Today, I’m talking with Loren Grush, who longtime fans will remember well — she was our space reporter here for years before she moved over to . It’s all the time fun to speak space with Loren, but this conversation is especially exciting since Loren’s recent book, , is out today.
It’s been 40 years since Sally Ride became the primary American woman in space — but she was removed from the last. She was one among six women astronauts NASA brought in to the astronaut class of 1978. Throughout the early Eighties, each of the six women — Sally Ride, Judy Resnick, Kathy Sullivan, Anna Fisher, Rhea Seddon, and Shannon Lucid — would get a probability to fly a mission on one among the space shuttles… including, unfortunately, the ill-fated 1986 Challenger launch.
The story of the six could also be history, nevertheless it’s removed from ancient, and there’s so much happening here that ties on to today. For instance, you’ll hear us talking about NASA’s Artemis program and the way it has the specific goal of putting an American woman and person of color on the Moon.
We’ll also discuss a frankly amazing recruitment video that star Nichelle Nichols made within the late Nineteen Seventies to recruit more women and folks of color to turn into astronaut candidates. (It is best to give it a glance.) She wasn’t just recruiting explorers; she was selling space as the longer term of business. That’s diversity and the commercialization of space, all packed right into a single Nineteen Seventies ad starring a actor. Some things just aren’t as recent as they appear.
And commercialization of space is a giant deal. The space shuttle program — you’ll hear us discuss it as a “space truck” — never became big business the way in which NASA told us it could. But space is big business now: you’ll be able to’t discuss space in 2023 without talking about private spaceflight, including SpaceX and Elon Musk, and also you’ll hear us discuss the advantages and the hazards of leaving US space exploration within the hands of personal enterprise.
And eventually, after all, there’s not likely any astronaut story without some hijinks in it. Take heed to the top for Loren’s favorite story about how three of the six made a Boeing 747 flight instructor regret all his decisions midair.
Okay, Loren Grush, creator of . Here we go!
Loren Grush, you’re the creator of . You’re also an area reporter at , and, most significantly, you’re a former reporter. Welcome to .
A graduate, in case you will. As you wish to say.
You don’t leave. You possibly can take a look at. You don’t leave. The expats are expats for all times.
Yeah, exactly. It’s the unofficial theme song of . Let’s talk in regards to the book. Very exciting. Your first book. I’d say, having known you and worked with you for a very long time, the themes of this book are things that you could have been enthusiastic about for a really very long time. So just start at first. Tell us in regards to the book.
It’s called . It’s in regards to the first six women astronauts that NASA sent into space, and it chronicles their lives, how they got here to the space program, and their inaugural flights with NASA. Mainly, it’s set between the mid-’70s and mid-’80s once they got here into this system, and it’s capped off by the Challenger accident, as one among the six was unfortunately on board for that accident.
Tell me in regards to the six. Who were they? Where did they arrive from? It struck me that there’s quite a lot of books in regards to the first astronauts, first male astronauts. There’s not quite a lot of coverage of those six women and why there have been six women directly at the identical time. How did that come to be? Who’re these folks?
That’s ultimately why I wanted to write down the book. I actually, for many of my life, only knew about Sally Ride. I feel like most individuals know that name, but when I asked who the second American woman in space was, I don’t think quite a lot of people would know. I definitely didn’t know until I began looking into this. So simply to read off their sort of very temporary bios: We’ve Sally Ride, who was the primary American woman in space, she was an astrophysicist and former tennis player; followed by Judy Resnik, who was the second woman in space, also the primary Jewish American to enter space; followed by Kathy Sullivan, the primary American woman to do a spacewalk. Then Anna Fisher, the primary mother to enter space, followed by Rhea Seddon, after which Shannon Lucid. Shannon Lucid was the sixth, but she also went on to fly longer in space than all of them, so she had a reasonably storied profession herself.
There’s been a number of of those books and flicks that reexamine this pivotal moment in American history, which is told mostly through the lens of swaggering bravado — beating the Soviets, that whole thing. After which it turns on the market’s an array of oldsters who nobody really talked about until recently who actually built the foundations of this program. Is that theme present in your book, too? Flipping through it, it’s in there, but then they’re astronauts, and so they are the face of the thing, and so it just felt a bit of different. How did that play out as you were working on the book?
Well, the bravado definitely didn’t dissipate when the ladies got here on board. In reality, that was sort of an underlying theme of your entire time they were there, is that they really were coming into this boys club culture, and back then, they really didn’t intend to make a giant deal of the proven fact that they were the primary women. They were all about being one among the blokes. And I feel that’s just sort of indicative; they didn’t really have the luxurious to spotlight that they were different. It was all about fitting in as much as possible. There’s an amazing point within the book where Anna and Sally sneak away to a department store to go pick up khaki shorts and polo T-shirts in order that they might slot in. That’s the unofficial uniform of the engineers on the time. And in order that they desired to be as seamless within the organization as possible.
That actually was the sort of atmosphere that they were coming into, and that basically dictated how they reacted to things. They were obviously coping with quite a lot of sexist comments and uneducated folks when it got here to find out how to take care of pregnancy, for example. They really had to maintain their cool during this whole time. The primary women to do anything all the time have a little bit of a microscope on them, and so, lest they be seen as difficult, they desired to play by the foundations as much as possible and never make a giant fuss about various indiscretions.
“They were coming into this boys club culture … they really didn’t intend to make a giant deal of the proven fact that they were the primary women.”
How did NASA pick these six women? Was there a process? At one point within the book, you mentioned someone just had to decide on. The administrator at NASA said: “Okay, you’re it.” How did that go?
I used to be considering that when it got here to the astronaut selection process, it was this rigorous, very objective task, and perhaps they even had an algorithm that spat out everybody’s attributes. And while they did attempt to get as close as they might — they did have a little bit of some extent system — it really did come all the way down to an interview. So, for these specific astronauts, they were coming in at a time when NASA was somewhat relaxing their requirements to be an astronaut. They were also making a concerted effort to open up this system to a much wider array of people. So that they were specifically targeting people of color and ladies because that they had done so poorly at getting those people into this system before. In addition they created a brand new role called the mission specialist. And so, prior to this, it really was they were in search of people primarily with jet piloting experience, which was not possible for girls to attain back once they were first in search of astronauts because they were banned from flying jets for the military.
They created this mission specialist role that was really geared toward researchers, scientists, engineers, individuals with advanced degrees in STEM — they were working on various payloads that might be on board the shuttle deploying satellites, things of that nature. That made it easier for people just like the women to return on board because they met those requirements for this system. And so, they came upon that NASA was looking in the varied ways in which they came upon — each has a novel story about that. They usually sent of their applications, and so they were invited to Houston for per week as a part of the finalist group. And that’s once they went through a wide selection of interesting tasks. There was definitely a slate of physical exams simply to be sure that that they passed various physical requirements.
They underwent a psych exam that was described as a very good cop and a nasty cop routine. So there was a very good cop psych who would ask you ways you felt about your mother and what animal you could be in case you were born an animal all all over again. After which there was a “bad cop,” a psychologist, who would ask you to count back from 100 by seven, after which whenever you inevitably tousled, he’d inform you very loudly and get offended with you to see the way you responded.
In addition they had to surround themselves in a private rescue sphere. It was mainly a bit of ball simply to be sure that that you simply didn’t freak out whenever you were in enclosed space for hours at a time. But the true test was an interview, an hour and a half interview with the choice committee, and that was ultimately what decided your fate. So long as you passed all the opposite tests, it was really there that the astronauts sold themselves. And it was also how the choice committee gauged whether or not they thought the person was right for the job and in the event that they the job — that was a giant a part of it, too. They didn’t need to put all of this investment into any individual after which have them quit or leave this system.
We live in a really complicated time when it comes to conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion. Obviously, once we worked together, you wrote stories about big space corporations with harassment problems. We’ll come to that. It just strikes me that this is going on before any of that. There’s no rigor across the value of diversity in a corporation. There’s no real understanding of it aside from, “Boy, it’s pretty weird there’s no women in space ever!”
That’s roughly the motivation here. But inside NASA, there’s an organizational restructure that happens to enable more women to enter the sphere. How did that come about? I mean, that’s sort of a key query. You’ve gotten to vary NASA to create these opportunities. What was the driving force behind that?
There was quite a lot of outside pressure within the time that the space race happened. This era of the space shuttle happened — so much modified in our country. We had the civil rights movement, and we also had the feminist movement, and NASA really couldn’t ignore criticism for much longer from people wondering why can we only have white men within the space program? But to your point, it didn’t occur overnight. So, while they did make this effort and this push to bring women and folks of color into this system, there was definitely some friction when it got here to bringing them on board.
For example, this was the primary time for quite a lot of the astronauts and engineers working with women in knowledgeable capability, at an equal capability. And quite a lot of them, a number of of them have admitted that in the beginning, they were pretty skeptical that the ladies could hack it. And not only the ladies but additionally the researchers, those mission specialist roles. Plenty of the military folks were skeptical that the job of an astronaut might be done by someone who had just had a postdoc.
“This was definitely a time where people got away with things they definitely wouldn’t be getting away with today.”
Yeah. Now, obviously we all know that it’s really available to most, but on the time, it was not seen that way. And there’s various instances within the book that I highlight where that culture clash did indeed occur. This was definitely a time where people got away with things they definitely wouldn’t be getting away with today. There’s one astronaut who admitted to me that he used to have a Playboy calendar up on the back of his door, and so when his door was open, you couldn’t see it, but when it was closed, you can definitely see it, and the ladies sort of just needed to go together with it.
For example, Judy Resnik, she had a little bit of a popularity for with the ability to hang with the blokes on their terms. And so each time she’d leave the office, she’d just pat the Playboy calendar on her way out. Obviously, that’s just not the sort of thing that might fly today. It was just things like that. And clearly some unenlightened attitudes, not only from the boys but from the ladies. There have been numerous wives of the astronauts on the time who didn’t want the ladies flying within the backseat of the T-38 jets with their husbands simply because they felt like that was too close proximity, and so they didn’t want them getting too close.
What are you going to do in a T-38?
That’s what I used to be considering! I imagine there’s very limited mobility in there. So I’m unsure there’s much concern, but that was just the attitude on the time. Plenty of hiccups where people were considering, “Oh, how would this be seen if I used to be with you?” Just various things that we just wouldn’t put up with today, but that they had to place up with it, and never only did they must put up with it, but that they had to place up with it in a fragile way in order that they didn’t draw attention to it; otherwise, that would potentially be used against them and against women being in this system.
So that you’ve got the six back then, right? They’re slapping the Playboy calendar on the way in which out the door. You obviously are writing the book now. Everyone’s got the advantage of hindsight. What are their attitudes now about making that change? Because that is big — it’s an organizational change, it’s a cultural change. That they had to be the face of it. There was a protracted and winding conversation about that brand of feminism, even in comparison with today. What’s the attitude of the six today toward the things that they had to do back then?
Their attitude was mostly positive. I feel all of them felt that they were treated quite well, and I feel that also may need to do with how they were treated before they got here to NASA. Shannon Lucid is an amazing example of this. She was barely older than the remaining of the six when she was picked, and just by living in a rather different era, she had a lot difficulty when it got here to getting only a job before she went to NASA. She desired to be a chemist, and she or he had a Master’s, after which she got her PhD, but she needed to fight endlessly for anyone to present her not only a job but just equal pay to her male colleagues. People would actively tell her, “No one’s going to rent you — you’re a lady.” And so I feel they were all very pleasantly surprised once they got here into the space program because, on the time, they were actively wanting women to participate at the moment.
“Plenty of the burden was on Sally’s shoulders because she was the primary American woman to fly, and that got here with an exponentially greater amount of pressure and asks of her than the opposite five needed to undergo.”
Now, I’ll say that I do think it’s a bit different today. As I discussed earlier, that point period was all about fitting in and sort of mixing into the background. Obviously, the press didn’t allow them to try this because they were very much agog at the concept of ladies flying into space. A number of the questions they were asked by the press were just completely terrible. But, ultimately, the goal of the six was to simply be one among the blokes, keep your head down, and work as much as possible and never draw an excessive amount of attention to the proven fact that they’re women.
I feel we’ve evolved a bit today where obviously we still want equality in terms of everyone that we work with, but I do think that we’re a bit of bit easier or have a better time at celebrating the proven fact that we’re women and the things that make us unique and different. I feel that, ultimately, that they had to undergo that to ensure that us to get to where we’re, which is the burden that that they had to bear. But I feel now we have gotten to a spot where we are able to say, “I’m different, but additionally, meaning I should still be treated the identical.”
Do they consider it as a burden? I assume that’s the guts of my query. It looks like they’re pleased with being pioneers. They’re proud of creating the change. They’ve some funny stories to inform, but I didn’t get from the book the sense that there was a weight or a burden that they felt that they had carried, that other people owed them anything for, that they were just pleased to have been astronauts.
I feel, for probably the most part, yes, and I don’t think they desired to draw an excessive amount of attention to it. I feel quite a lot of the burden was on Sally’s shoulders because she was the primary one to fly, the primary American woman to fly, and that got here with an exponentially greater amount of pressure and asks of her than the opposite five needed to undergo. So, for Sally, she was just inundated with media requests, a lot of personal questions that she didn’t need to answer, after which she was mostly shielded from it ahead of her flight. But then, when she returned to Earth, it was definitely a coming-back-to-earth moment. That protection was gone, and she or he was just inundated with requests, and it got to be a lot that she actually sought out therapy at one point, and it really did take a little bit of a toll.
But, ultimately, over time, she realized just how monumental her flight was, and it inspired her — talking to young women — to go on to create her nonprofit, which she dedicated most of her life to: Sally Ride Science, which is geared toward inspiring young women to get into STEM fields. So, yes, there definitely was a burden. I feel for many of them, it doesn’t feel too oppressive, and so they’re pleased with it, but there was a time where it was a selected struggle for a few of them.
I all the time think in regards to the organization, and what created the opportunities. It’s , in any case. There have been earlier attempts to bring women into this system. They sort of failed. Right? Within the book, you mentioned the Mercury 13. There are some others. Why did those fail?
I wouldn’t even say they were attempts to bring women to this system, or at the least NASA wasn’t attempting to bring women to this system; the ladies were fighting to bring themselves into this system. So, yes, they’re sort of a famous group. They’re now known as the Mercury 13 — not one of the best title. It was a reputation given to them by, I feel, a producer within the ’90s or something like that. However it does confer with 13.
They blew up an asteroid that was threatening the Earth, I consider.
Oh man, if only. No, so there are 13 women who underwent a few of the same tests that the Mercury Seven underwent. They passed them, and in order that they desired to keep training for space. So that they had some upcoming training planned out at a military base, but NASA caught wind of it, and since they hadn’t requested funding for that training, it got canceled.
They did this big congressional hearing to attempt to get that funding resumed or get that training resumed, and so they were sort of asking the bare minimum. Obviously, they desired to go to space, but ultimately, they only desired to keep training to see in the event that they were capable and in the event that they were in a position to pass those tests. Ultimately, that was squashed. There’s a reasonably great but additionally terrible scene of John Glenn coming into the hearing and mainly saying, “The boys are those that go off and do this stuff, and the ladies are those that don’t. That’s just the natural order of things,” and it just shows what everyone was up against on the time, and it’s great that we’ve very much evolved since then.
So there’s that — that every one sounds horrible — after which there’s the six. Inside that, beyond just public pressure, what happened inside NASA? Just response to public pressure: “We’ve got to do that,” or “Okay, there’s a program. This system goes to finish with the creation of the mission specialist, a gap of our criteria.” How did that process play out? Because that’s the massive change that permits all this to occur, right?
“There have been three females sent into space by NASA. Two are Arabella and Anita, each spiders. The opposite is Ms. Baker, a monkey.”
It was the creation of the mission specialist. There’s also internal pressure at NASA as well. There’s an amazing story about the saga of Ruth Bates Harris, who was really attempting to open everyone’s eyes to the issue of diversity that NASA had. I mean, there’s an amazing quote within the book from one among the reports that they did; it says: “There have been three females sent into space by NASA. Two are Arabella and Anita, each spiders. The opposite is Ms. Baker, a monkey.”
That was the state of diversity and inclusion on the time before the ladies got here on board. So definitely internal pressure there, external pressure just from the changing of the country, after which also the creation of the space shuttle, which was a rather more spacious vehicle, allowed for a greater variety of crews on board. And so all of those things together allowed for girls to be inducted into this system. But additionally, like I said, NASA deliberately made an effort to succeed in out to those folks. They targeted Lions Clubs, universities, places of upper education, places where they thought women could be, where they thought people of color could be. They even recruited Nichelle Nichols, who everyone knows as Lieutenant Uhura on , to do a promotional video. She was so enthusiastic about doing that, and actively, in that video, she was encouraging women and folks of color to use. So it really shows that you simply do must put this stuff top of mind to ensure that them to achieve success.
That Nichelle Nichols video is bananas. Everyone should go watch it. It’s wild. The themes in that video are laser — the identical themes of today. So, at one point, she’s like, “We’re within the business of space now with this space shuttle. It’s going to fly like an airplane, usually scheduled. You possibly can get on it. We’re not only exploring. We’re doing business now.”
That’s where we’re , that’s where now we have arrived, but in that moment, that wasn’t true!
I used to be nearly to say, there’s plenty up for debate of whether or not those words actually got here to fruition. That’s also a theme within the book as well, NASA’s conceit and whether or not the space shuttle really turned out to be this reliable routine truck that they were promoting.
I consider I did use the term truck within the book, they were using truck, they were definitely using some sort of automotive analogy, like a freighter or something like that.
So a semi truck — it’s going to ship things to space and convey them back.
Exactly. And it was going to be just as reliable as driving across the country. Going to space was just going to be as reliable as that. Obviously, as time progressed, NASA sort of played a bit of fast and loose with the protection on board the Shuttle. I feel it was after 4 flights they declared the shuttle operational. But a lot of the astronauts on the time never considered the space shuttle operational. They all the time regarded it as a really complex machine that carried quite a lot of risk, and there was no room for complacency each time they flew on it.
Over time, they invited increasingly more non-astronauts to fly. So that they had quite a lot of payload specialists that flew. They flew a number of politicians. And after I first learned that years ago, I used to be shocked because I did grow up with the space shuttle, but I grew up after the Challenger accident happened, after which it was just inconceivable to fly a politician. They were also gearing up to fly the primary journalist into space on the time before Challenger, after which infamously, on Challenger, they flew the primary teacher to enter space. So it just sort of goes to indicate that they were trying to contemplate it as this thing — “Oh, it’s secure, it’s positive, every little thing’s all right” — but then they learned the lesson in a really horrible way in 1986.
That’s what struck me as I watched this Nichelle Nichols video — which, by the way in which, may be very entertaining. I can see why it worked to recruit women and folks of color to be astronauts. The self-esteem of it’s that space has been solved, that on this product of the space shuttle, now we have solved space, and now we must always give a bunch of individuals recent sorts of jobs, and everyone seems to be welcome to use because space is a business now.
That led on to tragedy since the pressure on that to be true was so high. But underneath it’s: okay, now there’s a brand new solid of characters, specifically the six, being recruited to fly within the shuttle who perhaps can’t complain as much as they need to because they’re already in the general public eye, and so they already think it’s dangerous. That interplay just looks like it was all the time sort of destined for tragedy.
That’s something that they were very cognizant of on the time: You possibly can’t complain, and likewise, you’ll be able to’t mess up. So one among the things that Sally talked about, one among her fears before she flew, was that she was going to in some way make a mistake. And I feel that could be a very poignant thing to say because there’s so much loaded in that phrase. She knew that if she tousled — and I feel that is true for any underrepresented group that does something for the very first time — they’re representing everyone. They’re not only representing themselves — they’re representing everyone. And so when the magnifying glass is upon them, they know that in the event that they make a mistake or an error, it should be used to say, oh, it’s not only Sally that may’t hack space. It’s that every woman cannot hack space.
They were all very cognizant of that in training and particularly once they flew. Even Judy, who was second [of the six] in space, there’s a joke a couple of snafu she had along with her hair on board, and she or he swore all of her crew mates to silence because she knew if that got out, the headlines could be: “Long hair not suitable for space.” Just something like that. So it was definitely something all of them needed to be very cognizant of your entire time they were there. It did abate over time with every time one among them flew. But yeah, it hung heavy on every little thing that they did.
The book closes with the Challenger disaster and the aftermath of it. That has been well reported at this point, and well investigated and documented. Out of your perspective, as you’re writing the book and enthusiastic about, “Okay, we’re diversifying the space program,” what were the results post-Challenger of how NASA thought of recruiting recent and different sorts of astronauts?
The one positive thing is that ever since this class of astronauts got here on board, they’ve welcomed increasingly more diverse range of astronauts into this system. In order that was definitely a positive. In addition they completely reevaluated their safety procedures in light of the Challenger accident. So a few years ago, I used to be shocked to learn that individuals flew to space in only sort of onesie outfits. I mean, they were flight suits. They weren’t onesies. I feel they’re top and bottom, nevertheless it was essentially similar to a garment you’d wear here on the bottom. I’ve all the time known them to be flying with pressure suits, that are essentially a special sort of space suit that’ll apply pressure in case they lose pressure within the cabin, which is what happened — or which is what they think happened within the Challenger accident. In addition they provided more bailing-out opportunities. The shuttle never really was that secure of a vehicle because there was no true abort system, but they at the least tried to provide you with other ways in which they might bail out of the cabin if there was a difficulty. After which in addition they just completely redesigned the components that were responsible for Challenger and upended the processes through which they resolve whether or not it’s time to go fly.
So it definitely had a positive impact there. Also, the relations of the Challenger astronauts created the Challenger Center, a learning organization that reaches out to children and inspires them to enter space and STEM. So, quite a lot of good did come out of it, nevertheless it is also just tragic that it needed to occur to ensure that those things to maneuver forward.
Let’s skip ahead to now, mainly. Your book is coming out right on time: Sally Ride’s first flight, almost exactly 40 years ago — perhaps a bit of greater than 40 years ago?
It was in June of this 12 months, yeah.
It’s been 40 years. There was this kind of big conversation about diversity in our workplaces, diversity within the sciences. In aerospace specifically and NASA specifically, where do you think that the largest changes have been?
We’re working to get back to the Moon through NASA’s Artemis program, and that has a stated goal of sending the primary woman and the primary person of color to the surface of the Moon. I don’t think that’s ever been outwardly a goal of a NASA human space flight mission before, so that could be a very big change. Also, through that program, they’ve assigned the primary crew to Artemis 2, and that features Victor Glover and Christina Koch, and so they’ll be the primary person of color and the primary woman to fly to deep space. They won’t be landing on the Moon, but they can be flying across the Moon. That can be one other big milestone, but at the identical time, there’s still quite a protracted option to go.
I indicate that lower than one-sixth of the individuals who’ve been to space are women. The statistics for girls of color are abysmal. It’s an interesting time for space because now we have far more corporations and opportunities to send people to space than ever before. We’ve SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic, albeit suborbital for the latter two, nevertheless it’s still a option to send people to space. It’s one other opportunity for more people to get into space who won’t have had that probability before.
Unfortunately, it’s like a win-lose situation in my mind because you continue to must have a reasonably hefty wallet as a way to afford those missions, but there have been generous benefactors who’ve brought individuals with them who wouldn’t have had that chance. There’s also charities and raffle draws which have allowed people to go on those flights. So there’s more availability to go to space than ever before. It’s still not perfect, and we still have a protracted option to go to succeed in true parity, but now we have hope, and now we have more opportunities than we used to have.
“We still have a protracted option to go to succeed in true parity, but now we have hope, and now we have more opportunities than we used to have.”
Can I ask you a giant think query about that? I feel in regards to the Blue Origin flights and the Virgin Galactic flights, and I laughed whenever you said “suborbital” because we’ve all watched the videos. They go up there, they float around for a number of seconds, they arrive back down, and that — yep, they’re going to space. However the value of that going to space and saying, “Okay, a various group of individuals has floated about for a number of seconds,” versus what we predict of once we take into consideration NASA. A various group of individuals goes to do science in space, or a various group of individuals goes to go up there for greater than a number of seconds, have a set of experiences, after which bring that back all the way down to earth and be ambassadors for everybody else.
That’s very different than simply floating around. And I recognize the floating around — it’s very difficult to get to the purpose where you’ll be able to float around, but they’re very various things, and we sort of munge them together into “going to space.” Locally, is there a way that those are different, that sending a various crew of individuals up on a Blue Origin flight to drift around and take pictures is meaningfully different than going to space to do science?
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, some people will probably be outright about it. Obviously, there’s quite a lot of discussion of whether or not we even should call individuals who fly on Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic astronauts. I obviously don’t care that much, but to some, it’s an important distinction. Plenty of times, people will confer with them as space flight participants because they’re not…
Yeah, because they’re just…
That’s delightfully passive-aggressive.
It truly is. I do think there’s quite a lot of value in what Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic provide. For example, Virgin Galactic just performed its first industrial space mission after nearly 20 years of being in existence. And that first flight was a research mission with the Italian Air Force, and in order that they packed the cabin filled with payloads and experiments that the space flight participants, the researchers, attended to while they were in space. And in order that is usually propped up as sort of this in-between platform between the Vomit Comet — that parabolic flight where you experience microgravity for 30 seconds at a time here on Earth — and likewise going to orbit, which takes so much more time, so much more energy, and so much extra money. So there is certainly that sort of scientific value there. But yes, there is kind of a major distinction between going to space for a number of minutes, coming back down right after and going to orbit, and definitely a really vast chasm when it comes to the way you train for each of those scenarios.
Do you think that there’s the identical amount of value that we get as a society or as a public or as a community from those more touristy flights versus, “Okay, we’re constructing a generation of scientists which can be organized around being astronauts”?
You’re asking my personal opinion?
I mean, you’re the one who just wrote a book about…
That’s true. That’s true.
I’ll ask you a hypothetical. Perhaps it’s a bit of more difficult but a bit of more direct: if the primary six women in space had been on Blue Origin flights, would which have been a very good thing?
I definitely think it could have a really different sort of impact. I feel sending them to orbit by far was rather more of a press release than would’ve been made in the event that they had just gone for a number of minutes; it could’ve felt a bit like a consolation. But at the identical time, Alan Shepard was the primary American man in space, and his flight was suborbital as well. And that remains to be considered a reasonably monumental achievement, so I’m sure we’d’ve celebrated it on the time. That’s just true of any space flight. Orbit is infinitely cooler. Sorry to everyone, but not everyone has the flexibility to go to orbit. It is dear. It’s hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Someone just canceled their million-dollar Blue Origin reservation after listening to this podcast.
You’ve reported so much on these corporations. You reported so much on them here at : the commercialization of space usually — an enormous monumental shift. I promised you before you got here on to discuss your book in regards to the first six women in space we’d not discuss Elon Musk an excessive amount of, but in case you talk in regards to the president of space, that is an element of the story, right? That a handful of massive private corporations who’ve effectively taken over space exploration in the US — SpaceX is clearly one among them, crucial; Blue Origin, the opposite most famous. There’s some others.
“They sort of brush things off simply because, I feel, we’re on this really precarious position where NASA is so reliant on SpaceX.”
The cultures of those corporations, you’ve reported on them at whenever you were here, right? There have been allegations of sexual harassment in these corporations. Bezos literally wearing a cowboy hat when he did his Blue Origin stuff — the culture of that company, you’ve reported on, sort of a cowboy culture. Does NASA have control of that, or is that “the businesses are private corporations, and so they’re going to do what they’re, and so they’re vendors to the federal government”?
That could be a query we’ve been asking for a while, especially when Elon makes his statements that he does. I consider the reply isn’t any. NASA doesn’t have control over it, and that’s sort of how these arrangements work. NASA is buying a service from the corporate just as you and I purchase a service each time we order something online. Obviously, it’s a bit more complicated than that, and so they have a bit closer of a relationship, but that’s sort of what they’re trying to attain. And so, ultimately, I’m sure they will express their dismay each time this stuff occur, but they don’t have control over Elon. We’ve repeatedly asked during press conferences, “Elon did this recently, or he said this recently, when is that going to be a difficulty? At what point do you are concerned in regards to the things that he says?”
Ultimately, they sort of brush things off simply because, I feel, we’re on this really precarious position where NASA is so reliant on SpaceX, and so they need the corporate as a way to send astronauts to the space station, to resupply the space station. They’re now constructing the human lunar lander for the Artemis program. So it’s a really interesting place to be in. And I’ve also heard an amazing point that what happens if SpaceX were to go bankrupt sooner or later? It’s not even just what Elon is saying and even how their internal sexual harassment procedures are going, but what in the event that they are not any longer in existence? There’s a wide range of reasons we needs to be concerned about how reliant we’re on one space company.
The entire point of commercialized space was that you simply would create a market, that there’d be quite a lot of competitors, that if SpaceX wasn’t low cost enough, you can go to Lockheed Martin or whatever. That hasn’t played out. Do you see any glimmers of that competition coming to this industry?
I feel there are quite a lot of corporations which can be trying.
When Loren was at , she did quite a lot of stories on the businesses that were trying.
Yes, yes, I did. And one among the things I all the time joke about is my beat makes loads of my stories obsolete not even a 12 months or two after I’ve written them. So I bet there’s a bunch of things I’ve written…
Literally ends in explosions, is what I’m saying.
Yes. Or simply programs that were promised, after which rapidly, they disappear. Virgin Orbit, rest in peace. We wrote so much about them after I was there, and so they filed for bankruptcy this 12 months and are not any more. That’s just the character of space — it’s a really capital-intensive business, and it takes quite a lot of time as a way to turn into a mature business. And SpaceX obviously began a few years ago, I mean, not too way back, but longer than quite a lot of these startups. And so it’s just quite a lot of them try to play catch up, and it’s hard to compete with [SpaceX] because they’ve dominated the marketplace for some time now. However it’s still a really exciting time to be covering space because there are such a lot of hopeful corporations which can be emerging and attempting to compete with SpaceX.
Now, one thing that may be very necessary to me and relates back to the book is that we are able to say that we’re being diverse and inclusive with these recent efforts, and we are able to send the appropriate people into space and check out to right those wrongs. But at the identical time, the space industry is just an industry like every other within the tech industry, and it remains to be stuffed with problems when it comes to, as you mentioned, sexual harassment and variety and inclusion that I feel sometimes get swept under the rug since it’s space and we see it as this hopeful endeavor. And while it’s, it’s still a business, and persons are at the guts of that business, and so there’s still a protracted option to go. We is likely to be convalescing in terms of the people we’re sending into space, however the people who find themselves sending them into space are also coping with the identical issues and structural problems that we’ve all been coping with for a long time now.
“These were women attempting to do their jobs, but they only had quite a lot of people watching them try this job … at the top of the day, they only want it to work.”
That’s borne out in your stories now at . After I was working with you at , quite a lot of the stories were like, people at work are unhappy about work. And it was like the identical story, just they happened to work on rockets.
And it’s the identical for the six, too. I mean, that’s ultimately what I hope people take away. These were women attempting to do their jobs, but they only had quite a lot of people watching them try this job. And it creates frustrations and interesting situations, but at the top of the day, they only want it to work.
Do you think that it’s easier now? Again, it’s 40 years later; quite a lot of these problems, we still discuss them, loudly in controversial ways, nevertheless it’s an ever-present a part of our conversation about work now. Do you think that that’s made it easier to enter science, enter space?
Oh, I definitely think we’ve made it so much easier. There are quite a lot of great initiatives that focus on women and folks of color to assist them get jobs within the space industry. The Brooke Owens Fellowship is one which I actually like so much, but like I said, it’s not as if we’ve solved all the problems simply because we’re finding more ways for people to get into space. There’s still quite a little bit of sexual harassment. HR is just not being attentive, things getting swept under the rug. And it’s necessary to me, if I do hear about those things, to attempt to highlight it as best I can. It’s very difficult, but it should all the time remain necessary to me.
Considered one of the belongings you call out within the book is, because the six grow up, they’re in an environment where the space race with the Russians is ever-present. I feel it’s Rhea Seddon you call out — she was on a path to be a really prim Southern belle, after which the space race happened and science education was flooded into American public schools, and she or he ended up being a physician, after which she ended up being an astronaut. Do you see any of that kind of big structural pressure on us immediately? Does our competition with China mean we’re investing so much into science education, which suggests we’ll create a generation of female scientists? I don’t see that. I’m wondering if, in writing the book, you saw any parallels to today?
The China discussion is interesting to me because that’s often invoked as sort of this analog for the space race. It’s not that we’re in a race with the Soviets or Russia — it’s “we’re in a race with China,” and it just doesn’t have the identical gravitas that I feel the Cold War did just because the US has already “won.” We’ve been to the Moon. We’ve done all of this stuff. I definitely think people can be very upset if China sends any individual to the Moon, but I just don’t think it inspires that very same level of urgency that the Soviet Union did on the time. So that you’re right, it’s not playing out in the identical way, but I do think quite a lot of NASA leadership and political leadership are attempting to make it into an analogous situation because they need that similar sense of urgency, and so they want that funding because that was a giant a part of the space race.
NASA’s budget swelled quite a bit since it was such a national priority on the time. We’re definitely nowhere near that level. There are other things, other pressing things in the mean time, especially in terms of climate change. And I feel that’s positive. That’s sort of a giant pressing problem that we do need to handle. I don’t think it must be an either / or situation. NASA’s role can definitely play a serious part within the climate change initiative, but you’re right. I don’t think the China and US space race — initially, there’s quite a lot of debate of whether it’s a race, and second of all, is it something that we necessarily have to be wringing our hands about?
What’s interesting about this whole conversation is when it’s a giant national priority with swelling budgets, you’ll be able to impose some pressure on a government agency to say, “Okay, it’s essential put more women and folks of color into this program. This could appear to be the US.” When it’s the federal government contracting a vendor like SpaceX, A) that pressure is difficult. After which B) not for nothing, the CEO of SpaceX owns a automotive company that does quite a lot of business in China, and that looks like it’s incredibly complicated for anyone to piece through. So we just don’t discuss it so much, but we pretend it’s a race. And I’m wondering, fundamentally, can the federal government get through that and create space as a national priority again, or have we just kind of handed this off to Elon and SpaceX?
That is an amazing query. I feel space is all the time a priority because we’ve all the time been the leaders within the space field, and we’ll probably remain that way for a while. I do think that if China advances rather more, there can be concern; there can be a level of outcry. Whether or not that’s warranted is up for debate, but I’m sure that can occur. It was a little bit of an ideal storm when the space race happened, right? And I don’t think those conditions will ever really occur again. So I don’t know if we’ll give you the chance to recreate that sort of very ravenous time for space that we did back then.
I do think that everybody thinks that our space priorities are nice to have. And clearly, once we do big, daring things in space, they’re applauded by the political leaders of the time no matter whether or not they began those initiatives. But I feel it’s also very easy to chop those things when there are other pressing issues coming down the road. Like I said, I don’t necessarily think these have to be either / or. NASA’s famously 0.5 percent of the federal budget. So it doesn’t take up quite a lot of resources, nevertheless it all the time sort of gets on the chopping block when people say we’re spending an excessive amount of since it just doesn’t feel like something that’s super pressing to our needs.
So that you and I are talking the day after a giant Ronan Farrow profile of Elon Musk got here out in . There’s quite a lot of discussion about SpaceX in there, and there’s a quote from Jim Bridenstine, a former head of NASA. He was appointed by Trump. He’s a conservative. And the quote is about SpaceX, and it just really struck me.
He says, “There is barely one thing worse than a government monopoly, and that could be a private monopoly that the federal government relies on.” Then he compares SpaceX to the OceanGate situation. He says, “We just saw this submersible going all the way down to visit the Titanic implode. People won’t be confident within the capabilities industrial corporations have [if something goes wrong]. I feel now we have to think in regards to the non-regulatory environment as sometimes hurting the industry greater than the regulatory environment.”
This is just not what you’d expect to listen to from a conservative Trump appointee who famously led an expansion of economic space and who I feel, by all accounts, was considered a hit in doing it. He’s saying, “Look, we’re really depending on this company. In the event that they get something fallacious, public confidence in space goes to plummet.” Is that pressure real, or is that this “he’s out, he doesn’t need the job anymore, he can just say whatever he desires to say”? Or is that really percolating through the space community?
“If you end up calling for change right after a tragedy, the choices we make aren’t necessarily the appropriate ones in the event that they’re hasty.”
I feel I could be remiss if I didn’t indicate Bridenstine is now on Viasat’s board, so I’m sure there’s some conflict of interest there, but he’s not fallacious. We were just discussing this earlier. SpaceX is our space program immediately. I mean, it’s — I probably will get quite a lot of flack for saying that — nevertheless it is fundamentally tied with NASA. In the event that they were to suddenly disappear, we’d lose quite a lot of access and quite a lot of things. And like I said, this industry takes quite a lot of time to develop. We will’t just provide you with recent capabilities overnight. And so quite a lot of people make fun of Boeing Starliner, which has been taking so long to get to the International Space Station, but ultimately, it should be a very good thing if and when it flies because then we’ll have that extra redundancy in case there, heaven forbid, there’s some sort of issue with the Crew Dragon. So yeah, I feel those words are definitely relevant and make quite a lot of sense. As for OceanGate, I did make sort of similar parallels in a story.
For immediately, there’s a moratorium on regulating human space flight for safety, and that’s ending soon. The FAA is beginning to think about what regulations might appear to be. But the priority is what happens if something bad happens? And it’s not even an if — quite a lot of people have sort of said a when situation, and that’s going to have quite a lot of eyes on it. There’s going to be quite a lot of opinions. And if / when that happens, there’s probably going to be quite a lot of calls for change.
And when you’re calling for change right after a tragedy, the choices we make aren’t necessarily the appropriate ones in the event that they’re hasty. And in order that was the purpose that was made in the article that I wrote, just that we wish to be smart about this stuff if and when something does go fallacious in order that now we have the correct protocols in place and that we aren’t rapidly putting things into motion which can be less secure.
Let’s end by talking in regards to the book. It’s an amazing book. Everyone should go read it, and it’ll be available after this podcast goes out. So go buy it straight away. What’s your favorite story from the book?
Oh, my favorite. There’s so many great stories, the ladies proving themselves whenever you’d least expect it. There’s an amazing moment where three of the ladies and three of their male colleagues fly as much as Boeing. They went to envision out the 747 that was used to ferry the Shuttle across the country each time it needed to be moved. They were walking around with this Boeing instructor, and he asked in the event that they wanted to envision out the plane, and so they were considering the simulator, and so they were like, “No, let’s go fly the plane, the actual 747.”
So that they get inside, after which the trainer’s like, “Alright, so Judy, Anna, Sally, do y’all need to do some touch and goes?” where you are taking off and also you land. What he didn’t know is, they weren’t technically pilots, or in the event that they had flown, they hadn’t flown a plane of that size before. So one among them pipes up, and so they’re similar to, “Yeah, I’ll do it.” And in order that they practiced. They went forwards and backwards doing touch and goes. After which at one point, the trainer turned to Sally, and he was like, “So what other planes have you ever been checked out on?”
And she or he goes, “Oh, none.” And he just sort of went completely ghost-white because he thought they were all pros. They were all flying like pros — only a testament to how well they were adapting to the training on the time.
That’s awesome. Well, the book is basically fun. It’s filled with stories like that. I encourage everyone to exit and skim it. Loren, all the time one among my very favorite expert people, within the family without end. Thanks for coming on .
Decoder with Nilay Patel /
A podcast about big ideas and other problems.