pair of two that go out right so we would do something that we would try very very hard to avoid yeah and then kind of the the result of that is obviously his his child unfortunately dies but he's he's unaware because he's disconnected in space and that's like a big part the show is where you have the like information asymmetry between the ground and and up there and they have this big like almost scenes to debate about whether we should tell him whether we should not tell him and that was one of the big points which caused a like conversation our family but you know would you want to know and you know this is a bit of a puzzle question but you're an astronaut like do they ask you that kind of thing do they do they check do do you want to know if something terrible happened while you're out you know why you're up there would you wait you came home yeah I remember I think the chief the office asked me that at one point before I went in for my Space Station mission and you know we've had this kind of thing happen we had a hermit run Space Station and lost his mother to a vehicle accident while while he was up in space we had guys having the process 911 and watching being able to see that the window you know on the space station so we've dealt with similar things they never got to the point of the asymmetry where it became a sense of material trust that which you know but I could see at the same time there's also a large deference paid to the family and their wishes so the way it all played out is not inconceivable although I think it would be really really hard to blatantly tell falsehoods to somebody up on aurilla in order to cover up what was happening so but at the same time I could see it be hard to counter what what the what the spouse thought with this best course of action tough yeah I hate you know it's a we're going to have to deal with that I was going to happen again and and it's that we don't really have a protocol that's like written in isn't it's not like procedure with that good no right yeah you know son death contingency step one inform yeah none of that it's personal for everyone but they kind of prefer another great yeah yeah you go with you go with the people and and and at the time and the judgment of the management you know and and and the psychologist is a whole team of NASA flight surgeons and psychologists that would advise you in that situation too yeah yeah and I cry air is what makes it such an you know poignant interesting part of the actual narrative as well yeah I don't know that I appreciate about the show is that you do lose people like people die you know not not just his child but people that work in the program yeah in in the ship within the show and when you look at NASA history it happened like people die like the Apollo mission that explodes from Florida like I was watching the Paul documentary and I again like just forgive my ignorance but just you know you don't study this deeply in school to know every single mission and just like I'm watching it and they're showing the astronauts and then it's a documentary so it's real but I don't see it coming and they in they actually die it's like wow you know and I was doing the same thing with the shuttle documentary it's like you know I know history somewhat vague but I don't know in detail and the same thing happen just like it's in that case it's real but it catches you off cars like you know people actually died like they lose their life to this for this program and you know seeing that depicted in the show I think if you didn't have that would be too bad and so you know once you learn the history you really have an appreciation for it and so I imagine this kind of that has to be a part of the show - yeah it does it does I mean there's been plenty of tragedy along with the triumph both in the Russian program and an American program the American one the Apollo 1 Challenger Columbia but are better known but if the Russians lost to Soyuz missions and they had a with their Enron and one rocket one of the things are kept it from being us to the moon was did an explosion on the pad of this enormous rocket that killed a lot of the engineers because it were too close to it when it went went up and yeah there's plenty of is not it is not only that the human missions tragedies but I was watching government which happened episode where we have the the explosion on the pad oh yeah five yeah 5 yeah I was watching that with my former boss a vice president at SpaceX okay and he was getting some bad flashbacks dude we lost one of our Falcon nines on the pad yeah it exploded an antenna was as dramatic and there's no loss of life but it was still heartbreaking at the time after the loss yeah that way you want to say elephant PTSD when he was watching that episode you know that's a little too close to home yeah so yeah and it does unfortunately it is a risky business there's no question like I Gus Grissom and Apollo 1 he said that and he's right you know and and so yeah we're gonna we're gonna see that in the show as well may have anything else for you I think that's Kidder he said it's a sad note to end on but obviously the you know the show is you know the show is much about like positivity is is about showing you know the bad sides and the realities of the world isn't it like that's just what it is yeah dramas right and it's so cool that it's a TV show because you know cuz you've got 10 10 episodes in the first season and they're they're all about an hour long but under an hour it's like a movie would be to three hours and you just couldn't fit this much information and like the personal stories of people and and that really does a good service for people that little live through it I can't wait to see more oh well I can't wait to show Susan Susan a tremendous amount of fun I think is coming together really nicely so please look please a tune in when it when it comes out I don't know when is going to be but whatever it is it's a big it's because I'm very happy with that was coming along yeah so it's it's yeah working on the show has been has been a real treat for me and III have a lot of really exciting moments but along the way but uh and I practiced a here tell you stories all day is there is there anything that you want viewers if maybe if you haven't seen the show to to look for in this show or like a reason to watch it or if you do view it you know something like that you want people to take away from it well I hope to take away from it just like that that that really what it's designed to do is to show you what it could have been like and and what it still can be like sure we if we really dedicate ourselves exploring space and and him him we and we realized the promise of what we're capable of doing and focus our efforts on that rather than on a lot of the more divisive things that we're spending our time on today and I getting too political so it's I think hopefully that people watch it they're like oh wow this is really interesting and I hope that that we take these bold steps and and and our real history is exciting to watch develop as the show going forward so I hope that's the case I don't thing to mention this kind of fun is how we do play a little bit with the technology that is that by spending all this effort on space exploration that technology progresses in our alternative universe faster than it did in reality sure so you'll start saying things like personal computers showing up guru it did the week we each year we kind of counties season we kind of calibrated like okay now we're like three years ahead of actual time and now we're like five years ahead so we're going to keep ramping that up and we'll send who get to the present day our present day is going to be a more glorious technical future and what we experienced in reality so this can be interesting when we catch up to real time oh man where's we're so sold on this I can't wait to say well dr. Vaisman thank you so much for joining this has been an actual pleasure I really appreciate it my pleasures is fun for me too and let you guys and if you do start that space to let me know but yeah totally absolutely thank you so much thank you all right that is the 9 to 5 Mack happy hour podcast for this week we hope you enjoyed the interview as much as we did and Benjamin I will be back next week with our usual rundown and analysis of the week at Apple news in the meantime you can follow me on twitter and instagram at Apollo Zack that's AP o ll o za C and Benjamin is on Twitter at BZ a Mayo if you're new to 9 to 5 Mack happy hour we hope you subscribe and stick around for more episodes and if you're already a subscriber and want to support the podcast please just share it with someone you know we really appreciate that you can also learn more about astronaut Garrett Riesman at Garrett Riesman comm let's G ar ar e TT ar e is ma n comm or follow dr. Eastman on Twitter at Astro G dog that's astro AST ro underscore g underscore do GG tremendous thanks again to astronaut riesen for joining us on nine to five mak happy hour and be sure to check out the full first season of for all mankind not apple TV plus all 10 episodes are available now on Apple TV plus for $4.99 per month after a 7 day free trial a one-year is included when you purchase a new iphone ipad ipod touch mac or Apple TV and service is included for free with the Apple music student plan Apple TV plus is available to watch on iPhone iPad Apple TV Mac or with airplay on the web and on the Apple TV app for Samsung Smart TVs Roku players and TVs and fire TV sticks and TVs and coming soon to LG Sony and Vizio Smart TVs for all mankind has already been renewed for a second season on Apple TV plus so look forward to new episodes coming later in the future with that being said we'll be back next week bye everybody youthis week on 95 Mack happy hour we were joined by a very special guest astronaut Garrett Riesman he was selected by NASA yeah he was liked by NASA 1988 in his first mission in space was aboard the space shuttle Endeavour in 2008 so 10 years later it's bent 95 days on a mission aboard the International Space Station second mission was aboard the space shuttle Atlantis in 2010 I saw Atlantis fuchs ago and over in Florida I feel good doing good ok and then and you've performed three spacewalks operated the space station robot arm we were a flight engineer aboard the space shuttle and for this podcast what we're interested in especially is that you're a technical consultant for the film at Astra and more specifically for us technical advisor for the TV show Apple TV plus for all mankind which we are crazy about we've talked about it weekly from the time it came out currently dr. Royce Richmond is a professor at in astronautical engineering professor at the University of Southern California a motivational speaker senior advisor for Elon Musk rocket company space X and now 9:00 to 5:00 Mack happy hours first guests and over to the episodes Wow this big deal man I'm on how come how come not until now and how come me well we do other podcast with guests but for happy hour it's just me and Benjamin talking about the weekend Apple news every week and there's never been the feeling of like having a guest before but we were just one thing led to another and and we that we learned about you and it's like this would be really cool if we could come together and happen and and you were nice enough to join us so really appreciate that I'm hope you're all right yeah and I will say if anyone hasn't seen for all mankind there will be spoilers ahead we warned everyone last week to do their homework and I've been rewashing and it's so much fun and before we get into that I wanted to ask a few questions because oh my gosh is the first time I've spoken to an astronaut before it is spoken to a lot yeah I can imagine I think I've got you down for over 20 hours of doing spacewalks at ISS and I've spent my time of like watching the spacewalks happen over you know seven or eight hours as they do what is that feeling light because I can't imagine and I know that you prepare for ahead of time but it just feels like looking at it unlike anything else on earth of course oh man it's a it's incredible by far and away the highlight of my my career is not my life I mean that those experiences of being able to go outside in that suit and have nothing but it you know a glass helmet between you which is like a fishbowl you almost forget it's there by the way kind of so you've ever come scuba diving for a long period of time and you kind of forget that you're wearing a mask and you think it just you become one with your coral reef or whatever it's like that it's like when you've wearing glasses for years on end and then you just kind of forget over exactly that's another good analogy very good so yeah just forget that the helmets there and it's just nothing between you and this entire planet it's really remarkable and and and just a sense of being out there outside the vehicle floating up in space and working in this crazy suit it's just a remarkable experience and the visuals are absolutely stunning but you have to get a part of this equation is that you're busy working right okay and in fact there's a tremendous amount of pressure which which tends the more that the sheer enjoyment of the moment right because you have to you have to get this jump and you've been training for years to do this and this is the hardest thing you as a mission specialist or astronaut are going to do on this on this mission and you have lots of people caring on you it's extremely expensive not only from a dollars and cents standpoint but from also from a resource expenditure standpoint so and it's the most dangerous thing we do other than launching it and Edric so the pressures that are on you as you're about to do this I've never played professional athletics just collegiate okay so I don't know for sure but I've talked to people who are professional athletes and they kind of agree now they've never done the spacewalk but we read it it's similar to like going out to play for a championship whether that be the World Cup or the World Series or the Superbowl or whatever your Stanley Cup whatever your sport might be your about as you're about to take the field you know that you might only get one shot at this you might only get one chance to compete the finals of the World Cup in your whole career and here it is in front of you and whatever happens in the next couple hours is going to define you as a person right you're going to be old and sitting at a rocking chair in reflecting back to this moment you never forget yeah yeah it is good but here's the thing you can be reflecting on this moment either with a tremendous sense of accomplishment that you won the championship well you took your you took your chance and you made it or you can be looking back there's a tremendous sense of regret like you blow in amid history for the wrong yeah yeah but whatever it is it's something you're never going to forget and so it's like it's like that when you're about to go out to did the spacewalk that's that's kind of what it feels like and I could tell you the story I'm the most challenging spacewalk I ever did was the first one I did on my second mission so the three spacewalks I did it was the second one it was just very very difficult to test we had to do the timeline was very challenging the complex interaction of the robotics and the space walking was very complicated and getting everything to go right was going to be hard and we really focused more on that whole mission that was really the crux of the whole mission was at one spacewalk and so I have all these thoughts going through my head and my commander their student me happened about to put me in that in the airlock could see by looking in my eyes you know this stress yeah and thoughts and and and because I'm coming I'm kind of a goofball so normally I'm joking around I'm not joking around at all at this moment yeah candor commander what he did was he came up and he grabbed me in the suit by the shoulders and there was a valve that was hoping that puts a hole through the helmet and he came up over by that Valve so I can hear him through my closed helmet and he yelled really loud into that orifice he yelled by squeak whap squeezing my suit as hard as it could he's a guy that is awake and and I just are laughing yeah Helen it was perfect it was actually exactly what I needed to kind of break me out of that Punk and head head that and not take myself too seriously and and I guess that's why he was the commander he knew exactly what but um that was like I mean that's that sense of humor must come in use when you're in an environment that I guess could kill you so if you really can't think about those factors there this another question on that sort of specifically is time keeping with that D do you see what time it is and how long you've been on your spacewalk or is it are you relying on like someone to tell you or a Dean she's not notice the job yeah you know you don't really have a watch right yeah so you but you have a whole giant team of people who are really very watching that clock very carefully starting with your we have a one crew member who's on board is kind of like the choreographer the manager the coach and they're the person that has a checklist and everything and they have a clock right in front of them so they're calling it out - yeah okay and then the ground of course the ground is hyper aware of how much time not only how much time has elapsed but also how much co2 you have left in the tanks chair how much more carbon dioxide scrubbing capability you have and how much more water in the tanks to provide your cooling so there's a lot of there's a lot of different clocks to look at and uh and they integrate them all and make sure that we don't we don't bus do not good and run out of oxygen yeah they kind of show you that in the in the show like in the episode where they go down the the crater on the moon and the UM you know he takes the woman's down there and and ed Baldwin's like you've got to come up now you got a comment now and you've got everyone in the in the Space Center at home you're telling them that their clocks are on air they've run out of oxygen so that there's like that pressure of you know we've come all this way and we're not actually gonna get anything out of it but at the same time you know these are like our vital signs essentially now yeah that scene was actually really realistic because they said exactly what I'm describing it and then they have all the data they know how much time is left and they were getting very concerned and the other thing was very realistic about that is you never really want to come back inside that hatch yeah you know any more work yeah you want to be more work or you just want to have a moment one last time out of there you get so focused on doing the test that you almost can forget to like soak it in and so one great piece of advice I got from a senior spacewalkers just made one or two moments along the way where you get a chance to really experience it and I have certain you know memories that are the last forever I remember kind of like Leo DiCaprio in Titanic I'm holding on to the whole space station which is behind me yeah I'm on the very very front tip I can't see any of the space station in my field of view and so for all I know alone up there and as I watched the Sun come up over the horizon of the earth and that was spectacular and I was very fortunate my third spacewalk I had I had great partners for all three but on that third spacewalk we were ahead of the schedule and the ground even ran out of stuff for us to do which never happens right and and and we knew that the mission the pressure was off because we knew that we had made all of our main mission objectives at this point and we had a chance to do stuff like you know just to take a look at that sunrise and we we went up to the windows in the back of the Space Shuttle when we were inside the payload Bay we knocked on the glass that's inside really oh my god they're aliens house anyway the closest I can relate is like going on a work trip to New York or California and if ever I was ever going on like a just a vacation it would be totally enjoyable but because it's for work you're thinking you don't get time to stop and just enjoy your environment so it's not the same place but I can appreciate what you're saying and and one more thing I wanna mention before we get into the show too much is that I saw as it broadcast the season from the series finale of The Colbert Report oh wow yeah and so I was just gonna be watching that this week and then every watched your appearances there from when calling from space it's like to be I guess my question here is like what was it like being on that final episode because that's that's almost as amazing as calling from space where you you know you're like in the same room as like Willie Nelson to Peter Frampton and George Lucas and like all these people yeah that was incredible that is like the world's best cocktail party yeah like there wasn't a single person in the room that you wouldn't like give a right arm to have a chance to talk with and hang out with you know as like it wasn't just you know there's some like kind of a list celebrities or like James Franco was there and I'm trying to remember who else was like a big star Patrick Stewart I guess there there are lots there lesson but there was also like all the comments from the New York Times share now and it was like Ben and Jerry from Bennett Gary and then it was like the artist that made the hope poster for Obama and and because everybody and I was hanging out for a while with Tim Meadows uh-huh so night live a comedian and actor and we were talking and we were joking around that actually our biggest fear was you know not talking to somebody there because we didn't know exactly who they were and not discovering that I was standing right next to the guy that invented Wikipedia yeah yes the time of day you know is right is that we were terrified we know James Franco you know Willie Nelson you know um and I was obvious because I was wearing my blue NASA Jack yeah and Paulina Porizkova she was pretty easy to pick out too there it is you can't miss Big Bird right sorry but your other guy is that like like I was talking this one guy and it turns out he it was Eddie stris who was a mountaineer who some did Everest and was a kind of rescued almost all those people if you read Krakauer spoke into thin air about to tragedy unfolded on Everest he was a guy who went and dropped the IMAX camera and saved like a dozen people that day and the stories he had were just incredible and you know you walk right by him on the street you have no idea excuse me that was incredible that's awesome yes so can you just give us it like a an overview to start with of what your kind of role is as a technical advisor on from a kind is incredibly broad which I love right so it started out I was in the writers room as they were first coming up with a very basic idea so Ron mooring and and and Ben and Matt are executive producers plus the entire all the writers yeah we have is really funny this is building in Burbank California and it looks like a completely nondescript office building like you would go in like maybe to go visit your orthodontist or your accountant or something right good and and you walk in and then suite 201 instead of being an orthodontist it's just as 201 you open the door inside just like all these covered machines and and beanbag chairs and pictures of Apollo's stuff all over all the walls and that's the writers room for all mankind and as where all the magic happens and then turn think as I was leaving I looked at sweet - OH - it's just a - OH - and one of the guys said oh that's where we write Outlander so you're in there and and you're you have all these whiteboards and we were from the very beginning sketching out not only season 1 but like a lot of seasons a whole story arc and and then eventually they all have their own each season had one whiteboard and then we got the season one and each episode has its own whiteboard and got more and more granular as we as we started working and they started writing scripts and I reviewed every single script line by line and give notes on everything and then they start shooting and then I get questions from you know it's great because I get to get a direct with like the prop guys so they'll be like hey there's a stick that you use on the space shuttle if you can't reach the controls what does that look like how is it how we do we saw a picture of it is it 18 inches you know how do you when do you use it and I get questions from like the hair makeup people like what does the women do with their hair when they do a spacewalk and I'm like you're asking the wrong person but I got friends like at night so so it's all kind of the prom that they stunt guys are like okay we're simulating walking on the moon and we just got these wires how do we do that Sofia work with the stunt guys you work with the art department and and then you start shooting any work with the actors and I met with all the principal cast before their first shot and so I could give them advice on like how to basically fake like you're in zero gravity and it gives them a feel for what their characters are thinking at different moments and then and so you work with the cast and they need a show up on set and you watch them film and you're like yeah that you know sort of couldn't really reach that under six G's you know is that kind of and then you help them shoot it again and he try to get as much of it right as you can and then and then it goes into post-production and then you get then you trying to help out with the guys in the visual effects and the audio effects so the cool thing is is this job I get to see the entire production from the very first very beginnings to the end and everything in between and and so it's fascinating it and and it's also all that stuff that I just described are things that as a mechanical engineer I would never in a million years ever really be a part of right right yeah so I describe this experience of people's like you know like you can go to like these fantasy baseball camps or guitar camps in where you like get to play catch with the with the New York Yankees or you get to play guitar with like I don't know Eddie Van Halen or somebody right and it's like they treat you like an equal even though you know you're not be paid a lot of money go to this camp you know so it's kind of like that where I get to like do these things with these people who are at the top of the game like Ronnie Moore yeah yeah has made some my favorite shows and and uh and he got man these guys that that really the writers that the everybody worked on the show the cameraman the visual effects guys are at the top of their game in the whole industry and you get to work with them like you belong there and that cracks me up all the time yeah so you're gonna from the very beginning which was that must have been more like late 2017 early 2018 timeframe let me think it would have been this it was right after the SpaceX so that would have been summer 2018 yeah yes ironic because I think one of like this shows like so timely as well in the you know we're on the precipice Lake for you know at least most of my lifetime I'm 25 like space has been kind of out of the picture really and only in the last few years kind of is it really like we're back on the you can feel it with your fingertips almost that we're probably going to go back to the moon and we're gonna have you know launches from America hopefully in the next year or so like it's kind of its kind of crazy outs will come together and the show kind of like celebrates that as well as the history as well right like it's the it's the timely moment you know it's interesting that the very first involvement half of the show is I got a call from Ron Moore one day and he said hey Garrett I'm thinking about doing it another space show I like to bounce some ideas off of you wish you wish thrilled me that he would think to call me and do that so inviting him to come down to SpaceX we had lunch right in the SpaceX cafe I hear my tour the whole place first and then we sat down had lunch and he gave me he did I got two ideas one is like to do basically a madman a period piece percent at NASA in the 70s so instead of you know Madison Avenue and a bunch of mid-century modern furnishings we would have seventies lapels and and heavyset at NASA as well that sounds cool and they said but then I'm also talking that this idea of doing an alternate history where things are different and they're Russians you know beat us to the mode and and I said oh my god it's such an awesome idea and I immediately fell in love with that with that premise and and we the more we talked about it the more he fell in love with it and then he pitched that to Apple and now we have for mankind so yeah I but it but caught up in that whole like you're saying about how things are really no pun intended taking off right now yeah personally I've always been sort of interested in spaces just like you know if you ask me like space yeah it's cool you know like more I think space is cooler than like I don't a tennis or something but I've not ever been super just enthusiastic and knowledgeable and it's kind of because it felt like history something that happened way before I was born and this things that are not happening on the news today and so it doesn't feel like it's the future and so this like 2018 was was pretty impressive all on me because you had Apollo the 50 the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 in the moon landing and just for that reason like for you know one day in the middle of summer we're all thinking about the moon landing again and so I went to the Infinity Science Center near where I live in South Mississippi it's like my first time there and it turns out they've got this whole museum this like you know I real this right across the street from Center Space Center's like a real Space Center with like history in and then I I've I've lived here on my life and I gotta learned that there's like the me shoe plant you know where they make engines and all the stuff and so that was cool but then a few months go by and that was kind of it and then for all mankind comes out and I'm really into it I got invited from NASA social to go see a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch and down in Florida so that was really cool and just being around like space people they they all knew a lot about what they're talking about and to me like if you were talking about Apple I would be that way but with space stuff I didn't I was learning things like you know about Space Launch System and Artemis and things that they was brand-new to me or even like SpaceX what it was and how long it's been around like I would have thought you know maybe eight or ten years and not you know since the early 2000s so having all this stuff be you know historical anniversaries are cool and but but having it being the pop culture you know and seeing like fraud mankind reduced it in a way that's like relatable so I pulled back into the public eye yeah it's really really neat yeah it's really interesting that yeah and by the way you haven't seen anything yet difficult decision this year I predict is going to be a really turn big turning point yeah because it's just in crazy all these things are going on and it just so happens all the stars are aligning all the schedules are aligning it looks like everything's going to happen this year yes I think SpaceX and Boeing will first have the first crew twice this year I think the same thing will be true for Blue Origin and virgin as well as all of a sudden you're going to have four companies operating out of the u.s. doing you're sending people into space when you know right now we have zero right so it's going to be an unbelievably exciting year and and and and hey you already mentioned NASA and Artemis and everything they're doing so 2020 we're going to look back at 2020 I predict and say that's when everything really got moving yeah and it's so cool that that's all happening with frog mankind and like you know you mentioned that there are seasons to come I think ron moore's mentioned that he's got like you know at least seven seasons are like you know planned out so that's really cool and i've you know just mentioned here for the first time publicly that I've pitched our publisher on a space site because we've got an Apple vertical at Google green energy with Tesla and with our electric sight and I've been you know just from the seeing a rocket launch in person and then learning all that stuff about it's like a lot of stuff happened over the last decade that I didn't know about and I was alive for like history and I didn't know a whole lot about the space shuttle program and because I was like ten twelve you know and and like my memories are like you know 9/11 happened I have that memories of like playing Pokemon like my friends and you know middle school is like that but but you know not not history as it was happening it's like we've got to start covering this stuff from our perspectives because like we're about to see a lot of cool history play out in real time that's right that's right and and and that and as we mentioned and with regard to for all mankind is really fascinating is to be hit to play between science fiction and science fact and the very first time I spoke to run more it was from the space station I was up on the space station the way just hold my relationship with him began was they asked me one after other new celebrities you'd like to talk to night kind of as a morale booster they will go you know arrange phone calls and I said yeah I want to talk to Ron Moore and David Icke the creators of I also khalaqtu Co which at the time was like my favorite show and we had this great conversation basically over Skype from the space station and we talked about how we were both like I was inspired by Star Trek and Star Wars and then later Battlestar and that led me into to inspire me to to do what I do as far as being an astronaut and being an engineer and Ron's saying that he was inspired by Apollo and and shuttle to do what he did which was become you know a writer and a creator of our galactic ghosts are trekking and and it's kind of really neat give and take or yin and yang played between fact and fiction and how we inspire each other and then he invited him to come to my last launch and so in 2010 he was down there in any wrote this great description of what it was like to stand there and watch the Space Shuttle take off so so we've been kind of going back and forth between fact and fiction and and now Apple is paying both of us okay I like a lot of like sci-fi but for mankind's really kind of the first like alternate history show because as much of it is like made up for for the drama there's also a lot of it is like grounded in reality or reality that's you know 20 years ahead of what the timeline is like even the start even the premise to show you where the like the Soviets land on the moon first like that's not completely out there right that was you know possible in fact that initial conversation with Rondon SpaceX I told I told how I was in Moscow and I saw flight hardware that they had built for the their lunar lander so they were much further along than most Americans on the West really knew at the time and even appreciate today they were closer to them than we thought to challenging us and I think that that that defected that it could have happened as part of I think like what you're saying by the way you know with for all mankind is we wanted audience to have the reaction like okay we know this didn't happen yeah but it could write as long as is plausible that like oh it could had gone this way that's that's where we're aiming for yeah just from being exposed to all this and just being really interested now it's a good rocket class over the weekend that was the history of rockets over at the Infinity Science Center and part of the class they gave us a printout of the space race timeline it's like a column for the Soviet Union to call him for the US and there's like so much stuff in the Soviet Union column that came before anything for the US or just like by comparison it's like you know it really was a race it wasn't just a given and and so taking that and and the show is like this you know when you're watching it as news like in your living it then it's like you know it is it you don't know how it's going to go and so that that's part of what helps the show I think is that like if you don't know the history very well it's like then you can kind of go back and learn like how close it really was and then there's even things from the show where if you've no history than dislike you know sort of like inside jokes of the show like it went differently this way you know with Benjamin being in the UK I asked him was like you know with the Chappaquiddick situation like were you familiar with that like you know learning in the UK yeah u.s. politics so no idea yeah yeah yes yeah there's there's certain little things in there that kind of Easter Egg that not every is going to get but but then there are other larger geopolitical stuff that that book would that comes out especially okay I gotta keep catching my time because because we're doing work we're hearing about it right now yeah yeah but one of the things that like eliminated me was like the Von Braun stuff with the you know the German connection and like I when I saw that in the show might in my like instant reaction was oh they just kind of like I did that in as you know backstory of like you know entertainment to cause some conflict and stuff but you know that's like Grand in truth again so I mean remember that scene where they bring out those photographs and that in the conference chamber committee chamber those were real photographs yeah not that that was not our art department in fact that then the interlude where the fellow playing the piano was singing that song about von Braun yeah that's real funny that's archival footage that you know so yeah all that all that stuff was actually about von Braun was sadly very accurate yeah he had something like with sci-fi you know I enjoy sci-fi but with with this sort of crossover genre of like alternative history it's like you can you can appreciate you can look at it appreciate it and then go back and like it's fun to find out what was real what wasn't real in actual in the history because you know you can know a little bit about it but you know when you learn a lot about us like oh wow and then you've got any appreciation for the show so yeah it's this neat especially in the early parts of season want like when when they were talking about Apollo 10 could they have landed right right yeah yeah that was that was all very very even the numbers that are bandied about about how much fuel on how much weight are right on the money you know Kirkley researched and accurate and and so especially the beginning now the for the further we go along now we're in season two and as we progressed it's going to diverge more more and because we'll get beyond but eventually we'll get beyond the current day we hope yeah if apple sticks with this yeah géza used to having is continuing it and then of course we have more liberties and even even in season two it's easier to say well in our alternative universe this and that because we're searching more and more but but uh but season one especially we worked really really hard to to to be very very close to actual because our divergence from actual history was still very displayed at that point yo it was any like offset by few years or like things that happened in smaller scale were taken to a big thing like that the the woman in like in space program wasn't there something in like the 60s where there was a oh yeah oh yeah our character Molly Cobb was based on a real real person and her Jerry Kemetic memory serves me correctly so we could get the rights to use her actual name we wanted to make her and historical figure just like we have a Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and like sleepy enough and that these are all real people we wanted to have the this the real Jerry Cobb but um but but anyway that didn't work out so so so we have Molly Cobb but yeah she's based on this person had was part of this this group of women that right around the time the Mercury program at the Lovelace clinic were put through the same tests as a fascinating story in and of itself and that all happened and then it got shut down by politics basically in society saying and now we don't want women and the excuse was that they weren't test pilots but but they passed you know all the same physical tests and they had they had and so you know a lot of what goes on in the show is also some of it is you know especially the geopolitical tensions are things that go worse than actually what what really happened the some does also like saying well if we lived and if our better angels prevailed yeah maybe it would have been like this and so there's a little bit of that because I'm the show thank yeah even just jump into the the post-credits sequence where I finished the last show like the hour came out and then I went to bed and Benjamin was like did you see the post-credits sequence and I said no I did inside to go back and like rewatch it on Apple TV Plus and you know that ship coming out of the water like I watched the knee they sent me a link of like this you know it didn't happen obviously but this is what that reference does you know it's like a sea dragon things CJ yeah yeah yeah we based on a real development project it never got built so he had we never actually did launch a giant rocket like that out of the ocean but it only a lot of the engineering analysis was was done and that was you know that would have never made it never made it all the way to prototyping but but the research was there to say hey this could be done it was based on a real project in yeah so a lot of stuff we do is all based on on things that he maybe didn't happen but really really could have happened or were planning to have happen yeah that's something that I'm really excited with the show because you know I can talk to my family we're watching the show together my wife and my kids and we can talk about it and like say this is the history this is what's you know they're playing with this alternative history and it's kind of just cool to have for all mankind be a conversation point of talking about the topic and I can't wait to see where it goes in season two and beyond you know because like you know real things that happen the sort of the premise of the show is that you can give if reality was more interesting than alternative history then there wouldn't be needed for the show but I think the reality is a you know the space race did and and you can say what could have happened if it didn't and then this is the show but you do get to a point like when were history where we haven't seen the show yet where the space shuttle program is really interesting and like it's having you know I've been learning a lot more about it lately just because I did live through a lot of the years but I was young and don't have recollection and so just learning it's like wow that's really is astonishing that we've got this life this glider and this you know this machine and like there's a number of them and you know I can't wait to see when you start to mix the show with you know alternative history but also the amazing things that we did do before you even get to the you know future beyond where you are today yeah it's really interesting that this shuttle is the most remarkable fine machine we've ever come up take a large like a rocket I am like an airplane to a spacewalk kind of it's got robot arm can carry a Hubble Space Telescope in it trunk you know all kinds of stuff like that and the remarkable things to think it was designed in the in the 70s right right it's incredible that and we today we're not even building anything that could do all those things yeah yeah but so in the station also you know Space Station is also another incredible achievement and when you go when you're going up to the space station and you're docking with it in the shuttle it divorce the shuttle it's kind of like it's kind of like the Death Star you know thing and it's really incredible but at the same time we wanted more you know when I say we I mean the people that grew up during Apollo expected more I should say and because you know you're extrapolate from Apollo and what we did in those in ten years time and then know if you keep going you think oh we're going to be living on Mars by now and we're not right right so there's this kind of sense of disappointment that things didn't go further and that is a large part was driving Ron to imagine the show because a well at least at least in the fit in fiction we wanted we want to think about what could have been an intimate and also it's interesting that like Jeff Bezos and um musk and Richard Branson yeah are driven by that same thing by the sense of a bit of a sense of disappointment that we didn't go further and a sense of urgency as they are getting older to say it's time we got to do it now let's get on with it that's that's that's to the large extent why just like as we talked about in the beginning of the podcast that there's so many incredible things happening yeah all good the show and SpaceX and Blue Origin really all driven from the same sense of loss that these guys all felt a lot a lot of stuff happen really fast and then you know like you mention the special design of the seventies and then that carries us through the 2010 you know a time frame and then now as far as I knew like this you know Space Shuttle and that was it and we have no new plans and it's whatever private companies are doing and only from exposure to for all mankind and seeing a rocket launch do I learn about space line system and like how long that's been talked about and planned in Indiana you know and how it ties to politics and how it you know you get you get numbers like you know it launching by 2019 and then that went away and now we're in 2020 and you know I feel fortunate I can down the street there's sinned us and there's the course day just like that's really cool that's like history right now then you hear that thing when that thing like stuff that's gonna make a lot of noise that's right that's right that's so good earplugs oh yeah and I'm so happy that I'm learning about this now and not whenever it is history because you can't go back it's like but but just how even when when NASA can give a timeframe of we want to you know have the first woman in next man land of the moon by 2024 like you know until it happens until there's money behind it and it's like you know on the news you're not really sure yet you know it's not started and things are just likely to move back you know to take longer than expected or you know hopefully gets funded so but it's just it's neat like the seeing this become part of the pop culture is really cool and I don't know from your perspective what is the what is the last decade for you feel like you know what when when shuttle program is retired and and then it's think think we're just having a plain cake for a long time well when that decision was made it was very bittersweet because you know I remember staying there I'm looking at that Landis realizing she's only gonna fly maybe one more time yeah and Henry and how much sitting on the runway still you know venting and making all all and the machinery is all still turning you realizes a lot of life left in that vehicle and sure enough we only you know that those airframes were certified for I think a hundred missions and not if amare came anywhere close to reaching that so there is a there was a lot left but at the same time when I talked before about how incredible the shuttle is and how we might in our lifetimes never see machine as capable I've done all those things in one machine yeah but at the same time it did all those things and there were two negative consequences one was money the shuttle is ridiculously expensive to maintain spending I say three billion a year or did just to keep it going learn whether we watched it or not just getting a standing army together and all the facilities that required they were required for to make that program run that's a lot of money and then on top of that and also because it was so complex and so expensive it also wasn't the safest you know we lost to it and we can do better than that so I think that the decision to stop when we did as painful as it was was the right decision I do believe that and I think that that finally did the the proof of that will come this year when we have two new vehicles flying to replace it and and and hopefully with with a much greater safety and much more cost-effective vehicles and and so that will be the reward from this painful gap that we had to go through about flying yeah it's kind of a neat parallel where were forming kind the premises what if Russia won the space race went on the moon first then war would it take us sort of the the history that we're now is what if Space Shuttle ends and then America doesn't have a vehicle to launch into space you know Americans into space and we've got over land in Russia then what happens and kind of the answer to that is well you've got SpaceX and you've you've got you know Boeing working on their thing and it's like that's kind of this the happening today like the alternative history of like you know you can imagine Space Shuttle District place with something bigger and better but in reality now we've got you know what Falcon nine and Falcon Heavy and and the starship you know big things coming it's like well you know we've got entertainment with from mankind and alternative history and it just helps you appreciate what we're actually living through today that I don't think a lot of I don't think it's quite mainstream enough yet that you know I talked to my family like as I'm learning things I'm like am I just an idiot and didn't know this stuff or does nope like do people just not know this yet it's like we have no idea what you're talking about and I felt good about it you know but it's it's deep I think from mankind to will continue to serve a purpose of like you know a jumping-off point you know you watch the show together you enjoy your family that you can say by the way this is what's going on today plans and everything yeah and again I'm restricted and what I can tell you is this spoilers but good ok I can predict for you that as as we go forward into season 2 and beyond yeah that he'll get more more relevant to the present day oh and and I think that that's going to be has to be pretty cool that's awesome that's all I can say yeah yeah yes obviously you know as a technical adviser you are like a stickler for the facts right but at some point you have to balance like you know having the entertaining show versus actually being like directly to connect it to what it would be feasible will be possible was there anything you can think of in like season one where you know you really put your foot down you're like I really want this to be this way or was there something we were like oh it's better you know better if we go off course like that kind of thing oh yeah there are examples in both in both directions so so for example the original for episode 9 that whole kind of rescue thing the original idea was that for that to happen in between the earth and the moon and I had to say like there's really not practical even if you have a being a launch vehicle stacked on the pad ready to go at a moment's notice and something happens between here at the moon you can't catch up you can't let go faster and then have it because of the vehicles designed to go in a certain speed you can't speed up because any have to slow down otherwise you can just go blow by the moon and use up all your propellant so you don't have the propellant to slow down so that doesn't work so so then I said well what if the emergency happens into Earth orbit well they can keep going around for a while while they have time to mount you know a second a second flight and so that's how that that's that's how the story of C of episode 9 kind of changed so that's it doesn't is the example in that direction in the other direction there's there's lots of things that I've come to appreciate where there's real-world constraints for example you got a cast that's a certain size and you can and those actors need to work with each other so you have this ensemble cast and they need to be in the same scenes you can't have them so it's like you know we have the NASA Administrator spending a lot of time in Mission Control you know directly implement and that's not entirely false their work in the early days exact some examples of that but but but by and large the administrators in DC and Wernher von Braun for that matter as that he was you know responsible for the 7/5 he was over at Huntsville at Marshall he wasn't like attending you know Sims and in the Mission Control Room at Johnson Space Center and supervising you know helping helping young flight controllers become flight directors and hey it was like he had nothing to do with any of that but the thing was that if you had these actors and Wernher von Braun was over Marshall the whole time and never was in the room with the other actors you can't have a show yes yeah okay so that was an example were like okay no that's not really real but let's just go with it because you know we we we have at the end of the day you're making a TV show not a documentary yeah so so yeah and the other thing is that for me that's very important is that the thing that is that people will come light may for example in and after we also had some violations of orbital mechanics and when we when we premiered that it had a bunch of my USC students were actually there and and in a lobby afterwards they were they were grousing about because they're all bunch of nerds like I am ever crossing about you know one of the orbital mechanics violations and I had to look at them and said listen nobody decides to go see a movie it's pretty for Potomac annex they go see a movie for the story for the cinematography for the acting there's no Academy Award for orbital mechanics so they told us you're giving out in that category so yeah you have to get you know you know you want to violate it so bad that they that the audience has a hard time suspending their disbelief and it becomes laughable you don't want to violate it like that but at the same time you don't want to be such a stickler for for the truth that you end up making a boring story because you say is the story that that's the that's the most important thing yeah I think for Benjamin myself like the closest we can relate to today understanding is if you know we can look at like an app design or a product design and know if it's if it's good or bad where and we can see like a bigger average of people not care about smaller details so I imagine for you like and people like you like your students you watch a movie you say things that we cannot see and so it's got to change the viewing experience um and I've seen you rate movies based on like how realistic things are yeah I didn't used to be that way I mean apparently Neil Armstrong was that way there was a great talk I heard from his kids about like they hated watching any kind of science fiction movie with their dad because he complained like won't be it on to the set design if there was one instrument that was in the wrong position on an aircraft cockpit instrument panel that he would be furious area and I'm just trying to watch the movie and he'd be like DME they specifically said bow so Galactica yeah since its meal I'm thinking it was the original Battlestar Galactica but he's like why are they putting these spaceships in these catapults like it's on an aircraft carrier and launching them you know they're in space they don't have to get a certain airspeed to get airborne they're gonna flop them out and it would be fine yeah and then and I like yeah okay and I never used to be like that is like I look I like the movie gravity a lot and nothing violated the laws of physics terribly compelling story right but now then I have this job I find myself because now right now I'm like training myself to do it I find myself being more and more critical and looking for those little things yeah that I try I catch myself sometimes when I'm watching other science fiction and like stop doing that just dissing pleasure showing yeah don't drive yourself good you can understand why it's made that way yeah like one kind of question I had on that kind of thing is in the show obviously attitude switch towards gay people LGBTQ we're not the same in the 60s and 70s they are today but what we see in the show is a depiction of like a fake wedding where they try and you know pretend to be a straight couple to stay in the space program is that does that have a basis in history or was like you know like brought in uh you know it's hard for me remember I told a lot of stories in the writers room has hardly know some of that stuff kind of evolved and got incorporated in summer story but one of the stories I told was that there there was is my Russian instructor when I was at JSC and at the time in Texas you know still it was it was even just ten years ago it was different as far as I had to storage LGBTQ yeah and and certainly there was no back then there was no same-sex marriage anywhere in the u.s. around if I remember correctly but certainly not in Texas so so what what I did was I flew promised rings for him and his and and his his partner and I flew these two rings I up to the space station took a photograph of them floating it with the earth in the background when I came back I went to a ceremony it couldn't be it couldn't be a wedding Brad because that would be illegal but we had a promise ceremony that was a winning ceremony and everything but name and legality yeah and I presented those rings at a certain month I gave them their rings and they put him up in and his then was something I was very proud of and and and I told that story and that might that story about attitudes in my era at NASA I think I think in some way um God you know attending to that yeah turn into a little bit the story of the Wilsons yeah that's part of the something that's interesting with the show is stuff that can feel like ancient history like the way things were 10 years ago can feel like it's something of the 70s you know but really it's just it's the 2010s in like the 2000s and 2010's we're not as modern as we as like you know last year it really does it chain takes a long time it does it does but the fact that it is so different just ten years later is a very good thing yeah only we're heading in the right direction and I just hope we keep heading that way because obviously there's counter forces yeah kind of one more point on a kind of thing we've seen the show where ed Baldwin's left on his own which I should never happen in real life right you would leave the Astra on his own in in space on the base you know I don't know what we were doing has such a crazy scenario like what happens and I guess this episode he yeah so I can't say never but certainly the plan is always to at least have not prepared I never have anybody alone even when we do spacewalks it's always a pair of two that go out right so we would do something that we would try very very hard to avoid yeah and then kind of the the result of that is obviously his his child unfortunately dies but he's he's unaware because he's disconnected in space and that's like a big part the show is where you have the like information asymmetry between the ground and and up there and they have this big like almost scenes to debate about whether we should tell him whether we should not tell him and that was one of the big points which caused a like conversation our family but you know would you want to know and you know this is a bit of a puzzle question but you're an astronaut like do they ask you that kind of thing do they do they check do do you want to know if something terrible happened while you're out you know why you're up there would you wait you came home yeah I remember I think the chief the office asked me that at one point before I went in for my Space Station mission and you know we've had this kind of thing happen we had a hermit run Space Station and lost his mother to a vehicle accident while while he was up in space we had guys having the process 911 and watching being able to see that the window you know on the space station so we've dealt with similar things they never got to the point of the asymmetry where it became a sense of material trust that which you know but I could see at the same time there's also a large deference paid to the family and their wishes so the way it all played out is not inconceivable although I think it would be really really hard to blatantly tell falsehoods to somebody up on aurilla in order to cover up what was happening so but at the same time I could see it be hard to counter what what the what the spouse thought with this best course of action tough yeah I hate you know it's a we're going to have to deal with that I was going to happen again and and it's that we don't really have a protocol that's like written in isn't it's not like procedure with that good no right yeah you know son death contingency step one inform yeah none of that it's personal for everyone but they kind of prefer another great yeah yeah you go with you go with the people and and and at the time and the judgment of the management you know and and and the psychologist is a whole team of NASA flight surgeons and psychologists that would advise you in that situation too yeah yeah and I cry air is what makes it such an you know poignant interesting part of the actual narrative as well yeah I don't know that I appreciate about the show is that you do lose people like people die you know not not just his child but people that work in the program yeah in in the ship within the show and when you look at NASA history it happened like people die like the Apollo mission that explodes from Florida like I was watching the Paul documentary and I again like just forgive my ignorance but just you know you don't study this deeply in school to know every single mission and just like I'm watching it and they're showing the astronauts and then it's a documentary so it's real but I don't see it coming and they in they actually die it's like wow you know and I was doing the same thing with the shuttle documentary it's like you know I know history somewhat vague but I don't know in detail and the same thing happen just like it's in that case it's real but it catches you off cars like you know people actually died like they lose their life to this for this program and you know seeing that depicted in the show I think if you didn't have that would be too bad and so you know once you learn the history you really have an appreciation for it and so I imagine this kind of that has to be a part of the show - yeah it does it does I mean there's been plenty of tragedy along with the triumph both in the Russian program and an American program the American one the Apollo 1 Challenger Columbia but are better known but if the Russians lost to Soyuz missions and they had a with their Enron and one rocket one of the things are kept it from being us to the moon was did an explosion on the pad of this enormous rocket that killed a lot of the engineers because it were too close to it when it went went up and yeah there's plenty of is not it is not only that the human missions tragedies but I was watching government which happened episode where we have the the explosion on the pad oh yeah five yeah 5 yeah I was watching that with my former boss a vice president at SpaceX okay and he was getting some bad flashbacks dude we lost one of our Falcon nines on the pad yeah it exploded an antenna was as dramatic and there's no loss of life but it was still heartbreaking at the time after the loss yeah that way you want to say elephant PTSD when he was watching that episode you know that's a little too close to home yeah so yeah and it does unfortunately it is a risky business there's no question like I Gus Grissom and Apollo 1 he said that and he's right you know and and so yeah we're gonna we're gonna see that in the show as well may have anything else for you I think that's Kidder he said it's a sad note to end on but obviously the you know the show is you know the show is much about like positivity is is about showing you know the bad sides and the realities of the world isn't it like that's just what it is yeah dramas right and it's so cool that it's a TV show because you know cuz you've got 10 10 episodes in the first season and they're they're all about an hour long but under an hour it's like a movie would be to three hours and you just couldn't fit this much information and like the personal stories of people and and that really does a good service for people that little live through it I can't wait to see more oh well I can't wait to show Susan Susan a tremendous amount of fun I think is coming together really nicely so please look please a tune in when it when it comes out I don't know when is going to be but whatever it is it's a big it's because I'm very happy with that was coming along yeah so it's it's yeah working on the show has been has been a real treat for me and III have a lot of really exciting moments but along the way but uh and I practiced a here tell you stories all day is there is there anything that you want viewers if maybe if you haven't seen the show to to look for in this show or like a reason to watch it or if you do view it you know something like that you want people to take away from it well I hope to take away from it just like that that that really what it's designed to do is to show you what it could have been like and and what it still can be like sure we if we really dedicate ourselves exploring space and and him him we and we realized the promise of what we're capable of doing and focus our efforts on that rather than on a lot of the more divisive things that we're spending our time on today and I getting too political so it's I think hopefully that people watch it they're like oh wow this is really interesting and I hope that that we take these bold steps and and and our real history is exciting to watch develop as the show going forward so I hope that's the case I don't thing to mention this kind of fun is how we do play a little bit with the technology that is that by spending all this effort on space exploration that technology progresses in our alternative universe faster than it did in reality sure so you'll start saying things like personal computers showing up guru it did the week we each year we kind of counties season we kind of calibrated like okay now we're like three years ahead of actual time and now we're like five years ahead so we're going to keep ramping that up and we'll send who get to the present day our present day is going to be a more glorious technical future and what we experienced in reality so this can be interesting when we catch up to real time oh man where's we're so sold on this I can't wait to say well dr. Vaisman thank you so much for joining this has been an actual pleasure I really appreciate it my pleasures is fun for me too and let you guys and if you do start that space to let me know but yeah totally absolutely thank you so much thank you all right that is the 9 to 5 Mack happy hour podcast for this week we hope you enjoyed the interview as much as we did and Benjamin I will be back next week with our usual rundown and analysis of the week at Apple news in the meantime you can follow me on twitter and instagram at Apollo Zack that's AP o ll o za C and Benjamin is on Twitter at BZ a Mayo if you're new to 9 to 5 Mack happy hour we hope you subscribe and stick around for more episodes and if you're already a subscriber and want to support the podcast please just share it with someone you know we really appreciate that you can also learn more about astronaut Garrett Riesman at Garrett Riesman comm let's G ar ar e TT ar e is ma n comm or follow dr. Eastman on Twitter at Astro G dog that's astro AST ro underscore g underscore do GG tremendous thanks again to astronaut riesen for joining us on nine to five mak happy hour and be sure to check out the full first season of for all mankind not apple TV plus all 10 episodes are available now on Apple TV plus for $4.99 per month after a 7 day free trial a one-year is included when you purchase a new iphone ipad ipod touch mac or Apple TV and service is included for free with the Apple music student plan Apple TV plus is available to watch on iPhone iPad Apple TV Mac or with airplay on the web and on the Apple TV app for Samsung Smart TVs Roku players and TVs and fire TV sticks and TVs and coming soon to LG Sony and Vizio Smart TVs for all mankind has already been renewed for a second season on Apple TV plus so look forward to new episodes coming later in the future with that being said we'll be back next week bye everybody you\n"