So Floating Is Really Interesting.  You're Actually Very Unstable When You Float For The First Time

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?

On a daily basis?  That's a good question, because when you think of people that might be dressed in flight suits and things or have the duty title of a pilot, that's not all we do.  

Most of our time is actually spent working, coordinating with teams, whether it's scientists with different objectives, learning what they want to do so that we know how to translate that into where we need to put the airplane, to put their instruments in the right place to measure what they want to look at.  Or with engineers, when we're redesigning or modifying aircraft so they can perform the way we want.

That combination there is really pretty amazing.

What do you do on a daily basis?

My mother gave me the best advice I'd ever received, and it was "trust your instincts."  I've applied that when I was afraid to go away to college, and she told me, "Trust your instincts, stay at home."  

I've applied that every time I take on a new position where I'm afraid: I think I can do it, I'm not sure if I know everything that's required, but I'm pretty sure I could do it.  So trust your instincts, even though you don't have all the information, believe in yourself and you can achieve great things.

What’s the best piece of advice you have ever received?

"I think the coolest black hole fact is that if the closest black hole to Earth were actively accreting today, it would give us enough x-rays to give every single person on Earth a chest x-ray every ten minutes."

What’s your favorite black hole fact that you like to share with people?

Mission Control is a unique environment.  The people who work there are the cream of the crop.  The tops in their graduating classes, the high performers in industry.  And so working in Mission control, my favorite thing is that I get to work with such uniquely talented people, and of all ages.  So it's a place where we can all come together, everybody with their own skill set, and solve the day's problems.

What was your favorite thing about working in Mission Control? (Also, you are the best

Being a flight director was such an honor.  I was only able to do it for eight years, but I loved every minute of it.  My favorite part about that is being able to lead such talented teams.  

I had a different team with me every day, different teams on different missions I supported, but the one consistent thing is that they are all dedicated to flying these vehicles safely, to protecting the crew, to executing the mission.  

And it was just an honor to be able to lead them. I considered it a successful day if I didn't have to step in and I could just sit back and watch the team do their thing, and they are beautiful.

What was your favorite part of being a Flight Director?

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?

"Every job that I have had here, I have had to overcome challenges in order to succeed in it. Whether it's somebody telling me I can't be a flight director because I've never been a flight controller.  Or I can't possibly manage a significant amount of budget and personnel because I've never been a low level line manager before.  

And my--the way I live my life is you never know until you try.  And a lot of people that take on these jobs are never fully prepared when they first start.  But as long as you are fully prepared to acknowledge where you fall short and willing to go off and seek help from people who are masters in those areas, then you will succeed."

What challenges have you overcame to get to the job that you have now? Love from Ireland ❤️

“So, I’m a theoretical physicist, so frankly I haven’t discovered anything in my life, but I have made a handful of predictions.  One of those having to do with black holes is-has to do with the way the light gets bent by the black hole–the extreme gravity of the black hole–so you can get light bouncing back and forth across an accretion disk due to the extreme gravity of the black hole. 

NASA is actually working right now on building a new x-ray telescope that can measure this effect, the extreme light bending by the black hole.  So hopefully in the next few years we will be able to make that discovery and prove that prediction correct.”

What is the most interesting fact that you discovered about Black Holes? And what is the one you would most want to find out?

Yeah, that's a great question and that's exactly how it feels.  Once we get up about 13 miles above the earth, and get everything set up and start doing the science collection, every now and again you have to kind of stop and just take a minute to look around.  And it's a fascinating sight up there.  

On a normal clear day looking down at the earth, you can see the curvature of the earth out in front of you, and then the sky is just a really dark purple up there because you're above all the moisture in the air that causes the dark blue to turn to light blue down towards the earth's surface.  And it's such a different sight, it really makes you understand how small we really are.

What does it feel like to be up there and look down at the Earth? I've always imagined it would send me into a moment where I feel so small compared to the expanse and beauty of Earth.