Joe Rogan Experience #1577 - Terry Virts

1. 0:00 – 3:00

   200 days in space: what it does to your body (and how fast you recover)

   1. TVTerry Virts0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. TVTerry Virts0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:14

      (instrumental music) Terry.

   5. TVTerry Virts0:15

      Joe.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      (laughs) Thanks for doing this, man.

   7. TVTerry Virts0:17

      Hey, thanks for having me on. This is awesome.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:18

      Um, you spent 200 days in space... in a row.

   9. TVTerry Virts0:25

      I did. Uh, uh, my first flight was two weeks, my second flight was 200 days. Yeah.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:29

       That's insane.

   11. TVTerry Virts0:30

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:30

       What does that feel like?

   13. TVTerry Virts0:32

       Um, the two weeks was not enough. I got back to Earth and I was like, "Man that was awesome, I need to go do this again." Uh, and after 200 days, it was awesome, but it was like, "All right I checked the box and, you know, I've done-"

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:44

       Checked all the boxes.

   15. TVTerry Virts0:45

       "... everything." I was a shuttle pilot, you know, station commander. I did space walks. So I had a ch- I feel like I had a chance to do everything. I made a IMAX movie while I was up there. I feel like I had a chance to do, you know, everything I wanted to do.

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:58

       When you did two weeks, is there a recovery period when you return after two weeks?

   17. TVTerry Virts1:02

       Yeah, for sure, but it's pretty quick. Like, when you land, I was super dizzy. And I felt like everything was heavy. U- I was the last guy out of the shuttle, 'cause I was a pilot, and, uh, they, they came in, "All right, time f- time to get out virtually." And I grabbed my helmet and I was like, "Be careful, this thing weighs 500 pounds."

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:18

       Wow.

   19. TVTerry Virts1:18

       Um, and that night I was just like, I wanted someone next to me. I didn't fall over, but I felt like I was going to. Um, but a- after a day or two I was fine. Uh, but after the long duration flight, it was like, that first day sucked. I could do everything. I could walk around and they make you do this torture where you have to get on your stomach and do, it was like burpees, you know, get up as fast as you can. They were trying to make you pass out from orthostatic intolerance. So I could do all that stuff, I just hated it. And then the second day was a little bit better. First day was like a couple of bottles of wine. (laughs) The second day was, like, a bottle of wine. The third day was, like, a glass or two. Um, and by a week later, they, they make you do this balance test where they put you in this big box, you can't see anything, and then they move the box. And you're like, "Whoa." And they have force sensors on your feet where, if your feet are doing this, you know, you have bad balance and if your feet go vroom and s- recover, you're good. So I did my balance test before flight and after flight. And after 200 days in space, a week later my balance score was better than it was before I launched, which I couldn't believe, but, um, I have to tell you that story just to say that, you know, the human body's amazing. It can adapt, uh, pretty quickly.

   20. JRJoe Rogan2:28

       That's great. So, w- what is the, like, from the time you land after 200 days and then when you're 100%, how, how much time is that?

   21. TVTerry Virts2:37

       So (sighs) they, there's some rule about driving cars, like they don't want you driving cars for a couple of weeks, and the doctor's gotta sign off before you drive.

   22. JRJoe Rogan2:45

       Oh wow.

   23. TVTerry Virts2:46

       But, like I said, after a week, I was, I had a better balance score and o- after a week I did 20 pull-ups at the gym.

   24. JRJoe Rogan2:52

       Really?

   25. TVTerry Virts2:53

       You know, I was not 100%, but I was, like, 90%.

   26. JRJoe Rogan2:56

       Now is this because of exercises that they-

   27. TVTerry Virts2:58

       Yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan2:58

       ... prescribe while-

   29. TVTerry Virts2:58

       Yeah.

   30. JRJoe Rogan2:58

       ... you're in space?
2. 3:00 – 3:48

   Staying strong in zero‑G: daily exercise, bone loss, and the ISS gym

   1. JRJoe Rogan3:00

      But what kind of, what kind of stuff do you have to do up there?

   2. TVTerry Virts3:03

      So (sighs) they give you two and a half hours a day. The Russians learned on Mir that your bone density, it's like a linear progression down, you know, about one and a half percent a month you lose bone density. Um-

   3. JRJoe Rogan3:14

      One and a half percent a month?

   4. TVTerry Virts3:15

      And it's, it's a straight line, it doesn't, like, bottom out. And they had a guy up there for 440 days. He's the most ever time in space in one mission. So, to combat that, we exercise. And they found that, like, pounding, uh, resistive exercise is what helps your bones and your muscles. So we have a weight lifting machine that's kind of like a Bowflex, and a treadmill, and a bike. And I was religious about those things. I did them every day except for my three space walk days when we had this really big emergency. For other than those four days, I exercised every day.

3. 3:48 – 6:47

   Merino wool in orbit: why clothes don’t stink (until they do)

   1. JRJoe Rogan3:48

      And are you sweating up there?

   2. TVTerry Virts3:50

      You sweat a lot when you exercise. Nor- just doing this, you don't sweat at all. You could wear the same underwear and shirt for weeks and you don't even notice. But if, if you have your exercise shirt, after a day it's, like, drenched in stinky, like a stinky Under Armour shirt.

   3. JRJoe Rogan4:04

      'Cause there's no circulation of air like there is down here.

   4. TVTerry Virts4:07

      There's not as much. Well, just like, if you go to the gym and you get after it for an hour, you're gonna be sweating.

   5. JRJoe Rogan4:12

      Right.

   6. TVTerry Virts4:12

      So it's the same thing in space. But on, on norm- even if you just walk around throughout the day, you know, you're, you can tell, you gotta wash your clothes, but in-

   7. JRJoe Rogan4:20

      Yeah.

   8. TVTerry Virts4:20

      ... space you don't. Like, for some reason-

   9. JRJoe Rogan4:22

      You don't stink?

   10. TVTerry Virts4:22

       ... you just don't stink on normal...

   11. JRJoe Rogan4:24

       Are they giving you, like, merino wool clothes to wear or something?

   12. TVTerry Virts4:27

       So, we had Under Armour shirts.

   13. JRJoe Rogan4:30

       Okay.

   14. TVTerry Virts4:30

       And after a day or two, it's like they stink and you only got one shirt every two weeks. (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan4:35

       Oh boy.

   16. TVTerry Virts4:35

       So those things, they were ripe after a couple of days. T- so I did this experiment with wool clothes, like you said, it was like a New Zealand company. I forgot the name of it. Um, and I was kind of worried 'cause I w- didn't wanna, I thought I'd itch, you know, wool stuff. So I wore this thing every day for a month, got completely drenched, sweaty every day for a month in it and it did not stink at all. Like, it re-

   17. JRJoe Rogan4:57

       Merino wool's amazing.

   18. TVTerry Virts4:58

       It's amazing. It blew me away. This is the first-

   19. JRJoe Rogan5:00

       There's a company called First Lite. Uh-

   20. TVTerry Virts5:01

       Okay.

   21. JRJoe Rogan5:01

       ... my friend Steve Rinell is one of the owners of it.

   22. TVTerry Virts5:03

       Mm-hmm.

   23. JRJoe Rogan5:03

       It's a, uh, a hunting company and th- most of their clothing, particularly all their base layers and stuff-

   24. TVTerry Virts5:09

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan5:09

       ... is all made out of merino wool. And the first time I'd ever worn it was on a hunting trip and-

   26. TVTerry Virts5:13

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan5:14

       ... you, you realize when you go, uh, hunting, like one of the big problems is it's freezing cold out-

   28. TVTerry Virts5:20

       Right.

   29. JRJoe Rogan5:20

       ... but you're hiking with a lot of gear so you sweat.

   30. TVTerry Virts5:23

       Right, right.
4. 6:47 – 10:43

   ISS exercise engineering: vacuum weights, vibration isolation, and ‘don’t snap the station’

   1. JRJoe Rogan6:47

      So when you're using these machines, they're all resistance band machines? Is that what it is?

   2. TVTerry Virts6:52

      Yeah. So the (laughs) th- in the, my book, I have a whole, uh, I make fun of the acronyms. It's ARED, which is the NASA acronym for workout machine. Um, so it's, uses vacuum. There's, like, tubes-

   3. JRJoe Rogan7:03

      Oh.

   4. TVTerry Virts7:03

      ... like a cylinder. So, uh, instead of compressing the air for your force, you're pulling against a vacuum, and you can get... The ARED machine is 600 pounds. So you can... I can't bench or squat 600 pounds, but you can put it on there. So you could hurt yourself. It's... And the really interesting about these machines is they, they're not attached to the wall of the station. They're on, like, springs and moving devices. They're called vibration isolation system. Because if it was attached, think about, like, running on a treadmill. That's a lot of pounding. You know, 200 pounds pounding, um, and the Earth doesn't really move that much when you do it on Earth. But in space, there's nothing supporting the space station. So even though it's a million pounds, the vibration from exercise would actually start to wa-

   5. JRJoe Rogan7:49

      You'd knock it outta orbit?

   6. TVTerry Virts7:51

      Not outta orbit-

   7. JRJoe Rogan7:51

      (laughs)

   8. TVTerry Virts7:51

      ... you'd break it apart, actually.

   9. JRJoe Rogan7:53

      What? Really?

   10. TVTerry Virts7:53

       They told us, uh, a couple minutes of that'll snap it in half. Yeah, 'cause the whole thing starts to bend and flex. And if you're doing it in resonance, it's really dangerous. They've got videos of, like, the, the solar arrays. And these things are big. They don't fit in a football field. They're hundreds of feet. And they start moving and if the astronaut forgets to, if they leave the, if they forget to use the vibration system correctly, um, the station starts flexing. And Houston, there's some guy that monitors and, like, the alarm goes off and they call you up, "Stop doing what you're doing."

   11. JRJoe Rogan8:22

       Whoa.

   12. TVTerry Virts8:23

       It kinda blew me away. Uh, it- it's a million-pound massive spaceship, but still there's nothing stopping it. There's nothing, like, supporting it.

   13. JRJoe Rogan8:31

       There's no, like, frame.

   14. TVTerry Virts8:33

       No, it's just floating. So even the exercise of you running on a treadmill or you doing squats, there's a lot of... If you're pushing 400 pounds this way, something's pushing 400 pounds that way, right? So, um, and y- if you're going up and down in the right frequency, it'll, it'll snap the station in half.

   15. JRJoe Rogan8:53

       Pffft.

   16. TVTerry Virts8:53

       So what, i- in this IMAX movie I made, A Beautiful Planet, you can see, um, there's a scene of me running on the treadmill and my crewmate Samantha doing weightlifting. And the machines are just going up and down. I mean, they're moving a lot.

   17. JRJoe Rogan9:05

       When you're running on a treadmill, how are you locked into place?

   18. TVTerry Virts9:07

       Yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan9:07

       You don't, uh... Do you have a belt?

   20. TVTerry Virts9:09

       No, it's a shoulder pad thing. So there's-

   21. JRJoe Rogan9:11

       Okay.

   22. TVTerry Virts9:11

       You wear, like, shoulder pads and there are these bungee cords that hold you down 'cause otherwise you'd take one step and you'd go shooting off.

   23. JRJoe Rogan9:18

       There it is.

   24. TVTerry Virts9:19

       Yeah, there you go. There's-

   25. JRJoe Rogan9:20

       And-

   26. TVTerry Virts9:20

       ... someone running in space.

   27. JRJoe Rogan9:20

       ... is it one of those self-propelling treadmills? Like, uh-

   28. TVTerry Virts9:24

       They're...

   29. JRJoe Rogan9:24

       ... an AirRunner?

   30. TVTerry Virts9:25

       Yeah, there's two ways.
5. 10:43 – 14:25

   Sleeping in space and the ‘Groundhog Day’ schedule of ISS life

   1. JRJoe Rogan10:43

      How long does it take you to get used to just sleeping in space?

   2. TVTerry Virts10:47

      Yeah. Sleeping was something that, um-

   3. JRJoe Rogan10:49

      There you go.

   4. TVTerry Virts10:50

      Yeah, there we go.

   5. JRJoe Rogan10:50

      So that's, that's the-

   6. TVTerry Virts10:51

      That's the treadmill. See how it's moving and bouncing up and down?

   7. JRJoe Rogan10:53

      Mm-hmm.

   8. TVTerry Virts10:53

      And you see those bungee cords. Um, that is an old, that's an old video, but it's, you get the idea.

   9. JRJoe Rogan10:59

      And the moving and bouncing-

   10. TVTerry Virts11:00

       (coughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan11:01

       ... is all just to prevent it from fucking up the space station?

   12. TVTerry Virts11:04

       Yeah. So it's on these, like, spring devices. If that was attached to the station, the station would be doing that.

   13. JRJoe Rogan11:09

       Oh.

   14. TVTerry Virts11:09

       And you can imagine the hatches, right? They're attached.

   15. JRJoe Rogan11:11

       Yeah, they just start snapping.

   16. TVTerry Virts11:12

       And if they're doing this, there's constant force on 'em, so...

   17. JRJoe Rogan11:15

       Wow.

   18. TVTerry Virts11:15

       For something... You know, it's 20 years old now. Hopefully it'll last another 20 or who knows how long, but you don't want (laughs) that metal fatigue to happen.

   19. JRJoe Rogan11:24

       Um, so you're, you're living up there for 200 days. How m- like, when y- the, the first night you fall asleep, like sleeping in space-

   20. TVTerry Virts11:33

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan11:34

       ... are you just floating above the bed? Are you like, do you-

   22. TVTerry Virts11:37

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan11:37

       ... strap yourself down?

   24. TVTerry Virts11:38

       S- so I was worried about this 'cause, like, I've never slept in space before on my first mission. And that first-

   25. JRJoe Rogan11:44

       You didn't sleep at all? You were up for two weeks?

   26. TVTerry Virts11:46

       No, no, no, no, no. No, I slept like a baby. I, I was worried that I wouldn't. I didn't know.

   27. JRJoe Rogan11:49

       Oh, so this is the first time you're saying?

   28. TVTerry Virts11:50

       The first, my first mission.

   29. JRJoe Rogan11:52

       Yeah.

   30. TVTerry Virts11:53

       And, um, on the shuttle, there's six of us in the mid-deck, which is, like, a third of the size of this room. Or ha- yeah, it's less than half of this room.
6. 14:25 – 16:12

   When missions extend unexpectedly: rocket failures, supply margins, and mindset

   1. NANarrator14:25

      Um, when you know you have to be committed to something for, like, 200 days, is it... Does it start to feel prison-like-

   2. TVTerry Virts14:32

      (laughs)

   3. NANarrator14:32

      ... where you're kinda counting down the days you can get back to Earth? Or-

   4. TVTerry Virts14:34

      Yeah.

   5. NANarrator14:35

      ... or are you still enjoying it?

   6. TVTerry Virts14:37

      I enjoyed it the whole time. Actually, it was supposed to be 169 days, and then we had... There was three rockets that blew up back to back to back, an American one, the Russian one, and then another American one. When the Russian one blew up, it was in the middle of my mission, and they... The Progress cargo ship uses the same rocket as the people, as the Soyuz rocket. It's the same rocket. So the Russians said, "Hey, we don't wanna watch your, launch your replacement crew until we know what the problem was. And so since you don't have a replacement crew, you guys are gonna stay longer." So we got kinda stuck in space, you know, and we didn't know how long we were gonna be there. And we were kinda getting low on supplies since that was the second cargo ship that had blown up.

   7. NANarrator15:16

      Jesus.

   8. TVTerry Virts15:16

      So, you know, and it was all about attitude. It was just like COVID. It was like all of a sudden, you're stuck and you're low on supplies. It was a similar... (laughs) Like, when COVID happened, I'm like, this is like when I was in space and we got stuck there.

   9. NANarrator15:27

      Do they have an emergency supply of food for you guys up there?

   10. TVTerry Virts15:31

       There w- there was enough, um, food that we were good. The NASA guy... There's a ground team that manages, you know. They wanna have margin on oxygen and water and food and everything.

   11. NANarrator15:41

       Yeah.

   12. TVTerry Virts15:42

       And they handled three failures back to back to back and used up all the margin, and they kept the full crew there.

   13. NANarrator15:50

       (exhales)

   14. TVTerry Virts15:50

       So they... But there was no more margin. Like, it was time to, for something to work, and it did th- thankfully, so.

   15. NANarrator15:56

       Oh, God. Imagine if it didn't, if three more back to back to back.

   16. TVTerry Virts15:58

       Yeah, if four would've happened, we would've probably had to start bringing guys back and, like, just leave a skeleton crew up there. But thankfully, that didn't happen. And the... Thanks to the guys in Houston, they... And Moscow and everywhere. They, they had managed the backup food that was, uh...

7. 16:12 – 17:38

   What astronauts eat—and how Americans and Russians trade meals

   1. NANarrator16:12

      What are you eating up there?

   2. TVTerry Virts16:14

      I- i- it wasn't bad. I actually liked it, you know. It's better than what I cook for (laughs) myself as a bachelor. Um-

   3. NANarrator16:20

      Really?

   4. TVTerry Virts16:21

      Yeah, I mean, it, it was pretty good. It's not... It's, it's like, uh, MREs that the military guys eat.

   5. NANarrator16:26

      Mm-hmm.

   6. TVTerry Virts16:26

      You know, the green bags of food? The NASA food is basically MREs. So you just rip it open and stick a spoon in and eat it. You can warm it up if you want, or you just eat it straight. There's dehydrated food in these plastic containers. It's like crunchy meat or vegetables or fruits or anything you can dehydrate. You stick it in the machine, dial in how many milliliters, push a button, and then it... 10 minutes later, it's food. Um...

   7. NANarrator16:51

      Wow.

   8. TVTerry Virts16:52

      The Russians have similar kind of s- It's a different system, but similar. And the Russian food was great. I loved it. Um-

   9. NANarrator16:57

      Is it better than the American food?

   10. TVTerry Virts16:59

       Well, it's different, which is important. Over 200 days, you don't wanna eat the same thing every day.

   11. NANarrator17:03

       Right.

   12. TVTerry Virts17:03

       So the Russians have great borscht. You know, their soup is awesome.

   13. NANarrator17:07

       Mm-hmm.

   14. TVTerry Virts17:07

       Mashed potatoes were great. Uh, and the fish was really good. We didn't have any fish, so they had these little, like, cat food cans of fish.

   15. NANarrator17:14

       Mm.

   16. TVTerry Virts17:14

       And the cosmonauts were, like, sick of them. Like, "Another day of cat food." But I loved 'em 'cause I was never getting fish, so. And there was a few things that we didn't like that they loved. So I, I started this bag of, like, uneaten food. So whatever we didn't like, we put in there. And about once a week, those guys, the Russians, would come down and raid our... They would eat everything that we didn't like, and we would go down there and eat.

   17. NANarrator17:34

       (laughs)

   18. TVTerry Virts17:34

       They'd have, like, boxes of these cans of fish, and I, we loved 'em, so...

8. 17:38 – 20:08

   Learning Russian for the ISS: cases, accent, and years of ‘brain Teflon’

   1. NANarrator17:38

      Do you speak Russian?

   2. TVTerry Virts17:39

      Da.

   3. NANarrator17:40

      Yeah. Really?

   4. TVTerry Virts17:41

      Немножко.

   5. NANarrator17:41

      How, how... Like, completely fluent?

   6. TVTerry Virts17:43

      That's impossible.

   7. NANarrator17:44

      Uh-huh.

   8. TVTerry Virts17:44

      Unless you're born and raised in Russia, you can't be fluent.

   9. NANarrator17:47

      Really?

   10. TVTerry Virts17:47

       Yeah. It's, it's such a crazy lang- French is pretty easy. Spanish is pretty easy. Um, Russian is not. I can have a conversation, but it's... After "da," it's obvious that I'm not Russian. (laughs)

   11. NANarrator18:01

       (laughs)

   12. TVTerry Virts18:02

       Yeah.

   13. NANarrator18:03

       It's that complicated that you have to be born and raised there?

   14. TVTerry Virts18:06

       Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Y- uh, you know, you, you can't... They, they have these things called cases. It's just the way the grammar works that we don't have. Um-... you know, the accent you can f- the letters you can figure out. Everybody's like, "Oh, they're different letters." That took, I s- that w- lesson one was a couple hours and then I had the letters figured out. That, that's not hard. It's like the way of saying things, and the accent, and yeah, it's impossible to be perfectly fluent, like you can't tell the difference. That's-

   15. JRJoe Rogan18:34

       Can you read it and write it, though?

   16. TVTerry Virts18:36

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan18:36

       So you could, you could read, like, War and Peace in Russian?

   18. TVTerry Virts18:40

       I could, I could read the words out loud. I would only know what half of 'em mean, or a third. You know, I wouldn't know what I was reading fr- but I, but yeah, I could. We used to watch, in class we'd watch, um, Russian TV programs. So, in like an hour class, I'd get through five minutes of the show. 'Cause it'd be like, "All right, stop. What did he say? Okay, that's it." And so we, that's how I tried to learn, you know, colloquial, modern Russian.

   19. JRJoe Rogan19:02

       Wow.

   20. TVTerry Virts19:02

       But it's a... I love languages. It's funny, when you get to NASA, uh, you think you're good at something, right? They, the astronauts are usually pretty good at something before you get there. So I thought I was pretty good at languages. I had lived in Finland and I did an exchange in France, and, and, uh, Russian just kicked my ass. And it was like years of just torture. And my, I felt like my brain was Teflon. Like I'd have to say... I'd go to class for an hour and w- I'd learn one word. You know? It was just really painful.

   21. JRJoe Rogan19:30

       That's interesting, because it's an advantage for them, 'cause they can learn English pretty well.

   22. TVTerry Virts19:35

       I- if you can learn Russian, that's why they're so smart. Russians are so smart and educated, they have to speak Russian, so that, you know, I think it is, (laughs) I think it is an advantage for 'em. But it was like years, and I finally got over this hill. So it went from being really tough to, like, I loved it, and I needed it, and I wanted more, and I just want to... I t- um, I put my phone on Russian, and I was always trying to s- just speak Russian. So it wa- it was this weird, like, it went from, like, uh, eh, probably like exercising, you know? When you first start running, it sucks, and then after a while, it's like you get the endorphins and you wanna run some more. For me, Russian was the same thing.

9. 20:08 – 26:42

   Test pilots and The Right Stuff: Yeager, risk culture, and flying classic jets

   1. JRJoe Rogan20:08

      Now, you obviously, uh, y- flying into space wasn't your first flights, right? You flew jets.

   2. TVTerry Virts20:15

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan20:15

      You, you w- you were a test pilot as well, right?

   4. TVTerry Virts20:18

      Mm-hmm. Right.

   5. JRJoe Rogan20:18

      Which is, that's gotta be nerve-wracking, 'cause-

   6. TVTerry Virts20:22

      Yeah, it's, um... You know what te- And by the way, you know, uh, shout out to Chuck Yeager, you know, my-

   7. JRJoe Rogan20:28

      Yeah, he just passed.

   8. TVTerry Virts20:29

      ... my hero and just passed away. Um, The Right Stuff was I, it's what motivated me to be an astronaut. I read that book as I, in high school and it kinda... I didn't know anything. My f- no one in my family had ever been an astronaut or a pilot, and so that Right Stuff book showed me how to be an astronaut, and it was a lot about Chuck Yeager, so. Um-

   9. JRJoe Rogan20:47

      Those guys were gangsters.

   10. TVTerry Virts20:48

       They were.

   11. JRJoe Rogan20:50

       (laughs)

   12. TVTerry Virts20:50

       And, you know, one of my goals (laughs) in life was to not have a street or an elementary school on an Air Force base named after me.

   13. JRJoe Rogan20:56

       (laughs)

   14. TVTerry Virts20:57

       Um, and, you know, when I was at Edwards, it was just... When you watch The Right Stuff, it's this old 1950s-

   15. JRJoe Rogan21:03

       When you die, is that when they name it after you?

   16. TVTerry Virts21:04

       Yeah. Exactly.

   17. JRJoe Rogan21:05

       Oh, okay. That's what I figured.

   18. TVTerry Virts21:06

       They call it Buying the Farm, yeah. So, um-

   19. JRJoe Rogan21:09

       Oof.

   20. TVTerry Virts21:09

       Yeah, so that was one of (laughs) my goals. And thankfully, you know, that didn't happen, but, um...

   21. JRJoe Rogan21:13

       But, uh, th- when he was doing it back then, I mean, when he-

   22. TVTerry Virts21:16

       It was every week, yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan21:18

       Th- th- those guys were so savage to be able-

   24. TVTerry Virts21:21

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan21:21

       ... to do that.

   26. TVTerry Virts21:22

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan21:22

       And to know that there's a high percentage of these things that you're testing-

   28. TVTerry Virts21:26

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan21:26

       ... tha- that are likely to fail, and-

   30. TVTerry Virts21:28

       Yeah.
10. 26:42 – 36:28

    From jets to orbit: situational awareness, the ‘overview effect,’ and politics

    1. JRJoe Rogan26:42

       Wow. Um, so what I was gonna get at was that you- you'd obviously been high above the Earth and flying in fighter jets. How much of a difference in perspective is it being a fighter jet pilot to being in actual space?

    2. TVTerry Virts27:00

       There's a lot of really important similarities. In fact, I think the, the best training that we do as astronauts is in jets. The... At NASA has T-38s, which you could probably buy some of those, um, y- you know, on the civilian market.

    3. NANarrator27:11

       Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

    4. TVTerry Virts27:11

       It's a supersonic trainer. And the stick-and-rudder skills of, like, how to land a T-38 don't matter. You're not doing that in space. But the mental skill of having situational awareness and being able to stay ahead of the jet... You know, you're flying at 300 knots or 500 knots, so things are happening fast. And you're outta gas as soon as you take off, and there's bad... There's Texas thunderstorms and... So that, being able to think under pressure, um, and it's not a simulator. If you're in a simulator and you crash the shuttle, you hit pause, and then you go to lunch. But in a T-38 (laughs) , there's no pause button, so... It really helps astronauts, especially those who were not fighter pilots in a previous life-

    5. JRJoe Rogan27:50

       So a T-38 is-

    6. TVTerry Virts27:50

       ... just get, get used to working.

    7. JRJoe Rogan27:53

       What is it? It's not a simulator.

    8. TVTerry Virts27:54

       It's a jet. It's a-

    9. JRJoe Rogan27:55

       Just a jet. So you-

    10. TVTerry Virts27:56

        They have 'em here in San An- in San Antonio.

    11. JRJoe Rogan27:58

        There it is.

    12. TVTerry Virts27:58

        Yeah.

    13. JRJoe Rogan27:58

        So what you're saying is that flying this jet prepares you for space travel just because of the fact that it's difficult to do, and because the, the principles apply?

    14. TVTerry Virts28:07

        Yeah, there's, there's a NASA T-38. Um, uh-

    15. JRJoe Rogan28:10

        That one right there. Looks sweet.

    16. TVTerry Virts28:11

        That's Stennis. That's in Mississippi. That's a rocket test stand. Yeah.

    17. JRJoe Rogan28:14

        What a sweet-looking piece of equipment.

    18. TVTerry Virts28:16

        It's amazing. It's really cool. Um, and so, when you're flying a jet, it's just like flying in a spaceship. Like, things are happening fast. You have to anticipate the couple moves in front of the jet. You have to, uh, you know, stay calm when something bad happens. Um...

    19. JRJoe Rogan28:34

        I flew with the Blue Angels once.

    20. TVTerry Virts28:36

        Oh, wow.

    21. JRJoe Rogan28:36

        In F/A-18.

    22. TVTerry Virts28:37

        Yeah. That's awesome.

    23. JRJoe Rogan28:39

        Wild, man.

    24. TVTerry Virts28:40

        Yeah.

    25. JRJoe Rogan28:40

        It's wild.

    26. TVTerry Virts28:41

        Yeah. It's awesome.

    27. JRJoe Rogan28:41

        The feeling of G-force is... You, you need to experience that to-

    28. TVTerry Virts28:45

        Yeah.

    29. JRJoe Rogan28:45

        ... just to understand, like-

    30. TVTerry Virts28:48

        What it's like to get smashed down.
11. 36:28 – 43:50

    Why space is expensive: rocket equation, Mars timelines, and terraforming myths

    1. JRJoe Rogan36:28

       When do you think that's gonna be commercially available? Where, where-

    2. TVTerry Virts36:31

       Well-

    3. JRJoe Rogan36:31

       ... people are gonna be able to go up there and, like, regular folks?

    4. TVTerry Virts36:36

       So people always are like, "When can regular folks go into space?" And I always say, "Well, clearly, regular people haven't been into space." (laughs)

    5. JRJoe Rogan36:43

       Ever.

    6. TVTerry Virts36:43

       I mean, I, I w- well, I don't know, who am I?

    7. JRJoe Rogan36:45

       (laughs)

    8. TVTerry Virts36:45

       I'm, like, some middle-class guy from Maryland.

    9. JRJoe Rogan36:47

       Yeah, but you're an astronaut.

    10. TVTerry Virts36:49

        The first guy that... I wasn't born an astronaut.

    11. JRJoe Rogan36:51

        I understand.

    12. TVTerry Virts36:51

        Yeah.

    13. JRJoe Rogan36:51

        But you worked really hard to get to the position-

    14. TVTerry Virts36:53

        I did, yeah.

    15. JRJoe Rogan36:53

        ... where they decided to put you in space.

    16. TVTerry Virts36:55

        Right.

    17. JRJoe Rogan36:55

        What I wanna talk about is, like, Mike, the UPS driver.

    18. TVTerry Virts36:58

        Right. When can he go into space?

    19. JRJoe Rogan36:59

        Yeah, like, his wife buys him a ticket. "Oh, shit, I'm going to space."

    20. TVTerry Virts37:02

        Well, if he can save up a couple hundred thousand dollars, I think-

    21. JRJoe Rogan37:05

        Yeah, that's what-

    22. TVTerry Virts37:06

        ... I think next year.

    23. JRJoe Rogan37:06

        ... I'm talking, that's a little problematic.

    24. TVTerry Virts37:08

        So-

    25. JRJoe Rogan37:08

        When, when is it gonna be, like, two grand?

    26. TVTerry Virts37:10

        Yeah. That may never happen-

    27. JRJoe Rogan37:13

        Ah.

    28. TVTerry Virts37:13

        You, it's all, it's a question of energy. Right?

    29. JRJoe Rogan37:15

        Right.

    30. TVTerry Virts37:15

        It's one, it's 1/2 MV squared. And to go, if you wanna go 500 miles an hour, you can spend 49 bucks on Southwest Airlines and go from Austin to Phoenix, right?
12. 43:50 – 1:06:05

    Aliens, design, and the big questions: faith, cosmology, and quantum weirdness

    1. JRJoe Rogan43:50

       Um, w- what are your thoughts on extraterrestrial life?

    2. TVTerry Virts43:54

       (laughs) Um, so that's a good question. I wrote a chapter about that, too. So here's what I think. There's so many planets out there. When you turn the lights off in the cupola on the Space Station and you let your eyes adjust, just like the stars bright, you know, deep at night and deep in the heart of Texas, um, there's so many billions of stars. Like, it makes, it makes what you see from Earth, it dwarfs in comparison. There's so many billions of stars. And we have these planet hunters that find planets around stars, so there's, there's a lot of planets out there. You'd think there would be life. If there's, uh, if there's life once, there should be life a billion times. But the other thing, Joe, I got to do a lot of experiments on my body. I did, like, ultrasound on my brain and my eye and my heart, and, and stuff on mice and plants. And, uh, I just don't think life just happens on its own. It's so complicated. Like if you... We got this bottle of water here. If you had a pile of plastic for a billion years, it would never make a bottle of water. Like, somebody had to make the water, right? So I- And life is infinitely more complicated than a bottle of water. So in my... I came out of my space flight thinking, from... Not religiously, but from a scientific point of view, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. Like, the universe is just too... The physics behind the weak magnetic, y- magnetic, electromagnetic force, and the weak nuclear force, and the- how our bodies are d- made, it just points to design. So I- You'd think there would be aliens, but I think if there are, somebody had to have something to do with somehow getting them started.

    3. JRJoe Rogan45:29

       Does it point to design in, like, the idea of intelligent design? Or does it point to a way that the universe is structured that encourages complexity and constant change?

    4. TVTerry Virts45:45

       Right.

    5. JRJoe Rogan45:45

       And that these things adapt and change and shift, and you have all these biological forces that are competing? Like, if you think about life on Earth (clears throat) , you have all these various biological forces that are competing for dominance, right? There's animals that are eating animals-

    6. TVTerry Virts46:02

       Right.

    7. JRJoe Rogan46:02

       ... animals that are taking over resources. And then, you've got this one animal that figures out how to manipulate matter and how to manipulate environments and how to use its opposing thumbs and use its brain, and the brain grows larger.

    8. TVTerry Virts46:14

       Right.

    9. JRJoe Rogan46:14

       And you see, like, this process, that this... But this process all has to do with trying to adapt, trying to innovate, and competing with all these other forces. It seems like problems and, and, and, and difficulties present themselves, and these organisms either make their way through these problems and come out on the other end adapted to them and better, or they don't.

    10. TVTerry Virts46:39

        Yeah.

    11. JRJoe Rogan46:39

        And th- this is, this is the weirdness of life, right? And this is why 90% of all species that have ever existed are gone.

    12. TVTerry Virts46:46

        Mm-hmm.

    13. JRJoe Rogan46:46

        And I think it's more than 90, right?

    14. TVTerry Virts46:48

        Yeah, they couldn't, they couldn't adapt. (laughs)

    15. JRJoe Rogan46:50

        But we, in our minds, we instantly like to go to the simplest possible explanation, the simplest possible explanation being that there's some sort of a creator.

    16. TVTerry Virts47:00

        Yeah. Well, I don't think... So, I'm just... I wanna talk science, not religion.

    17. JRJoe Rogan47:05

        Mm-hmm.

    18. TVTerry Virts47:05

        I'm a Christian, but I, I don't wanna talk religion. But just... I don't know how it happened. It's not as simplistic as somebody just went poof and everything happened. Obviously, there's... You know, things evolve, and there's science behind it, which is the fun part of s- living, is learning how stuff works-

    19. JRJoe Rogan47:22

        Right.

    20. TVTerry Virts47:22

        ... and learning the science behind it. Um, but there... Like, just at the end of the day, s- I think somebody had to set things in motion with a, with a point of view. I made a short-

    21. JRJoe Rogan47:31

        But here's the question.

    22. TVTerry Virts47:31

        Yeah?

    23. JRJoe Rogan47:32

        Who set them in motion?

    24. TVTerry Virts47:34

        Right. Ultimately, there had to have been somebody that... Before the big bang, right? Um, I wrote a, I, I did a short film this year called Cosmic Perspective. I wanna turn it into a series. And I talk about how in the beginning of time, there were perfect imperfections. So, when the big bang happened, if it was, like, perfectly uniform, the universe would just be this giant balloon, right?

    25. JRJoe Rogan47:54

        Right.

    26. TVTerry Virts47:54

        But it w- The way... It wasn't mass at the time. It was just energy. The way it was, like, started was a little bit imperfect. And that's why you have stars and galaxies and galaxy clusters and everything. So... And if it was a little bit off, the whole universe wouldn't exist, right? So it's, it just... Things point to that. Or- Yeah.

    27. JRJoe Rogan48:14

        What is your perspective on the big bang? Do you... Th- th- there's a lot of people's...... views vary depending upon, like, what-what the most recent theories are and-

    28. TVTerry Virts48:23

        Yeah.

    29. JRJoe Rogan48:24

        But some people believe that the universe started with the big bang and some people believe that it's always existed and there's... it's a continuing cycle of big bangs, endless expansion, and then ultimately contraction, and then it starts all over again.

    30. TVTerry Virts48:40

        Yeah.
13. 1:06:05 – 1:32:19

    Modern polarization and algorithmic incentives: echo chambers, facts, and centrism

    1. TVTerry Virts1:06:05

       Um, r- right. And so you have to have an open mind as a scientist, but that also comes back to a bigger problem, not just science, but-... certain groups preach tolerance. We have to be tolerant of each other, as long as you believe-

    2. JRJoe Rogan1:06:19

       Right. (clears throat)

    3. TVTerry Virts1:06:19

       ... and as long as you're ideologically pure from their view of things.

    4. JRJoe Rogan1:06:22

       Yeah.

    5. TVTerry Virts1:06:22

       So there's very little tolerance for open discussion of anything today, right?

    6. JRJoe Rogan1:06:26

       Right. Yeah.

    7. TVTerry Virts1:06:26

       Their cancel culture, whatever you want to call it.

    8. JRJoe Rogan1:06:28

       Well, it's also, they, they, they're cowards.

    9. TVTerry Virts1:06:31

       Right.

    10. JRJoe Rogan1:06:31

        'Cause th- though there's some religions that are horribly repressive. And they'll-

    11. TVTerry Virts1:06:34

        Right.

    12. JRJoe Rogan1:06:34

        ... never criticize them at all.

    13. TVTerry Virts1:06:36

        Right.

    14. JRJoe Rogan1:06:36

        Because they're scared of being labeled, uh, Islamophobic, or-

    15. TVTerry Virts1:06:39

        Right.

    16. JRJoe Rogan1:06:40

        ... labeled, uh, you know, w- whatever. Figure out the relig- whatever religion it is-

    17. TVTerry Virts1:06:45

        Right.

    18. JRJoe Rogan1:06:45

        ... th- that you're discussing. People a- are worried about that, but they're never worried about criticizing Christianity.

    19. TVTerry Virts1:06:51

        Right.

    20. JRJoe Rogan1:06:51

        I mean, criticizing Christianity is like a free token.

    21. TVTerry Virts1:06:54

        Y- you, it's encouraged, right?

    22. JRJoe Rogan1:06:56

        Yeah, it's encouraged.

    23. TVTerry Virts1:06:56

        And, right, um.

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:06:57

        But criticizing other religions, eh, eh, you know, then you're racist. It's-

    25. TVTerry Virts1:07:01

        Right.

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:07:01

        ... it's very strange. Like-

    27. TVTerry Virts1:07:03

        Yeah.

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:07:03

        ... it's re- it re- it really is. It's, uh, it's an odd thing, 'cause I think there's, there's genuine beauty in most religions.

    29. TVTerry Virts1:07:11

        Right.

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:07:11

        Like, you can l- you can learn a lot about human beings and the sort of, uh, the way they, they use ethics and morals in their life-

Episode duration: 2:52:55