"So, One Of The Really Cool Things About Black Holes That I've Been Working On Recently Is Using Black

Yeah, we had to troubleshoot problems pretty much every day.  So, we have our tasks that we’re doing every day: a science experiment or some maintenance, but things don’t always go as planned.  So that’s one of the really interesting things about science experiments is that sometimes you observe things that are different and that’s how science gets done.

One of the experiments I worked on was actually doing a chemical reaction with some small little pockets of–they’re plastic kind of tubes that contain pockets of water.  And we heated the reaction and we noticed that there were bubbles being formed.  When we did this reaction on Earth we didn’t have the same thing, so we had no idea was to expect when we did this on board.  So we documented this and actually found it to be a really interesting phenomenon.  The scientists took that back and that ended up being part of our analysis of the experiment.  

Sometimes you’re just troubleshooting equipment because things aren’t working.  So I was working on one of the vacuum furnaces one day, and it has these quick disconnects that you can use to supply power or water to the vacuum furnace.  And I tried to do one of the quick disconnects and all of a sudden the connection–the valve–stayed full open and there was water spreading everywhere.  

So that was some really quick troubleshooting, I had water going in my face and I wasn’t really sure what to do so I closed the thing as quickly as possible, backed off, got the water out of my eyes, and then I called the ground and we did a lot of troubleshooting that day.

Have you ever had to troubleshoot a problem in space?

After serving 25 years in the Air Force, as a pilot flying a variety of different airplanes, the more and more I got into different types of missions this just became a fascinating thing looking at everything NASA does with aircraft flying in and out of the earth's atmosphere.  So the opportunity to just make flight research and earth research flying a variety of science platforms was really what attracted me to the job.

What made you want to become a pilot for NASA? What’s your favorite part of this job?

We train a lot for space walks, so hundreds of hours underwater in the pool, and we spend a lot of time going over every detail of the space walk.  But one of the things you really can't train for is the feeling you're in an absolute vacuum.  So we do a few tests in the vacuum chamber, but when you first go outside the hatch and you see the total darkness or the brightness of the Earth, and you realize that there's no air molecules anywhere else around you - that's the biggest surprise.  

And then I think the second surprise is after an hour or two, getting comfortable working in an absolute vacuum, knowing that the suits are going to protect and you have a whole team of people on the ground taking care of every aspect of that spacewalk.  I think that was the thing that was the most surprising, was how alone and distant from the planet you can feel, yet totally supported by all the people working down in Mission Control.

I’m sure you’re trained so that nothing in space is really a surprise, but: was there anything about spacewalking that surprised you when you did it for the first time?

Other than flying in combat in my military days, I would say my time at NASA when I've been exploring--probably the scariest time that I had was taking off in the ER-2 behind me on the island of Oahu off a cliff into the ocean of Kaneohe Bay.  

And the reason for that is it climbs up so steep on initial take-off that at night you just go into pitch black, and all you can see is dark sky and dark water, so you can't tell what's what.  And that gets a little unnerving for about the first minute or two of the flight until you know your way up and away from the water.  Otherwise it's a little disorienting and you could be diving into the water.

Have you ever been scared while flying? What was the event that scared you the most?What's your favorite plane to fly?

So one of the things I didn't know about being an astronaut was all of the different kinds of skills we need to learn.  You come in and you're kind of a baby astronaut trainee, and they teach you things about like how to fix the electrical system and the plumbing on the space station.  You need to learn how to train in dangerous environments.  We learn how to fly airplanes.  We learn how to do spacewalks underwater.  

So one of the most surprising things was just the variety of skills we need in order to be successful expedition pioneers on board the space station.

What's something you didn't know about being an astronaut before you actually became one? Do you have any words of advice for young astronauts?

Yeah!  So if you want to be an astronaut, my best piece of advice is definitely to study something in the science field.  Basically every astronaut has some kind of background in science, technology, engineering.  Everybody has--even the fighter pilots have studied something and done a Masters degree in some kind of STEM field.  So if you start there, you're definitely headed in the right direction.

What is your advice to someone who wants to follow the same steps you take?

Ah, that's a really good question!  I think I would say, study as much as you did, but also try to have a little bit of fun.

Hey, Kate! What would you say/what advice would you give to your younger self? ✨

I thought, um, I actually thought The Martian was pretty good.  They do a good job there of kind of showing the challenges of working in a space environment: some of the isolation, how do you troubleshoot problems, the kind of interactions that crews would have.  I think that's a movie that captures somewhat the feel of space exploration.

What popular film is the closest to reality for you?

“So, if the sun were just an isolated black hole with nothing around it, we would see nothing.  If we knew exactly where to look–which we would, because we’re pretty good astronomers–and we could map out the solar system, we’d know there’s something in the middle of the solar system that’s causing all of the gravity and the orbits of the planets.  If we looked right at that, we’d actually see some really cool gravitational lensing effects, and you’d see these arcs of light around the invisible black hole called the Einstein ring.”

What do *you* think is inside a black hole? Or If they sun was a black hole what would we see in the sky? Thanks!

I would say my favorite part of the job is not really what you'd think.  You'd think it's maybe strapping in an airplane and going up and flying - and that's a wonderful opportunity, and I love it absolutely - but really the greatest thing at NASA, and I think most people would agree, is working with the people that we have here.  

Because the people that come together with an eagerness to explore and to experiment with things and discover new opportunities and things like that - working side by side with those people is what really gets your heart pumping and makes you excited to come to work each day.  So that's what I'd say is my favorite part of the job.

What’s your favorite part of the job?