NASA Astronauts Discuss Life In Space With U.S. Naval War College – Friday, April 24, 2026

0:23 Jack and Chris, very nice synchronicity.

0:26 1 minute till event start.

0:33 FedEx.

0:39 You guys also MC'ing in synchronicity as well?

0:47 We can try to.

0:56 Feel like it's Station, this is Houston.

1:24 Are you ready for the event?

1:29 And station, we are ready.

1:32 US Naval War College, this is Mission Control Houston.

1:35 Please call station for a voice check.

1:37 Please call station.

1:40 Station, this is Dr.

1:41 David Burbach with the US Naval War College.

1:44 How do you hear me?

1:49 Hi Dr.

1:49 Burbach, this is NASA astronaut and Navy Captain

1:52 Jack Hathaway and my colleague NASA astronaut Dr.

1:56 Chris Williams.

1:57 And we've got you loud and clear.

1:59 How do you hear us?

2:01 We hear you great.

2:02 Thank you very much for joining us.

2:04 We're here and Jack, you'll remember Spruance Auditorium, I'm sure.

2:07 We're here with a crowd of faculty, staff, students.

2:11 I think some people even brought in some family members.

2:14 So, we are thrilled that you were able to do this today.

2:18 Jack, couple of your old professors are here.

2:20 I know Derek Reveron, Craig Corner, Jim Fitzsimond.

2:24 And actually somebody both of you are likely to know, Greer Wilt,

2:28 flight controller, was able to come down from Harvard and join us today.

2:32 And we'll have a chance to chat with her a bit afterwards.

2:35 And also Jack, I was one of the Naval War

2:38 College faculty who was able to go watch your launch.

2:41 Thank you very much for the invite.

2:43 That was very generous and you know, we it was a terrific experience.

2:48 So, we've had a number of people submit some questions.

2:52 I'd like to know what life is like on the space station.

2:54 So, you know, let me let me start off asking.

2:57 Boy, the the Artemis moon mission got a lot of attention a few weeks ago.

3:01 30 million people watched the splashdown.

3:05 I'm wondering did did you all on the space station feel a little left out?

3:08 You know, you're up there every day in space and you know,

3:10 you're not on TV every day.

3:17 Well, I'm excited that all the professors and students

3:21 and family members are from the Newport area out there.

3:24 I had a great time in my year,

3:26 a little over a year at Newport and I'm super excited

3:29 to to give it back a little bit to you guys.

3:32 Hoping I can come up and visit again after this.

3:34 Newport's a great town and I miss it quite a bit.

3:37 But I actually I think the opposite of what you're talking about.

3:41 We are excited.

3:42 It was our friends and colleagues that were on the Artemis 2 mission.

3:46 It's our friends and colleagues that are going

3:47 to be on the future Artemis missions as well.

3:50 Their successes are our successes.

3:52 Everything that we've done and learned here in 25 years

3:56 of human spaceflight on the international

3:58 international space station has set NASA,

4:00 America and all our international partners up to be able to send people

4:05 around the moon and eventually to land and start building our moon base there.

4:09 So, the work that we do here is no less,

4:12 no more important than the work that the crews on Artemis are doing.

4:16 We're excited for them.

4:17 We're excited for them to inspire all the young people around the world

4:20 and and play our little part in the chapter that's going on.

4:25 Great.

4:26 We had we had a bunch of questions that kind of all came

4:29 down to what's the daily routine like for crew members on the space station.

4:34 You know, I I can tell just in terms of setting up the call,

4:37 you guys are very busy and very scheduled.

4:39 Can you tell us a little more about, you know,

4:41 what's a what's a work day like up there?

4:45 Awesome.

4:48 [laughter] Yeah, absolutely.

4:49 We spend most of our day doing front

4:51 flips and back flips and practicing our perfect form.

4:53 But when we're not doing that, we we

4:56 do have a pretty well scheduled scheduled day.

4:58 We get up we have our day starts at 7:30 in the morning

5:01 with a planning conference with with our control

5:04 centers and all of our international partners.

5:06 And then we progress through the day

5:08 with our day broken down into kind of, you know,

5:10 tasks at the at the 5-minute every 5 minutes.

5:15 Some of them may be maintenance,

5:16 fixing things on the space station to keep things running.

5:19 A lot of what we're doing in the past couple weeks has been science.

5:21 We recently had some cargo vehicles come up and so these are

5:24 science experiments aimed at making life better on Earth or trying to push

5:27 ourselves further into space understanding how

5:29 the microgravity environment affects a whole

5:32 wide host of things from biology to physics and everything in between.

5:36 We have some time for exercise and we also yeah,

5:40 we we go all the way till 7:30 p.m.

5:43 usually where we have a sort of an end of the day conference

5:46 where we where we close things out and get ready for for tomorrow.

5:50 So, a lot of it is keeping up with this red line in our scheduling program,

5:53 but you know, every every hour is different.

5:55 You know, one day you're doing one minute you're doing a science experiment,

5:57 the next thing you're fixing the toilet and all of that in just one day of work.

6:05 Can you tell us any more about some of the experiments that you're running?

6:08 I know we Jack, we just watched your Meet Jack Hathaway video.

6:12 You talked about 3D printing.

6:15 You know, what what sorts of science experiments

6:17 or or technology demonstrations are you working on?

6:24 Right before we got on the camera with you,

6:27 Chris was down at the other end of the modules

6:29 working on a new exercise device that has a lower profile

6:34 and is designed to be more forward deployed

6:37 in in the in the naval parlance so it can go on Artemis, it can go on the moon.

6:41 So, that's being able to keep us in shape due

6:45 to the bone loss and the muscle loss that we experience

6:47 every day up here is a is a key piece

6:49 of of our mission to go further into the solar system.

6:52 So, that's one of the things going on.

6:54 We've also got a cold atom lab up here that uses

6:57 the benefit of of the microgravity we experience to be

7:01 able to drop temperatures even lower than we can drop

7:04 them on Earth with all the technology that we have there.

7:07 So, we can delve into the fundamental

7:09 physics that are going on at those temperatures.

7:12 Also, the microgravity environment allows us to grow different cell cultures,

7:18 different proteins, different DNA structures

7:21 in a way that's unencumbered by gravity.

7:23 It can kind of grow out in its crystalline structure kind

7:25 of in three dimensions in a way where it doesn't have

7:27 a gravity vector and that can produce new and exciting ways

7:31 to produce molecules both for clinical benefit and for pure science research.

7:36 Uh Also, in the last week we've been growing alfalfa.

7:39 Chris put in some alfalfa buds just a couple

7:43 days ago and we've been watching them pop up cuz

7:46 obviously growing uh growing food in the future is

7:50 going to be a key piece of what we do.

7:52 And obviously you know, I love the 3D printer.

7:54 We can't take everything we want with us.

7:56 So, being able to print things both in metal and in plastic as we go forward

8:00 is going to be key to to our success as we as we continue our exploration.

8:06 That's great.

8:07 You know, speaking of routines, Professor Corner wondered how does the 90-minute

8:13 orbital cycle affect your circadian rhythms?

8:15 Or just you know, generally how how well do people sleep up there?

8:23 Yeah, it's a great question cuz yeah, we do.

8:26 We we see 16 sunrises and sunsets every day.

8:30 You know, we we operate here on Greenwich Mean Time.

8:33 You know, as an international space station

8:36 with international partners from all over the the globe,

8:38 that was just kind of a good time zone to settle on that works for everybody.

8:41 And I guess fortunately and unfortunately,

8:44 most of our modules don't have windows.

8:46 So, we do have a wonderful cupola module that has that has windows.

8:51 You know, sort of a a whole hemispherical view down on the Earth.

8:55 But unless you're sort of by one of those windows,

8:57 it really is just I guess some

9:00 of our fellows who are from the submarine community,

9:02 I think can relate to to how it works.

9:05 If you kind of just work off the the cadence indoors.

9:07 But I try to make I try to make a point

9:10 every evening of going down to the cupola and looking outside.

9:13 And sometimes I make the poor decision of doing

9:15 that during the day pass and getting blasted with, you know,

9:17 bright sunlight right before I'm trying to go to bed.

9:20 That said, I I find that I personally sleep pretty well up here.

9:22 Floating is actually pretty comfortable.

9:25 I know it varies.

9:25 Some people like it, some people don't.

9:27 But we sleep in a sleeping bag kind of uh up against the wall.

9:31 Not that up really means anything, but you're kind of just floating there.

9:34 And for me it's pretty comfortable.

9:35 So, actually feel like I sleep pretty well.

9:40 Cool.

9:41 What do you What do you do for entertainment

9:44 if if NASA allows you any free time at all?

9:52 [laughter] This is usually what we do.

9:52 This is This is a lot of fun.

9:55 Sometimes we have competitions to see

9:57 who can float the straightest, the fastest,

9:59 or the most rotations with uh with that without hitting a wall or whatever.

10:03 Uh but uh I mean it's just like any deployment when you're stuck

10:07 on a ship somewhere or forward deployed

10:09 somewhere like uh you're with your friends,

10:11 you're with your crewmates, uh you can make games, you can make activities.

10:15 Uh we have a reasonable amount of access to the internet

10:17 here to be able to call home and talk to people.

10:20 Uh you know, there's a shared drive of movies and TV and uh we get a lot

10:23 of support up from different communities to to get

10:25 any any sort of shows or activities we want.

10:28 Uh Photography?

10:30 Photography, yeah, absolutely.

10:31 Like looking out the window like you talked about.

10:33 Uh it's pretty awesome to uh do some target acquisition from 250 mi up.

10:40 Uh we're coming from different directions and you're trying

10:42 to uh figure things out and which way you're coming

10:45 from and trying to find a small small piece of like

10:48 you're trying to find your hometown or your home street.

10:50 Uh the other day uh we were doing a pass up

10:53 the East Coast and I was like, I got plenty time.

10:55 I'm going to see Florida, I'm going to see the Gulf Coast.

10:57 We'll march our way up.

10:58 I'll get Washington.

10:59 Uh I'll get Newport.

11:00 My home state's Connecticut.

11:01 I'll get some photos from there.

11:03 But that whole thing only took like three or four minutes.

11:05 Uh so you're we're moving at 17,500 mi an hour and so it's uh

11:10 it's quite a bit of fun to uh see the Earth from that perspective,

11:13 take pictures of places you've been, places you've lived,

11:16 places uh that you want to go to and and just see the wonder of the world.

11:20 So there's an endless amount of things that we

11:22 can do to occupy our time up here.

11:26 Great.

11:27 You know, question for uh for Dr.

11:29 Williams, one of our uh Navy surgeon

11:31 students wondered about preparing uh you know,

11:34 how people might prepare to prac- practice medical care in space

11:38 or some of the challenges that might come up uh with you know,

11:42 dealing with medical emergencies or medical issues in microgravity.

11:50 Yeah, uh there's a couple of sort of unique challenges up here.

11:53 I mean, one of them is just the the fact that you know,

11:56 yeah, we're we're 260 mi up.

11:58 We're in kind of a remote environment.

12:00 Um and so you know, the only materials and diagnostic tools that you

12:05 have available to you are the things that you've got up here.

12:08 So you know, we have ultrasound machines,

12:10 but that's pretty much the extent of the imaging we have and we have a you know,

12:13 a pretty a pretty reasonably stocked, but still you know,

12:16 limited uh you know, amount of medications and that sort of thing.

12:19 Um the thing we do have though is a huge

12:21 amount of support on the ground from our flight surgeons.

12:23 So that you know, if uh you know,

12:25 for we we sort of have routine check-ins with them,

12:27 but if anything comes up uh you know,

12:29 we we we're we're basically operating uh sort of remotely guided

12:33 uh by them uh for uh for a lot of different things.

12:37 And so that's uh that's kind of the the the way

12:40 we sort of work in that that sort of supported supported environment.

12:45 Um the other challenge is just

12:46 the the challenges inherent to being in microgravity.

12:49 Um I think anybody that's been in can accomplish things

14:42 that we don't think are possible uh given the other

14:45 sorts of uh politics and regional uh challenges that we

14:49 have that we face that are real and and they're serious.

14:52 Uh but space is also serious and space is also

14:54 successful and we do it together as a human race.

14:57 And uh it's one of those things that uh we can always point to as, "Hey,

15:01 we do have things in common around the world.

15:03 We are similar people.

15:04 We share some similar values." And on the things that we agree on and we can

15:08 work forward to uh we can accomplish great

15:11 incredible things like sending people around the moon.

15:17 Great.

15:17 Thank you.

15:18 Um you know, what um you know,

15:20 I I just following on to what Chris just said about you know,

15:24 things floating out.

15:25 You know, what what are you look like you're having a lot of fun in zero G,

15:28 but you know, what do you find inconvenient?

15:31 You know, what you know, any anything that you found you know,

15:34 difficult or inconvenient or you know, boy, you know,

15:37 sure learning to appreciate Isaac Newton and gravity.

15:44 Yeah, there's you know,

15:46 micro- microgravity is really helpful in some circumstances.

15:49 I was just moving like a 1,000-lb piece of equipment and you know,

15:52 just using just kind of floating around gently

15:55 moving it with my hands, no big deal.

15:56 But yeah, there you go.

15:58 Um but but sometimes it's really inconvenient.

16:01 like I guess this was a couple months ago now,

16:03 but we have a little dining room table and I had a bag of a drink

16:07 bag full of tea and I had that down on the table and uh you know,

16:11 having a conversation with a couple other people and it just floated away

16:14 in the middle and it took us it took me three weeks to find it.

16:17 Uh it floated it had floated over

16:18 into the Russian segment and gotten into some vents somewhere.

16:21 So you know, [laughter] like things things float away

16:23 and like um and it's it's hard to manage that.

16:26 Um and yeah, I think uh the advan- other advantages though are that you know,

16:30 you can use all sides of your modules.

16:32 You know, we have workspaces on the ceiling, on the floor,

16:35 on the and on both walls and those are all equally uh accessible.

16:38 But uh the other thing is you open up

16:40 a bag and things don't stay where they are.

16:42 Things just kind of explode out of it.

16:44 So we've been doing a lot of cargo unpacking and uh you know,

16:47 sometimes we open up a bag that has you know,

16:49 30 or 40 little Ziploc bags in it and boy,

16:52 it's a struggle sometimes to keep those bags uh contained.

16:58 Um last question for Jack before I our provost uh has a few words of thanks.

17:03 Jack, how how has your war college education helped you as an astronaut?

17:13 The Naval War College and and really

17:15 all the war colleges are are teaching people

17:18 or helping people learn how to think uh in a in a bigger perspective, right?

17:22 To to take the knowledge that they've taken

17:24 from their tactical community and learn about the operational

17:27 and the strategic levels of war uh and get

17:30 opinions and thoughts and experiences from people with different backgrounds.

17:34 You know, which is why you know,

17:35 the student body there is made up of of people from all the services,

17:38 from the State Department,

17:39 and all sorts of other government and non-government entities.

17:42 Uh because people have different perspectives based on where they come

17:45 from and how they solve problems and and uh the things that they value.

17:50 Uh so when you go to the war college and you

17:52 come away from that, you've taken something that you've been great

17:56 at the tactical level of war and you show up and you

17:59 learn how to think bigger and think wider and think with different perspectives.

18:03 And all that is directly translatable to space.

18:06 Uh and because because we're an international partnership

18:09 that's trying to accomplish this incredibly complex task,

18:12 uh we have this incredibly large team

18:14 on the ground that supports us all the time

18:16 and they have they have part of the story and we have part of the story up here.

18:21 Uh and part of the story is at one

18:22 of the control centers halfway around the world.

18:24 And being able to think from that larger

18:26 perspective while we all have these shared

18:29 simultaneous goals is something that that uh I think you guys teach and that I

18:33 learned at the war college and is is very applicable uh to our experience up

18:37 here on the International Space Station and uh

18:40 on SpaceX human space exploration writ large.

18:44 Great.

18:45 Thank you guys very much.

18:46 Let me hand this over to our provost Steven Mariano just to say thanks.

18:49 Really would love to meet either of you in person.

18:51 Come to Newport anytime.

18:55 Great.

18:55 Thank you, David.

18:56 And We will take you up on that.

18:58 Maybe during restaurant week.

19:02 Absolutely.

19:03 You know, what a lot of things have changed here at the war college,

19:05 but one thing hasn't and hosting you will be one of those things that will be

19:10 our pleasure and we'll probably be able to have

19:12 a parking place for for both of you.

19:14 So really just wanted to say thanks again for taking

19:18 the time to work us into your very regimented schedule.

19:21 So on behalf of Admiral Walker and the entire

19:24 faculty and staff and the student body here and those there are got a couple

19:29 of that are probably watching online as well.

19:31 Uh we just wanted to say thanks for taking

19:33 the time and we do want to welcome you back.

19:34 And although you can't see us, what we're going to have for you when you get

19:37 here is a couple of highly coveted war college coins.

19:41 Uh if you're not familiar Chris with that, I'm

19:43 sure Jack can explain the the coin tradition to you.

19:46 But we look forward to hosting you here back on Earth uh when the time is right.

19:51 Know that the doors will open and and Jack is a former Halsey guy,

19:54 just you'd be proud of your current set of Halsey students and faculty

19:57 that are out doing doing great work

20:00 supporting the CENTCOM commander as we speak.

20:02 So, thanks again for what you're doing up there.

20:05 We look forward to having you back here, and I'm just going to ask the team here

20:07 in the auditorium for a little round of applause.

20:10 You can hear us, I hope.

20:21 Thanks very much, sir.

20:21 It was a pleasure chat with all of you.

20:23 If there are families out in the audience,

20:25 we know that the families are the supporters of all that we

20:28 do when we go to War College or we're in the fleet,

20:31 the families are the ones that support us.

20:32 So, thank you families.

20:34 We appreciate all the support you got us,

20:35 and thanks to the War College for taking the time to talk with us today.

20:38 We really appreciate it.

20:39 Thank Station, this is Houston ACR, and that concludes our event.

20:46 Thank you to all participants.

20:47 Station, we are now resuming operational audio communications.