Astronaut Victor Glover on Artemis II: ’It did not feel like a reality show”

I get to do stuff that's cooler than Han Solo

I mean, I just, the fact that it's real, it just, it's better

We followed along the Artemis mission, as did a lot of humanity over the past few weeks

You made us all have a reason to look up to the sky and kind of remind ourselves what it is to be human

I want to start off, though, some technical stuff. So you're a pilot and you've flown a number of aircraft in your life

And during the Artemis II mission, you got to actually control the Orion spacecraft for a while

What was it like flying a spaceship? And at any point, did you say, I am Han Solo

Oh, man. You know, I'm going to just start at the back end of that

I get to do stuff that's cooler than Han Solo. I mean, I just, the fact that it's real, it's better

And so I feel like Han Solo wants to be me when he grows up

I don't know. That may sound egotistical, but it's real. So it's better. And the Orion Integrity Flu, it was just responsive

It was the integrated system. All of the little things that were just a little better, the control, the springs in the hand controller, there was less dead banding, less free play in the controller

or the place I was holding my hand wasn't something wiggly that I could just hold on to

as I clip my boots in. The fact that I could put my spacesuit boots on and clip them in and feel stable

And then the camera. The camera that we were looking at the ICPS, the upper stage through

the simulator is a grainy picture that moves very slowly. You can tell there's an update or a refresh rate

The real camera just seemed to be like looking out a window. There was so much detail

As soon as I would hit the thruster to go toward it, I could tell we were moving in toward it

And so that integrated system, which is a part of how we test, we wanted to test certain things

but really we wanted to know how does Orion fly. And it was such a treat and a joy

It was a test puddle dream to fly a new spaceship for the first time by hand And to say that hey the software modeling that we doing works That what verification and validation is We proved that what they thought was very close

and in fact, better. I love it. And during your time in space, what were some of the moments that

made you feel the most human? Going to sleep, you know, just lights out. We all had to go to sleep

at the same time and wake up at the same time. Or even if we woke up, we didn't turn on the lights

until the wake-up time came. And, you know, the first couple of nights

I would wake up and go, where am I? And I slept really close to an air conditioning bed

and so I'd wake up, and I'd just see this big hunk of metal, and when I'd lean back, my feet would pitch up

And it's like, instead of being in a bed where you can kind of roll around, and, you know, the bed might move a little bit

pitching your head back makes my feet rotate way up, and it was like, oh, I'm in space

I am weightless. and um that though but you know going to sleep sort of imagine a camp you know uh where you're

in a bunk house bunk beds and it's like all right lights out and you've got all your bunks and all

the kids are talking and you know the counselors come around and say okay guys it's time to go to

sleep we got a big day tomorrow that's actually what it felt like and that little kind of

familiarity but doing it 100 200 000 miles from earth it just was a hey we are up here doing the

basic things. You've got to eat, you've got to sleep, use the bathroom and be rested, do it all

again tomorrow. And so that really, that every time we went to bed and every time we woke up

it just, it was a small little bit of gratitude. Didn't have to stop and even acknowledge it

but just that really resonated with me is we're also humans. It's like camping and this is a very

important part of this journey. Absolutely. And as we're, what's amazing about this mission is

there's so much video and so much access to everything you guys were doing. And we can

literally at points watched the mission on netflix and in i mean this is i i mean this as

respectfully as fully as possible um it felt like a reality show a little bit despite the historic side of it this the science did that ever hit you guys that this was a little bit um like how did you balance being an astronaut and doing the science part of it But did you ever have to feel like you were a personality or that you had all this stuff

happening on Earth? First of all, I want to say, go NASA, go NASA comms, go NASA PAO

I'm glad that you felt that way. That is awesome. We need to share more. I worked for the government

twice. I'm a naval officer and a NASA astronaut. So that's great. But I also applaud them on

it did not feel like a reality show. I just, I knew they were on board. There were times people

would say, Hey, we're going to go on the camera. And I'm like, Hey, I'm go all the, you don't have to ask me. I'm, I'm good. I mean, there's a time where I'm like, you know, doing my bathing after

a workout. And I'm like, I, to me, you're asking about balance, but really it's not about balance

Balance is a balance requires this perfect me period to, for the perfect distance to like

you'll have a fulcrum and have something actually amounts. It's hard to strike a balance is my point

in physics. But something that is all around us is integration. Bring it all together. Our spaceship

is named integrity because we love wholeness. The heat shield to the team, all of it, it's all whole

And for you to see the science and hear us describing the moon and to see us flying the

spaceship by hand and to see bedtime and bath time and toothbrush time, that's what it's like

The mission was all of those things. And you just asked me about a human moment bedtime

If I didn't have a good night's sleep, the next day was going to be rough, but every day was packed

And so for you to see an integrated view, I think that may be one of the really, really special things about this mission is how much you were able to see

And I'm glad to hear that. It makes me feel good that you felt like you were there

It did not feel like a reality show on my end. When you guys got to see the moon and you captured so many amazing photos of the moon

what does the photos lack? Like what were you seeing with your eyes that you just won't show

up in a photo or the moment of seeing that moon especially parts of it for the first time Patrick great question Depth parallax Listen one of the things that was really cool when you on the space station you know you moving you going 17 miles an hour It does not like it does not look like

the view out the window of an airplane. You are booking across the ground. You notice it when

you're trying to take pictures of targets on earth. Well, we were really far from the earth

and really far from the moon and we got really close to both. And so, but it was very clear. We were moving. We were going so fast. I could see the shadow, the Terminator. People know I

fell in love with the terminator when i got to see the real one up close i watched the terminator go

from a letter c to a letter d which means i flew pat there was a point when the moon was half light

half dark it was pointing right at me actually from a c to an i to a d it but it showed depth

i could see the curvature of the moon depth is just one aspect that you cannot see in the pictures

but here's the other thing the pictures lack scale and when you put scale in the three dimensionality

together, it's just overload. There's so much in each of those pictures that the pictures don't

really capture it. I hope while you were looking at those pictures and the shots from the external

you know, cameras, we had cameras on the solar arrays, cameras inside, we took stills and videos

that you also maybe go back and watch it again and listen to the picture we're trying to paint

with words. Because I think that also highlights what some of those moments felt like. There's a

lot more than the pictures. When we burned this burn towards the moon, I said that we do not leave Earth, but we

choose it. And that is true. We will explore. We will build

We will build ships. We will visit again. We will construct science outposts

We will drive rovers. We will do radio astronomy. We will found companies

We will boaster industry. We will inspire. But ultimately, we will always choose Earth

We will always choose each other