Speaker 1: We have in studio NASA astronaut and Space Force Guardian
Speaker 1: Colonel Nick Haig now back on Earth, touring the US
Speaker 1: to talk about life in space, and he's here with
Speaker 1: us in studio.
Speaker 2: Welcome Colonel Haig.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Amy, it's a pleasure to be here, and
Speaker 3: thank you for the warm welcome.
Speaker 1: Oh well, we had a little welcome home party and
Speaker 1: we have some treats and all of that stuff.
Speaker 2: And you know when did you get back. It was
Speaker 2: in March.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the end of March is when we landed.
Speaker 3: It's been about three months. Time flies a couple of
Speaker 3: those months, it flies because I'm just heads down, trying
Speaker 3: to rehabilitate and figure out how to live in gravity.
Speaker 4: Again.
Speaker 3: You spend a while floating around on orbit and you
Speaker 3: forget just how strong gravity is.
Speaker 2: Well, we had talked one other time, and you were
Speaker 2: talking about how you go from completely not knowing which
Speaker 2: direction is up or down and weightlessness, and we talked
Speaker 2: about how you said you got the best sleep of
Speaker 2: your life in space.
Speaker 3: Indeed, indeed, and now I have to suffer an earthing
Speaker 3: Earthlink's fate and sleep in.
Speaker 2: A bed, and is it difficult?
Speaker 3: It's different, you know, you wake up and maybe I
Speaker 3: have a little toss and turn a little bit, or
Speaker 3: my back doesn't feel quite right, or I'm on an
Speaker 3: arm and it just you know, kind of falls asleep
Speaker 3: and I'm like, dang, I wish I was back on
Speaker 3: orbit because that was the best sleep ever.
Speaker 1: Okay, so up in orbit, you were up there for it?
Speaker 1: Was it one hundred and seventy days around there?
Speaker 4: One hundred Yeah, a little over one hundred and seventy days? Okay?
Speaker 1: What there has to be like one thing that you
Speaker 1: absolutely miss about it?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Or is there just one? There isn't just one.
Speaker 3: The obvious stuff is being able to float around and
Speaker 3: flip and just play in microgravity where everything floats, the
Speaker 3: or to float over to the window and then be
Speaker 3: able to see the Earth and the universe in front
Speaker 3: of you in a way that just you can't do
Speaker 3: on the ground. But you know, probably the other thing
Speaker 3: that you might not think about missing my crewmates, I
Speaker 3: spend six months with six other people inside this really
Speaker 3: confined space, and and and you get to know each
Speaker 3: other so well. And then when we hit the ground,
Speaker 3: we kind of go all our separate ways. Uh, and
Speaker 3: and we're doing all these different things, and so you
Speaker 3: don't see them as much as you did while you
Speaker 3: were up there. Uh, and so you miss those friendships.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you still communicate with them a lot?
Speaker 3: Yeah, as you know, as much as we can. And
Speaker 3: unfortunately most of it's on a on a phone because
Speaker 3: we're not in close proximity together. Uh necessarily, but yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, we'll run into each other and it's a
Speaker 3: it's a big hug, and and hey, how you been,
Speaker 3: how's the how's how's rehab going? Yeah, you know, we're
Speaker 3: all all suffering all the aches and pains and and
Speaker 3: and everything that comes with trying to figure out how
Speaker 3: to walk in gravity again.
Speaker 4: And uh, and you know, we.
Speaker 3: Finally get to the point where those aches become age
Speaker 3: appropriate and uh and you're back to normal.
Speaker 1: And you said that you do get it back pretty
Speaker 1: quickly though, that when you come back to Earth, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you got all of this weight on
Speaker 1: you that you didn't have, and your muscles are all
Speaker 1: screwed up because they don't know how to work again.
Speaker 2: But it snaps back, I think, is what you said.
Speaker 4: It does.
Speaker 3: The mind, there's a couple of different layers. The mind
Speaker 3: snaps back and starts to appreciate that you're in an
Speaker 3: environment where everything doesn't float, and it understands what's happening.
Speaker 3: Your balance comes back fairly quick within a couple of days.
Speaker 3: But the and you're strong because while you're on the
Speaker 3: space station two and a half hours a day every day,
Speaker 3: we're lifting weights and.
Speaker 2: We're saw some videos if you work it out, and
Speaker 2: so you.
Speaker 3: Come back strong, but you haven't had to balance and
Speaker 3: you know, stabilize your body, and so all the little muscles,
Speaker 3: all the joints take time to kind of reacclimate. And
Speaker 3: that's kind of the long pole.
Speaker 1: So does it feel a little bit like you're drunk
Speaker 1: or something like you just can't lose your balance, So.
Speaker 4: The wobbly goes away. It feels like you went and
Speaker 4: ran a marathon.
Speaker 3: And it's the day after, and the joints ache, the muscles.
Speaker 2: Ache, yellow legs a little bit.
Speaker 3: You're a little slow trying to, you know, get up
Speaker 3: from sitting. Feels like you're twenty years older than you
Speaker 3: actually are.
Speaker 4: But slowly the body.
Speaker 3: Responds and after a while it's like somebody flipped a
Speaker 3: switch and hey, I'm back to normal.
Speaker 2: And are you?
Speaker 1: Are you back to one hundred percent, you think, yeah,
Speaker 1: for it'll fall over when you're walking anywhere.
Speaker 3: I have fallen over recently. Now back to as normal
Speaker 3: as I can be. The kind of the thing that
Speaker 3: I'm still waiting is you do lose some bone mass
Speaker 3: while you're up there, some bone density, and so your
Speaker 3: body will slowly accumulate that, and that's about a day
Speaker 3: per day. So at about the six month point, I'll
Speaker 3: truly be back to about one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you mentioned cell phones and how you guys
Speaker 1: text each other because you don't get to see each
Speaker 1: other as much. But we were just talking with the
Speaker 1: author of a book called unplugg who we were talking
Speaker 1: about how cell phones just rule your lives and is
Speaker 1: it possible just to turn it off and disconnect for
Speaker 1: a while.
Speaker 2: You had to do that, you had no choice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no cell phone coverage. And on the space station, so.
Speaker 2: Even with all those Starlink satellites.
Speaker 3: Even with all the all the satellites, you know, we
Speaker 3: still have email. We still have the ability to make
Speaker 3: phone calls, which is crazy, talk to somebody on the phone.
Speaker 3: And that's actually one of the things that I enjoyed doing,
Speaker 3: you know, representing the Space Wars. Being being a guardian
Speaker 3: in space, I would take the opportunity every every week
Speaker 3: steal some minutes at the end of a day and
Speaker 3: call down to one of the ops floors and surprise,
Speaker 3: one of the Space Wars guardians is sitting there doing
Speaker 3: the mission that's helping protect me and say, hey, you know,
Speaker 3: just it's Nick on orbit.
Speaker 4: Just want to.
Speaker 3: Say and see how things are going down there. And
Speaker 3: and so it's the power of talking with somebody and
Speaker 3: hearing their voice and and the emotion and the inflections
Speaker 3: and their voice. It's something that you really appreciate. But yeah,
Speaker 3: you're unplugged up there.
Speaker 2: I love that. I love that.
Speaker 1: Okay, we have one hundred other things to ask you,
Speaker 1: and I thought you were going to talk about talking
Speaker 1: to students and stem because I believe you did.
Speaker 2: That while you were up there as well.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, i'd love to ask you that when we come back. Plus,
Speaker 1: we want to find out more about life in space
Speaker 1: and then life back on Earth and what's next for
Speaker 1: Colonel Haig. So if you'll hang tight, absolutely all right,
Speaker 1: this is NASA Astronauts Space Force Guardian Colonel Nick Haig
Speaker 1: live with us in studio this morning.
Speaker 2: Real quick.
Speaker 1: We're going to get in your business with Bloomberg's Courtney Donaho.
Speaker 1: Good morning, Courtney. I know that we are abbreviated today,
Speaker 1: but we have just a couple of things to check
Speaker 1: in on, and one is how are the markets looking today.
Speaker 5: Well, it's looking a little rough out there.
Speaker 2: Good morning.
Speaker 5: We just got a report on the health of the consumer.
Speaker 5: Retail sales felled by the most since the start of
Speaker 5: the year, since May, suggesting that the new tariffs are
Speaker 5: holding back consumers from spending. So this is continuing to
Speaker 5: weigh on stocks, which we're already under pressure from the
Speaker 5: conflict between Israel and Iran. Futures right now down one
Speaker 5: hundred and ninety five points. It was a different story
Speaker 5: yesterday because stocks saw solid gains on a report that
Speaker 5: Aron wanted to restart talks over its nuclear program. That
Speaker 5: down rose three hundred and seventeen points to wrap up
Speaker 5: the session.
Speaker 1: It's amazing how much what's going on in the world
Speaker 1: affects these markets like this, And then wanted to take
Speaker 1: a quick look at Red Lobster.
Speaker 2: It's cooking up a comeback.
Speaker 5: Yes, they're looking to attract a new generation of fans
Speaker 5: with some old favorites. The chain has brought back its
Speaker 5: fried hush puppies and the crispy crunchy popcorn shrimp that
Speaker 5: was always my favorite. But Red Lobster also has refreshed
Speaker 5: its menu with some new items to try to track people,
Speaker 5: including lobster paper, deli pasta, and bacon wrapped scalps bacon.
Speaker 5: All right, yeah, but there's also they fought for bankruptcy,
Speaker 5: you have to remember last year for a number of reasons,
Speaker 5: including their unprofitable unlimited shrimp deals. So they're trying to
Speaker 5: do some things to try to correct all of that.
Speaker 2: But delicious unlimited shrimp deal.
Speaker 1: Yes, getting in your business with Bloomberg's Courtney Donna, who
Speaker 1: let's do it again tomorrow? Shall we definitely see you later?
Speaker 1: All right, thanks Courtney. We are talking to a true
Speaker 1: rocket man. It's NASA astronaut and Space Force Guardian Colonel
Speaker 1: Nick hagu fresh off a trip to the International Space Station.
Speaker 2: And Colonel Haig, this was your second time up there. Oops,
Speaker 2: I got to turn your mica on.
Speaker 4: There we go. Yeah, second time to the Space Station.
Speaker 3: I first, My first time up there was for seven
Speaker 3: months in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, and we got to go back just a little bit,
Speaker 1: because it was it was his second attempt when he
Speaker 1: got to the space station for the first time.
Speaker 3: What happened for the first at You know, if at
Speaker 3: first you don't succeed, try again. In fall of twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: I was launching to the space station for a six
Speaker 3: month mission with a lexe of Chennin on a soy
Speaker 3: Use rocket and we had a failure in the middle
Speaker 3: of the launch that caused us to a board to
Speaker 3: say eject and the capsule came back down. So what
Speaker 3: was supposed to be a six month mission was a
Speaker 3: twenty minute flight.
Speaker 4: Wow, So you.
Speaker 2: Launched, everything looked good and then how far in?
Speaker 4: Yeah, did you know something was We were two minutes in.
Speaker 3: Everything was going fine. The first stage was separating and
Speaker 3: there was a problem where it didn't separate cleanly and
Speaker 3: it impacted the rocket that was continuing to burn, and
Speaker 3: it rapidly disassembled.
Speaker 1: And so I love how you guys did it rapidly disassembled.
Speaker 1: I think that when SpaceX did their what's the name
Speaker 1: of the big rocket starship? Yeah, the starship, they said
Speaker 1: it went for like thirty minutes and then it rapidly disassembled, Like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So it all happened so fast. We were thirty
Speaker 3: miles up, going four thousand miles an hour. In you know,
Speaker 3: the snap of a finger, the alarm goes off, the
Speaker 3: injection system fires some rockets and pulls us away, and
Speaker 3: in there's some side to side shaking, and then we're
Speaker 3: just kind of coasting. We were going so fast. We
Speaker 3: continued to coast uphill until we got right to the
Speaker 3: edge of space.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 1: Okay, So then when you eject, you don't eject like
Speaker 1: a fighter pilot ejectory, and you're still in the capsule.
Speaker 3: So the rockets pulled the capsule away and then we
Speaker 3: landed in the capsule with parashues just like we normally would,
Speaker 3: actually really close to where we were going to land
Speaker 3: six months later, just a little bit earlier than we
Speaker 3: were expecting.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: And this time when you came back after your six months,
Speaker 1: you brought Sonny and Butch back with you. You had to
Speaker 1: make some changes, and if you've been listening to wake
Speaker 1: Up Call, we we got to talk about some of
Speaker 1: those changes as it progressed, where it went from a
Speaker 1: four person crew to a two person crew. That made
Speaker 1: you the commander of the crew nine mission and then
Speaker 1: you went up with two, you came back with four. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I have to ask you when you came back.
Speaker 1: It was the coolest thing that we saw. Because several
Speaker 1: people that I've talked to, and of course I was
Speaker 1: watching when you splash down back on Earth and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, a pod of dolphins shows up in
Speaker 1: the water like twenty feet from the capsule. Did you
Speaker 1: guys get to see that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Inside the capsule we couldn't see it. The windows at
Speaker 3: that point had been charred over from re entry. And
Speaker 3: then they pull us all the way to the boat
Speaker 3: and then take us out. And it wasn't until I
Speaker 3: got back to Houston and somebody showed me, you know,
Speaker 3: put a phone in front of me and said, did
Speaker 3: you see this video?
Speaker 4: And I was like, dolphins.
Speaker 2: It was the most amazing, surreal thing.
Speaker 4: Lead it to nature.
Speaker 3: It's amazing all the technological feats of sending people to
Speaker 3: space and then having them splash down, the challenges of
Speaker 3: integrating crew members that hadn't trained on a vehicle to
Speaker 3: be part of a crew and lands, you know, safely,
Speaker 3: and then nature steals the show.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're back and right now we know that
Speaker 1: you're touring around and meeting with different groups and talking.
Speaker 1: And I know one of the things that you did
Speaker 1: while you're in space is you talk to STEM kids. Yes,
Speaker 1: And why is that so important for you and for
Speaker 1: Space Force and for NASA?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, STEM is that found stem science technology
Speaker 3: education math or engineering math education is such a foundational
Speaker 3: necessity in our society. And and it really is the
Speaker 3: fuel behind the things that that NASA does or the
Speaker 3: things that the Space Force does. And and so it's
Speaker 3: important to reach out to students and let them understand
Speaker 3: the importance of their education and and just and just
Speaker 3: what the opportunities that that education is going to open
Speaker 3: up for them. So every chance I get, you know,
Speaker 3: try to get out and uh and and you know,
Speaker 3: inspire the next generation. I look at the you know,
Speaker 3: I go to go to K twelve schools and and
Speaker 3: look at.
Speaker 4: Them and I'm like, wanted to you do you want
Speaker 4: to be an astro Do you want to walk on Mars?
Speaker 4: Why not? Okay? And and try to inspire them a
Speaker 4: little bit.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: What what was your first like aha moment, Hey, I
Speaker 1: want to be an astronaut.
Speaker 3: I can distinctly remember when I was in elementary school
Speaker 3: and there was an astronaut that visited our high school
Speaker 3: and we brought the entire school together. It's Kansas, so
Speaker 3: a small school system. We brought everybody together and you
Speaker 3: listen to them talk and you realize, you know, that's
Speaker 3: just a person. They came from somewhere. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: I come from somewhere. So why couldn't I do that?
Speaker 3: If that's something that interests.
Speaker 2: Me, I love that.
Speaker 1: So if you had the opportunity, or maybe you already
Speaker 1: know about it, would you go back up?
Speaker 4: Absolutely? The spaceflight is this.
Speaker 3: It on a personal level, a challenge, challenges everything you
Speaker 3: know about the Earth and yourself and the universe that
Speaker 3: we live in. And then just from being able to
Speaker 3: serve and do what we're doing for the country as
Speaker 3: well as for the world. You know, the space station.
Speaker 3: We're up there doing scientific research and we're learning about
Speaker 3: ourselves and the universe around us, and that knowledge is
Speaker 3: for the benefit of humanity, And so how could you
Speaker 3: not want to.
Speaker 4: Be part of that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you said, we're learning about ourselves, and I
Speaker 1: think that when we talked when you first got back,
Speaker 1: you were saying, you're kind of a science experiment for NASA.
Speaker 3: Right now, you know, you raise your hand and you
Speaker 3: can be a guinea pig. And quite a few different experiments,
Speaker 3: and so there was about a dozen this last time
Speaker 3: around where I was the test subject and they were
Speaker 3: poking and prodding and then sometimes shocking, and yes, they
Speaker 3: were shocking. Yeah, we were doing some muscle stimulation, trying
Speaker 3: to see if that might be an effective way to
Speaker 3: avoid having to bring all of that heavy equipment that
Speaker 3: we have to use in order to do weight training.
Speaker 3: As we go to the Moon and on to Mars,
Speaker 3: mass and volume become really precious, and so we're trying
Speaker 3: to figure out alternatives.
Speaker 2: Oh that's so fun.
Speaker 1: Okay, So in the short term, you've got something that
Speaker 1: I am so jealous of. An any Dodger fan, any
Speaker 1: baseball fan, has got to be so jealous of. Tell
Speaker 1: us what you're doing this evening?
Speaker 4: Well, I get to go to the Dodgers.
Speaker 3: Game tonight, Yes, and and get out on the mound
Speaker 3: and throw out a first pitch.
Speaker 2: Can you believe that?
Speaker 4: Are you excited?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I am excited.
Speaker 2: Have you been practicing?
Speaker 4: I've if you may have caught me throwing a ball
Speaker 4: with my son.
Speaker 1: Your son is looking at you right now because he's
Speaker 1: here in studio with us.
Speaker 2: Is he practiced enough?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 4: That was a resounding no.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we'll be watching you.
Speaker 1: And as I mentioned, you're you can channel your inner show, hey,
Speaker 1: because he pitched for the first time last all right,
Speaker 1: all right, Colonel Hag NASA Astronaut, Space Force Guardian.
Speaker 2: It has been such a pleasure to have you.
Speaker 1: I wish we had you all day because I have
Speaker 1: like pages and pages of things that I questions that
Speaker 1: I would love to ask you. But hopefully we'll get
Speaker 1: to talk again soon because I think that your journey
Speaker 1: is not over yet.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Amy.
Speaker 2: All right, Colonel Haig, thank you, thank you so much,