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In my experience, something similar is true on Earth. Ultimately, I don’t determine whether I arrive at the desired professional destination. Too many variables are out of my control. There’s really just one thing I can control: my attitude during the journey, which is what keeps me feeling steady and stable, and what keeps me headed in the right direction. So I consciously monitor and correct, if necessary, because losing attitude would be far worse than not achieving my goal.
👌🏽 On attitude
To me, the only good reason to take a risk is that there’s a decent possibility of a reward that outweighs the hazard.
👌🏽 On risk taking
Intellectually, I’d known I was venturing out into space yet still the sight of it shocked me, profoundly. In a spacesuit, you’re not aware of taste, smell, touch. The only sounds you hear are your own breathing and, through the headset, disembodied voices. You’re in a self-contained bubble, cut off, then you look up from your task and the universe rudely slaps you in the face. It’s overpowering, visually, and no other senses warn you that you’re about to be attacked by raw beauty.
😍 On the beauty of the planet
Of course I’d peered out the Shuttle windows at the world, but I understood now that I hadn’t seen it, not really. Holding onto the side of a spaceship that’s moving around the Earth at 17,500 miles an hour, I could truly see the astonishing beauty of our planet, the infinite textures and colors. On the other side of me, the black velvet bucket of space, brimming with stars. It’s vast and overwhelming, this visual immersion, and I could drink it in forever—only here’s Scott, out of the airlock, floating over toward me. We get to work.
😍 On the beauty of the planet
Bullying, bickering and competing for dominance are, even in a low-risk situation, excellent ways to destroy morale and diminish productivity.
👍🏼 On bullying
Every crew brings its own small, tethered “g meter,” a toy or figurine we hang in front of us so we know when we are weightless. Ours was Klyopa, a small knitted doll based on a character in a Russian children’s television program, courtesy of Anastasia, Roman’s 9-year-old daughter. When the string that was holding her suddenly slackened and she began to drift upward, I had a feeling I’d never felt before in space: I’d come home.
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The life of an astronaut is one of simulating, practicing and anticipating, trying to build the necessary skills and create the correct mind-set. But ultimately, it’s all pretend. It’s only when the engines shut off and you check that you’re pointed the right way and going fast enough that you can acknowledge, “Hey, we made it. We’re in space.”
👍🏼
Having a plan of action, even really mundane action, was a huge benefit in terms of adaptation to a radically new environment. I’d never experienced zero gravity before, for instance. I “knew” exactly what it would feel like, from all my training and studying—only, I didn’t really know at all. I was accustomed to being pulled down to the floor by gravity, but now felt I was being pulled up to the ceiling.
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FRIEND OF MINE was once in a crowded elevator in Building Four South at JSC in Houston when a senior astronaut got on and just stood there, visibly impatient, waiting for someone to divine that he needed to go to the sixth floor, and push the button. “I didn’t spend all those years in university to wind up pushing buttons in an elevator,” he snapped. Incredibly enough, someone did it for him. This incident made such a big impression on my friend that I heard about it, and probably a lot of other people did, too. For me, it was a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of ever thinking of yourself
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👍🏼 On arrogance
Over the years, I’ve realized that in any new situation, whether it involves an elevator or a rocket ship, you will almost certainly be viewed in one of three ways. As a minus one: actively harmful, someone who creates problems. Or as a zero: your impact is neutral and doesn’t tip the balance one way or the other. Or you’ll be seen as a plus one: someone who actively adds value. Everyone wants to be a plus one, of course. But proclaiming your plus-oneness at the outset almost guarantees you’ll be perceived as a minus one, regardless of the skills you bring to the table or how you actually
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👌🏽 On the impact you can make
A person with a superiority complex might unwittingly, right there in the waiting room, quash his or her chances of ever going to space. Which is a good thing, really, because anyone who views himor herself as more important than the “little people” is not cut out for this job (and would probably hate doing it). No astronaut, no matter how brilliant or brave, is a solo act.
On team work
When you have some skills but don’t fully understand your environment, there is no way you can be a plus one. At best, you can be a zero. But a zero isn’t a bad thing to be.
On being a zero
The ideal entry is not to sail in and make your presence known immediately. It’s to ingress without causing a ripple. The best way to contribute to a brand-new environment is not by trying to prove what a wonderful addition you are. It’s by trying to have a neutral impact, to observe and learn from those who are already there, and to pitch in with the grunt work wherever possible.
On making an impact
Only, we couldn’t get the hatch open. On the other side, they were kicking it with all their might. But the Russian engineers had taped, strapped and sealed our docking module’s hatch just a little too enthusiastically, with multiple layers. So we did the true space-age thing: we broke into Mir using a Swiss Army knife. Never leave the planet without one.
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was one of the fundamental lessons of STS-74: don’t assume you know everything, and try to be ready for anything. The other lesson, for me anyway, was that when you’re a rookie, aiming to be a zero is a good game plan. My goals had been modest—fulfill my responsibilities to the best of my ability, and not distract or cause any trouble for anyone else on the crew—and I’d achieved them.
On being a zero
Two decades into my career as an astronaut, I felt as close to being a plus one as I ever had. And I knew that my best bet of getting the crew to see me that way was to keep on doing what has always worked for me: aiming to be a zero.
On being a zero
THE ISS IS A ONE-MILLION-POUND SPACESHIP that’s the size of a football field, including the end zones, and boasts a full acre of solar panels. Inside, there’s more living space than you’d have in a five-bedroom home. It’s so big, with so many discrete modules, that it’s possible to go nearly a full day without seeing another crewmate.
😳👍🏼 On office space
We need to take a longer-term view of the environment and try to make things better wherever we can.
On nature recovery
Once in orbit, though, with time to not only work but to gaze at the world over a period of months, I noticed my perception shifting. As I sent pictures to the ground and commented on them, I found myself unthinkingly referring to everyone as “us.” It came inexorably from witnessing how we live: the repeated pattern of human existence right across the planet. I would see a city that I knew well and just 30 minutes later see that exact same pattern of settlement in a city I had never heard of. It forced me to face the commonality of the human experience, and our shared hopes and desires. We are
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On inclusion
