NBC News: Are there any risks that concern the crew for this upcoming mission? If so, what is your crew doing to prepare for potential challenges?
glove box: Human spaceflight is dangerous. It’s risky. We spend a lot of time trying to understand that risk. We don’t talk enough about the risks. So that can make it seem jarring when something goes wrong. When launched, [the rocket] It will weigh five and a half million pounds. It will produce eight and a half million pounds of thrust. It will be controlled, but that is enough to destroy most things that are made by human hands. Human spaceflight is inherently based on trust and teamwork. Each person needs to know how important what he is doing is.
We are also going to go out and meet those people who are putting each piece together, because each screw, each wire, each weld, can impact our lives. We do what we can to learn about those risks and minimize or avoid them where we can. But at the end of the day, there are things that we cannot control. So when we’re faced with something we don’t understand, we turn to the fundamentals of training and the science and engineering that we use to build the vehicles to try to tackle the problem like Apollo 13, one of the most amazing challenges we’ve overcome in time. real as the audience watched.
NBC News: How are you mentally and physically preparing for this mission?
glove box: Training is a part of that. That practice gives you an emotional preparation. If things start to go wrong, you’ve seen something like this before. Definitely before I fly in a spaceship, I will also pray. And that’s part of how I prepare my family. My family knows that I am going to work hard and work with this team, and we will do our best. But they are also aware that there are things out of our control. And it’s nice to know that we can pray and go to God and express our concerns and know that someone will listen. So, we pray as a family and take a step of faith.
NBC News: You will be the first black man in this historic space crew to participate in a mission to the moon in NASA’s 60-year history. Is there more room for diversity in space, and if so, what impact would this have on space exploration?
glove box: We know that when designing or developing something, having diverse perspectives and a committed team working on things is the best way to develop or improve a product. Diversity is not just about having more skin tones or more genders. It is about incorporating the talent of the entire team. Our country is wonderfully diverse, and that is what has made America such a resilient and robust country, economy, civilization, and society. So the fact that our astronaut corps now, instead of looking like a part of our society, looks like our society, that’s a sign of improvement, but also a reminder that we have to continue to do that kind of work. and be intentional about it. I’m honored to be in this position, but also this position is much smaller than what’s really going on overall. This mission is the next great lunar achievement, the next great achievement in our American history. When we can explore by all people, for all people, it helps everyone feel connected to that story, and that, to me, is important.
NBC News: In an interview with Axios, you mentioned discussing “Whitey on the Moon,” a poem by Gilbert Scott-Heron, with your colleagues. What discussions have you had about the race with your team? And do you see your role in space exploration as a symbol of progress in the fight against racism in America?
glove box: “White in the moon”, written [around] the time when we were dealing with the civil rights movements, the protests, the Vietnam War – there was a lot going on in the 1960s and 1970s. I bring that up as a symbol of this idea that I do outreach to tell the story of the NASA to the public because we are stewards of the public’s resources. But I also do outreach within NASA, because we represent our country. If you take the photo of my class, the eight of us that were selected, and put it next to the next smaller class, the original one. mercury seventhey chose the same [type of] person seven times. There were seven of them, white, male, military, English-speaking Christian test pilots, about the same height, weight. I mean, they were all about 37 years old. And so my class was four men, four women, racially, gender diverse, from different backgrounds, scientists, engineers, military officers, and some pilots. So, it’s a sign of progress. We must continually take steps forward.
NBC News: What discoveries does the crew hope to make during this mission, and what impact will this information have on society and future space exploration?
glove box: We want to make sure that Orion it is safe for people to fly. If Orion is safe for people to fly, then we get people to the surface of the moon and to the Door space station, where we can learn more about deep space, where we can learn more about our moon. Some scientists would call the moon the eighth continent on earth. So by learning about the moon, we learn how we got here and potentially where we’re going. If we don’t take care of this planet, we could potentially end up looking like the moon or Mars.