After Serving 25 Years In The Air Force, As A Pilot Flying A Variety Of Different Airplanes, The More

"The answer is both.  You will disappear forever, but you will still exist inside of the black hole.  So how does that work?  

Well, you disappear forever from the point of view of everbody outside of the black hole.  As you get closer and closer to the event horizon you get what we call redshifted.  You get kind of faded away darker and darker and darker until you just disappear.  That's what it looks like from the outside.

From the inside--from your point of view--everything goes pretty well at least for the next five or six milliseconds, before you get crushed to death."

What would happen if I go into a black hole? Do you think I would disappear forever or would I still exist inside the black hole?

"So most of the descriptions that I've seen about black holes in science fiction get it pretty close to reality outside of the event horizon.  Inside the event horizon we don't really know what's going to happen, so a lot of science fiction writers also kind of have fun with it and do whatever they want.  

In terms of outside of the event horizon, I think the most striking effect is that of time dilation, how time slows down as you get closer and closer, but still on our side of the event horizon.  And this was of course one of the major plot drivers of the movie Interstellar, so I thought that was really cool."

Out of all the theories and fantasies created around blackholes, which of them, in your opinion, do you think could come closest to reality?

"Theoretical?  Yeah, I think so, I think we could do it.  Uh, technically there are still a lot of details that need to be worked out."

Could you theoretically time travel through a black hole or other object with such intense mass?

When I learned that I had been medically disqualified from consideration of being an astronaut, I was devastated.  My whole life, since I was five years old, I had set my sights on becoming an astronaut, and now I was told that would never happen.  I was- I wanted to quit NASA. I wasn't sure what to do.

But then I took a step back and I realized: maybe I'm twenty-six years old and I don't know everything.  Maybe there are other careers for me here at NASA that I've never considered because I was never aware of them. And I'm very grateful for the fact that I did take the time to think that because you know what? It was true. 

Because I was not able to be an astronaut, I have been able to have what I think is a more fulfilling and impactful career here at NASA.  So for those of you watching, if you have a dream that gets taken away from you, take a step back, reconsider it, and acknowledge that maybe you don't know everything.  And there could be something even greater waiting for you out there.

How did you deal with the disappointment of being medically disqualified for astronaut candidacy?

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?

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?

"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 on the ISS we have a wake-up time.  There's not really any predetermined time because we're orbiting the Earth every ninety minutes.  But you have to pick a time scale, so we actually picked GMT, which is close to London time.

So we wake up, we have a normal conference call with the ground, we talk about things that are going on the space station, what we're going to do that day, and then we have a plan that tells us what we're going to do down to every five minutes on board.  And so it depends on the day.  

A lot of time we're doing science experiments, sometimes we're doing maintenance on the space station, sometimes we're even getting ready to do a space walk.  Those are the best days.  But every day is something new and different up there.

What does a normal day for you consist of?

"So the way we understand that black holes form is when a massive star basically runs out of fuel and collapses in on itself.  And the reason that happens is because, the reason stars don't collapse in on themselves on a regular day is because they're hot.  

Hot gas has pressure, so you have all this gas pushing out, you have gravity pulling in and you get a nice balanced equilibrium.  But eventually you run out of fuel, so you run out of temperature, you run out of pressure, and the gravity wins.  So the gravity just pulls in and there's not enough hot gas to hold it up anymore.  

That's how they form.  How do they move?  They move pretty much like every other star in the galaxy.  Mostly orbiting around, for example in the solar system, orbiting around the center of the galaxy with a little bit of random motions here and there."

How do blackholes form and how do they move ?

Oh, for the year to come in 2020, what I'm mostly looking forward to is new opportunities to explore.  That's been one of the most fascinating things in my seven years that I've been a research pilot at NASA is working with different engineering and science teams and learning more and more everyday.

 I feel like - it's just like going to graduate school over and over and learning great new things about the earth's atmosphere and flight research every day.  I just don't have to take written tests or write a thesis or anything like that.  So it's a great way to go to school and learn and explore.

What are you most excited for in 2020?