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This is Later with Lee Matthews The
Lee Matthews Podcast More what You Hear Weekday

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Afternoon's on the Drive. Doctor Katie
Coleman is a former NASA astronaut. You

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know, I think once an astronaut, always an astronaut. I don't know

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if there's such a thing as being
a former astronaut, but anyway, also

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Air Force colonel with more. Yeah, I mean, you've done something pretty

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significant. I think you'll it'll always
be with you for crying out loud,

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well, you know, I mean, the great news is that there are

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you know, there's a bunch of
us that are retired now, and it's

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important to know whether I'm speaking for
the agency or not, you know that

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I still work there. And at
the same time, I will tell you

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that once you're a part of that
mission, you never start stop being a

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part of that mission. I don't
think so. I've got a dear friend

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works down at Johnson and he works
in the telemetry and it's it's such a

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big part of him that I don't
think he will ever let go of that.

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He will always work in some capacity, whether consulting or maybe working for

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a contractor even though he's almost retirement
age exactly, and getting data up and

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down and voice up and down.
Yeah, I mean everybody takes it for

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granted until it doesn't work, and
then they all want your friend. Okay.

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He got me through a calculus one
in college and then I finally threw

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in the towel and he went on
from there. But that's he was my

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tutor. He was still one of
my best friends. Anyway. I'm delighted

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to have him along. Delighted to
have you along. Doctor Katie Coleman,

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a subject of the new documentary The
Long The Longest Goodbye in theaters on Amazon

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and Apple TV. We're going to
Mars, doctor Katie. It's exciting,

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Well, it really is so exciting, and it's hard to understand that it's

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going to happen. It's not going
to be, you know, next week,

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it's not going to be next year. And having lived up on the

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space station and thinking about the things
that actually didn't work, which is our

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job, you know, I just
thought, you know, we're not going

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to Mars because we're not ready yet. Because there's a lot of details,

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and this movie is pretty cool because
it really addresses the human part of those

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details. Some of the challenges that
we are facing with these human details,

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what are they? Well, I
think that this movie The Space The Longest

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Goodbye, which by the way,
is going to start streaming on PBS today.

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So I'm very excited about that,
mostly because the more people that get

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to make them to see this movie, I think it's the better because everybody's

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curious about going to Mars, and
it's so important to realize that. I

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mean, this movie puts the human
into human spaceflight. You know, we

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keep hearing like launches go, you
know, and so many of them all

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the time, how many you know
one, but not that many of them

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have humans on them. And when
you have humans on there, it's different.

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It's harder because you need to make
it as safe as we can,

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which takes time, it takes money, it takes really innovative engineering. And

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so this movie talks about what do
we need to do to take care of

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the humans once we actually have them
on that spacecraft and on the space station.

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We're practicing that right now, checking
out some of the techniques or tools

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that psychologically could help us have a
better you know, have a better mission

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and be more present for our mission. The more I look into what NASA

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does and how they do. Doctor
Katie Coleman's with us. She is an

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astronaut Air Force kernel too and subject
of space The Longest Goodbye streaming on PBS,

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also on Amazon and Apple TV.
The more I look into it,

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the more I realize very little is
changed in the processing anyway. Since Orville

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and Wilbur took their first flight,
they studied, they took copious notes,

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they made improvements, and it wasn't
an overnight process. It never is.

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But you learn so much every day. You're learning ten times more than you

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knew the day before, absolutely,
you know. I mean, for example,

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you know some of the very human
things up there. I mean,

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if you think about what your day
is like, you get up in the

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morning, you know, you go
to work, and you come home,

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and what are what are the things
that kind of really matter to you that

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make you feel just kind of comforted
a bit, you know, it's when

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you can explain your day. For
some people, everybody's different, right For

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me, it's when I can explain
my data, my husband or my girlfriends

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or whatever, you know, So
having that communication is important. And for

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some people it's you know, I
want to sit down and I've been working

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so hard all day and I just
want to watch TV if that's not an

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old fashioned thing to say, or
listen to my favorite, my favorite you

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know podcast. And and so we
actually some of the things we're experimenting with

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is what makes people, what makes
people, you know, feel like they've

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got what they need to kind of
feel centered. And we send shows everything

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from documentaries to I mean, whatever
they want to watch in their quote unquote

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free time, That's what we send
up there, and have these really marvelous

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agreements with the media companies to do
that. And you know, things that

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we can we pick things that we
can watch together, you know, all

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those kinds of things we build in
the build to communicate with our families by

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phone. I talked to mine every
day of the one hundred and fifty nine

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that I was up there, except
for three and also for US video conferences

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once a week or so. But
what this movie addresses is one of the

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things that's going to be hard about. That is, what if every time

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you come home and you want to
tell your spouse how you or your sweetheart

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how your day was, you say
that, and then twenty minutes later they

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hear it, and then twenty minutes
later you hear what they said to say

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back. That's going to be really
hard. And so there's some really creative

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and kind of wild ideas in this
film that are about how can we make

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people feel like they've got what they
need. This is doctor Katie Coleman,

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astronaut with NASA, featured in Space
The Longest Goodbye. It's about what we're

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doing and how we're working on the
trip to Mars as a nation and with

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NASA. One of the I think
best written novels about this, although it

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was fiction, was Andy Weers,
The Martian. He did a lot of

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homework about what would have to be
done and the kinds of things that would

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have to be done, and I
know a lot of it was kind of

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made up. A lot of it
was kind of a but that's kind of

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what you're doing, isn't it?
For? How do you deal with food,

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how do you deal with sanitation?
And like you said, how do

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you deal with long periods of isolation? Exactly? And I understand that Andy

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had a lot of things a lot
of things right. And what I love

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about media, whether it's a book
or a documentary, is that it has

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the power for people to understand more
about the world of space exploration, and

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it lets them realize that it might
be them. And the cool thing that

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I think about the Martian is that
book came out and NASA's applications tripled.

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So we were like when I applied
back in the early nineties, you know,

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two thousand or so, by the
you know, early today, it

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came up to about six thousand.
That book came out and eighteen thousand people

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raised their hands and said they wanted
to be part of the NASA team.

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And I think it shows you the
very power of that media. And he

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knows that I say this. The
only thing that I think would make that

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movie more perfect, because it was
really amazing, is if the hero or

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the heroine was a woman in that
case, and that we still don't see.

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But fiction does allow us to have
that kind of representation. And in

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this case, in the case of
The Longest Goodbye Space, the Longest Goodbye,

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you get to meet me, and
you get to meet Caleb Barron,

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an active NASA astronaut, who were
very different from each other. And I've

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learned some amazing things and one of
the coolest things, I mean, she's

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she's a former submariner, sub mariner, I guess they would say. And

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she's just really, really neat.
And there's a scene in the movie that

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is kind of that is scary.
Okay, if I was up in space,

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i'd be And the question came to
her in a panel, Hey,

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what were you thinking when this situation
happened? That was like, okay,

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let's get to the rescue craft.
And her response was, okay, you

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know, we did everything we needed
to do and then you know, so

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we're in the rescue craft, we're
all safe and as a crew, or

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at least she spoke for herself,
she said, we just got up here.

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Are we going to have to go
home? Now here? This s

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very amazing thing happens and she's worried
about going home, And that I think

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is true of a lot of us, is that we really trust the people

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on the ground have made it as
safe as it can be, not going

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to be safe, and it's really
we love the steps we're taking and can't

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wait to take more. Well,
it's consistent with some of the conversations I've

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read with Jim Lovell and Apollo thirteen. They just worked the problem, They

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kept focused on what they got to
do, to get through it and didn't

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concentrate on the emotion of it at
all. And yeah, even though their

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mention was a failure, I mean, probably the most successful failure of all

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time. I agree. And actually
I know this is for Oklahoma City.

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They have an amazing, amazing museum
there where they're all these awesome space and

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aviation stories and I urge people to
go and listen to those stories because the

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heart of the people never changes and
you'll see some of that going all the

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way back to Wiley Post. In
fact, Doctor Katie Coleman, we could

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talk for hours, I know,
but we'll have to watch your documentary streaming

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on PBS and on Amazon and Apple
TV. The Longest Good Space colon,

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the longest Goodbye out Now. We
thank you for joining us. Thank you

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very much, Leach. Thanks for
listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the

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Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to
listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from

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five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation