Joe Rogan Experience #1425 - Garrett Reisman

Joe Rogan 0:02 Three, two, one. Welcome. Thanks for doing this, man. I really appreciate it.

Garrett Reisman 0:06 Thanks for inviting me. This is awesome.

Joe Rogan 0:07 Uh, I've seen a bunch of your videos online of you talking about space and your, your, your dream of being an astronaut as a young man. And what, what is it like just to see the Earth from above and to be... You lived up there for like, what, 95 days?

Garrett Reisman 0:22 95 days, which actually is kind of a bummer, to be honest with you. Because, uh... You know this if you saw that video, maybe, but-

Joe Rogan 0:29 Yeah.

Garrett Reisman 0:30 ... the thing is, if you stay for 100 days, they give you a patch, right? And I, I, I'm at day 95 and the Space Shuttle Discovery shows up to bring me home, and Mark Kelly was the commander. He goes, "Garrett, it's time to hop in and come home." And I'm like, "Man, I just need five more days." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 0:47 (laughs) To get that patch.

Garrett Reisman 0:48 Can we just, like, go around a few more times or something? And it didn't work.

Joe Rogan 0:52 Yeah. It seems like 95 days should be enough, man. Give the man a patch.

Garrett Reisman 0:56 Right, right, you know.

Joe Rogan 0:58 What's-

Garrett Reisman 0:58 It's... How much does a patch cost?

Joe Rogan 0:59 What's the longest anybody's stayed up there?

Garrett Reisman 1:02 The longest, um, for an American was Scott Kelly's, uh, nearly a year, in space, is longest, uh, in, in, in a row, basically. Uh, but there's a Russian, uh, that stayed up there for longer than a year, and he has the all-time record.

Joe Rogan 1:15 How... N- and they... When they come back, like, what, what is 90 days like, coming back? Because I've talked to people who've gone there. When they come back, their balance is all off. Their equilibrium's all-

Garrett Reisman 1:27 Yeah, you're-

Joe Rogan 1:28 ... screwy.

Garrett Reisman 1:28 You're kind of... Uh, it, it, it's, uh, you're kind of messed up. And, and your vestibular system is what's affected the most. At least that's what's most noticeable when you first get back. Um, actually, the first thing I noticed, uh, let me back up, is, uh, how heavy things were again. You know, so-

Joe Rogan 1:43 Oh.

Garrett Reisman 1:43 Uh, like I took off my helmet and I was holding it in my hand, and it felt like I was holding the anchor to the USS Nimitz, you know?

Joe Rogan 1:48 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 1:48 (laughs) It's like... I'm like, "How am I ever gonna brush my teeth?" It'd be, like, too arduous, you know.

Joe Rogan 1:53 Does your body severely weaken in 95 days?

Garrett Reisman 1:57 Well, back in the day, back when I was going there... So that mission, my, my long-term mission was back in, uh, 2008. And back then, we were still losing bone density and muscle mass, uh, as we're going up there. The long- about... You lost about 1% of bone every month. So I was about 3% low.

Joe Rogan 2:15 They don't anymore?

Garrett Reisman 2:16 They don't anymore, 'cause we found out ... We, we came up with better countermeasures to prevent that.

Joe Rogan 2:21 What are the countermeasures?

Garrett Reisman 2:22 It's basically working out.

Joe Rogan 2:23 Oh.

Garrett Reisman 2:24 Uh, and it's resistive exercise that, that does it for you. Which we knew back when I was going, but the problem was we had a, uh, in- we had this machine that was kind of a, um, a first generation of the workout machine, and it could do large reps, but, but low load. So you're doing, like, a lot of reps at, at l- at low weight, and, and that helped, but it... But what helps, it turns out, we didn't... We found this out kind of by happenstance, but it turns out that high load, low reps works much better.

Joe Rogan 2:52 Mm.

Garrett Reisman 2:53 And so we got this new machine that you could really crank it up to 11. And the guys now that are, that are working out on that thing are coming home with no bustle, muscle or, or bone loss at all.

Joe Rogan 3:02 Wow. That's, that's... 'Cause who, who... What's the Canadian gentleman that we had on?

Narrator 3:07 Chris Hadfield.

Joe Rogan 3:07 Yes, Chris Hadfield. When, when Commander Hadfield came back, he... I believe he said it took him a whole year to recover.

Garrett Reisman 3:14 Yeah, I mean, that was still, like, in the early... Eh, eh, still kind of in the early days, so he, he... I don't know which machine he used. He probably did use a new one. But overall, it does take... To get everything back, to get your full vestibular system back, your sense of balance, to get your... all your bone, all your muscle back to baseline, it took me a, a year to get all that back too.

Joe Rogan 3:33 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 3:34 It's kind of like rehabbing from a major sports injury.

Joe Rogan 3:37 (sighs) That's gotta be so strange. You-

Garrett Reisman 3:40 I-

Joe Rogan 3:40 Your body just wants to shrivel up when you're up there because there's no gravity.

Garrett Reisman 3:45 Yeah, well, it, it's really interesting 'cause you're... It, it's a, it's an adaptation, and the, and the body is, is incredible. So what it's doing is it's realizing, "Hey, you know, I don't have to carry my own weight anymore."

Joe Rogan 3:54 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 3:55 "So why do I need this big, bulky skeleton?" Right?

Joe Rogan 3:58 Oh, wow.

Garrett Reisman 3:59 It's like you're becoming kinda like a fish, where you're, you're just... you're shedding all the bone density, uh, because you don't have to... Your, your, your body realizes, "I don't need it." Uh, it's like a, it's like a fish in water, you know, that have... fish have very slender bones.

Joe Rogan 4:12 Yeah.

Garrett Reisman 4:12 So-

Joe Rogan 4:12 That's an interesting way to look at it, like a fish.

Garrett Reisman 4:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 4:15 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 4:16 And we fight it by working out.

Joe Rogan 4:18 And how often do you have to work out? Every day?

Garrett Reisman 4:20 Every day.

Joe Rogan 4:21 Every day. How often... Uh, like how much time?

Garrett Reisman 4:22 They, they schedule two hours. Now, you're not on the machine-

Joe Rogan 4:25 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 4:25 ... for two hours, so that's also prepping, you know, getting changed and, uh, you know, cleaning up afterwards. But, um... So you're working out a good hour every day.

Joe Rogan 4:33 What is it like to sweat in space?

Garrett Reisman 4:35 (clicks tongue) It's weird be- (laughs) because-

Joe Rogan 4:38 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 4:38 ... what happens is, uh, it... Y- y- if you don't notice, if y- y- like in the beginning, you don't even realize it, but it's all building up. And even without, like... If, if you have no hair to soak it up, it just builds up like this thin film of water on your head, like a coating of water.

Joe Rogan 4:52 Oh.

Garrett Reisman 4:52 And you don't even notice it, 'cause it doesn't run down. And then, and then somebody calls your name and you're like, "Yeah?" And then (imitates water splashing) like it's like... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 5:00 (laughs) Oh, that's crazy. I never even thought of that. So it just kind of floats off your body?

Garrett Reisman 5:05 Yeah, it's like a dog shaking itself, you know, and it just goes everywhere and it's-

Joe Rogan 5:08 So if you have it on your arm, you can kind of just go (imitates water splashing) and the, the, the sweat will go flying?

Garrett Reisman 5:12 You know, your crewmates won't be too happy with you if you do this a lot, but yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:16 Wow. Oh, that's... Is there video of people doing that in space?

Garrett Reisman 5:20 There's gotta be.

Joe Rogan 5:21 There should be, right?

Garrett Reisman 5:21 We, we've shot so much video. Somebody's gotta have done that, but yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:25 So are you basically doing, like, compound movements like deadlifts and squats and things along those lines?

Garrett Reisman 5:29 Yeah, functional fitness kind of stuff, uh, where, um... But... And you're focusing on certain areas, so y- The bone loss comes mostly from your legs-

Joe Rogan 5:36 Oh.

Garrett Reisman 5:37 ... because you're not loading... So, so basically-

Joe Rogan 5:39 Right.

Garrett Reisman 5:39 ... our bones, um, need a stimulus, uh, to regenerate. And it happens to us every day. So as you walk, as you go up the stairs, that load that the bones feel, the compressive load, is telling the bone, "Hey, make some more."

Joe Rogan 5:52 Mm.

Garrett Reisman 5:53 Now, you take that away and the bone stops making more, and that's the problem. People say, like, "Can't you just take, like, calcium pills?" But it's not a, a mineral deficiency.

Joe Rogan 6:01 It's just-

Garrett Reisman 6:02 It's-

Joe Rogan 6:02 ... a load.

Garrett Reisman 6:03 It's- it's no load.

Joe Rogan 6:03 He- that's interesting that the body adapts so quickly.

Garrett Reisman 6:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 6:07 That 90 days has such a- and if you didn't do anything for 90 days at all, you'd be in real trouble, right?

Garrett Reisman 6:12 Yeah. That's what's really kinda freaky is th- thinking about, like, well, what if we don't fight this? Because all these adaptations you go through are not a problem when you're in space. It's only a problem if you wanna come home.

Joe Rogan 6:24 Right.

Garrett Reisman 6:25 Right? Losing that bone, um, even, like, not using your vestibular organs anymore, your semicircular canals, your otolith organs, you're not making use of those for your balance. You're just going purely on the visual. What that does initially is it'll make you kinda sick. You get kinda- it's like being airsick or seasick. But once your body adapts, you're fine. So the question is, like, what would we become if we didn't fight it? What if we just went with it and stayed up there?

Joe Rogan 6:52 Be like a water balloon.

Garrett Reisman 6:54 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 6:54 What would you become? Right?

Garrett Reisman 6:55 You'd become- actually, the- the- the place that I think in science fiction that gets it the most correct is if you watch the- The Expanse. You ever watch that show?

Joe Rogan 7:03 No. I heard it's a really good show. I never got into it though.

Garrett Reisman 7:05 It's good. And- and- and they get it right because they show people like these Belters that live in partial gravity, like, their whole lives, and they have much slend- more slender bones.

Joe Rogan 7:13 Oh.

Garrett Reisman 7:14 And like, they catch this, like, terrorist guy, and they wanna torture him, and all they do is they make him stand up in gravity in- on Earth, and that- it's incredibly painful for him. And I'm like-

Joe Rogan 7:23 Oh, wow.

Garrett Reisman 7:24 Yeah. That would probably be what would happen.

Joe Rogan 7:27 And it must take a long-ass time to get everything ba- if you went from Earth gravity to the space station and you lived up there for a year and didn't do anything about it, and then came back to Earth, I mean, you'd basically be like- it would be hard to crawl, right?

Garrett Reisman 7:41 Yeah. You- you would- you're- you're, um, you're all- all your- if you don't try to fight it, um, you- you- you- the vestibular stuff would come back probably about the same rate, but w- you would be really hurting with your muscle atrophy and your bone. So you would- you would lose a lot of your skeleton if you were up there for a year and did nothing. And you would also- your- y- all your muscles that you don't use, like in your legs and your postural muscles on your lower back-

Joe Rogan 8:06 Mm-hmm.

Garrett Reisman 8:06 ... you're not using those anymore. So they would just, like, waste away to nothing. You'd be okay in your arms 'cause you're doing everythi- you're- everything you do is with your arms. That's how you move. That's how you get around is by pulling and pushing. But you don't- you don't- there's no walking. There's no stairs. There's nothing.

Joe Rogan 8:21 Does it affect the way you think at all?

Garrett Reisman 8:25 You know, the- some- some people describe a- a- kind of a- a- an issue with short-term memory. They call it, like, space brain.

Joe Rogan 8:31 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 8:31 And (laughs) with-

Joe Rogan 8:32 Boy, is that- a small group of people that would understand what you're talking about there.

Garrett Reisman 8:35 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:36 Oh, I got space brain. Bro, I got that too.

Garrett Reisman 8:38 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 8:39 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 8:40 (laughs) So it's- it- it's, uh, something that, um, I- I never really noticed it, but, um, I don't know how much of that is real and how much is just that it's like- like you're freaking out 'cause you're in space, right? So it's distracting, and maybe you forget, like, what that number was you were supposed to remember, but...

Joe Rogan 8:56 Mm-hmm.

Garrett Reisman 8:56 You know, like, if you're really in the middle of something and- and you're all excited and- or, uh, and- and- and you kinda can't remember somebody's phone number, it's kinda like- kinda like that.

Joe Rogan 9:06 Oh, okay. So it's just- well, I would imagine that just being up there breathing that recirculated air has gotta be odd, right?

Garrett Reisman 9:14 Yeah. And it might stink, but I don't know because the other thing that happens is you have this big fluid shift. So right now, we have a lot of blood pooling up in our legs, and our- our heart, its most important job, of course, is to feed the brain oxygenated blood. And then when you take the gravity vector out of the picture, the heart sends too much up to the brain, and the stuff doesn't collect in our legs anymore, and it all shoots up here, and you get this shift of all that blood volume to your upper body, and your head gets all puffed up.

Joe Rogan 9:46 Whoa.

Garrett Reisman 9:47 Yeah, like my- so my first night in space, I- I, uh, went to sleep, which was kinda hard to do 'cause you're in space. You don't wanna go to sleep, right? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 9:55 Yeah.

Garrett Reisman 9:56 Um, and on that first night, um, I- I woke up in the middle of the night, and I could've sworn I was standing on my head doing a headstand or a handstand. I'm like, "Why am I up standing on my head in my sleep?" This is strange, right? And then I looked out the window, I saw the Earth, I'm like, "Oh, that's right, I'm in space." (laughs) You know, like...

Joe Rogan 10:15 So all the blood was just kinda pooling in your head-

Garrett Reisman 10:18 Yeah. It's-

Joe Rogan 10:18 ... as if you were, like, hanging by gravity boots or something.

Garrett Reisman 10:21 It f- it feels exactly like that.

Joe Rogan 10:22 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 10:23 And then after a day or two, you- you get used to it, and it doesn't bother you anymore. But you feel congested 'cause you still have all this volume up here. So your sense of smell and your sense of taste are- are all deadened.

Joe Rogan 10:34 Oh, wow.

Garrett Reisman 10:35 It's kinda like... yeah. So it's kinda like when you have a cold and you- and- and your sense of smell and your sense of taste are, like, not as strong. So it's like that all the time. That's why we take- uh, we- we cover- we have every hot sauce known to- to humankind up on the space station.

Joe Rogan 10:51 Oh, really?

Garrett Reisman 10:51 We have, like, sriracha. We got, uh, you know, Louisiana Cajun fire sauce and all- whatever. We got, like, a whole stockpile of it because you- you pour that on everything so you can get some taste 'cause otherwise everything tastes really bland.

Joe Rogan 11:04 Oh, wow. Now what are you eating up there?

Garrett Reisman 11:07 Oh, it's terrible. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 11:08 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 11:10 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:11 Is it freeze-dried foods mostly, or?

Garrett Reisman 11:12 Mo- yeah. You don't go for the food, all right? This is not like a foodie holiday.

Joe Rogan 11:16 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 11:16 (laughs) You know? It's like... The- the, uh, so you got basically two choices. You have the American food, which is essentially MREs, like military freeze-dried, irradiated, uh, you know, infinite shelf life kind of stuff. And, uh, and then the Russian food is also based on their military rations but from submarines. And that- and the Russian food actually tastes better, but the problem is one of presentation because it comes in cans. So you get these- these cans, and even though it tastes good, you open that can up and you look at it, and it's like, God, it looks like dog food. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 11:53 (laughs) Just, like, congealed and-

Garrett Reisman 11:55 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 11:56 ... but it tastes better?

Garrett Reisman 11:57 It- it- it tastes better. Uh, but it's just, like, so unappetizing when you open that can up and p-... you know?

Joe Rogan 12:04 Mm-hmm.

Garrett Reisman 12:04 It's just not-

Joe Rogan 12:06 Y- does... What, what would happen if you brought fresh things up there? Would they... would they rot at the same rate that they would rot in America?

Garrett Reisman 12:13 Well, yeah. The on- th- the thing is, um, we have no refrigeration. Or w- we didn't when I was there. They actually have a small refrigerator now. So, you can't have anything that c- uh, needs to be refrigerated.

Joe Rogan 12:24 Hmm.

Garrett Reisman 12:24 But you would usually... Like, for the first couple of days, we'd take a bag of fresh food and we took, like, sandwiches and, and, and, uh, fruits and vegetables and stuff, and then... 'Cause that's the last time you're gonna have it. After that, it's all gonna be just the stuff in the packets that you add water to.

Joe Rogan 12:39 Now, when... The first day you ac- actually got up there, was that the first time you had ever been in space?

Garrett Reisman 12:46 Uh, my first mission, yeah. The first... Yeah, it was the first time in space.

Joe Rogan 12:49 So, your first view of the Earth from above.

Garrett Reisman 12:51 Yeah. It was that right there. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 12:53 What is that like?

Garrett Reisman 12:54 Wow. Well, I didn't see it right away 'cause I was in the mid-deck, the downstairs of the shuttle, and there's only one window down there and it's in the corner, okay? So it's in the hatch and it's, like, the size of a dinner plate. And I was up there... You got a lot of work to do when you... as soon as you get up there. So I'm working like crazy, and after about 30 minutes, I see this pale blue glow coming from that window and I'm like, "W- that's the Earth, you know. I, I should have a look at that." And I was super excited for this, you know? So I wanted to be ready, so I paused, I closed my eyes, I meditated, you know, call it whatever you want. I just got ready. And when I felt like I was ready, I floated up to that window and I opened up my eyes and I gazed out for the very first time at the Earth from space. And what that felt like, is, is really, really hard to, to describe in words. But if I had to pick one word to describe what I was feeling at that moment, it would be "meh." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:00 Really?

Garrett Reisman 14:01 Yeah, man. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:02 Just meh?

Garrett Reisman 14:03 Just meh. I mean, it was all right. It was pretty. It had a lot of, like, those Earth colors, like blues and greens.

Joe Rogan 14:08 Right.

Garrett Reisman 14:09 But, man, we've all seen pictures of the Earth, uh, from space, okay? I mean, we got, like, HD video coming down from space now, where it's just spectacular. You could see stuff in that video that you can't even see with your own eyes, like, uh, like the aurora and all that.

Joe Rogan 14:24 Mm-hmm.

Garrett Reisman 14:25 And I'm sure, like, John Glenn and, and, like, Yuri Gagarin had no idea what to expect, and so when they looked out and they saw the Earth, they freaked out, you know, and it, and it was amazing. And, and it was beautiful, but it was... it was underwhelming. I g- I guess my expectations were so high.

Joe Rogan 14:40 Hmm.

Garrett Reisman 14:40 Like, I felt like there should be, like, some heavenly choir and that we should all s-

Joe Rogan 14:43 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 14:43 ... hold hands and sing Kumbaya, you know? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 14:47 Yeah. Most people that have done it, they talk about this realization that you... like, th- this inescapable realization that we're all on this thing together and that all these boundaries of civilizations and cultures and countries and continents are all nonsense. We're really just all in this one thing together.

Garrett Reisman 15:07 Yeah, they call that the overview effect.

Joe Rogan 15:09 Hmm.

Garrett Reisman 15:09 And a lot of guys come back and talk about that, and they really feel it, and they talk about a world without borders and...

Joe Rogan 15:14 Yeah.

Garrett Reisman 15:15 And it's a beautiful sentiment and I, and I don't... I don't wanna knock that in any way-

Joe Rogan 15:19 But meh. (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 15:21 ... because... (laughs) Yeah. (laughs) I- it's like... Like, really?

Joe Rogan 15:24 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 15:24 A war without bo- what'd you expect to see? You expect to look down and see, like, dotted lines between all the countries, you know? (laughs)

Joe Rogan 15:29 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 15:30 Like... Uh, you know, I guess, it- it... you do... you... It's inescapable. When you look down and you see the planet and you realize that we're all in the same boat, you know? But, uh, that didn't strike me as a... as a sudden realization because... I think it's because I knew that before I went. It... You shouldn't have to go and strap into a rocket and blast off and look at the Earth and know that basically we're all human beings, I think. I mean, I think the things that unite us are so much stronger and more important than the... than the crazy little things that divide us, like race or sex or nationality or politics or whatever. Um, and, and y- y- you... At the end of the day, we have this one home and, and we're all stuck here in it together. So, I, I had that strong knowledge before I went, and maybe that's why when I looked down, I'm like, "Yeah, there it is. Okay. I get it."

Joe Rogan 16:24 Hmm.

Garrett Reisman 16:25 But it wasn't like all of a sudden, like, the, the, the shade was pulled back and there was, like, suddenly a new realization about life.

Joe Rogan 16:34 Well, is there one place that's the spot on the space station to get the view? Where-

Garrett Reisman 16:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:39 ... you really get a big window?

Garrett Reisman 16:41 There's this huge window, uh, called the cupola that wasn't there in my first mission, but it was there in my second mission. I... So I got to see it the second time.

Joe Rogan 16:48 They added a window?

Garrett Reisman 16:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 16:49 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 16:50 It's not... Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 16:51 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 16:52 It's like, "Hmm. Let's get the Sawzall and put the..." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 16:55 (laughs) Yeah, how do you add a window to the space station? (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 16:57 Yeah, you just, you know, get the... No. It, it, it's a... It... They added a whole module in the-

Joe Rogan 17:02 Oh.

Garrett Reisman 17:02 ... module had, had this cupola, which is like a... a-

Joe Rogan 17:05 Is that it right there? Is that what you're looking through?

Garrett Reisman 17:07 That's exactly it. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 17:08 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 17:10 So this-

Joe Rogan 17:10 That's- that's pretty tight.

Garrett Reisman 17:11 It's like a... It's a dome, and so you get the full 360 view and it's spectacular.

Joe Rogan 17:17 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 17:18 And we tell the guys that don't get to do a spacewalk that this view is just as good as doing a spacewalk.

Joe Rogan 17:25 But it's not.

Garrett Reisman 17:25 It's not.

Joe Rogan 17:26 It's not.

Garrett Reisman 17:27 But don't tell them because it, it makes them feel better. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 17:29 They're gonna listen.

Garrett Reisman 17:30 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 17:31 What is a spacewalk like?

Garrett Reisman 17:33 Oh, man. Well, first I gotta tell you that the likelihood of me doing a spacewalk was, like, slim to none. Uh, uh, when I first got there... They tell you that... when you're interviewing to become an astronaut, to go talk to some of the other astronauts, and so I went in there and we had this presentation about spacewalking and it seemed like to be the... like, the ultimate experience, just an incredible thing, and I wanted to do it bad. So I went and I'm talking to this one astronaut and he's a pretty tall guy. Um, for those of you that can't tell from the podcast, I'm f- I'm 5'4", okay? So I'm not, like... not, like, a real-... towering individual. Little vertically challenged, I guess. And I'm talking to this real tall astronaut, and I said, "You know, just heard about this spacewalking. It sounds awesome. I want ... I, I've been living in California. I've been doing, like, some rock climbing, some scuba diving. Maybe that'd make me a good candidate to do a spacewalk." And this tall astronaut looked at me, like right in the eye, and he laughed in my face. (laughs) He said-

Joe Rogan 18:35 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 18:35 (laughs) He said, "What are you, four foot what?" (laughs)

Joe Rogan 18:40 How rude.

Garrett Reisman 18:41 I know. My, my first, uh, thought was, you know, I thought astronauts were supposed to be polite, and this guy, like, was not being nice. But he was, he was actually just being brutally honest. You know, it was kinda tough love, and he was like, "Listen, the suit is one size fits all. You're gonna get in that thing, and it's gonna swallow you up, and you're not gonna be able to do anything. You're gonna be useless. So this is impossible. Forget about it." So I was kinda pissed off, but, uh, but I wasn't gonna let this guy stop me, right? So I get there. I got the job, and I go down for my first training exercise, which was in this huge pool we got in Houston. And it's like, uh, it's 100 feet wide, 200 feet long, 40 feet deep, and we can fit, like, most of the Space Station in there. And they get a crane that comes by. They put you in the suit, which weighs, you know, something like 175 pounds and stuff, with the- w- w- a- and, and then, uh, in addition, you, you're in it too. It picks you up, and they plop you in the water, and you float around, and it's kinda like being up in space. And that's how we train. So I get down there. It's my fir- very first exercise, and I could tell in the first five minutes of this training exercise, that big tall astronaut that laughed in my face was right. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 19:54 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 19:56 I was not ... I was failing. I was, I was not doing well. I was, uh, I was screwing up. I was like ... It just wasn't going well.

Joe Rogan 20:03 Why do they make a one size fits all suit? It seems-

Garrett Reisman 20:07 They have the ability to alter the arms and the legs a little bit, and they have, um, they ... It, it's actually three different size upper torsos. There's a, there's a medium, a large, and an extra large. But that's it. It's limited, and, and because it costs a lot of money-

Joe Rogan 20:22 Mm-hmm.

Garrett Reisman 20:22 ... to make different sizes, so there's only ... The gloves they can tailor 'cause that's actually the most important thing. But I'm, I'm getting my butt kicked, you know? And I, and I got a, uh, uh, a needs improvement, which is a NASA nice way of saying, "You failed," all right? But I, I wasn't ready to give up. I went and, uh, I knew I was gonna need help. So I talked to, um, the people that make the suit, and they did some of those things. Uh, like they shortened up the arms. They fixed it up a little bit for me. And then I talked to the, the trainers, and we said, "Okay, yeah, we gotta think outside the box here. If we give you the standard procedure, you're gonna be at a disadvantage. But maybe we change your body positions. Instead of going straight onto the work site, maybe we come at the work site from the side, so we get more reach that way, and ..." We started working at it, and we got better and better. And the end of the story is that, uh, I got to ... Eventually I got the highest possible qualification to do the most complicated spacewalks we do, and I ended up doing three different spacewalks-

Joe Rogan 21:20 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 21:20 ... over the course of my career. And that big tall guy (laughs) that laughed in my face? He didn't get to do any.

Joe Rogan 21:28 Oh.

Garrett Reisman 21:28 (lips smacking) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 21:28 That's what you get for talking shit, sir. Look at you out there.

Garrett Reisman 21:32 Yeah. That's me.

Joe Rogan 21:34 Now, what is that feeling like? 'Cause it's gotta feel insane when you're strapped to a, a space station that's floating around, and you're, you're just hanging by a cord.

Garrett Reisman 21:45 Yeah. Well, you're holding on tight. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 21:47 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 21:47 Yeah, and then you do have that safety tether that you see there, and, and, uh, uh, you know, they can prepare you for everything except for the visual. So when you, like, are in the pool, you're staring at the pool wall. When you get up there, and you see the whole Earth below you, some people go out there and get, like, a sense of fear of falling, um.

Joe Rogan 22:07 Mm-hmm.

Garrett Reisman 22:07 But of course, you ... If you let go, you're not going anywhere.

Joe Rogan 22:10 Right.

Garrett Reisman 22:10 The space station's moving 17,500 miles an hour, but so are you. So it's kinda like doing a wing, wing walking on an airplane, but with no air to blow you off the wing. So when you look at the Space Station, it's, it's rock solid. But you look down, and some people get the fear of falling, and, and then they hold on real tight, which is a terrible, terrible mistake because we call it spacewalking, but you're not walking. You're, you're doing everything with your arms.

Joe Rogan 22:36 So you can wear your arms out?

Garrett Reisman 22:37 Exactly.

Joe Rogan 22:38 Oh.

Garrett Reisman 22:38 So then if you're, you're climbing, and you get, like, kinda totally thrashed-

Joe Rogan 22:42 Mm-hmm.

Garrett Reisman 22:42 ... in your forearms, and it ... Now you get that claw hand, and it's useless.

Joe Rogan 22:45 Yeah.

Garrett Reisman 22:45 You can do that, and you got like seven and a half hours to go.

Joe Rogan 22:49 (gasps)

Garrett Reisman 22:49 And that's bad. So-

Joe Rogan 22:51 So you're out there for seven and a half hours?

Garrett Reisman 22:54 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:55 What if you have to pee?

Garrett Reisman 22:57 Diaper.

Joe Rogan 22:58 Diaper?

Garrett Reisman 22:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 22:59 Poop as well?

Garrett Reisman 23:00 Try to avoid that. I, I ... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:03 You do your best?

Garrett Reisman 23:04 I, uh, as a, as a scientist, I had to experiment, right?

Joe Rogan 23:08 Of course.

Garrett Reisman 23:09 So during a training exercise, I waited till, like, the very end, just in case, you know? And I let one go, uh, right before they pulled me out of the pool one day, and I resolved never ever to do that again. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:21 (laughs) Is that number one or number two you let go?

Garrett Reisman 23:22 Number two, yep.

Joe Rogan 23:23 Oh, boy.

Garrett Reisman 23:24 Number one, it's no big deal.

Joe Rogan 23:26 Yeah, I w- I ... Save that project. I, I would've, I could've told you what was gonna happen. (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 23:29 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 23:29 That's disgusting. And you're doing it in a pool too. You're not doing it in actual space space.

Garrett Reisman 23:35 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:35 To be one of the rare people that has actually pooped in space would be very interesting.

Garrett Reisman 23:40 That's a, that's ... You know when we keep all these records? I don't know-

Joe Rogan 23:42 Mm-hmm.

Garrett Reisman 23:42 ... who's got that record. (laughs) It's not me.

Joe Rogan 23:44 Diaper, ugh.

Garrett Reisman 23:46 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:46 Boy. So you just have to let it go when you're up there?

Garrett Reisman 23:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 23:49 And so what di- what are you doing when you're out there? So if you're doing seven and a half hours worth of work ...

Garrett Reisman 23:54 You're, you're basically doing maintenance. So it's kinda like being a mechanic or a technician the way I describe it, but the suit is, like, so hard it restricts everything you do 'cause it's blown up to, um, about four pounds per square inch. And so even, um, just closing your fists takes work.... 'cause it, it, the suit's like a balloon, it wants to stay like this. And so just closing your fingers is, is, takes effort, and over seven and a half hours, that gets really fatiguing. You're moving your arms, everything is ... And, and the suit can only move ... Like, you can't do this, right? You can do this, maybe. So your, your, your ability to raise up your shoulders is really limited. So you're trying to do all this work, but you're working inside this suit, and I describe it as like it's like trying to change the oil in your car while wearing a medieval suit of armor.

Joe Rogan 24:40 Ah. (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 24:41 It's hard. (coughs)

Joe Rogan 24:43 And what, what kind of maintenance are you doing on the outside of the spaceship?

Garrett Reisman 24:47 Uh, you know, we're cleaning the windows, getting the bugs off and, uh ... (laughs)

Joe Rogan 24:52 Like-

Garrett Reisman 24:52 No, we're, uh, oh, yeah. That, that's another. On this particular spacewalk, we were assembling a robot, uh, that we took up there. But we did other things, like, we put a new antenna on top of the space station. We, um, h- swapped out a bunch of batteries that were getting old. Um, did, you know, stuff like that.

Joe Rogan 25:09 That's fascinating. So you have to, you have to have some real understanding of m- mechanical things as well.

Garrett Reisman 25:16 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 25:16 I mean, you, you're putting stuff together.

Garrett Reisman 25:18 Yeah, exactly. I mean, it, you, uh ... It really helps to have some kind of mechanical aptitude. I mean, a lot of us like working on our cars or building things in our garage, you know, hobbyist kind of stuff. We actually started right out, as I was leaving NASA, which was back in 2010, we started up, like, kind of an informal program where we're, we were, like, going over each o- others' garages and doing car repair stuff just to get more hands-on experience, uh, with that kinda thing.

Joe Rogan 25:43 So when ... Like, say, if you have to do an antenna up there, is that something you're trained for on Earth in the pool, and then you go up there and do it?

Garrett Reisman 25:51 During the shuttle days, absolutely. Everything we did was choreographed down to, like, exactly where I'm gonna put ... what, what handrail I'm gonna put my toolbox on. I mean, everything is all-

Joe Rogan 26:00 Hm.

Garrett Reisman 26:00 ... figured out in advance. (clears throat) But nowadays, and sometimes on space station even when I was there, when things break, you don't have the luxury of training. Now, for ... If we're gonna do a shuttle mission, we're doing a really complex spacewalk, we'll do everything we're gonna do in space at least 10 times in the pool first. But th- these days, you don't have that luxury. Something breaks, and you, you brief a, you brief it, you talk about it, you, you, you have some PowerPoints, and then you're out the door, and you gotta go do it.

Joe Rogan 26:26 So how much briefing and how many PowerPoints?

Garrett Reisman 26:29 The training that goes on prior to one of these unscheduled EVAs is, um, you know, typically on the order of, like, a day's worth of activity, all told.

Joe Rogan 26:37 So are these PowerPoints preloaded onto the space station, and you get it, or do they have to beam it up to you?

Garrett Reisman 26:43 It depends on exactly what you're, what you're doing. So we identify, like, the most likely and the most serious things that could go wrong, and we practice those in the pool, and we have all those procedures suitcase before we ever go. But then sometimes you get a surprise, you know? Sometimes something breaks you weren't expecting that break, or breaks in a certain way, or there's a complication that you weren't planning on, and then you gotta improvise.

Joe Rogan 27:03 Wow. That's gotta be crazy, 'cause it ... I mean, and you're probably doing things that other people on the space station maybe haven't done, so there, there's no one that can tell you, "Hey, I did it. It's no big deal."

Garrett Reisman 27:14 Yeah, but, you know, e- even if you're doing something that you rehearsed 10 times, and you think you got it all figured out, you still get surprised when you actually get up there. Uh, the big one that I remember is on, on my second spacewalk, we're connecting this dish antenna, and it had to go on top of this big boom, like a big pedestal, and there was a connector that had a, an electrical connector. And we had, uh, ab- like, an hour or so to connect the thing, and without it connected, it wasn't getting any power or data, uh, to that antenna. And it can get too cold, and this gazillion-dollar antenna could be a worthless hunk of junk if you take too long. You're on the clock, 'cause when it was in the shuttle, it was plugged in. It was getting its, its heaters were on, and now you gotta plug it back in and get the heaters back on in a certain amount of time. And so we're like, "Okay, we planned this. We trained this." We get up there, and the connectors won't go together. Like, it doesn't fit, and these two pieces of equipment sat next to each other for, like, a year in Florida in a, like, a warehouse, and nobody ever thought, "Well, oh, maybe we should make sure this thing fits." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 28:15 Oh, no.

Garrett Reisman 28:16 Yeah, (laughs) and we get up there, like, "It doesn't fit." And we're like, "Crap," you know? What do we do?" So, uh, we're shoving, and we're shoving so hard, we're pushing on this thing so hard that the guys inside the space station said they, they feel the space station shaking. Like, that's how hard we were trying. And then we see little metal shavings come off, and one of those, they can get in the connectors. We're like, "That's bad." So we stopped and, uh, and then, and then this was, like, kinda my, my big hero moment. You know, like, in the movies, they, like, Brad Pitt saves the solar system and stuff.

Joe Rogan 28:49 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 28:49 You know, this is my thing, all right? It's not that exciting, but, uh, I thought ... I, I, I had this idea. I said, "Hey," um ... The, the problem we were basically having was that the female side was too small and, uh, and the male side was too big for it to fit together. So I said to the, uh, one of my crew mates inside, I said, "Hey, how long till the sun comes up?" 'Cause, you know, it takes 90 minutes to go around the, the Earth, and every 45 minutes, the sun is either coming up or going down. So it can't be that long. And he goes, "Actually, about 10 minutes," 'cause we were behind the Earth and it was dark, and then in 10 minutes, the sun was gonna come up. I'm like, "Perfect." So I took the, um, the, the female side, um ... Oh, I'm s- I'm sorry. I took the, I took the male side, and I held it in my glove, okay? And I put it behind the structure away ... I knew the sun was gonna be coming from here, so I put it in the shadow, and I waited for the sun to come up and it hit the female side. And the temperature difference if you're in the sun or in the shade is, like, can be up to, like, 600 degrees Fahrenheit difference. So I let the sun hit it and warm it up, and then I took the male side quickly out of my, my insulated hand and away from the shadow, and I slid it in, and it p- went right in.

Joe Rogan 29:59 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 30:00 And that was it. Saved the day.

Joe Rogan 30:02 So you just deduced this just understanding how things change according to temperature?

Garrett Reisman 30:06 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:07 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 30:07 Thermal expansion.

Joe Rogan 30:09 Wow. Dude.

Garrett Reisman 30:10 Yeah. So that's-

Joe Rogan 30:11 That's incredible.

Garrett Reisman 30:12 Uh, yeah, that was my thing.

Joe Rogan 30:13 Did you yell at the people who manufactured it?

Garrett Reisman 30:15 No.

Joe Rogan 30:15 Okay.

Garrett Reisman 30:16 ... we were so happy. We- I, I have video of this that you can... And, and, uh, we were, we were going, "Woo-hoo!" Giving each other high-fives in the suits, and we were doing like, "Woo!"

Joe Rogan 30:24 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 30:25 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 30:25 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 30:26 It, it was, uh- it was victory.

Joe Rogan 30:28 That's a great victory, though. That really is, that you figured that out.

Garrett Reisman 30:30 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 30:31 A lot of people would have been stuck up there. How the fuck did no one try it before they went up there?

Garrett Reisman 30:36 I don't know. Maybe they did, and it just, like... Maybe they weren't... When it got up to space and, and it experienced those different temperatures, it, it, it expanded differently. I don't know for sure. But... So I'm not pointing any fingers, but it didn't work, and, uh... But we solved it. And that's, that's the kind of thing that you can't, like... Until we have AI or something that can really learn, we- you can't code that, so that's a real-

Joe Rogan 30:57 Right.

Garrett Reisman 30:57 ... benefit that humans bring to the-

Joe Rogan 30:59 Ah.

Garrett Reisman 30:59 ... to the equation. Uh, being able to do... To be able to adapt to something you didn't expect.

Joe Rogan 31:04 Otherwise, that thing would have been junk.

Garrett Reisman 31:06 Yeah. If a robot's doing it, you're, you're stuck. It's gonna keep pushing. It's not gonna, you know... You're not gonna be able to-

Joe Rogan 31:11 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 31:11 ... reprogram it.

Joe Rogan 31:12 Now, that feeling that you were talking about, of looking out the window where it was kinda meh, and then the difference between that and a spacewalk, is that where you get this real sense of being in space, above the Earth?

Garrett Reisman 31:26 The spacewalk, you can't... Yeah, it, it... That's breathtaking, because you have this helmet that's like a giant fishbowl, and you don't... After a while, you kinda forget that it's there, and you're just like... It's like, you know the old Superman with Christopher Reeve, when he's like flying around the Earth, and he's just-

Joe Rogan 31:40 Mm-hmm.

Garrett Reisman 31:40 ... like, in his underwear or whatever?

Joe Rogan 31:41 Yeah. (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 31:42 (laughs) It's like that, because you forget. Like, have you ever have gone scuba diving, and you get to the point where you just kinda forget you have the mask on?

Joe Rogan 31:50 I've never scuba dived. I've only snorkeled.

Garrett Reisman 31:52 Ah. If you, if you spend a lot of time down there, you can get to the point where you kinda, like, forget that you're, that you're in a- this alien environment, and it becomes, like... You become one with it.

Joe Rogan 32:01 Mm-hmm.

Garrett Reisman 32:02 And that's, um, just a wonderful thing.

Joe Rogan 32:04 Well, you've done underwater exploration as well.

Garrett Reisman 32:07 Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:08 What have you done there?

Garrett Reisman 32:10 I lived for two weeks, uh, in the bottom of the sea.

Joe Rogan 32:12 Oh, Jesus.

Garrett Reisman 32:13 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:15 (laughs) Oh, I get weirded out. I get weirded out just talking, just you saying that, like...

Garrett Reisman 32:20 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 32:20 Two weeks at the bottom of the ocean?

Garrett Reisman 32:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:22 How deep?

Garrett Reisman 32:23 Uh, it was exactly, uh, 20,000 millimeters under the sea. It was about 60 feet, which works out to be about...

Joe Rogan 32:30 Oh, only 60 feet? That's okay.

Garrett Reisman 32:31 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 32:32 That doesn't freak me out too much. I thought you were gonna say, like, miles.

Garrett Reisman 32:35 No.

Joe Rogan 32:35 I'd start panicking. (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 32:36 No, it's about 60 feet. (laughs) But, but the cool thing was we stayed there for weeks.

Joe Rogan 32:41 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 32:41 Now, now, if you're normal- if you're normally scuba diving, and you go down 60 feet, you have 60 minutes, and then you gotta come back up, or you- or you get too much nitrogen in your blood and you're gonna get bent, right?

Joe Rogan 32:52 Mm-hmm.

Garrett Reisman 32:53 So, uh, so we... If you... But it- it's not a problem if you just stay. The problem is, then if you stay, you build up all that nitrogen in your blood. Now you can't go back up. So, like, if you run out of air or you lose sight of your buddy or something, you can't go to the surface, 'cause within a couple hours you'll be dead.

Joe Rogan 33:11 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 33:12 So you have to stay down there. And we used cave-diving techniques, and that we did a lot of training for to be safe. And we had redundant tanks, redundant manifolds, redundant, um, regulators. And we had valves that we can flip around so we can always make sure we can get air without ever having to, in an emergency, ever having to come up, 'cause coming up is not an option.

Joe Rogan 33:34 So, how do you eventually get out?

Garrett Reisman 33:37 It's a freaky thing. It takes about a day. And what you do is you take... So we- we were living in this habitat, and it was kinda like a submarine on the bottom of the ocean, but it didn't have a motor so it just, like, stuck on the floor. It was like a big, like a big, uh, cylinder. And it had a hole cut in the side here, and, um, and the only thing that was keeping the ocean out was the air pressure inside.

Joe Rogan 33:59 Whoa.

Garrett Reisman 33:59 Kinda like taking a cup and flipping it over, putting it in a bathtub and trapping the air.

Joe Rogan 34:04 Oh, God.

Garrett Reisman 34:05 And you just scuba dive on down, and then you swim into that thing. And then if- then once you pop up in that hole, it's like you're in a swimming pool inside the habitat, and then you just step out into the habitat.

Joe Rogan 34:17 Whoa.

Garrett Reisman 34:17 It's... Have you ever seen the movie, uh, The Abyss?

Joe Rogan 34:19 Yes.

Garrett Reisman 34:20 It-

Joe Rogan 34:20 It's like that.

Garrett Reisman 34:20 ... it's like that.

Joe Rogan 34:21 Oh.

Garrett Reisman 34:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 34:23 How accurate is that movie?

Garrett Reisman 34:25 I think, uh, what- what's the guy, what's the Navy SEAL in there? He gets like, like, uh...

Joe Rogan 34:29 Gets crazy from the bends.

Garrett Reisman 34:30 Gets like, like, uh, what do they call it? Uh, deep dementia or something?

Joe Rogan 34:33 Yeah. Is that fake?

Garrett Reisman 34:34 Yeah, that's fake. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 34:35 Damn. Goddamn Hollywood.

Garrett Reisman 34:37 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 34:37 So, this process of getting back to surface level, how long... You said it takes a day. What do you have to do?

Garrett Reisman 34:46 So what you do is you close up that hole and you convert the habitat into a pressure chamber, and what you do is you very, very slowly bring the pressure back to sea level. So you decrease the pressure and you slowly... As if- as if you're slowly, slowly going up in the water column. And then over- as you do it gradually, the, the nitrogen slowly comes out of your blood, and you can feel it. It kinda tingles.

Joe Rogan 35:07 Oh, wow.

Garrett Reisman 35:08 Over the course of a day, you just lie... You try to lie still in your bunk and just, like, read a book or something, and- but you feel, like, this tingling. And then after about a day of that, they get you all the way back to sea level slowly so that the nitrogen... What... You know what it is? It's like, if you take a can of soda and you shake it up. If you open the- uh, you open the top quickly? (imitates can popping)

Joe Rogan 35:27 Right.

Garrett Reisman 35:27 Right? But if you open the top really slowly, and you let it slowly come out, you don't get all the bubbles.

Joe Rogan 35:33 Right.

Garrett Reisman 35:34 It's- it's- it's that same effect.

Joe Rogan 35:35 Ah, that's a, that's a great analogy.

Garrett Reisman 35:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 35:38 Oh. What's freakier, being at the bottom of the ocean or being up in space?

Garrett Reisman 35:45 Up in space is more surreal, yeah, 'cause the, the floating, the- the Earth out the window. The views are better. But being down there was pretty wild, too. I- I remember once we were doing this experiment where I had my crewmate and I had an ultrasound, and we're doing this telemedicine experiment, so there were these docs in Houston looking at the screen but there was a delay. And I'm supposed to find her kidney, and I'm, like, searching around for a kidney. And then, uh, I- I look up and I look out the window and I see a six-foot hammerhead shark right out the window, and we have a guy in the water.... and I was, I, I, and I dropped a giant F-bomb. I'm like, "Fu-" uh, you know. And, uh, and all the, all the, all the docs in Houston are freaking out. They're thinking, like, in a moment, they're gonna see her liver explode on the screen or something. And they're like, "What's ha- what, how's the patient? How's the patient?" I'm like, "Patient's fine. There's a 6-foot hammerhead out the window." (laughs)

Joe Rogan 36:35 (laughs) Yeah, that's gotta be really weird, right? You're, you're in that thing, in their world, for how long? Two weeks?

Garrett Reisman 36:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 36:44 Whew. So is that the weirdest animal that you saw, is the hammerhead?

Garrett Reisman 36:49 The scariest thing I saw was one night, I was taking a dump. (laughs) This is a true story. Uh, uh, the way you do this... Okay, number one, you just pee in the pool, okay? But if you have to go number two, you go into the pool...'cause y- y- it's gonna... You don't want a floater in your pool, right? That's-

Joe Rogan 37:08 Of course.

Garrett Reisman 37:09 ... like Caddyshack, you don't want that.

Joe Rogan 37:10 Right.

Garrett Reisman 37:12 So, what you do is you go... You, you don't take a tank. You just take your mask and your fins, and you go down.

Joe Rogan 37:18 Naked?

Garrett Reisman 37:20 Y- you can. Uh, we had a, we had a mixed gender crew, so I, I wore some trunks, but, you know. And then you just go down, and you have to swim, I don't know, it's like maybe 10, 15 feet. It's not that far. And there's a, what we call the gazebo, which is just a little dome, uh, f- that has, uh, uh, air inside. Now, you're out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, like with no tank, no... And you're 60 feet down. It's night. You can't see a thing.

Joe Rogan 37:44 Oh, Jesus.

Garrett Reisman 37:45 You're just, you're alone in the ocean. But you can see this little gazebo. You swim to that. You pop in, and then you got air just in valves. You let in some fresh air. And then you hold on and you just... and you take off your trunks and you just let her rip. But the problem is, the fish get accustomed to this.

Joe Rogan 38:01 Oh, Jesus.

Garrett Reisman 38:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:03 So they go there knowing that you're gonna poop.

Garrett Reisman 38:06 As soon as you drop in the water at night, it's like the dinner bell going off.

Joe Rogan 38:09 Oh.

Garrett Reisman 38:09 And there's, like, school f-

Joe Rogan 38:10 Disgusting.

Garrett Reisman 38:10 Yeah, yeah. 'Cause this is feeding time.

Joe Rogan 38:13 Oh. Whoa. And so you feel them, like-

Garrett Reisman 38:15 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:16 ... pecking at the back door?

Garrett Reisman 38:17 The worst are the angelfish 'cause of that shape. They can get, like, right up in there.

Joe Rogan 38:20 Oh-

Garrett Reisman 38:20 It's, like, not cool.

Joe Rogan 38:21 ... boy.

Garrett Reisman 38:22 So you take your fin off and you're, like, whacking them. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 38:25 Oh, Jesus Christ. (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 38:27 (laughs) So that's all bad enough, but like... But as you're doing that and you're in the pitch black Atlantic Ocean, 60 feet down, no scuba tank-

Joe Rogan 38:36 At night?

Garrett Reisman 38:37 At night.

Joe Rogan 38:38 (sighs)

Garrett Reisman 38:38 With the sound of the ocean, like, like lapping against the, the dome. And you're looking down in this endless black, you know? Just a black void. And you're thinking about every single scary ocean movie, like Jaws, you know, The Meg, uh, whatever, The Abyss, all those scary movies, right? And you think about all the s- things that could be down there. You can't help but going through your head, so it's kind of freaky. And then you finish and you put your mask back on, and I (gasps) took a big breath, and I went down and I opened my eyes in my, in my mask, in the darkness, uh, with my flashlight, and I saw, like, right in front of me, this huge eyeball, like, about the size, I don't know, of a, of like a, of a, of a saucer, you know, like this big, staring, unblinking, right at me. And I freaked out. (laughs) I, I just tore off of the, for the pool, for the moon pool in the habitat. I jumped in there, I surface, I'm screaming, I'm screaming, and my crew come running thinking I, like, I'd been bit by a shark or something. And I'm like, "Giant fish!" (laughs) And it was-

Joe Rogan 39:52 What was it?

Garrett Reisman 39:53 It was a Goliath grouper.

Joe Rogan 39:55 Oh, I've seen those things before. They're enormous.

Garrett Reisman 39:57 Size of a cow. It's like-

Joe Rogan 39:58 Yeah, hundreds and hundreds of pounds, right?

Garrett Reisman 40:00 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:01 Oh my God.

Garrett Reisman 40:02 Yeah. Scared the living hell out of me. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:05 Yeah, those things could literally eat a person.

Garrett Reisman 40:08 Yeah. It, it, uh, uh, I, yeah, um, it, it was big enough. That's for sure. And so it was... Uh, just the sight of it scared the heck out of me.

Joe Rogan 40:17 They kill... So where were... You were in the Atlantic?

Garrett Reisman 40:19 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:20 How far away were you from, like, Florida? Like, where, where were you at?

Garrett Reisman 40:23 We were just off the coast of Key Largo.

Joe Rogan 40:25 Okay.

Garrett Reisman 40:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:25 'Cause that's what I'm saying, like, they live down there.

Garrett Reisman 40:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:28 Oh, that's an enormous fish, man.

Garrett Reisman 40:30 Huge.

Joe Rogan 40:30 I've seen videos of people catching them off of boats and it seems surreal. Look at that.

Garrett Reisman 40:34 Yeah, there you go. Yeah, there's one.

Joe Rogan 40:36 It's like a giant largemouth bass.

Garrett Reisman 40:38 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 40:38 That's what it's like. Like, if you go bass fishing?

Garrett Reisman 40:40 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 40:40 They're so similar to bass, like, in the way they look.

Garrett Reisman 40:44 Yeah, no, imagine like-

Joe Rogan 40:45 Jesus Christ, look at that thing.

Garrett Reisman 40:46 Yeah. (laughs) Imagine like being eye to eye with that thing in the middle of the dark Atlantic with no, uh, scuba tank. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 40:52 They're delicious too, I bet. Like, I don't know if they taste as good as regular grouper.

Garrett Reisman 40:56 Uh, I, I ha... Yeah. I was gonna... Uh, so you get a different-

Joe Rogan 41:00 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 41:00 (laughs) Yeah. I wasn't gonna find out.

Joe Rogan 41:02 Look at the mouth on that thing. Good lord.

Garrett Reisman 41:05 I'll tell you another quick story about down there. So I went out for a night dive once, and I spent... The, the beautiful thing about saturation diving like this is you can do basically f- infinite time, bottom time. You, you're not limited-

Joe Rogan 41:17 Mm-hmm.

Garrett Reisman 41:17 ... to, like, 60 minutes. You can stay out there for six hours, you know, whatever. So, I was out doing this night dive and I found this beautiful shrimp, and it was just spectacularly gorgeous. It was, like, translucent. You could see through it. You could see its organs move-

Joe Rogan 41:30 Mm-hmm.

Garrett Reisman 41:30 Like, internal organs, like, doing their thing. And I stared at it for at least like an hour, just held my light on it and just sat there and stared at it, and it was really beautiful. And I come back inside the habitat and I'm kinda hungry. And the best space food we got is shrimp cocktail. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 41:49 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 41:49 And I pulled that thing off the shelf, and I'm like, "Oh, that looks good." Then I'm like, "Nah, I can't do it. I can't do it, man."

Joe Rogan 41:54 You felt bad 'cause you just saw the shrimp?

Garrett Reisman 41:56 Felt bad.

Joe Rogan 41:56 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 41:57 I ate it the next day.

Joe Rogan 41:59 The next day?

Garrett Reisman 41:59 (laughs) Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:00 But that, for that day, though, you really felt bad.

Garrett Reisman 42:02 I felt bad.

Joe Rogan 42:03 Hmm. Wow. Grouper, you would've felt bad? Like a nice grouper sandwich? You ever have a nice grouper sandwich in Florida?

Garrett Reisman 42:08 It scared me, so I, I think I would have been, I would have been okay with that after. (laughs) Just because it was...

Joe Rogan 42:14 Yeah, I wonder if they've ever eaten people?

Garrett Reisman 42:16 Uh.

Joe Rogan 42:16 'Cause it seems like they could... I mean, they swallow giant fish. It seems like if you're not a large person, they might be able to just suck you right in there.

Garrett Reisman 42:24 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 42:26 You know?

Garrett Reisman 42:27 See, now, if, if this happens to me again, I'm gonna be even more freaked out.

Joe Rogan 42:30 I feel like I've read that grouper have bitten people before.

Garrett Reisman 42:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:35 ... like probably trying them out. Like if they get hung... Uh, like if you're that big, you probably have to eat so much.

Garrett Reisman 42:40 Yeah. Uh, just nonstop, yeah, buffet, uh, for those guys. And, yeah.

Joe Rogan 42:45 So when you're down there and you're doing all the swimming, you're using a rebreather?

Garrett Reisman 42:50 (smacks lips) No. Regular-

Joe Rogan 42:50 You're using tanks?

Garrett Reisman 42:51 Regular tanks.

Joe Rogan 42:51 Regular scuba tanks? And what is the capacity of these tanks? Like how, how long can you stay down-

Garrett Reisman 42:57 (sighs)

Joe Rogan 42:57 ... just swimming around for?

Garrett Reisman 42:58 We, we have two and, and we can isolate them in case one of them springs a leak. Uh, but you don't have that much more time than a standard scuba tank. But we have is refill stations-

Joe Rogan 43:07 Oh.

Garrett Reisman 43:08 ... all around the floor with high pressure hoses, so we have these quick disconnects on our, on our system that you can plug in and (whooshes) fill it right back up, and then you're good to go for, you know, another couple hours.

Joe Rogan 43:18 So when you swim to go take a poo, you have to do that? You have to wear the tank or do you just-

Garrett Reisman 43:24 No.

Joe Rogan 43:24 ... hold your breath?

Garrett Reisman 43:24 Just hold your breath. You're not going that far.

Joe Rogan 43:26 How far are you going?

Garrett Reisman 43:27 Ah, like 15 feet or so.

Joe Rogan 43:29 In total pitch black?

Garrett Reisman 43:31 Yeah. There is a light on the gazebo, but that's all.

Joe Rogan 43:34 So you see that light out there and you know if you get to there, that's where you're pooling?

Garrett Reisman 43:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:38 Good Lord.

Garrett Reisman 43:39 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:40 Wow. That's got to be so strange.

Garrett Reisman 43:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 43:44 What was it like to get back from that? I would, I would probably feel... Uh, it, uh, it seems like it would be real similar to getting back from space.

Garrett Reisman 43:52 (smacks lips) Yeah. It i- it is... Uh, the thing about it, the way it makes it such a great training exercise psychologically is if you had to get to a hospital, it takes about the same time from that habitat as it would from the Space Station. In both cases, it takes about a day. Like in the Space Station, you got to get in the Soyuz, you got to put your spacesuit on, you got to detach the Soyuz from the Space Station. You got to separate from the Space Station, you got to do a deorbit burn, you got to land, the helicopters got to come get you. By the time all that's done, it's like a day.

Joe Rogan 44:20 And the Soyuz is, uh, a Russian craft?

Garrett Reisman 44:22 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:22 So we have to use Russian crafts to get back from the Space Station?

Garrett Reisman 44:26 Right now, we have to use Russian craft to go and come back.

Joe Rogan 44:28 How weird is that?

Garrett Reisman 44:29 It's not cool.

Joe Rogan 44:30 What happened?

Garrett Reisman 44:32 (smacks lips) All right. So, uh, it's not good. None of us are happy about this. But what happened was the shuttles... Uh, the shuttle, let me just say this, is a magnificent flying machine. I mean, what's really remarkable, if you go down to like the California Science Center and you look at Endeavor, (smacks lips) we designed that thing in the '70s. Like it doesn't even have a microwave. All right? It's got a con- uh, conventional, uh, convection oven. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:55 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 44:56 So it's like ancient technology that the, the flight computers on that thing, (smacks lips) your, your Apple Watch could run circles around them. I mean, it's like nothing. Um, they're, they're so primitive. But, uh, but it did, it, it took off like a rocket, it landed like an airplane. You could had... Uh, you could carry people, you could carry the Hubble Space Telescope in a trunk. You can, uh, do a spacewalk from it.

Joe Rogan 45:18 There it is.

Garrett Reisman 45:18 It has a robot arm that you see there. Um, yeah, there's Endeavor. So, that's my flight actually. That's, that's, uh, STS-123. In the middle, that's the robot that we put together.

Joe Rogan 45:30 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 45:31 But, um, but anyway, the, uh, it's, it's an incredible machine and we'll never design anything like it maybe ever again. Uh, certainly not anytime soon. So despite its technological in- uh, incredibleness, (laughs) for lack of a better word, uh, it had a couple key limitations. One was it's not that safe, you know, so we lost two of them, Challenger and Columbia. And, uh, we could talk about that. I knew, I knew the guys in Columbia and that was really, really, uh, rough. Um, and then the second thing was it's super expensive because it took so much maintenance, even though it was reusable, or most of it was. (smacks lips) It took so much maintenance, it took a standing army to keep it running. We're spending I think three or four billion dollars a year on the program and, and there's no way if we wanted to build something that was going to be more cost-effective or safer, there's no way we're going to get a plus up from Congress of like an additional four billion dollars a year to go do that. The only way really to make it happen was to stop flying the shuttle. So we, we took a very painful decision and we said, "Okay, we're gonna retire these things so we can make something new." And we know that there's going to be a gap period where we're not gonna have anything and it's gonna suck. But the good news is, uh, is and the, the, the, the great timing about this conversation right now is that gap ends this year.

Joe Rogan 46:48 Really?

Garrett Reisman 46:49 Yeah. 2020 is when that painful period is put to rest.

Joe Rogan 46:53 And what, what happens?

Garrett Reisman 46:55 We're gonna have a SpaceX Dragon.

Joe Rogan 46:56 SpaceX Dragon?

Garrett Reisman 46:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 46:58 That's a great name.

Garrett Reisman 46:59 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:00 I love it.

Garrett Reisman 47:01 Yeah. We're gonna have a brand new ship. And not only the Dragon, we're gonna have the Boeing, uh, Starliner. And, uh, and then we have two other private companies that are gonna be launching people this year. Uh, yeah, yeah, the... It's incredible these four companies all trying to put humans into space with private companies-

Joe Rogan 47:16 Yeah.

Garrett Reisman 47:17 ... and the schedules are, are just aligning so it's all... Looks like it all will happen in 2020.

Joe Rogan 47:22 Now, they're, they've done some people, civilian trips up into space, right?

Garrett Reisman 47:29 They have and it, that's all happened becau- by paying the Russians-

Joe Rogan 47:32 That's what it is?

Garrett Reisman 47:33 ... for rides, yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:34 Why is their equipment so much better?

Garrett Reisman 47:37 It's not. Um, the... It's the only game in town once we, once we retired the shuttles, there was nothing else available, so.

Joe Rogan 47:45 But I, I would be like, "Hey, um, uh, how well are you guys maintaining these things?"

Garrett Reisman 47:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 47:49 Like, "What are you doing?" Like, "Tell me, tell me what's your maintenance schedule."

Garrett Reisman 47:53 It's been a little scary lately because they've had some-

Joe Rogan 47:55 Yeah.

Garrett Reisman 47:55 ... they've had some mishaps, right?

Joe Rogan 47:57 (coughs) Oh, like what?

Garrett Reisman 47:58 Uh, well, we had a launch go s- squarely where the rocket didn't work right and they had to-

Joe Rogan 48:02 Oh, Jesus Christ.

Garrett Reisman 48:02 ... they had to punch off. Uh, Nick Hague was the American on that and fortunately he was fine. Uh, he walked away.

Joe Rogan 48:07 Punch off meaning eject?

Garrett Reisman 48:09 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:09 Oh, fuck.

Garrett Reisman 48:10 Yeah. Not something you wanna, like, do for fun.

Joe Rogan 48:13 So during launch?

Garrett Reisman 48:14 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 48:15 So you're launching (whooshes) and they're like, "This is not good."

Garrett Reisman 48:18 Yeah. When it, when it... it has these side boosters.

Joe Rogan 48:21 Uh-huh.

Garrett Reisman 48:22 And one of them got stuck, it didn't come off right.

Joe Rogan 48:24 Oh.

Garrett Reisman 48:24 And they were starting to spin out of control and then they punched out.

Joe Rogan 48:26 Oh my God. How far, how far up are they when they punch out?

Garrett Reisman 48:30 Ah, it's a good question.

Joe Rogan 48:30 Do we say punch out or punch up?

Garrett Reisman 48:32 Punch out. Uh-

Joe Rogan 48:33 Punch out?

Garrett Reisman 48:34 ... uh, abort. You say abort.

Joe Rogan 48:35 Okay.

Garrett Reisman 48:36 Uh, but, um-... I don't, in that case, I, I don't know the exact altitude. They were fairly high. They were probably ... I think they were still in the atmosphere, so I'm guessing at, I'm guessing something like 40 to 70 kilometers up or so.

Joe Rogan 48:51 And so, they punch out and abort, and then are you in, uh, like a capsule? Like, what are you in?

Garrett Reisman 48:58 In a capsule. And then from that point on, it's kind of like a normal landing. If you survive the, the giant, uh, you know, yank, I think, uh, they were pulling something like five or six Gs, I think, when they, when they separate or maybe even more, that system, when they pulled off. And then, um, and then, uh, uh, and then at that point, you're falling in the capsule and then the parachutes come out.

Joe Rogan 49:18 Mm.

Garrett Reisman 49:18 And, uh, and, uh, uh, from that point on, it's kind of like a normal landing.

Joe Rogan 49:22 Oh. The G's gotta be crazy, right? I've, I've did, um, a flight with the Blue Angels once.

Garrett Reisman 49:27 Oh, yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:27 And (sighs) I think we went seven and a half Gs or something like that. It wasn't that, that bad. But it's so weird.

Garrett Reisman 49:34 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 49:34 When, when you see the consciousness closing in, like an elevator door. You see the blackness on the sides.

Garrett Reisman 49:39 You get the soda straw thing going.

Joe Rogan 49:40 Yeah. Ooh. It's very weird. So that, like, in space, like to get ejected, or I guess actually not in space, in the atmosphere. And do you have to climb into that thing before you can abort? Or are you-

Garrett Reisman 49:52 No.

Joe Rogan 49:52 ... in it already?

Garrett Reisman 49:53 There's no time. It, it, it's a, it's a rocket. In, in that case, it's a rocket that on the top that pulls the capsule away from the booster.

Joe Rogan 49:58 Oh, wow.

Garrett Reisman 49:59 Um, just like we did with Apollo and Gemini.

Joe Rogan 50:01 Mm-hmm.

Garrett Reisman 50:02 Now, on Dragon and also on Starliner, we've got much more advanced systems that are built into the, into the capsule. And so they, they, they're, they push. Instead of having a tower up on top that pulls you away, they have engines under here that, that push and fly away.

Joe Rogan 50:18 Mm.

Garrett Reisman 50:18 And the nice thing about that is, the, the tower, you actually, if you don't need it, you have to, you have to throw it away. You have to jettison it. But that's kind of like needing to use your ejection seat every single time you go for a flight because if you ... for some reason, if it doesn't jettison, you're dead. You, you can't get the parachutes out with that thing stuck up on top. So that's like a failure mode that if you put the engines down here, you don't have to worry about that.

Joe Rogan 50:43 Mm.

Garrett Reisman 50:43 Plus you carry it with you the whole time, so you could use those powerful engines to really get quickly away from the booster, like the Falcon 9, if it's having a bad day. You can use those-

Joe Rogan 50:52 You mean if it's blowing up?

Garrett Reisman 50:54 Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:55 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 50:55 It's a bad day. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 50:56 (laughs) That's a seriously bad day.

Garrett Reisman 50:58 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:58 What does it look like? Can you pull up the SpaceX ... What's it? Dragon what?

Garrett Reisman 51:02 The Crew Dragon.

Joe Rogan 51:03 Crew Dragon. Whoa.

Garrett Reisman 51:04 There she is.

Joe Rogan 51:05 That looks like something from the future.

Garrett Reisman 51:08 That's the, uh, if ... That's the test we just did. That's an artist's drawing of it. But this was the final big test we had to do before we actually put people inside, and, uh, we did that successfully just a couple weeks ago.

Joe Rogan 51:19 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 51:20 Um, so what we did was we, um, lit up those, those eject engines. There. That's an actual shot. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:25 That's insane. Look at that thing.

Garrett Reisman 51:27 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:27 That looks like a UFO. That's crazy.

Garrett Reisman 51:30 And that rocket went kablooey. Not that we blew it up, but it started, uh, once it separated, the rockets started tumbling out of control and it went ... made a giant fireball. And-

Joe Rogan 51:39 Is that normal or expected?

Garrett Reisman 51:40 We, we kind of thought that would happen. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 51:42 Oh, you were right. (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 51:44 (laughs) We weren't planning on using it again. There it is. So there, there it is separating from the booster.

Joe Rogan 51:50 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 51:51 And, uh, the booster went kaboom, but the rocket ... But it was, um, um, I think, uh, if I remember right, I think it was, uh, 1.5 kilometers away when, uh, when the rocket went kaboom, and it was fine.

Joe Rogan 52:02 Now, when you guys do these test flights, do they have to anticipate where this stuff is gonna land? Like where the ... I mean-

Garrett Reisman 52:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:11 ... you have all this giant metal with fire and you sh- so, like, as you're launching, you have to take into consideration-

Garrett Reisman 52:19 Oh, yeah. There's-

Joe Rogan 52:19 ... what the trajectory is. Wow. That's the explosion.

Garrett Reisman 52:21 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:21 SpaceX complete successful abort test launch of Dragon Crew Capsule. Wow.

Garrett Reisman 52:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 52:28 So do you have to think about where it ... So they have to calculate what speed-

Garrett Reisman 52:33 Well-

Joe Rogan 52:33 ... how fast the earth is spinning, where it's gonna drop?

Garrett Reisman 52:36 Well, that's, that's why ... And, and theoretically, you know, you gotta be ready for this any given flight.

Joe Rogan 52:41 Mm-hmm.

Garrett Reisman 52:41 Now, this one, we knew it was gonna happen, but it could happen anytime, so you always ... That's why we always launch out over the ocean.

Joe Rogan 52:47 Oh, okay.

Garrett Reisman 52:48 And that's why Cape Canaveral is where Cape Canaveral is because if you look at a map of, uh, Florida, that's ... The cape is where Florida juts out, has a little prominence that juts out to the east into the Atlantic. And that way you can go due east, which is generally what you want to do when you launch, or you can even turn a little bit north or south and you're not gonna fly over anybody's house or Disneyland or anything.

Joe Rogan 53:09 Mm.

Garrett Reisman 53:09 And if something goes wrong, in the old days, like on the shuttle, we actually had explosives on the tank and there were these dudes, these range safety control offers, officers that would sit with a big red button.

Joe Rogan 53:21 Oh, Jesus.

Garrett Reisman 53:21 And if they see you going out of control and you're heading back towards land (button press) . Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:26 Boom.

Garrett Reisman 53:26 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 53:27 Oh my God. What a responsibility they have.

Garrett Reisman 53:30 We used to go by before launch-

Joe Rogan 53:31 (sighs) .

Garrett Reisman 53:31 ... and meet those guys. Look them in the eye.

Joe Rogan 53:34 Oh. They must look like psychos.

Garrett Reisman 53:35 Show them pictures of our family. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:37 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 53:37 It's like-

Joe Rogan 53:38 Don't get itchy, bro.

Garrett Reisman 53:39 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:39 Don't get itchy to hit that trigger. So-

Garrett Reisman 53:41 Give it a, give it a potato.

Joe Rogan 53:43 It seems like-

Garrett Reisman 53:43 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 53:43 ... a crazy way to handle it that, that the junk has to fall into the ocean.

Garrett Reisman 53:48 Yeah. Well, now the Russians and the Chinese don't necessarily honor that. They actually, the Chinese have dropped nasty burning boosters on ... You know, it's, it's sparsely populated, but they still have dropped these things on like villages and stuff.

Joe Rogan 54:01 Oh boy.

Garrett Reisman 54:02 They're a little less, uh-

Joe Rogan 54:03 Really?

Garrett Reisman 54:04 ... concerned about this kind of thing.

Joe Rogan 54:05 Fucking China.

Garrett Reisman 54:07 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 54:07 Goddammit. They, uh-

Garrett Reisman 54:11 But in the US, we always ... So we launch ... And the reason that you usually want to launch to the east is you want to take advantage of the earth's rotation to give you like a slingshot effect.

Joe Rogan 54:19 Mm.

Garrett Reisman 54:20 Because if you go to the east, the earth is rotating this way. It kind of slingshots you into orbit.

Joe Rogan 54:25 Oh, wow.

Garrett Reisman 54:25 Going with the rotation. And that's why you also want to be as close to the equator as you can because if you're at, if you're at the North Pole and you launch east, it's not going to help you, right? But the lower you are towards your equator, the more of a slingshot you get.

Joe Rogan 54:37 Now, did they have to figure out over time where those things were dropping? Did they ever make some mistakes?

Garrett Reisman 54:43 Um, I don't think ... Is that we, we've had rockets blow up on the pad and do a bunch of damage.

Joe Rogan 54:48 Mm-hmm.

Garrett Reisman 54:48 But once they're up and out, I don't think we ever, in the US anyway, had that problem, because we always had the ability to blow it up if it's ... Uh, there are red lines, and if it passes a red line you push the button. Now it's all done autonomously so you have GPS, uh, monitors on board that self-destruct if it sees that it's going past the line. There's nobody with a button anymore, it's all automatic.

Joe Rogan 55:09 Oh wow. And these boosters that fall into the ocean, do they have them documented, like where they're landing so they know where these things are scattered out throughout the ocean?

Garrett Reisman 55:19 They know approximately. And, and one cool thing was, probably the most famous booster that landed in the bottom of the ocean was Apollo 11, the Saturn V. And, uh, it was just sitting there, you know, as a fish habitat.

Joe Rogan 55:31 Oh wow.

Garrett Reisman 55:32 And Jeff Bezos, uh, with his own d- out of his own pocket mounted an expedition and, and went and got 'em, got those engines.

Joe Rogan 55:40 That's when you know you're a baller.

Garrett Reisman 55:42 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 55:43 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 55:43 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 55:44 You can't just throw some money at pulling the r- rocket boosters from Apollo 11 out of the ocean. Holy shit.

Garrett Reisman 55:49 It's like, yeah.

Joe Rogan 55:50 That's crazy.

Garrett Reisman 55:51 What am I gonna do this weekend? Uh, maybe I'll watch a movie or ... No, I'm gonna go get those engines.

Joe Rogan 55:55 Look at that. Wow.

Garrett Reisman 55:58 Yeah. There you go.

Joe Rogan 55:59 Powerful Jeff Bezos.

Garrett Reisman 56:00 And the hard part was finding the right ones, and they got them.

Joe Rogan 56:03 (sighs)

Garrett Reisman 56:03 They saw the serial number and they were like, "Yeah."

Joe Rogan 56:05 Look at the image. Finding the right ones, 'cause there's a bunch down there?

Garrett Reisman 56:09 Yeah, there was a bunch of Saturn Vs.

Joe Rogan 56:10 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 56:11 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:11 And they found the right ones. Look at that, that's nuts. And perfectly preserved.

Garrett Reisman 56:17 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:18 And then when did he do this? What year was this?

Garrett Reisman 56:19 Yeah, that's, that's the engine-

Joe Rogan 56:21 2019.

Garrett Reisman 56:21 ... that, that pushed Buzz and Neil and Mike-

Joe Rogan 56:23 2013.

Garrett Reisman 56:24 ... to the moon.

Joe Rogan 56:24 Wow.

Garrett Reisman 56:25 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:25 That's madness.

Garrett Reisman 56:28 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 56:28 What a crazy image. Check out this, uh ... This is the boosters landing in China. Oh yeah, yeah, see.

Garrett Reisman 56:34 (clears throat)

Joe Rogan 56:34 Oh, that's them hitting the ground?

Garrett Reisman 56:36 Yeah, it's multiple videos of it.

Joe Rogan 56:36 Oh, rewind that again please.

Garrett Reisman 56:37 But it is very quick. I started it right where the explosion was.

Joe Rogan 56:41 (sighs)

Garrett Reisman 56:41 There's other ones that it shows it falling from the sky.

Joe Rogan 56:43 Ignited on impact with the ground. So these people are just chilling and a giant chunk of metal-

Garrett Reisman 56:48 Oof.

Joe Rogan 56:48 ... falls from the sky. Oh my God. That's crazy.

Garrett Reisman 56:51 Not only that, but that's hypergolic fuel so that's like ... You don't wanna be breathing that stuff. That's pretty toxic.

Joe Rogan 56:56 Look at it, it just landed on people. They're like, "Whoops. Sorry."

Garrett Reisman 57:00 That's a b- that's a BRC, big red cloud. You don't wanna ... Or BF-

Joe Rogan 57:04 Oh.

Garrett Reisman 57:05 BFRC. You don't wanna-

Joe Rogan 57:06 Big fucking red cloud, uh-huh.

Garrett Reisman 57:06 Yeah, you don't wanna be near that. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 57:08 What is in that f- cloud?

Garrett Reisman 57:09 It's hydrazine so it's, uh, NTO-MMH, monomethylhydrazine and nitrogen tetraoxide. It's, um ... It's stuff that you don't wanna drink.

Joe Rogan 57:17 Look at that falling from the sky. Oh my God. That's crazy.

Garrett Reisman 57:22 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:23 It fell on a small village. China doesn't give a fuck. They just let it go.

Garrett Reisman 57:29 It, it is ... I mean, that, that ... Those villagers are getting pretty unlucky because that is pretty sparsely populated so you're just playing the odds, but, uh, yeah, we wouldn't, we wouldn't do that.

Joe Rogan 57:37 Well that has to be terrible for their breathing and their health.

Garrett Reisman 57:42 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 57:42 That stuff is gonna linger, right?

Garrett Reisman 57:44 Yeah. I guess-

Joe Rogan 57:45 Probably get into their drinking water.

Garrett Reisman 57:47 Uh-huh. I mean, the, the quantities-

Joe Rogan 57:49 (clears throat)

Garrett Reisman 57:50 ... of, of that are probably not gonna be like abs- catastrophic. Uh, the bigger risk is getting blown up by it, but it's still not good.

Joe Rogan 57:58 So why doesn't China adhere to the same sort of r- well, they do what they gotta do.

Garrett Reisman 58:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:03 Yeah. So when y- when you're a part of these expeditions and, you know, you're y- you recognize that you're one of very few people that ever gets to experience this, these kind of things, do you feel like a responsibility to try to relay this information to people? Like ...

Garrett Reisman 58:22 Yeah. It, it's part of our job, you know. So when we're ... When I was at NASA they would send us out to do these PR events and we'd go to schools and I, I would go back to, like, Jersey where I'm from and go visit all these school systems and tell kids-

Joe Rogan 58:33 What part of Jersey are you from?

Garrett Reisman 58:35 Uh, my parents are from Newark and I, I grew up in Parsippany.

Joe Rogan 58:37 Mine too.

Garrett Reisman 58:38 Yeah, I know.

Joe Rogan 58:39 Yeah.

Garrett Reisman 58:39 I heard about that. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 58:41 Yeah. Parsippany, I know where that is.

Garrett Reisman 58:42 Parsippany.

Joe Rogan 58:43 Yeah.

Garrett Reisman 58:43 That's where, that's where I grew up. Went to Parsippany High School.

Joe Rogan 58:45 Wow. Um, and so you go back and try to inspire kids to-

Garrett Reisman 58:49 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 58:50 ... to pursue this k- same kinda thing.

Garrett Reisman 58:51 And I still do it. So I, I, I, I was just in Israel last week. Um, I just got back two nights ago actually. So every year on the anniversary of the Columbia, uh, tragedy they have a space week in Israel where they have a whole bunch of STEM education events. And, uh, uh, there's also a technical conference and then there's a memorial for the first Israeli astronaut that was on Columbia, uh, Ilan. So I got to know his family really well, and, um, I go back there every year and I ... And we had the memorial last Friday. Uh, and, um, so yeah, I'm still ... And, and I try to ... I think I met every school kid in Israel (laughs) and, uh, got them to ... Uh, you know, just try to get 'em excited about, about the future, about a bright future, you know.

Joe Rogan 59:32 Well, the reason why I wanted to ... The reason why I brought this up is ... (clears throat) I saw a video where you talked about how y- your ... During your childhood you had a photo on your wall of looking at the earth from the moon, the photograph that was taken.

Garrett Reisman 59:43 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:44 And that, that's what set the seed or planted the seed in your head.

Garrett Reisman 59:49 Yeah. Right. So I, I also, I also go out and I do a lot of, um, you know, um, public appearances and, and do motivational speaking kind of stuff. And I talk about the importance of both inspiration and determination. So I found out, uh, when I was a kid that they were-

Joe Rogan 1:00:05 (clears throat)

Garrett Reisman 1:00:05 ... they were taking, um, uh, not only fighter pilots but also, like, engineers and scientists to be astronauts. 'Cause I was, was totally super stoked by the, the whole concept of going into space. But I had a mom that's like, uh, scared of flying. She was a typical Jewish mom, she was like-

Joe Rogan 1:00:20 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 1:00:20 She's like, uh ... I told her once I wanted to join the Air Force and she ... In a, like, a public restaurant and she started freaking out and, like, started, like, soliciting opinions from the other parents. "Would you let your son do this?" And, you know, I was like, "Oh God."

Joe Rogan 1:00:31 That's hilarious.

Garrett Reisman 1:00:32 So, (laughs) so I never thought ... I knew that, like, being a test pilot was not gonna happen, so I thought being an astronaut wasn't gonna happen. But then I found out that you could do it ... You can be an engineer and, and be an astronaut. And then, like, that was my eureka moment and I was inspired-... but to be determined, I got that photo and I put it over my desk and it was like, that was my like... That was the beacon, you know? That was the, the goal. And I kept working and any time I was having a difficult time, I looked up at that thing and said, "You know, one day I'm going to hang that in the astronaut office in the Johnson Space Center." And, uh, I still have that thing.

Joe Rogan 1:01:06 That must have been surreal, the moment when you were on that space walk, thinking about your childhood and thinking about being inspired by those images.

Garrett Reisman 1:01:14 Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:15 That would be like, "Holy shit. I'm actually an astronaut." (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 1:01:20 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:20 I mean, you really are an astronaut. I mean, how many are there?

Garrett Reisman 1:01:24 The- there's, there are, I think there's been around 500 people that have been to space.

Joe Rogan 1:01:28 Ever?

Garrett Reisman 1:01:29 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:29 That's nuts.

Garrett Reisman 1:01:30 Yeah, it's, it's a pretty small percentage.

Joe Rogan 1:01:31 That's not a lot. (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 1:01:33 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:01:33 And now, with SpaceX... What is your role with SpaceX?

Garrett Reisman 1:01:37 So I left NASA in 2011 and I went down and met with Elon and I said, "Hey, I really like what you're doing here. Can I help? And, uh, what can I..." And he gave me a job. So I went, and I left NASA and I came here and I worked there for seven years. Did a bunch of different things. Uh, eventually became our Director of Space Operations. So my team was responsible for operating mission control at SpaceX and controlling... We have another Dragon capsule that we use for cargo, to take cargo, and we've been doing that for a long time, up to the space station and back. And so we would operate it in mission control, but we're also, we're designing the- the- the crew one that we showed you. So we were coming up with the procedures and all the rules of how we're gonna use that thing, and, and, and meeting all of NASA's requirements and helping to provide input to the guys designing the displays and the suits and the controls and the seats and all the stuff you need for people. And, so that was, that was... You know, I did that for quite a, quite a long time.

Joe Rogan 1:02:31 Wh- what are your thoughts on this, w- what's happening now with space travel, where it's transferring into the public sector?

Garrett Reisman 1:02:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:02:38 Or the private sector, rather. Instead of being something that the government handles, now it's private companies. Is that a good thing?

Garrett Reisman 1:02:44 It's a great thing.

Joe Rogan 1:02:45 Is it?

Garrett Reisman 1:02:46 Uh, yeah, because first of all, it's not quite that black and white. Um, in- in the media, it's all portrayed as commercial space-

Joe Rogan 1:02:52 Right.

Garrett Reisman 1:02:52 ... and like, "These private companies are taking over." The truth is, at least for the human orbital space flight that we're doing at SpaceX and that Boeing is doing with, with their vehicle, it's a par- it's a public/private partnership.

Joe Rogan 1:03:04 Ah.

Garrett Reisman 1:03:04 And so NASA's working very closely with both those companies, and we're working together. And it- in a way, it's not really that different from the way it's always been. You know, like NASA didn't have a NASA factory that built the Saturn V rocket. It was built here by, like McDonnell Douglas, and North American Rockwell built the, if I remember right, North American built the, uh, built the command module, and- and the Lunar Lander was built by Grumman. So those were all private companies. They're contractors, but they're still private companies. And, um, what's happening now is just a slight change to the relationship between NASA and the private companies, where NASA's not micromanaging quite as much as they used to. They're saying, "Okay, here's our top-level requirements. We want you to get four people up and down to the space station." That's a bit of a simplification because actually, the, the requirements document is like... There are thousands of, of requirements. (laughs) But they, but they don't go down and tell you how to meet each requirement. They leave it up to you. So now SpaceX has a lot more room to innovate than, like North American Rockwell did when, when they built, um, the vehicles back during Apollo. So, uh, that, that, and the other thing that's different is the, the funding. The way that NASA's paying, it's firm-fixed price. You know, ev- all these things, like the space shuttle, when we build an aircraft carrier, it's, it's cost plus contracting, which has been terribly abused and- and it's been horrible for the US taxpayer. It, what it says to the company is, "You can, it could cost whatever it costs. That's what we'll pay. And in fact, we'll give you a profit as a percentage of the cost." So like, your in- your incentive as a company is like, to make the cost as high as you can so your profit is high as it can be.

Joe Rogan 1:04:43 Oh, that's ridiculous.

Garrett Reisman 1:04:44 Yeah. So it's not cool, and, and, uh, but it, they had to do it that way in, like during World War II is when it started because, like nobody knew how much it was gonna cost to build a P-51 Mustang 'cause nobody did one before.

Joe Rogan 1:04:55 Mm.

Garrett Reisman 1:04:56 So they came up with this mechanism, but now it's, it's kinda been abused. Now we're using it to do things that we've done before. Um, and then the third thing is that the- the companies own the intellectual property. (clicks tongue) So what that means is, like, uh, uh, uh, Rockwell, th- they built the space shuttle, couldn't like, build a new space shuttle. Like, build like, Space Shuttle Enterprise or something-

Joe Rogan 1:05:18 Mm-hmm.

Garrett Reisman 1:05:18 ... and then go sell tickets on it.

Joe Rogan 1:05:20 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 1:05:20 They weren't allowed to, but we can. So we can... We're gonna build this Dragon. We're gonna take... Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, two friends of mine, are gonna be the first astronauts to ride it to the space station. And once we meet our NASA, uh, NASA's our number one customer, they're paying the- the bills, so once they are satisfied, we can then go make another one and sell tickets, and take, you know, private individuals. So really, that's the- the key difference, and I really think that 2020, we're gonna look back at 2020 as the, as the year that everything changed.

Joe Rogan 1:05:52 Really?

Garrett Reisman 1:05:52 Yeah. Because the, all those dreams of science fiction, like being able to take your vacations around the rings of Saturn and like, all the, like private space stations, all that kinda stuff that we grew up hoping would happen when we were older, I think it's really finally starting. 'Cause this is, this is the beginning of that infrastructure, that- that- that private sector commercial infrastructure, and- and- and ability to actually get it done.

Joe Rogan 1:06:18 We're always talking about how wrong they got the future in like Space: 1999.

Garrett Reisman 1:06:22 (laughs) Yeah. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:06:23 Those... (laughs) Remember, remember that television show?

Garrett Reisman 1:06:25 I like that show.

Joe Rogan 1:06:25 (laughs)

Garrett Reisman 1:06:25 I watch that all the time, yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:26 But all those shows, like even, I think Blade Runner was like now, right? Didn't we discuss this? Like last year? 2019? Like, we- we got everything wrong-

Garrett Reisman 1:06:38 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:06:38 ... in terms of what the timeline was.

Garrett Reisman 1:06:40 The timeline is totally wrong, but I think that the overall... The overall direction is, is right, um, in a lot of this stuff, and we'll, we'll get there. I- I really do believe that if- if we don't end up...... killing each other, or have some horrible catastrophe like a asteroid hit us, we're going to end up living in space and have that kind of Star Trek future. I mean, I really think that's our destiny, as long as we don't screw it up.

Joe Rogan 1:07:04 (sighs) Man, how far out are we looking at Star Trek?

Garrett Reisman 1:07:09 Star Trek might take a while, until we get like warp drive and all that kind of-

Joe Rogan 1:07:11 A couple hundred years?

Garrett Reisman 1:07:12 And we gotta find those dilithium crystals. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:07:15 (laughs) Captain, she's breaking up.

Garrett Reisman 1:07:18 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:07:18 Yeah, like how far do you think we are? Like if you had a, a wide timeline of like literally being able to go on another planet.

Garrett Reisman 1:07:26 Well, you know, uh, well, going to Mars is something we could do-

Joe Rogan 1:07:30 Now.

Garrett Reisman 1:07:31 ... uh, in, in, in a decade if we really, really, really wanted to.

Joe Rogan 1:07:34 But Elon keeps saying that.

Garrett Reisman 1:07:36 I think he's right. I mean, it's, it's not, uh, a question of technology. The, the big missing piece I think in, in understanding, uh, uh, about what that would be like is, is the effect of radiation on the, on the human body. There's engineering solutions we could come up with for that, but we-

Joe Rogan 1:07:51 This is for the prolonged journey, the six-

Garrett Reisman 1:07:53 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:07:53 ... six-month journey?

Garrett Reisman 1:07:54 Once you start talking about go... Well, so, so right now, like on the Space Station, I took a bigger radiation hit than I would have if I stayed at home. But-

Joe Rogan 1:08:03 How much of a hit?

Garrett Reisman 1:08:04 Uh, uh, you know, the, the amount of dose I took, uh, was not that much. It's like, um, (clicks tongue) uh, like a, a tenth of a sievert or something. I mean, it's like r- it was pretty-

Joe Rogan 1:08:14 What's a sievert?

Garrett Reisman 1:08:15 A sievert, if you take one sievert, uh, then you're increasing your chance of getting cancer, depending on your age and gender, about a couple additional percent.

Joe Rogan 1:08:23 Can you mitigate that with supplements? Like is there iodine that you take or something along those lines?

Garrett Reisman 1:08:28 There, there's some, uh, you know, maybe antioxidants, but I think that that's, that's not a panacea, that's not gonna fix this problem. It could help maybe.

Joe Rogan 1:08:36 They say take iodine tablets, right, if you're exposed to radiation? Isn't that, like, something that they, uh, recommend?

Garrett Reisman 1:08:42 Yeah, for like, uh, for like nuclear reactors or, um-

Joe Rogan 1:08:45 Mm-hmm, yeah.

Garrett Reisman 1:08:46 ... uh, and, and all that. Uh, but, um, I think that protects, that protects the function of some, one, one of the organs, I can't remember. But it's not gonna solve, that's not gonna solve this problem. But you can shield yourself with... Anything that has hydrogen in it is a pretty good shield, so water is great. Like when I was on the Space Station, I, I put a big, uh, water jug around my head. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 1:09:07 Really?

Garrett Reisman 1:09:08 (laughs) Just I figured it couldn't hurt. And, uh, uh, and then like, uh, liquid hydrogen or even plastic that's made, that's derived from hydrogen, uh, is, is pretty good shielding.

Joe Rogan 1:09:19 Oh, okay. So you could have like conceivably a, a light plastic suit that you wear that could shield you from a lot of the radiation on the way to Mars?

Garrett Reisman 1:09:26 There's actually a company in Israel that w- is teaming with NASA-

Joe Rogan 1:09:29 Hmm.

Garrett Reisman 1:09:29 ... that's gonna fly these like vests on, uh, to try to shield the people. You can also put it in the hull and, or you can have just a storm