Oprah and the Artemis II Crew: To the Moon and Back

26:16We're so quick to defend a position and want to have a debate, but to just appreciate questions. I am very comfortable not knowing. I don't have the answer. Did any of you think that perhaps there's some other life out here somewhere? That thought has to occur to you, that we can't be the only ones on tiny earth. And so how have you resolved that question for yourself? If statistically speaking, you just look at how big the universe is and you think there's got to be something out there. And with all of the efforts of the United States and all of our partner governments, we have not found it yet.

26:59And so I would say that it's this massive opportunity for there to be something, but also a reminder how important it is for us to take care of this something that we know, because we haven't found another place that we could do this yet. Okay, so let's talk about this. I just interviewed Jim Collins recently. Jim Collins is one of the great leadership executives and teachers and philosophers in the country. He wrote Good to Great, and all the businesses use that book, Good to Great. And he just recently wrote a book called What to Make of a Life. And he begins a story talking about John Glenn and how John Glenn first saw airplanes in the sky and then wanted to be a pilot.

27:43And he says that John Glenn didn't just aspire to be an astronaut, but that John Glenn and all the other people he writes about in his book, What to Make of a Life, were encoded for it. He says John Glenn was encoded to be an astronaut. I see you smiling. Were you encoded to be an astronaut? Like, it's just in there. I can start with this, but it's just because I have an anecdote because I don't know the real answer to that. But about two years ago, I decided I wanted to learn to swim. And I am not coordinated. I'm the least coordinated person you can imagine. And my husband watched me struggle for about a year and a half straight to try to learn to swim.

28:33I would actually try to learn just to kick my feet and go straight in the pool. And I would go backwards and people would say, what were you doing? Was that some kind of a drill? And I would say, no, I'm just that bad at swimming. And my husband told me, honey, you were made to be an astronaut. You were not made to swim. And I feel like one person believes in me that I'm made to be an astronaut. Okay. Okay. I like that anecdote. If I could just see one common thread is like, And Christine often says, what she would recommend to young folks is to do things that scare you, like do things out of your comfort zone.

29:14And when I look at the four of us in our astronaut office as a whole, we are fairly comfortable doing things that are, you just kind of throw yourself into it. If there was a helicopter sitting over there, I would want to just go get in it and figure it out. We just have that kind of natural curiosity. I almost think it's a curiosity. Just put me in an unknown position and let me see if I can work my way through it. And I think when I look at the four of us, we just like that. That is something we just enjoy doing. Jeremy, I love it when you talk about every human has a gift. Oh, yeah. So that was something that was shared with me from an Indigenous elder at the Turtle Lodge that created this mission patch for the Canadian aspect of the mission.

29:57And in each of these, there's like seven animals that represent the seven sacred laws. But there's one teaching that I really love, and it's the teaching of the beaver. and it's that the beaver is a special gift. Of course, it can chew down trees. No one else can, nothing else can chew down trees. But it has the wisdom to know how to use its gift to change its environment in a manner that supports others in bringing their gifts to the world. I heard that you were grappling with this question of how could you possibly be happy when people are dying and suffering throughout the world? You know, that question I really answered when I went on the vision quest with this elder.

30:32and that was the question I was really struggling with at that time. And the sort of the epiphany I had was that, you know, Jeremy, you don't carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Your job every day is to wake up, to try to leave the world better than you found it, to try to contribute your energy in a way that lifts others up and that is where you source your joy. And if everybody just tries to do that simple thing, it's just not as hard as we make it. If you try to do that simple thing, you can have joy. After the break.

31:30Projects side by side. Gift more and do more together this Father's Day with help from The Home Depot. Exclusions apply. See homedepot.com slash price match for details. Welcome back to The Oprah Podcast with the crew of Artemis II. Okay, now I want to talk about that liftoff and traveling through Earth's atmosphere. What's going through your mind in that moment? We're at 39 times the speed of sound. We're at six miles every... Not six miles a minute. Second. Six miles a second at pantry. 25 ,000 miles per hour. You're 25 ,000 miles per hour. A lot. Maybe all of the things. Yep. Teamwork. Trust in your team.

32:15We had an amazing relationship with the folks that designed the one piece of equipment that does all of the work or most of the work on reentry, which is the heat shield. Yeah. And we had an incredible relationship with them. and we really came together as a team. And I was thinking about them and I was thinking about this team and I was thinking about the team I was coming home to. You're thinking about all that went into making that liftoff possible. And you just mentioned the space stations. So you were out there longer than any female has ever been there. How many days? 328 days? 328. And you did like over 5 ,000 orbits?

32:54If someone counted, that's probably right. I don't, I'm not sure. Yes. And so how is that experience compared to what you just experienced? Yeah. Wow. You know, I think that the thing that struck me and my takeaway on perspective that was different was how far away we were from our home planet. Because it's not that far away when you're at the space station. When you're at the space station, you're about 250 miles up. So we were about a thousand times farther. and you can see a horizon. You can make out landforms. That's why, yeah, yeah. And all of the things... So the earth doesn't look like tiny earth.

33:35It looks like big earth, right? It's gorgeous, big, beautiful earth. And there's so many things that come with that, with being able to identify places on earth. And maybe you could say, though, that the more important difference is where we went. We went to the moon. We have a relationship with the moon, which is something that's meant something to all of us. It's meant something to civilization since the beginning of time. And we left part of ourselves there. We miss it. And having that, this destination that we got to go explore is another aspect that we have to internalize, different from the space station.

34:17And still internalizing it. And still internalizing it. Probably for the rest of our lives. But the space station enabled our mission, and the 25 years of continuous people living on board, everything we've learned there about how to operate, about teamwork, we brought that with us. And you learned how to be in a tiny little space. And, yeah. Does it ever get to the point where you're like, you can't be claustrophobic, and they must know you're not claustrophobic, right? Does it ever get to the point where... Surprisingly, I mean, we joked before we went. I mean, I would often say, I'm sure when they opened that hatch on day 10 that we will be ready to get out.

34:50But I was not ready to get out. Not at all. If they had said we could have stayed in space longer, I would have been like, I'm fine with that. Really? He kept joking on the mission that we're going to do a perigee rays burn, which would mean we would go by the air and do it all over again. We're going to keep going. A victory lap. Yeah. We were ready. Let's look at this photo. We found this photo, my team did, from 19, this is a control room 1969 Apollo 11 launch. Joanne Morgan is the only woman, and she's an instrumentation controller. And, you know, if you're looking at the wide shot of that picture, you have to squint to actually see her in that photograph.

35:28And now 30%, I hear, of the Artemis launch team on the ground were women. Yes. I think about how hard that must have been for her. Yeah, yeah. First and foremost. And then when you say 30%, I wonder why it's not 50. But it is great to have the team that we have. Yeah. So what do you want to say to young women? I think what I would really want to say to them right now, in this moment, is, you are enough. And I say that because... So in my high school, someone donated a statue of me. And it made me uneasy. Something about it just didn't sit perfectly well with me. And it wasn't just my humility or something like that.

36:15And I finally put my finger on it. I was worried that the people that would walk through the door and see it would think that they weren't enough. Because that statue was too perfect of a representation. And at the little speech making that I did when it opened, I made sure to talk about the person I was in high school. And how unsure I was of myself. How many mistakes I made, how many people I hurt, people that hurt me. and I just wanted them to know that they don't have to be as perfect as a statue. And sometimes right now I feel like this crew is a little bit like that statue. We, in being here and talking about the superlatives, it doesn't tell the whole story because we have a long story.

37:05A lot of people behind us, a lot of missteps, a couple victories, But all that came together to make us these people that very humanly carried everyone's dreams around the far side of the moon. But, you know, before we did that, we were enough. And I would say to them, you are too. Well, you know what's so interesting is that from everything that we have seen of you, you know, going off into space, coming back, and now this, you know, world press tour, you all seem still so humble and still, you know, have your feet on the ground about all of this. What keeps you not leaning into the, you know, the egoness of all of this?

37:56Four daughters. Four daughters? No, I love it. It just happened, my first mission I landed and my oldest daughter graduated from high school three weeks later. And this mission, it was about a month my youngest daughter graduates from high school. And that is actually very helpful to be able to come back and try to just reintegrate back into my life. Is it hard reintegrating? I mean, it's hard when you go on a business trip. So I'm sure it's really challenging. It requires intentionality. You know, and I think it depends on where your life was when you launched. And, you know, my first time I launched it was six months later, and this time it was 10 days.

38:37And I hope I didn't leave the garage door open. And so it's different, but it requires intentionality. And I knew that because I got to practice it before in the military and on my first mission. But it's still different. My kids are five years. They're all adults now. They're five years older than the last time. And so that has been a very helpful perspective for me. but also that the trust... What do you have to do entering the space? I remember a friend who was an actor who was saying if he's going away on a six month trip and you come back, the space is different. It's changed. It's changed.

39:11And so you have to enter that space not as a person who left, but you have to enter the new space. So what changes for you when you're reentering? At the end of that very long comment, I'm also going to say that to not be, to not fill the room. My kids have personalities. My wife has a personality. They want to share. They want to be listened to. And America trusted us to do this. The world trusted us to do this. Canada trusted us to do this. And it's not just for us to tell the story. It's to listen to people. My church asked me to talk about the mission. And in listening to people talk at church, I was like, okay, I agree to do it.

39:47If it can be a community discussion. I've heard things from each of them that I had not heard before. And I was gone, just like watching the video. So it's to not fill a room. It's easy not to lean into it because there's so much that everybody else has. And also everybody wants to hear from you. Yes. Everybody wants to hear from you. But that's just one piece. That's just one piece. Jeremy, how would you answer that question, reentering the space with your wife and family? Very warmly. I felt really supported leading up to the launch because that's a very stressful time. And I just thought maybe the cracks would start to show, you know, in the family unit, but we really leaned in together.

40:29I really, we had two conferences with our families when we were in space, and those just felt so warm and positive. And so coming back, yes, things have changed, but the things that I'm craving are the ones that stayed the same. And I feel like they have a sense of that. And we're just, when we're together, it's just the way it always was. How did you all talk to your families about the risks involved? Because, you know, as you all were reentering, all of us are holding our breaths and we're watching that fire rocket ship come down. And we're all having a collective universal prayer that it's going to be okay.

41:08And I can imagine what that is like for your families taking off and landing. So did you have the discussion before? Did you have the discussion with your daughters? 100%. And you have, they don't want to hear the discussion. At least that was my perception. But you have to have it. You have to hit it head on. Do you actually say the words, if I don't come back, or if something happens? We read through the will. We read through the trust. If I don't come back, here's where you're going to go. Here's where your guardians will be. Here's where you'll spend your Christmas, your holidays. Here's where you'll spend your summers.

41:41And what I found in that, although it's difficult, there's probably two things I want to say. The first I want to say is I felt like it was liberating for them. I felt like it gave them space to just accept that this is a possibility. And then not many people have these conversations with their families. Period. But life is risky, even if you're not climbing on an 8 million pound rocket and going around the moon. And I think these conversations are very healthy. And another thing that this conversation helped me with, but then also my crew has helped me with, is there are a lot of things that you want to shy away from.

42:13and you, those build up in your soul. You can feel them building up when you shy away from a conversation that you should be having. And I'm not perfect. I shy away from, they know, I shy away from just about every tough conversation because it's hard for me. But I have found every time you have those conversations, even if they don't go well, you come out the other side, just your soul is a little bit freer. That's something I'm still, that's part of my journey at 50 years old is to still work my way through that. But don't avoid, you have to, you have to talk about those things. Yeah. Did you, Christina?

42:42I did. I had those conversations with my husband, and he knew I was working on a will. He was aware of the risks. And I sort of waited, I would say, till the mission was very salient, till we were in quarantine. And I knew that he knew that I was going on a journey that I understood the risks of, and that it was the fulfillment of my life's work and all of my dreams, and that that would bring him peace if I didn't come back. But what I realized I needed him to know was that none of that was what meant the most to me and why he should actually have peace. It was because he loved me and I loved him.

43:26And that's why it would be okay. I'm struggling with a short answer to this because it is such a profound thing to try to walk through. I think the characteristic that stands out the most is I had this conversation the very first time at about 28 years old, getting ready to go into combat. And so five deployments and a space mission, my life and my family, my wife, we've all changed. And this last time, my kids were all adults. And so this was a very different, the most different conversation. and I felt like I needed to respect their adulthood, and it just was an honest conversation. And at the end of it, I felt it was very heavy.

44:11I mean, not everybody is having these types of conversations, but it's important. Did you do it one-on-one or did you do it as a group? A little bit of both. I've got four very different daughters and, you know, different needs there, and so a little bit of both. And then at the end, I just, I had to send them a poem. I was like, I don't know. I don't know how I ended that. And so I sent them this poem, and Chief Tecumseh, it's a really just well-written, very dense, I love it. It's a way to live your life, but in the end, it talks about if you go out, you know, sing your song and go out in the blaze of glory, and it's a very rich poem.

44:49And so I sent that to them, and they all appreciated it, I think. And so it helped to end it on a little more positive note. And you sent that to us before we launched, too? Yes. I also sent it to the group. You sent them the poem? I sent it to the crew. Two days or one day before launch? I guess it was. I should have sent it a little earlier. That's a great poem. It was perfect. We were having a discussion as a crew about, like, what if we end up in that situation where we are still alive but we don't think we're coming back? How are we going to show up for each other? How are we going to handle it?

45:21And it was on the heels of that. You all had that conversation? We did. His suggestion. We did. Great conversation. So on the heels of that conversation, he sent us that poem. and I'm like, yep, that's perfect. Okay, so how'd you bring that up, Jeremy? Just like you bring up things here, just to sit around and ask. I will say that conversation I remember so well, because he did, he brought it up in the perfect Jeremy way of just, and what we had established as a crew is that if we knew we were in that situation, we would handle it with grace and honor and almost a solemnness. But I will say, that is beautiful, But there was a moment on the mission where it did not serve me because on reentry, I was misunderstanding some of Victor's calls.

46:05And I thought he was calling our G loads way higher than they should have been. And I thought, well, he's not freaking out, so we're probably fine. And then I thought, but wait, we said we wouldn't freak out. So I don't actually know. No way. And wasn't there a time where you woke up in the middle of the night and there was some alarm going off? Wasn't there? Every night of the mission. Every night except one. Most nights. Really? Yes. It's disorienting. And when that alarm goes off, there was something with the fuel. We had an alarm. It's called a run box caution. And what that could potentially mean is that you're leaking your fuel out of the spacecraft.

46:43And that's not a great situation for us. And we did. We had a run box alarm at 2 in the morning. Very disorienting. Time is weird up there because we run off of a different clock. But it was in the middle of sleep. And I woke up very disoriented. I slept underneath the displays. Victor was right to my left. And I woke up and looked. I was like, I think that's a run box. And Jeremy actually comes around because he was like, oh, run box, we have to shut down the fuel system. So Jeremy came around the side of the display and started. Maybe you weren't sleeping there yet. It was Jeremy that day. And Jeremy came around very, and we were all very disoriented.

47:17It's the middle of the night. And Jeremy started executing the procedures. And then we just, we have a rule in our crew, no fast hands. Like, don't go fast if you can stand it. And so I was looking at the displays and looking at the fuel system, and we were waiting for ground to call, and Jeremy was starting to configure, and I just said, hey, let's stop. At least in my mind, that's how it went. And let's just pause for a second, because these indications I see are not, they're not aligning with this, the level, the extreme level of this caution. And that created some tension in the crew for a moment, because we have very explicit instructions.

47:49You save the fuel system there, because you could be leaking your fuel under the vacuum of space, and that is deadly. and but we did we did stop and we all talked about it for a few seconds and we worked our way out of that and we we did have a very small leak which caused that caution but it was not a great situation and we just needed to monitor it for a little while so you all are trained to stay calm right well we'd like to think so you'd like to like to think so i don't wake up to an alarm and haven't even in the days of the oprah show where i had to get up at 5 30 every morning because the alarm alarms me and i don't want to start my day being alarmed so if i were to hear an alarm in the middle of the night.

48:23It's just like, you know, when people had real phones and the phone rings in the middle of the night, 3 a.m., you know it's a problem and you're alarmed. So when you heard the alarms, does your heart immediately start palpitating? Are you like... Probably individual. Some of these crew members have ice in their veins, but yes, it gets your attention quick. Let's talk about, again, some of the logistics because I hear that those orange suits are built to keep you alive for six days. Oh. For six days. And so what's in those suits? Then you can poop in the suits, you can do everything you need to do, and then you can poop in the suits.

49:04You can do whatever you need to do in the suits. Yes, absolutely. Eat and drink and everything is in the suits. Yes, they have a plan for that. And we practiced with those systems, both on the ground, and we did what's called a flight test objective to test them out in space to see how they worked in microgravity. And it would not be a fun six days, but the idea is it would be survivable if you use the equipment that's provided for eating and drinking. There's a port, actually, in the side of the helmet, and you can put a straw in, and we have these very special nutrition drinks. I think it's this actual straw.

49:43Actually, that straw, it turns out, it is. That was the exact same. When I picked up this glass, I was like, oh, this is the oxygen port. I wanted you to feel familiar here. So there's no running water in space, obviously, in the capsule. And so you can't take a shower or you can't bathe in space. So how does that work? You have towels that have soap already in them. And, you know, we don't have hot water. Our water is ambient. So depending on the attitude of the spacecraft. Is that called a chamois bath? Yes, yes. Yes. And I didn't know that this was being broadcast, but I'm glad it is because I think, you know, seeing the process, seeing the daily things.

50:23I mean, hey, I got to wash the toes. You're getting in between those toes. You know, you got to. That's the most important part. I think this broke the internet. And that's an important part of it. The other thing you see in this, my favorite thing about this is something we've been trying to share. Everything is a group activity. I mean, you know, Jeremy's eating and cleaning his spoon and I'm cleaning my body right there. You probably wouldn't do those two things in the same room. Yes. Let alone that close to each other at home, but we only had one room. And so you use that towel, and what we were able to do is put it in the food warmer.

50:52We put it in the food warmer to warm it up so you could do a hot bath. Oh, a hot chamois. Yes. A hot chamois. And I understand that you were the space plumber, Christina. Yes. How did you get that job? Well, actually, it's just my seat. My seat, I was in charge of two main things, and it was just because of where I was sitting. I was sitting next to the hatch and I was sitting next to the toilet. So I got to set up the toilet as soon as we got to orbit. After the break. There's something about the four of you that has connected and, I'm going to try not to cry, that is connected in such a way that is, you went all the way out there farther than any human beings have ever traveled before to remind us of who we are.

51:36Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by HBO Max. For your awards consideration, HBO Max presents Rooster. Starring Steve Carell, this new comedy series focuses on the complicated relationship between a successful author and his daughter. Don't miss the series IGN called Hilarious and Brilliant. Rooster is streaming on HBO Max. Watch now. Welcome back to the Oprah podcast with The Crew of Artemis II. So I was talking earlier about in the preparation, you train not to panic. How do you train not to panic? Maybe actually... So do they put you in situations that you normally, your body normally would panic?

52:17You know, I was doing some hiking this past summer, and I got onto a cliff that I shouldn't have been on. My body automatically started to shake. I thought I was calm, but my knees started knocking together and my body started to shake. And I couldn't stop myself from shaking. So how do you stop yourself from panicking when everything in your body says, I should be scared right now? You know, Reid was being very complimentary, saying, you know, some of us may have ice in our veins, but I don't think any of us do. We're all humans and we all have, we're the people that came into this. But one of the benefits of training is you get a chance to practice doing things when the alarms go off.

52:59And I love this idea. I borrowed it from someone and doing the next right thing. You may have a hundred things to do, but you need to just be good enough to do the next right thing. And I specifically say this a lot about public speaking. That's something that kind of universally makes people nervous. Yeah. And I like to get up on stage and tell people to look closely at my hand. It's shaking, but I've learned to work through that. I can give a speech while nervous. It actually helps me speak better now, but it's not that we don't get nervous. We just know how to work through or with that to still do the right thing.

53:30I want to add one thing to that. The day before we launched, you get to see some of your extended family through this quarantine facility. So you can actually talk to me just on the phone. And my dad and my brother were there. And I inadvertently made my dad tear up. And it was because I said, you know, dad, my dad was very worried about the risk of the mission. I said, dad, look, I got two amazing kids. I'm 50 years old. I got an amazing life. I am so at peace right now. When we launched, I have never felt peace in my life like that. Never. And I think that played a huge factor in it. I was going into space with three great people, and I just felt we were all at peace.

54:10We were all so comfortable with where we were, and it helped. I was much more frightened on my first mission to the International Space Station 10 years earlier because my life wasn't in that state of peace, and now I was there. And I think that had a hugely foundational part of that. Would you all say the same thing? Definitely, yeah. You were at peace? 100%. Yeah. I think that's what we're all feeling. There's something about the four of you that has connected and, I'm going to try not to cry, that has connected in such a way that you went all the way out there, farther than any human beings have ever traveled before to remind us of who we are.

54:53And so what you brought back to us was not just what was out there, but you brought back to us a sense of ourselves. And you can only do that when you have that together yourself. So true. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. What you just said is the best gift you could ever give us because that is all we ever wanted. Yeah. And you all did that. We didn't do that. No, I think you all actually played a part. It's the synergy. It's like the symbiotic relationship here. But it feels like something really genuine, and it's so genuine that that's why we're moved by it. At that point where you all had absolutely zero contact with mission control.

55:40Houston copies. We'll see you on the other side. Was that scary? Or was that calming? For 40 minutes. Jeremy, what do you think? It was not scary for us because, you know, we trust in science. We knew we were going to come out the other side, and to be out of contact was not a big deal. Was it not one second were you saying, I hope this works? Not really scary, but the one thing, it was significant. Like, it was significant to be in that spot with these three people. And it was obvious to me that we all looked at each other in that moment, and we thought, wow, this is a really unique human experience.

56:14You know, one of the other things I didn't say earlier that I should have added to the diorama comment about just seeing the juxtaposition, but it made me feel really tiny and insignificant, and so did being on the far side of the moon with you guys. But it also at the same time made me feel extremely powerful that we were there as a human species, like powerful as a collective. And that kind of sums up that feeling of being in the far side of the moon. I think that's interesting, representing the human species, not just Canada, not just the United States, but representing the human species. And I read that you said this, Victor, you said this, I took a brief moment to say a short prayer of gratitude for being sent on this mission, and I was really hoping that while we were waiting to get back into contact, that people could just feel that sense of togetherness, that we were all a crew on spaceship Earth.

57:05You know, you asked about what, was it a scary moment, not for our physical well-being or getting back in contact. The gravity assist around was going to work, and we had simmed that. The thing I would say I was the most worried about was that we might miss the opportunity to just be connected for a moment and to have a human moment, a moment. You know, when we lose someone, we have a moment of silence out of respect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we were going into radio silence, and so I love this idea of a moment of togetherness. It just seemed like we had a chance to be together, do the same thing as humans for this same moment.

57:44And I was worried that that wouldn't break through the noise floor of all the things going on online and on TV. And that was my biggest concern. But we didn't have time to be worried because we were busy doing, we were closest to the moon and farthest from the earth right around that time. And so we had to, we, Christina and I were making observations, looking out of the windows and recording them on our computers. And I actually meant to say my prayer and then go to the recording, but I was in the middle of a science recording when I said my prayer. And so, you know, the science team gets to listen to this, this recording in the middle of, of that observation.

58:22Sorry, I'm a little distracted in this moment. I'm just going to do it on the recording. to our Holy Father. Thank you for this opportunity. All glory to you. I just ask you to continue to be with us. We have a lot of mission ahead of us. God bless us. In Jesus' name, amen. It was also very busy. You know, we were working and we took a minute to have a human moment and we went right back to work and we picked up communications a little over 40 minutes later. Let's talk about, Jeremy, that re-entry. What's it like, you know, feeling like you're buckled in and you're falling back to earth, are you just praying that all those parachutes are going to work there?

59:02I know we were. Yeah, I think it's a, I feel like it's a lot easier to be in the capsule than to be on the ground watching it. You're just, it's like Reid was talking about. Like, I think we had all made peace with what we were going to experience on this journey. And we, I believed, I think we all did, like I was optimistic. I believed we were going to come back, most likely. I wasn't sure of it, but I was pretty confident we would most likely come back. and so I was just trying to enjoy the experience and it's really quite an incredible experience. Like all the things and feels of that, like the first thing you see is this red plasma building out the window and then it became like this green and blue and it was flashing like somebody was out there welding.

59:38It was so bright it hurt to look at. I put my dark visor down. The G-forces are just squeezing you into the seat. You haven't been in gravity in a while and then eventually the drogues come out and it's shaking you around. It's all violence and then it drops you again as they detach and then the mains come out and then Christine and I were sitting beside each other. So when the mains came out, we were like, yes. Yeah. Yeah. And is that the moment that you feel relieved when the shoots? Really was because from that moment on, there's still things that can happen. You can still have like dangerous gases come in the vehicle and all these things we trained for.

1:00:12But we had a plan for all of them. That was the first time where I felt like whatever the capsule throws at us right now, I think we can survive it. Yeah. Prior to that, you're like, there are some things I know we just can't. You can't. You can't. So who opened the hatch? Our Navy dive team. United States Navy. That's right. Yeah, Navy! Yeah! You were in that water a long time. You guys, I'm like, we're just sitting there waiting. We're like, what are they doing in there when they opened the hatch? We were having a great time. What were you doing in there? Being happy to be alive. Yes. Yes. Just enjoying our last few minutes in integrity with each other.

1:00:55We had all gotten out of our seats. We were still in the orange suits, but we were all out of our seats, kind of leaning back against the side of the spacecraft and waiting for the teams to get there. Christina had some peanut M &Ms in her pocket, the contraband from the moon, and we ate that. And it was just like a really nice crew moment. And you could tell, like, looking back at some of the videos of us in there, we all had adrenaline. We were chatty. We were really, really chatty waiting for the rescue team to come get us. Yes. And by that time, are you anxious or is it just the feeling of relief?

1:01:29Total peace. Total peace. Yeah, and I would say more gratitude. Like, a little bit of disbelief and just gratitude. Not relief. I don't remember feeling relief, but just like, wow, we just flew around the moon. And we're back in the Pacific Ocean. And all these people are actually here. We're in the right spot. Yeah, exactly. They were waiting for us, and that planet that we were looking at three days ago, we're now on it. Tiny Earth ain't so tiny anymore. Tiny Earth ain't so tiny anymore. So, Reid, your daughter Katie posted a beautiful, I mentioned earlier, this welcome home message on Instagram.

1:02:04I'm going to read part of it. She says, Watching the Artemis II rocket lift off the pad was a feeling I will never be able to describe to a single soul on this planet. watching my own dad risking it all for the benefit of humanity was such a beautiful, yet achingly painful. To have a crater named after my mother was completely unreal. She was the funniest, most kind and beautiful mom on this earth and will now not just be part of history, but etched into the moon itself for all of eternity. To look up at the sky every night and see her is the most beautiful thing I've ever been given. How does a 17-year-old come up with that?

1:02:42I mean, that was absolutely amazing. One of the, I was going to talk about this a little while ago, but I'll just talk about it right now. We have talked a lot about shared experience, but we all had unique experiences. If you crack us open, we all feel a little differently about this. And we all have moments that were very, very special to us. And I think a couple of those moments when you first talked to Bob and you were like, guys, it's pretty crazy down there. Like a lot of people are paying attention and we're all like, oh, yeah, yeah, whatever. But on flight day seven, I got to talk to my kids.

1:03:18And that was when I saw in them that they understood why I put them through this. On day seven? On day seven, I could hear and see that they now understood why this was important and why this was worth it and why I needed to go do this. They got it. They fully got it. And that, if you could ever get your daughter to write something like that about you, it's pretty powerful. It absolves you in a lot of ways. Oh my gosh, you just summed up every feeling in one word. There's guilt that comes with putting a lot of risk to chase your dreams, even if you are doing it for the right reasons. Selfishness.

1:04:01Yep. And so your daughters, their reaction? You asked us earlier if there's one thing that, you know, is a moment or has changed your perspective. My favorite thing about doing these types of things is what it does to our family members. You know, we work at NASA and the Canadian Space Agency and with all of our partners, and we're so close to it that it's easy to think that everybody is as interested in space exploration as we are. But when your family responds in a way that surprises you, when your child writes something like that, or, you know, the things that I listened to one of Jeremy's kids talk about, you know, parents want to see their kids accomplish their dreams, but saying your parent accomplished their...

1:04:51And I was just like, wow, he's got a gift in speaking first. But that is just a beautiful thing to chew on. And I just love what my parents, listening to my parents reflect on, the people at my church reflect on this experience. You know, I don't want to talk about it. I want to sit and listen to their experiences of the mission as well. And so, you know, listening to my kids celebrate this and my wife celebrate it has also been an amazing part of this journey. Well, I know you didn't have kids, but you came home to a Sadie. I have a Sadie, too. Oh, my goodness. I have a Sadie who's 17. I think Sadie really got it.

1:05:26Sadie got it? She really understood. Look, Sadie would have gotten it if you had just gone to the grocery store, though. That is true. Or if that was you at the door. That would be exactly what she does. And she was extra spazzy this day. Yeah, I wanted some kisses, but she wasn't having it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So change forever. Change forever. And what do you want to say to the world now that you've come back, you're settling in? Um, I would just say choose joy. It's just we have a deliberate choice every day and what we decide to use our energy for and what we decide to focus on, just choose joy.

1:06:03Choose joy. Trust, togetherness, gratitude. Thank you to the world for trusting us to do what we did, our role in this mission. And, you know, thinking about that, just the overriding responses, how much gratitude that that creates. And the one common theme through all of this in each other, in our heat shield engineering team, the flight control, the launch control team, our agencies and our partnership is trust. It takes trust to go to space more than it takes rockets and rocket engines and parachutes. It takes trust. And so I just wish we would think about those things, trust, togetherness, and gratitude.

1:06:43Trust, togetherness, and gratitude. Kristia? Well, I hoped I would come up with something while you guys were talking, but there's just so much. What you said about a crew, that is everlasting. That was something that meant a lot to me that day, and I could definitely say that looking back at Earth and seeing that it's not guaranteed, what we have is not given. It's not an absolute. It's a lifeboat that we share. And if you, like Jeremy says, if you saw something in us, it can be emulated because just like we were a spaceship out in the universe, this planet is a spaceship out in the universe.

1:07:24And that means we are a group. Yeah. We got to figure it out. When you all were out there saying those beautiful words, I was saying, we all got to figure it out. We've got to, what you were saying earlier, Victor, we've got to figure out a way to bring that perspective that you all saw to other people so that we figure it out. We stop fighting over the things that don't matter and figure out the things that do and bring ourselves together. You get the final words, sir. First, on figuring it out and being together, I just don't want it to be lost that differences are absolutely okay. Yeah. And they're very powerful.

1:08:08It's being able to just accept differences and come and discuss them and just pull a little from each difference, being just open to the fact that we can have different viewpoints. And that doesn't mean you're right and I'm wrong or I'm right and you're wrong. Like, let's talk about these things. Let's learn from each other. I think that's the first thing I would say. And then listening to Oprah, everything you've said and what Christina, Victor, and Jeremy have said, The only thing that I can possibly add is I've listened to these birds chirp the whole time we've been out here. I've felt a little bit of wind just coming from the left to right of my face.

1:08:41And I do think sometimes when you leave Earth and come back to it, you can take a minute to appreciate the beauty of nature. It's very special and it should be appreciated every day. Thank you. Thank you for reminding us of ourselves. Thank you, Commander Reed Weissman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen, and everybody at NASA for making this interview in my backyard! Such an honor, such an honor, such an honor. Go well, everybody. Wow. Thank you. Right from my own backyard! You can subscribe to The Oprah Podcast on YouTube and follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.

1:09:27I'll see you next week. Thanks, everybody. Thank you.