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From Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars, explore the world of human spaceflight with NASA each week on the official podcast of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Listen to in-depth conversations with the astronauts, scientists and engineers who make it possible.<\/p>\n
On episode 407,\u00a0NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson reflects on her experiences living and working aboard the International Space Station and what 25 years of continuous human presence in space means for humanity\u2019s future. This episode was recorded September 30, 2025.<\/p>\n
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Transcript<\/p>\n
Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Houston We Have a Podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, Episode 407: A Place in Space to Call Home: Part 1. I\u2019m Nilufar Ramji, and I\u2019ll be your host today. On this podcast, we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, and astronauts, all to let you know what\u2019s going on in the world of human spaceflight and more.<\/p>\n
For the last 25 years, humans have lived and worked aboard the International Space Station\u2026 turning what was once a dream into a permanent home in space. What started as a bold idea has grown into a symbol of international cooperation, a cutting-edge orbiting laboratory and a launch pad for humanity\u2019s future exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond.<\/p>\n
For the astronauts who have lived aboard the space station for these 25 years, the experience of calling the space station home has looked a little different for each one.<\/p>\n
As part of our ISS25 series, we had the opportunity to speak with two NASA astronauts who each have different perspectives of life on the space station. You\u2019ll be hearing from one of them, Tracy Dyson, on this episode; and coming soon in Part 2, Mark Vande Hei will tell us about his experiences in space.<\/p>\n
Tracy Dyson\u2019s career is deeply tied to the history of the International Space Station, from helping to assemble it aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavor on STS-118 in 2007, to living and working there in 2010 during expeditions 23 and 24 and most recently, returning for expeditions 70 and 71 in 2024. We\u2019ll reflect on what it means to celebrate 25 years of continuous human presence in space, what life aboard the space station is really like, and how this orbiting outpost is preparing us for the next great era of exploration. Here\u2019s Tracy Dyson.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji<\/p>\n
Tracy, welcome to Houston We Have a Podcast. We are so happy to have you here.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Thank you. It\u2019s my pleasure.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
So before we get into the topic of the space station, I want our listeners to get to know you. So tell us a little bit about you, your background, and maybe when you joined NASA, what what things were like at that time? What was human space flight exploration looking like at that time?<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
I should go back to the the year of 1997 I had finished up my PhD and submitted my dissertation in the month of June, and I think it was the next month July, when I submitted my application for the astronaut program. And then I went on and did a postdoctoral fellow fellow fellowship in Southern California at UC Irvine. And it was during that period of time that I got the notice to that I was being offered an interview. And so that start that kicked it off. And and then later on that year, I was selected in August of 1998, just prior to turning- my birthday, in fact. And so I began in 1998 with the class group 17. We were called the Penguins, and we were not the largest class, but probably the second largest class of astronauts, with or without our international partner astronauts, we were 25 altogether.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Wow.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Yeah, there was big but the group before us, the sardines, as they were called, had something like 44 so it was a huge, huge astronaut corps when we arrived. And there\u2019s, you know, depending on which astronauts you asked, there was somewhere between 110 to 140 astronauts. I mean, it wherever it fell, at any one given time, there was a lot of astronauts during that period of time. And it was also a transition time where we were flying shuttles for individual missions, but transitioning to building the International Space Station. And so we, we the class of 1998 are kind of the babies of the International Space Station, because it was only a couple months after our arrival, while we were still astronaut candidates, that we launched the first element of the International Space Station, the functional cargo block.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji <\/p>\n
That is really exciting. No one can see me right now. I\u2019m smiling ear to ear, just because you actually helped build the space station. You put it together. Yeah, and it\u2019s been up there for 25 years. Tell us a little bit about what that was like.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson <\/p>\n
Oh gosh, it\u2019s hard to put it in a nutshell, because there were so many facets of the construction of the space station. I mean, for us to have a space station, first of all, brand new idea. I mean, minus all the time it took to conceive the idea, plan it, and do all. Work to get the elements but But nevertheless, the operations of an International Space Station were in its complete infancy, and we were a long way from where we are today in terms of even knowing how we were going to operate, because each and every shuttle flight was bringing up a new element to the space station. Each and every flight meant that the configuration of the space station was changing. And so as new astronauts, here we are learning everything. We had to learn about the space shuttle, which was delivering everything, and then we had to learn about each piece of international space station all by itself, and then what it was going to be like when it joined the existing station as we were building it. And at the time- and you ask anybody who was around during that period of time, it was every every shuttle flight was a brand new schematic. Every procedure had a number associated with it, depending on what flight it was. The NBL- the NBL had different mock ups and different configurations and different space walk teams depending on what the configuration of the space station was. And so talk about flexibility and adaptability, right? It was 100% required during the assembly of the International Space Station.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
I just what an exciting time to be at the agency! A period of change, evolution, growth, so many things happening.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Absolutely, and you want to know that the hard truth is that when we arrived, NASA was not the brand everybody was wearing. In fact, as we transitioned into this International Space Station, the country was a bit skeptical about the money that we were spending as taxpayers on this notion of a space station, and what, what was it going to do for us, and we as astronauts, were, you know, the face out there. And we had to not only learn the technical details and the operational concepts and stuff that we were developing, but we also had to talk about the science, which we had not even done yet. I mean, we were building a laboratory. We weren\u2019t actually functioning in one yet, right? But yet, we had to forecast what, what it was going to look like, and be able to communicate it and convince folks that this is the right thing to do. And luckily, It withstood the test of time, but it was really a hard period of time. It\u2019s not the kind of excitement that we enjoy today. Today\u2019s Space Station is a proven platform, and everybody\u2019s like, wants to be a part of it from around the world. But back when we first started, it was tough.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
It\u2019s always hard to build that foundation for everyone to understand what the, you know, the 5, 10, 25-year plan is. So it\u2019s exciting that you got to be there in the assembly, and then you made another trip later on where you saw it fully assembled, and it was living and working aboard that so that proven- that, that proving ground that you established in the early years, you got to live it out in the same time, right?<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Yes, yeah, I would say that my flights were placed in such a way that gave me such a view to what we have today. And my my shuttle flight was just a dear time in my life for lots of reasons. But as far as the assembly goes, we brought up an element. And even though it was, you know, by comparison to other elements quite small, was the S5, the Starboard 5 truss. And if you looked at a model of the space station today or a picture of it, you\u2019d be hard pressed to pick out where that thing is, but it is a necessary spacer between two sets of solar arrays. So just want to get that out there. But nevertheless, we did some other things on that flight that were significant, but we were just a part of the assembly and and so that, with with that objective, we docked to the space station for a period of time. And so I got to see what life was like on board without being an Expedition crew member. I just got to live on board the shuttle, go in there, do our work, come back out, etc, for 10 glorious, docked days of a 12, almost 13 day mission.<\/p>\n
And then when I came back as an Expedition crew member, I was right at that, that cusp of assembly complete. And, you know, full fledged utilization is what we\u2019d say. But, but we weren\u2019t quite full fledged yet, we were aspiring utilization, and so we were at the point where the station wasn\u2019t going to grow anymore in terms of the number of modules and everything like that. But we were, we were starting to figure out, how are we going to be now efficient with our operations? How are we now going to focus turn our focus from building this thing to actually using it. And so it was really an interesting time, as we it was clunky, very, very clunky in in, in retrospect right now, and the time, it was just like chaos, but, you know, not really sure how it was going to take shape.<\/p>\n
And then, most recently, I went up. You know, 14 years later, and there\u2019s been a lot of changes, not to the structure of the space station, but to the operations, the mindset and the slick products and concepts that we have that have allowed us to do some of the most groundbreaking, sophisticated science on or off the planet.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
I have so many questions, but I want to take a pause for a quick second and ask you one specific thing.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Sure.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
It\u2019s been 25 years of the space station. Can you give us a little bit of your reflections of what the last 25 years have been like when you\u2019re looking at the space station, and literally you did everything from assemble it, look at process improvement. You\u2019ve gone up there in different phases of what, what is the space station today? So I want to hear a little bit about your reflections on that.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
I gotta pick\u2026<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Is there a certain feeling you might get? Like, are you feeling really proud because you\u2019re smiling with us right now?<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson <\/p>\n
Well, pride is one part of it. I don\u2019t want to get emotional, but I feel like, I, you know, when I, when I joined NASA, I felt like a full fledged adult. Because, you know, by age, I really, I really was, but I really feel like, as a professional, I\u2019ve really grown up here. This has been my home. This has been my my, you know, childhood, if you would, in terms of, you know, a professional astronaut, and being a member of this incredible community. And then looking back, you know, now 25 years, and having been here, you know, for as long as I have, I can see the other people who have been here since the day I got here and, and there\u2019s a bit of a, you know, a smile that we a twinkle in our eye when we look at one another and go, \u201cYeah, we, we\u2019ve watched this thing go through its growing pains. And we\u2019ve, we\u2019ve stuck with it.\u201d And, you know, the ups and downs of station life, if you will, and what it\u2019s taken our agency in terms of its shepherding of this notion even I mean, how audacious right to think that we could not only build this, think of it on the earth, build it in space, and invite other countries, other sovereign nations, to join us in this effort, and we\u2019re pulling it off.<\/p>\n
When I think back on the last 25 years, it\u2019s, it\u2019s, there\u2019s some fortitude, you know, some quiet courage it takes, you know, for those moments when you\u2019re like, you know, do we know what we\u2019re doing and, and when you, when you look at somebody else, and, and they\u2019ve got the same, you know, tenacity deep inside you\u2019re like, \u201cHeck, yeah, we know we\u2019re doing. Because we\u2019re doing it together.\u201d Right? I mean, that\u2019s when I think about the last 25 years. I just think about the the hand, the hands that have held one another across this planet and up in space. The only way we could have done it is through our partnerships.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Right. The international cooperation is huge, and I want to talk to you a little bit about that, but before I get there, just for our listeners sake, because you and I know this, but you\u2019ve been up in space three times. STS-118 around August 2007. And then you had expedition 23\/24 back in 2010. And then you returned just about a year ago on Expedition 70 and 71. So if there were there was a highlight from each of those three stints up in space. Could you give us a little bit of a glimpse into that?<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Oh, sure. Oh, again, it\u2019s so hard to pick just one, because on my shuttle flight, it was, you know, my rookie flight. And the time the bonds that you form with your crew on a shuttle flight is intense because, you know, you don\u2019t pick who you fly with, right?<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
These are your new best friends.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Yeah, these are your new brothers and sisters. And so it takes a little while on the ground to get, you know, established in in our roles, in both the Assigned Roles and then the, you know, the dynamic roles that we have as members of a crew, but it\u2019s beautiful how that works out, and we have the time on the ground to work it out. And so by the time you you know the solids light, and you\u2019re on your way, you\u2019re you\u2019re you\u2019re flying into space with six really close people, and you\u2019re looking forward to executing this mission together, because you\u2019ve worked so hard. And so there\u2019s so many aspects of those missions, however short they were, that are, are just just precious in in just the way humans develop with one another.<\/p>\n
And you know, everything from- I\u2019ve celebrated, I\u2019ve celebrated my birthday on. All three missions, believe it or not, and it\u2019s like threading the needle to do it on a shuttle flight, because with the delays and everything that can and we are on our launch, actually did get delayed by a day, but I was in space for my birthday. And our pilot, Charlie Hobart, we call Scorch, tough marine guy, he took out one of his brownies from his own because we all had our own lockers full of food, like personal stash. And he took one of his brownies on whatever flight day it was that my birthday landed on, and he took one of those mag lights, and he took the mini mag lights, and he took the the top off of it, and so it and so it was just the bulb sticking up, and he squashed in the middle of the brownie.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
That\u2019s so sweet!<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
He\u2019s like, ATC, and he floats the brownie at me with this, you know, big candle glowing. And it was one of the best moments of that entire flight. And then Scott Kelly, our commander, I think it was flight day 10, when we had done a lot of the the work up to that point, or it was close to the end of our mission, docked with the station, and he coordinated with the ground. And he and he said, asked if they could take off, turn off all of the external lights to make it as dark as possible. Because, believe it or not, up in space, it\u2019s hard to see the stars like it is here in Houston for all the lights and stuff, and so made it as dark as possible. And then he looked at me, and Barbara, and B. Alvin Drew, and said, I want you three rookies in that, you know, on the flight deck, in those windows for an whole orbit. And don\u2019t you come down until you\u2019re done.<\/p>\n
And what he what he did for us, the time that he carved was so precious to me because, and I\u2019m sure it was to Barbara and and B. Alvin, because for that, for that moment, we got to breathe. Up until that point, it was highly choreographed, constantly moving, constantly getting into different procedures and different activities. And, you know, just crazy trying to keep up with everything. And then we got this moment, and this the tablecloth here is black, but space is blacker. And it\u2019s blacker, is blacker than any black you\u2019ve ever seen, because it\u2019s like infinite, black infinity or infinity. Black is is, is the richest, darkest, mysterious black you\u2019ve ever seen, and that\u2019s what the universe looks like. And when you look at all the stars, it\u2019s like, I\u2019ve got to really make this this story short, but it really deserves so much time, but, but when I looked out at the at the the universe, and I\u2019m looking at all the stars, you know we\u2019re above the atmosphere, I know you know that, we\u2019re above the atmosphere, but here\u2019s, here\u2019s, here\u2019s what that does for you. The stars don\u2019t blink, they don\u2019t twinkle, because you don\u2019t have this light diffracting off of an atmosphere between you and the star, right? And so that was the first thing I noticed, was that these stars are like, solid color, solid light, and then that draws you in like it just hypnotizes you, and then all of a sudden, your eyes kind of make out this, this depth of stars, almost like those graphic art designs that it takes your focal point to be beyond the plane of the picture in order to see this 3d image pop out. Same thing with the stars. I was like, like, wow. So there you could tell the distance. There\u2019s distance between stars, not just one\u2019s bigger than the other and one\u2019s smaller, but distance. And then, and then you start to look at the horizon of the earth, and the earth going by super fast, and the wherever the sun is, it\u2019s casting this beautiful shadow and sun glints and colors in the in the bodies of water like you\u2019ve never seen- pearlescent corals and yellows. They\u2019re just so, so yummy, to use a term that I know interior designers like.<\/p>\n
But then you turn around and you look at the shiny metal Space Station and solar rays and radiators that are turning and antennas and boxes, and then you think about the people on Mission Control who are sitting at consoles, sending commands to these things and looking at telemetry. And having spent time in Mission Control, I\u2019m picturing everybody in their attentive to their systems, and it\u2019s just like, This is amazing. This is so amazing. And the people there on the earth don\u2019t even know we\u2019re going over them. And then all of a sudden, things got super blurry, and I was like, what\u2019s going on? And then I realized I was crying. But because you\u2019re in microgravity. Tears don\u2019t fall. They just keep forming bubbles.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
You\u2019re gonna make me cry!<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
So yeah, there I am with these, like, frog bubble tears. And I didn\u2019t realize it until I took my fingers and I tried to move it away from my eye, because, like, oh, that\u2019s why I can\u2019t see, because I\u2019m being so moved. And. And and then water. The way it reacts with your skin, it has a lot of surface tension. So it\u2019s like, just, it\u2019s just like, this moving around my face. It\u2019s like, I can\u2019t get it off my face. But anyway, so there\u2019s like, this total emotional reverie going on, and that\u2019s just my shuttle flight.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Oh, my goodness, this visual you just gave us. I felt like I was there with you. I know that. You know, just being an earthling down here, just looking up at the sky, looking up at the stars, looking at the moon, for that matter- just since I\u2019ve joined NASA, you look at it from a different perspective. Even if you haven\u2019t been to space, your vision or your, the grandeur of what it is out there in our universe, it\u2019s just like you have this innate need that you want to explore. You want to tell those stories. You want to bring that home to the public that doesn\u2019t necessarily feel that same way, but you want to bring that excitement to them. So you\u2019re bringing that to our listeners, and I really appreciate you for that. So thank you for talking about your first mission. So now, let\u2019s spend maybe half the time-<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Narrow down a little bit. Well, my second mission, I can say real quickly that it was the EVAs, and not just because it\u2019s a space walk, but because of the nature of these space walks. I mean, I was, we had an EVA planned for that increment. It was one Eva, and it was to install a PDGF, a grapple fixture for the arm on the Russian segment. And it wasn\u2019t very far into the Russian segment. Was like just behind node one on on the low, the forward part of the FGB, and we had practiced it in the poll. Not a big deal. It wasn\u2019t a high priority thing, but it was just, let\u2019s get it done on this increment. And then the Pump Module failed. It was first time that we had a critical component fail on board the space station. And we didn\u2019t have a, you know, heroic shuttle crew to come up with their well trained, very proficient spacewalkers to to get the job done. It had to be done by the crew that was on board. And it was the first time something like this had ever happened, and so what I thought was very beautiful about that time, not just that we fixed the problem. It took three EVAs to do it, but we learned a lot through that. It took tremendous teamwork, because when a pump module fails, it\u2019s just like the radiator going out on your car, and if the radiator isn\u2019t working, then your engine\u2019s not going to run much longer before it It seizes, and that\u2019s the same with the space station. And we only had one other pump, but it had its own cooling channel, and so we spent the night the very night that it happened inside the space station, and we actually had to immediately start sleep shifting. So we had two shifts of crews doing this, but we had to jumper. We had to get out jumpers and jumper, everything from the failed power channel to the good power channel. Meanwhile, people on the ground are making all these decisions around the world about the science that we have to move now from one Melfi to another Melfi, which is our deep freezer, to save the science. I mean, there were so many decisions and compromises and coordination that had to happen on the ground, not to mention our whole space walk community who were like, Okay, what just happened? And now we\u2019ve got to go out there without, you know, procedures. We got to develop these procedures. People were getting into the pool last minute to exercise these procedures. I mean, it was an amazing amount of teamwork to get this thing done, and it was incredible to be a part of that.<\/p>\n
When you\u2019re up on the Space Station, it may seem like you\u2019re in the mix, you know, like, like, you, you\u2019re, you\u2019re part of what\u2019s going on, but, but you can feel up there, very isolated, because the bulk of the community is here. This is where all the action\u2019s happening, and people don\u2019t necessarily want to bother the crew with, you know, minute details, but so you\u2019re missing out on a lot of what\u2019s going on. But up there, we had, we had plenty to do, but we, we were isolated until we returned to Earth to find out, to meet the people, to shake the hands of everybody that played a role in that. And, I mean, when you\u2019re up there, it\u2019s not lost on you that there\u2019s a, you know, a community of dedicated professionals down here getting the job done, but you don\u2019t get to see it until you get back. And so anyway, those space walks were, were a real defining moment.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
As you\u2019re talking with me, I\u2019m picturing scenes from Apollo 13. Yeah, that\u2019s, that\u2019s what I was imagining. You know, the back room to the back room, if you wanted a visual of what, what things were like, it\u2019s, you know, there\u2019s one person up there, but for every one person, there are dozens, if not 50 to 100 people that are helping you be successful up there. And it takes that game of telephone for you to get the right message and then execute on that which, no pressure.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
That was perfect description, though, of the Apollo 13-ness of it. Because, yeah, if we could have recreated, you know, in a video, what folks were doing on the ground. I mean, the sacrifices people were making, like our lead EVA officer, was actually getting ready to go on vacation. So it\u2019s not just the people here. It\u2019s our families too, right, right? Whether they want to be a part of the program or not.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
They are. They\u2019re collateral damage.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
I know your listeners are probably laughing right now because they they\u2019ve all had an experience where their family has become, you know, part of\u2026<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Part of the company, right?<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Yeah, exactly. They\u2019re part of it.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Okay, so as you talk about Expedition 70\/71, when you talk about the highlights on that, let\u2019s go into a little bit about life aboard station. Let\u2019s talk a little bit about some of the daily routines you had, or balancing, sort of the you know, you mentioned, every single minute of your time is scheduled and everything is planned in advance. It takes years of training to get there. So tell us a little bit about how you balanced all of all of the things that are going on at when you\u2019re, you know, several years into the space station, decades, and what life was like.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Oh, wow. Well, first I want to say that it was such a, it was such a privilege, obviously, to go up and to get another mission to see the space station at this, at this state that we were in, and in terms of full throttle utilization. And being a, you know, my background in research science, it was, it was really something to see the space station become a laboratory, multiple laboratories, a conglomeration of laboratories and facilities. And so there were, there were a lot of moments, you know, like, Oh, this is, this is amazing that we\u2019ve come this far, plus just operating in space. I mean, like I said earlier, it was clunky, and then we\u2019ve refined it so much that that things- I know that there\u2019s newer astronauts that go up that that have a lot to say when they come back about how we need to improve things, but there\u2019s people like me. You have no idea. You should just embrace what is, what is not the suck now, but it\u2019s hard to convince. Folks if they don\u2019t know the history. But suffice it to say, things definitely got better, which they should, right? And and the fact that we are an international, global space station is even more impressive. And then on top of that, we\u2019ve got this fantastic science. But what\u2019s it like every day? You know, I hate to burst the bubble, but it is very similar to what your life is like here on Earth.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not glamorous like you would envision.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Well, you know, for astronauts, the things that we do on the ground we basically do up there. We just don\u2019t have gravity to help us. And so you name it. From, you know, getting getting yourself ready in the mornings, to trying to figure out how to do this complex task. There\u2019s negotiating all day long of forces that don\u2019t, don\u2019t exist up there. And gravity is the one, the one major one that we notice and so but our days are like you said, they\u2019re pretty structured. And we used to say that where the shuttle was a sprint station is going to be a marathon. So pace yourself, because you know, you got to go the distance you got. You got not just a two week mission, but you got six months. It\u2019s not true. It\u2019s it\u2019s just a long sprint being on the station, station, because there\u2019s so much to do, and especially if you had, like we had the SpaceX cargo missions that would bring up science, and they were only up there for 30 days, and some of that science was extremely time critical, not to mention the volume that we had to transfer back and forth and get things done. And then there\u2019s people, you know, experts on the ground that you have to coordinate. With, and they guide you, in most cases, remotely, through through the work that you\u2019re doing. And so just just a high level of coordination that makes the pace super, super persistent.<\/p>\n
And so Monday through Friday, you\u2019re going at a pretty good clip all day long, and it\u2019s Saturdays and Sundays, you know, traditionally are the days off, but Saturday we\u2019re cleaning the station. Every Saturday is house keeping day, and it\u2019s not as regimented as a work day is. But nevertheless, there\u2019s there\u2019s, there\u2019s things that need to get done. And so as a crew, each crew decides, you know the specifics of how you want to approach that. But for the most part, everybody picks a module or two, and we\u2019re cleaning handrails. I mean, it\u2019s, imagine if you crawled on the floor at home, you\u2019d want that floor to be pretty clean, true, yeah. And so on board. I don\u2019t want to get too graphic, but there\u2019s, there\u2019s, there\u2019s a fair amount of cleaning that you want. It Yeah, you want, yeah, toilets, obviously, but, but just surfaces alone that you, you know, the same, the same hands that you know, you eat with, are the ones that you move around with, and everybody\u2019s, you know, touching the same handrails. And so you want to make sure those handrails are clean on a weekly basis.<\/p>\n
And so really, you get one full day. Sunday is pretty much your, your day, yeah, the next day, it\u2019s kind of your, your decompress day, where you don\u2019t have to be anywhere in particular for the for the entirety of the day. Sometimes you have conferences, sometimes you have other activities, but it\u2019s really kind of the decompress day. And then with each day, there\u2019s, you know, we all wake up with the morning DPC, the Daily Planning Conference, where we talk to everybody around the world and the control centers, and kind of kick off our day if there\u2019s any changes. And then, bam, we get right into our scheduled activities. And we do get two and a half total hours a day dedicated to exercise. And that may sound like like we\u2019re like in the gym all the time, but a portion of that is set up and and, you know, changing clothes and getting into the workout, but for an hour and a half you\u2019re doing exercise. And that exercise isn\u2019t just for your mental well being. This is so that you can, it\u2019s insurance so that you can walk when you land on the planet like the way you stated that, trust me, you don\u2019t want to be the one that can\u2019t stay on their own two feet. And just for the longevity of your health, you definitely are committed to exercise, if for no other reason, just for understanding the effects of microgravity on the human body and the bone loss, the muscle loss, and all the other ways that your body has to adapt to be in that environment. And so we\u2019re pretty dedicated to exercise every day.<\/p>\n
And then we work pretty long days. It\u2019s it\u2019s basically, for the most part, 12 hours you\u2019re on and and you get a few hours in the evening to eat, whatever free time you want to do, and then it\u2019s bedtime. And so that that period of time between the evening DPC and when you go to bed is called pre-sleep. That\u2019s where a lot of people, that\u2019s when you reach out to family, because mostly your family\u2019s in Houston, at least, if you\u2019re a US astronaut, and you\u2019re calling, you\u2019re calling family, because it\u2019s, you know, their afternoon and and you can, you can see a lot of people in pre-sleep and then talk with family and things like that.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
What were some of the small things you were able to do? Like, did you bring something up with you? Or what basically made space station feel more like home?<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Oh, I brought, I brought my Bible, first of all, and I brought my journal, this journal I had with me on my previous flight, and I had filled it up between flights with all the reminders of things that I wanted to that I\u2019d learned from my first flight, my first long duration flight, I should say, and it still had all the patches and everything that I\u2019d written from my first flight in there. And then, yeah, while I was on the ground, I was like, \u201cYou know what? I want to remember this.\u201d And you know, close friends and family would give me words of wisdom and that know me best. And so I\u2019d write those things in there, and they\u2019re just favorite verses, things that I\u2019d learned and all that. So anyway, was chock full of reminders. And so that was that was definitely up in my my CQ, or my Crew Quarter. Pictures of family and things like that, made it kind of like home and and then my makeshift dresser drawer, which was really just the corner of my CQ, and some bungees, and that\u2019s where I shoved all my clothes. So kind of looked like a bedroom in a weird sense, but trying to relate, relate to everyday life at home.<\/p>\n
You know, we get care packages and in those our family and friends and in cards and things like that. So every now and then I\u2019d get something and I\u2019d stick it up, just so I would remember folks at home. So\u2026<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
That\u2019s really nice. While you were up there, you said you celebrated all three birthdays three times that you were up there. So anything different from the birthdays that followed?<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Oh, it was really tough to beat my first birthday with scorch giving me his very own, probably only brownie. Yeah, I mean, like they pack you full of brownies on a shuttle. So what a sacrifice. Oh, I can tell you this birthday each birthday I\u2019ve had. So when I was on in 2010 Shannon and Wheels, and our Russian crew mates gave me, you know, a birthday gift of some crew provision items that it was kind of a joke, because crew provisioning was hard to keep track of on board, because we had a different system at that time. And I was required to audit a lot of things, and one of the things that we kept running short on were dry wipes, just like Kleenexes, but we use them for a number of things, not just to blow your nose. And they took a Thera band, um that they found in one of the exercise ctbs, and they wrapped it around a package of dry wipes and gave it to me, and it was really the thoughtfulness of how kind it was so kind.<\/p>\n
But then on my my recent flight, we started this tradition because we had about six birthdays on board during during our increment, mine being one of them, Suni, Mike, I\u2019m trying to remember who else said, Oh, three of our Russian crew mates. And so we had a number of birthdays, and we started the tradition of making birthday cakes for each other. Oh, and each birthday cake was different. We we got gradually better as the increment went on on how to make these birthday cakes out of whatever we had available. We started out with with cake, uh, making supplies, not cake making, but cake decorating supplies. Okay, so the first birthdays had, like regular icing, but then when we ran out of that, then we had to start getting clever with the materials that we had and, but we managed and and I had a beautiful birthday cake, and nice birthday celebration. It was a little bit of a surprise. We always try to make it a little bit of surprise for everybody. Yeah, and we all congregate in in either the Node One or the SM, depending on whose birthday it is. And then the Russian the Russian colleagues, they, they made these cute gifts, Suni\u2019s, Suni\u2019s was this orange, like there was an apple, an orange and a lemon, or something like that, with toothpicks sticking out. And then, then the Russians have these ribbons that that are an orange fabric. So they made that as hair coming out. Anyway, it\u2019s really cute. And for me, they made a bouquet that was, was a bouquet of flowers, but was actually \u201ctvorog,\u201d which is this cottage cheese\u2026 I\u2019m going totally into it. Going in a reverie here. But so, so birthdays in space were a really fun thing. And the whole the whole crew, had a good time celebrating just regardless of whose birthday it was.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
You talked a little bit about your journal and that, that to me, just sung a little bit more about how you keep your mindset to be so far away from family, to be far away from friends, all of your sort of creature comforts, your daily routine here on Earth. So tell me how you managed stress, or how you dealt with mental health.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Wow. Well, certainly my Bible and my journal were a big part of it, but just the preparation for my heart going up there, I would say that my, you know, my, my walk with God, my and all of my family, friends, my my my beloved, my husband, George Dyson, just they knew that the most important part about this mission was not that I do something I\u2019d never done before, But that I love like I never loved before. Yeah, and you have to, you have to, you have to make that a priority when you go into space, because there is so much that is out of your control. Yes, so much so that when the unexpected hits you, and it can hit you more than once you you have to be able to cage yourself on on the things that you can control. And when I read a quote I thought was pretty cool, sometimes we talk about, you know, your your heart being a tea bag, and the situation being the hot water. And when that gets poured on a tea bag, what kind of aroma does that tea bag give off? And I\u2019ve also heard, you know, when you get cut by a knife, you know, what comes out? If the, if the situation is the knife cutting your heart, what comes out? You know, how do you respond to these things?<\/p>\n
And so coming up, I think, going on a mission, a long duration mission in particular, requires not just technical preparation, but mental preparation, because you are going to face these things, and you\u2019re not going to have all of your comforts that you\u2019re used to having on the earth. You\u2019re not going to have all of your support system readily available to you. And so yeah, I had had lots of reminders, but just lots of good. I had a good heart posture getting up there. And it\u2019s good too, because I had some real life challenges, not just the, you know, from our launch abort at T-minus 20 seconds, and which required our crew to download the next day to a from a two orbit rendezvous to a 34 orbit rendezvous. How fun. How fun. And thank goodness I had two extraordinary people to spend in free flight with getting to the station, so it wasn\u2019t as uncomfortable as it could have been, but it was still two and a half days in a small Soyuz capsule when we were really hoping to get there in two, you know, two orbits a couple hours.<\/p>\n
But turning around from that, about three weeks into my mission, I received a call from the ground, and it was during our pre sleep period of time, and I was in node one, eating my dinner, along with my crew mates, when the Capcom called and said, TC, we\u2019re putting in a phone patch on space to ground two and let us know when, when you\u2019re ready. So they told me that there was a problem going on, and I, and they needed to give me some privacy. And so the crew responded, and we moved operational content to the space ground one loop. And when my crew mates, Matt Dominick, went flying around the whole space station to turn off the at us and every other module, and I went to the furthest module that I could, and I waited for the Capcom to put a phone patch through, because I knew some bad news was coming, and thank goodness it wasn\u2019t too long before I found out that the phone patch was not about my husband, but with my husband, but it was the next bit of news that it was my mother. She had just suffered a hemorrhagic stroke, and we were having to make some pretty tough decisions on her behalf.<\/p>\n
And so that started a different emphasis on my mission for me, not just, you know, it was, it was a given that the work needed to get done, but how I was going to deal with my mom\u2019s now new situation. She was, she was just in Mission Control with my launch, and then my docking, in fact, Drew Feustel was with her during my my launch, and Reid Wiseman was there, along with all family and friends that were in Mission Control. And Suni, believe it or not, was with her when I docked, and mom was upright and mobile and and full of spirit. And now she\u2019s she\u2019s half a body struggling for her life, and I\u2019m the one that is required to make the decisions on her behalf. And so the entire rest of my mission, and even to this day, has been spent in appointments with neurosurgeons, neurologists, hospital staff, lawyers, every every aspect of healthcare to make decisions on my mom\u2019s behalf and to just uphold her quality of life. And it was a- it was a situation that you just we prepared as much as we could, in fact, for anything to happen, but we didn\u2019t, we didn\u2019t\u2026 My husband and I and my mother didn\u2019t plan for this gray area. You know, it was like if we actually moved my mom from our house just before I launched into her own apartment, so that regardless of where we were, she was around people that could help her. And she had lived with us for about 10 years before this moment and then and now that she\u2019s she\u2019s in this new place, and it was by the grace of God that she was with her sister the night that this happened, because she was able to get her to the hospital.<\/p>\n
But this whole experience didn\u2019t just change my mother\u2019s life. She went from ambulatory one one, but when she went to bed and paralyzed the next morning, and then all the support that\u2019s been required for her, her well being. But my husband\u2019s life took on a completely different direction. It was bad enough that his wife was going to be gone for, you know, the near eight months when you fly on a Soyuz, you leave several weeks before your launch. But his life had to be rearranged, because now he had to help his mother in law, which he did joyfully, but it still took its toll. And so\u2026 but there was a point at which my husband had to leave, because of his navy commitments, he had to leave for two months to Rhode Island for some training, and so we had to develop a support system on the ground to to help get the word to me on board, if, if something were required, you know, time critical with my mother\u2019s care.<\/p>\n
And then there was my. Our behavioral health our behavioral health team. We call them, our psych Support is made up of our psych docs that we meet with every, you know, two weeks or so, just to make sure that we\u2019re, you know, cared for and in our, you know, in our emotional mental states up there. But also, we have psych support leads who, you know, the fun part of their job is to coordinate these crew choice events where we get to meet people that we wouldn\u2019t normally meet, you know, if we weren\u2019t astronauts floating around in space. And so these are meant to be, you know, just real spirit lifters and motivational visits and things with other people, but my psych support leads Brooke Loughborough and and then Allison, they both were instead in hospital rooms with my mother and conducting these conferences between me and and the healthcare team on a day, on a on a daily basis, and especially when my husband was out of town.<\/p>\n
And so there was just a lot of a lot of living on board that was a challenge because of that. And I wanted my my crewmates, when this happened, really rallied behind me. They were supportive and and knew very well what I was going through. And then when Suni arrived, Suni and I are close friends, because we we not only were class, our classmates, but we interviewed together. And so we go way back and and she knows my mom really well. And having been with my mom, it was really important to to hear everything from her in her last visit with my mom. And so my crew mates were really supportive and understood, you know, in these pre-sleep period of time when I was, you know, everybody else is on floating around fun, doing tours of the station with their family, and all that kind of stuff. I was, for many times, inside my crew quarter with appointments that my husband set up, or Brooke would, she\u2019d run down the hallway to get a nurse because we\u2019d been waiting to ask some questions and so, so there I was, you know, dealing with the kind of things that do you think don\u2019t happen in space.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
But they do happen.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
They do happen, and so\u2026<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Thank you for sharing that with us.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Yeah, yeah, you\u2019re welcome.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
That\u2019s a tough spot to be in being so far away, and the fact that you had folks rallying behind you, you had your village that was there supporting you to be able to, you know, make those decisions, have those conversations, ask the questions, I bet you that was some solace given the difficulty of the situation.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Absolutely and talk about situations being out of your control, yeah, having a support system, folks that you trust and and you know are there for you is, is vital. For anybody going on a trip, not to mention going to space,<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
you\u2019re just going on a different kind of work trip.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Yeah.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
I thank you again. I really appreciate you sharing that with us. I have a couple more questions, and I kind of want to go back to a topic really quickly, if you would let me you talked about flying on these vehicles, being on station. Talk to us about coming back from space, because you came back from space on a space shuttle and a Soyuz,<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Yeah, yeah, wow. Those couldn\u2019t be any more different than if you, like, deliberately tried to be at different ends of the spectrum of space vehicles. Yeah, so the both launch and landing of those two vehicles are vastly different, even though it takes the same amount of time to get to space, but coming home, in particular, you know, the shuttle, as you know, you know, is a glider, a pretty heavy, heavy doesn\u2019t seem like it should be flying in space, kind of brick. I think Eileen Collins once called it like a refrigerator. You know that, like the aerodynamics of a refrigerator coming into the atmosphere, but it does. It glides rather smoothly at the prowess of the commander and pilot and the team on the flight deck to this beautiful soft landing on the runway, and you just roll to a stop, and then the hatches open up, and people come and get you, and you\u2019re you\u2019re basically sitting upright. And if you, if you are up to it, you can just walk out and plus, it\u2019s the shuttle flight. So you\u2019re, you\u2019re not in space for months at a time, it\u2019s weeks, and you still- the the environment that you just came from, does take a little while for the body to adapt. It\u2019s not, it\u2019s not a matter of minutes. It\u2019s it\u2019s. It\u2019s hours and days.<\/p>\n
But when you\u2019re on the Soyuz both, both, both vehicles land on Earth. So unlike, unlike a Dragon that splashes down or an Apollo capsule, it splashes down the ocean, both are on earth. But the but the talk about the aerodynamics of a ball, basically, which is the Soyuz capsule shaped like a bell. And you wonder, how in the world, does that thing steer itself to the right spot? It doesn\u2019t just, you know, you don\u2019t just fire engines and then hope that you land in the right place. It\u2019s, it\u2019s actually doing some steering, some some rotating with its jets to to to dissipate energy at the right times and and to control coming in. But, boy, I tell you what. When you are like, right next to the window and you\u2019re watching parts of your capsule ablate, you just for a moment, are thinking, Oh, wait, no, that\u2019s right, that\u2019s supposed to happen. Like, it\u2019s okay that I smell, I smell my capsule burning. That\u2019s, that\u2019s the the heat shield ablating. It\u2019s supposed to do that. And then in all of the bells and the whistles, the pyro is firing, the spinning, the the analog nature that feels like the Soyuz. It\u2019s, it\u2019s, it\u2019s robust.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Sounds fun!<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Oh, it\u2019s, it\u2019s, Mr. Toad\u2019s Wild Ride there! There\u2019s hardly anything funner than a Soyuz re entry. When the when the parachutes release, it\u2019s, it\u2019s the greatest shock of your life. I mean, if you think about how fast you\u2019re screaming, you\u2019re like, going several mock numbers, and this parachute gets released a series of them, but still, it\u2019s, it\u2019s one big, you know, yank, and it\u2019s and then it\u2019s as soon as, as soon as that Yank happens, then the whole capsule starts spinning and swaying underneath as this chutes, that just chute starts to unfurl, and all of that. And then the as the G\u2019s are building prior to that, it\u2019s like this gorilla sitting on your chest. And I listened to my commander on this last one. I don\u2019t think I noticed it as much on my first Soyuz flight, but listening to him make the calls on, on the gravity, sorry, the acceleration and our range, I think he was recalling, but he was you\u2019d hear his voice get heavier and heavier, and I would not want to be him right now. I mean, I\u2019m having to do this, this maneuver that we do to overcome the G forces, but he\u2019s having to talk at the same time. So it was like, it\u2019s a very physical process, I guess is a way to encapsulate a Soyuz.<\/p>\n
And then, then, and then, what\u2019s beautiful is that these, quote, unquote, the air quotes, soft landing jets fire like a meter, a meter before you land on the ground. And when people are watching video of a Soyuz landing and you see all this dust kick up, it\u2019s like, oh, like, like, you think that that\u2019s the plunk of the capsule on terra firma, but it\u2019s actually the soft landing jets are firing, and it\u2019s supposed to cushion your fall along with your seat, seat cushion. Yeah, it cocks up on these shock absorbers.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji <\/p>\n
So I have two follow up questions: That was very visual. It\u2019s just reminding me of bungee jumping.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Have you bungee jumped?<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
I have bungee jumped.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Wow!<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
That is scary.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Yeah.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
It reminds me of being on some kind of a thrill ride. Insert your favorite amusement park. But it is scary. It\u2019s not for the weak.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
So I\u2019ve heard being in a Soyuz is like being in the back seat of a bug, a Volkswagen Bug.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Oh yeah, yeah.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
It\u2019s very crammed quarters.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
It sure is, oh for three people in there. Yeah, you\u2019re basically on your back, especially when, when the G\u2019s Come on, that\u2019s the sensation you have when you\u2019re in space, getting in your seat, you just feel like you need a seat belt to suck you into the into the chair. But, yeah, in a 1g environment, you\u2019re basically laying down, and your knees are propped up, and so you\u2019re basically kind of hunkered in.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Like a little bit of a fetal position, almost?<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Yeah, pretty much. And then you\u2019ve got these knee pads that that hold your knees in place, and then the harness and everything like that. So you\u2019re you\u2019re tucked in pretty good. Plus your suit is tailored to your body, and the seat liner is molded literally to your your tush. And so it\u2019s that you, you are never going to fit in a seat quite like you fit in a Soyuz.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Talk about customization. That\u2019s it, right there.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Yeah, and that\u2019s really the crux of how you\u2019re safe in that seat, so you\u2019re not jostling around all that.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
So okay, so now you\u2019re back on Earth. Now you\u2019re back on Earth, and you\u2019ve had three flights. You\u2019ve racked up over 300 days in space. So let\u2019s reflect a little bit. So what\u2019s it like, or what does it feel like to be part of a program that is, you know, it\u2019s spanned decades, generations, legacies. What- Tell me about your feelings?<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Oh, well, when I I\u2019ve said this before, when I think about the fraction of the human race that has been to space. It stops me in my tracks, and I think about that, and what that, what that means, and what it should mean, and and all the thoughts I imagine any anybody would have wondering, how do, how does one get to be a part of something as unique and also meaningful as what we\u2019ve done with our space program from the beginning of it to where we are today? And I, you know, I, think, Did I, did I make good did I make good use of that? Did the NASA make good use of that? And you start to think about the involvement, just on a personal level, of the kind of responsibility now that you have with that experience, and wanting to make sure that you don\u2019t just chalk that up as another great adventure, because so much resource has gone into me being here and doing what I\u2019ve done. Especially with having three flights, and these flights being where they\u2019ve been in the development of just the station and the shuttle program alone, not to mention the whole of where we started from as a nation, wanting to go into space and just feeling a tremendous amount of responsibility to put that to good use. But when I think about where we\u2019re headed, and, you know, away from low earth orbit, but not really leaving low earth orbit, because we\u2019ve learned so much. And I\u2019m, I\u2019m here to tell you that I think, I think it\u2019s important that we go beyond how far we go is really just a matter of human imagination and ingenuity. So I\u2019m not gonna put any boundaries on that, but I will venture to say that regardless of how far we go, we\u2019re going to find out that where we are is pretty special.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Yes, I love that.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Yeah. And everything we do to this point forward, and what we have done is just, I think, going to strengthen that, which is a good thing.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
We go together<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson\u00a0 <\/p>\n
And we go together, yes, right? Because we\u2019re, I mean, if nothing else, the unity of what we\u2019re doing, it just, it just highlights where we\u2019re, like a planet. We\u2019re truly a planet. We are. I mean, we\u2019re not just the United States, we\u2019re not just a group of sovereign nations. We\u2019re, we\u2019re a planet and and we should go together.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
You answered my next question about the next your hopes for the next phase of human spaceflight. So perfect way to wrap our conversation. Tracy, it was an absolute pleasure. Thank you for being here.<\/p>\n
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Tracy Dyson <\/p>\n
My pleasure. My pleasure as well. Thank you so much for having me.<\/p>\n
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Nilufar Ramji\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Of course.<\/p>\n
[Music]<\/p>\n
Well, thanks for sticking around. I hope you learned something new today.<\/p>\n
This episode is the third of our International Space Station 25 series, where we\u2019re celebrating a quarter century of continuous human presence in space with the people who made it possible.<\/p>\n
If you want to hear more from Tracy, we spoke with her ahead of her latest flight on episode 327<\/a>. And stay tuned for A Place in Space to Call Home: Part 2, coming soon, where we will talk with astronaut Mark Vande Hei.<\/p>\n You can check out the latest from around the agency at nasa.gov, and you can find more about our astronaut corps at nasa.gov\/astronauts<\/a>. You can also learn more about the International Space station at nasa.gov\/iss<\/a>.<\/p>\n Our full collection of episodes and all of the other wonderful NASA Podcasts can be found at nasa.gov\/podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n On social media we are on the NASA Johnson Space Center pages of Facebook<\/a>, X<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>. If you have any questions for us or suggestions for future episodes, email us at nasa-houstonpodcast@mail.nasa.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n This interview was recorded September 30, 2025.<\/p>\n Our producer is Dane Turner. Audio engineers are Will Flato, Daniel Tohill and Greg Wiseman. And our social media is managed by Kelsey Howren. Houston We Have a Podcast was created and is supervised by Gary Jordan. Special thanks to Kara Slaughter, Mary Pfister, and Courtney Beasley for helping us to set up this interview, and of course, thanks again to Tracy Dyson for taking the time to come on the show.<\/p>\n Give us a rating and feedback on whatever platform you\u2019re listening to us on and tell us what you think of our podcast.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll see you next week.<\/p>\n 3\u2026 2\u2026 1\u2026 This is an official NASA podcast.<\/p>\n