Humans In Space with Astronaut Leland Melvin and Dr. Sheyna Gifford

Are human bodies good for space? Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly discover the effects of space on the human body and if we are ready for long-haul missions with astronaut Leland Melvin and space doc, Dr. Sheyna Gifford.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is StarTalk Sports Edition. The title of this episode is "The Space Cowboy." Who? And find out more about that in a moment. Let me first introduce my co-host, Gary O'Reilly. Gary, former soccer pro.

• 0:29Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, great to be here again.

• 0:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. And you're also a former sports commentator.

• 0:34Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm still commentating, yes. Yep, still out there. The game's gone into extra time. I'm still commentating.

• 0:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly. Well, you used to commentate soccer and now you come stateside and you're with us on StarTalk. Delighted to have you as a former pro athlete. And of course Chuck Nice, who's not a former pro anything.

• 0:51Chuck Nice?

  This is true.

• 0:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Longtime StarTalk co-host, comedian and actor we add to your resume.

• 0:58Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah, I'm often acting like a comedian.

• 1:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Gary, give me the show overview and who do you got for us this time?

• 1:07Gary O'Reilly?

  You see, Neil, we all want to go to space. Seems like fun. We can get to float around up there in microgravity.

• 1:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As long as there's enough money to bring me back, I'll go into space.

• 1:19Gary O'Reilly?

  Always get a return ticket. But the whole thing is, what if you had to spend weeks, months, years in space? You know, what if it was your job? How do you prepare a human body to spend an elongated period of time in microgravity?

• 1:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A living body.

• 1:36Gary O'Reilly?

  What impact? Yeah.

• 1:40Gary O'Reilly?

  What impact does microgravity have on the body? How do you adapt to life in space? And when you come back, how does it react to full gravity? So all of the answers to those questions are going to help us understand how better to travel into space and not have detrimental effects to our being.

• 2:03Gary O'Reilly?

  Um, I mean, it's going to influence so much of space travel in the future.

• 2:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If we're going to be a spacefaring species, yeah, you gotta do it.

• 2:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah. I mean, otherwise we're trapped here on this little blue marble. And that may not be the best idea as things go forward. So for these answers to these questions, we need some serious, serious expertise. We have later on in the show, the space doc, Dr. Sheyna Gifford. Her expertise is rehabilitation and in particularly for astronauts. But what if, imagine you had an NFL athlete and put that athlete into space? It seems like, you know, the rarest of beings, but that's exactly what we have as our first guest. Leland Melvin is a former NFL wide receiver with the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys.

• 2:54Gary O'Reilly?

  He has been on two space missions on the shuttle Atlantis. I mean, he's logged over 500 hours in space. He's also an author, Chasing Space, a book a lot of our listeners may well be very familiar with. And being a NASA administrator and communicator for the Office of Education. And if you want to talk about what it's like to prepare, exist, and then rehabilitate from being in microgravity, Neil, I couldn't imagine a better guest.

• 3:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That you must, you're talking about Leland Melvin, my man.

• 3:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 3:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Leland, dude, Leland Melvin, what, how you feeling, man?

• 3:34Speaker 03

  So good to be here, you know, sports and space is something that we all should gravitate towards. I mean, we're all in space.

• 3:40Chuck Nice?

  Saw what you did there.

• 3:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We see what you did there.

• 3:43Chuck Nice?

  Gravitate, saw it, caught it, Leland, I caught it.

• 3:48Speaker 03

  I'm trying to, I'm trying to be Chuck Nice.

• 3:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, all right, so you're retired NASA astronaut. You're a former NFL wide receiver with the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys.

• 4:00Speaker 03

  For a minute, for a minute.

• 4:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, okay.

• 4:04Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you, you only, so what you're saying is only for a minute you were with the Cowboys?

• 4:09Speaker 03

  Both with, I pulled a hamstring in both training camp with the Cowboys and the Lions. And I think actually Danny White. For helping me get the space.

• 4:18Chuck Nice?

  Right on.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  I'll talk to you about that.

• 4:19Chuck Nice?

  Okay, wow.

• 4:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pulled a hammy. Wow, okay. All right, but you were on the team.

• 4:23Speaker 03

  Wide receivers and hammies, you know, they kind of go, you need that, right?

• 4:27Gary O'Reilly?

  But I tell you what, Leland, there'll be a journey to get that far.

• 4:31Speaker 03

  Right?

• 4:31Gary O'Reilly?

  That will make you an elite athlete by a long stretch.

• 4:36Chuck Nice?

  You made the team, that's all that counts.

• 4:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right, right, there you go. And also, you were a science communicator with NASA, because after you did your astronaut thing, you headed up the education office at NASA. The Office of Education, I think, is the official title for it. But before then, you had two missions on the space shuttle Atlantis, logged more than 500 hours in space. So you're a man.

• 5:01Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 5:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're a show.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  Hey, just trying to inspire those, that next generation, Neil, you know, that's what it's all about.

• 5:06Chuck Nice?

  Well, Leland, you failed.

• 5:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What?

• 5:11Speaker 03

  Why, Chuck, come on.

• 5:12Chuck Nice?

  Have you, have you seen the next generation, man? Have you, have you met them, man?

• 5:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, wait, Chuck's got it backwards. Chuck, the next generation is fine. So, Leland, you've been paying too much attention to the young folk. They're fine. It's the old folk that are messing up the world.

• 5:30Chuck Nice?

  It's true, yeah.

• 5:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I'm saying, that's what I'm saying. So let me ask, so I'll start this off, because we have 100,000 questions we want to ask you. What did you weigh when you were recruited by the Detroit Lions or the Cowboys? What did you weigh?

• 5:45Speaker 03

  I was 220.

• 5:48Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 5:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  220, not too bad.

• 5:49Chuck Nice?

  That's great for a wide receiver.

• 5:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, that's right, that's right.

• 5:52Speaker 03

  Solid.

• 5:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right, and so then...

• 5:53Speaker 03

  When a 4540 is 220 pounds.

• 5:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I didn't ask all the rest, I didn't ask all that.

• 5:57Chuck Nice?

  Nah, dude, I don't, I don't blame you, I don't blame you. That's like somebody saying, what did you get in chemistry? And you're like, oh yeah, I got a 98 in chemistry, but I also got a 96 in physics, I got an 87 in... Yeah, I don't blame you, man, I don't blame you.

• 6:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right. So, so you were 220. Now, astronauts, at least from the old days, are famously little.

• 6:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, because you had to fit inside of a capsule. But in the shuttle era, it's basically a living room with a couch compared to the old days of the capsule. But how tall are you also, by the way?

• 6:32Speaker 03

  Uh, six foot.

• 6:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Six foot, so you weren't you a little chunky for that journey?

• 6:38Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 6:39Speaker 03

  So.

• 6:40Chuck Nice?

  Wow, wait a minute, wait, wait.

• 6:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And are you eating the food that other astronauts wanted to eat? Taking up seat space?

• 6:45Speaker 03

  Starving.

• 6:46Chuck Nice?

  Let me, let me just say this for a second. Only Neil could, could term it in those, and phrase it in those terms. You are six feet, two twenty, mostly muscle. He's like, it's not Hollywood, man. You're like, aren't you a little chunky for this role?

• 7:03Speaker 03

  But actually, Chuck, he is right.

• 7:05Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 7:06Speaker 03

  He is right. Because when you're on the flight deck with someone else sitting beside you, I'm a mission specialist, and another one sitting beside me, and the shoulders and the breath, it, it pushes into his space.

• 7:17Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 7:17Speaker 03

  So maybe not chunky, but voluminous, maybe.

• 7:22Gary O'Reilly?

  So did you have to lose bulk?

• 7:25Speaker 03

  No.

• 7:25Gary O'Reilly?

  To go on a space mission?

• 7:26Speaker 03

  No, no, I didn't.

• 7:27Chuck Nice?

  No, he just took up both armrests.

• 7:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mine. The person you don't want in the middle seat of the airplane.

• 7:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, I just have to lead off with that question, just to figure that out.

• 7:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, no, okay, so here, here they come, Leland, so, uh.

• 7:49Speaker 03

  Chunky. That's my name, my nickname is now Chunky. Okay.

• 7:54Gary O'Reilly?

  I mean, how do you, as an astronaut,

• 7:58Gary O'Reilly?

  combat effects of microgravity before you go up into space? So what sort of protocols are you gonna go through?

• 8:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What kind of pregame do you have for that?

• 8:06Speaker 03

  Pregame, yeah. I mean, the, the main thing is, you know, cardiovascular shape, you wanna be, you know, you wanna run, you wanna do cycling, different things, swimming is great. But the other thing is really, is the free weights, you know, and as a football player. Free weights have been always part of my regimen for, you know, strength and endurance and all of that. We find that if you lift free weights, whether it's on the ground or actually the equivalent of free weights in space, it keeps your bones from getting osteoporotic. When, when you go to space, the morphology of your bone structure changes because there is no gravity. Well, we're, we're in free fall around the planet. There

• 8:45Speaker 03

  is actually gravity, nine, what nine tenths of a G in 240 miles up. But your bones start to change. And when you come home, if you haven't done resistive exercise, your, your bones may be embretled. You will come back to get stress fractures. And so it's really important that you precondition with, you know, lifting free weights, especially, you know, squats and deadlifts to, to, to work the, the big bones in your body, your hip bone.

• 9:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to be clear, because some people listening to this, maybe from the deep geek spectrum have never done sports. When you say free weights, these aren't weights that cost no money. These are weights.

• 9:24Speaker 03

  These, these are the heavy weights.

• 9:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So these, these are weights that live in each hand and you move them in whatever way you choose rather than be constrained.

• 9:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Individual press, you know, those kinds of things.

• 9:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gotcha.

• 9:39Gary O'Reilly?

  So you're not taking those into space because Neil has taught us it's $10,000 a pound to get it up there. So you're not taking free weights with you.

• 9:48Chuck Nice?

  $10,000 a pound. Leland, you were chunky. You were damn real fat. This is what I was talking about, Chuck.

• 9:54Speaker 03

  Be expensive.

• 9:55Chuck Nice?

  You are. This was an expensive boy to put up in space. Tell me about it. They were having meetings. They were having meetings about you. They were having.

• 10:04Speaker 03

  You need to lose weight before he goes.

• 10:06Gary O'Reilly?

  Let's give Leland a little bit of love before we, we take him down.

• 10:14Gary O'Reilly?

  So when you get up into the space station, you're there for a certain period of time. Your exercise regime still has to be in place. So A, what are you doing? And I can't imagine there's already a gym waiting for you there. So you're going to have this equipment to set up, exercise and then dismantle. So how much of your whole day does it take to go from beginning to packing it away in the box?

• 10:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But just to be clear, just to be clear, Leland was on the space shuttle, which doesn't spend months in space. So we might ask, what preparation do you need for just the days or weeks on a shuttle relative to the months on a space station? So that would be two different.

• 10:53Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, point taken.

• 10:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Question there, yeah. Leland, go for it.

• 10:56Speaker 03

  So short duration space flight, you know, a week or two weeks at a time. We had a cycle ergometer. We could set up this bicycle in the middeck of the space shuttle. So you would go down, you would strap in, you strap your body in so you don't start pedaling float away and your feet are in straps until you're cycling. And then we had these rubber bands that we would stretch to do resistive exercise. Because that's what you need is that resistive exercise. But on the space station, when people are living there for six months or a year, we have a machine called the resistive exercise device that has these bands that allow you to do the equivalent of what we just talked about with the free weights.

• 11:38Speaker 03

  So you can do bench press, deadlift, overhead press, curls. We have a cycle ergometer up there and we have a treadmill. And on that treadmill, so that you can get the cardiovascular shape. You need two hours of exercise a day for long duration space flight. So the lifting and the running or the cycling. And we had actually Sunny Williams. No, you know Sunny.

• 11:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I do know Sunny. I love her. Yeah, it's great.

• 12:01Speaker 03

  Sunny Williams was one of my classmates. She's a marathoner. She's just an incredible athlete. She ran the Boston Marathon in space while Karen Nyberg ran the actual Boston Marathon and they were comparing times as they were running. Oh.

• 12:18Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, but one of them didn't have gravity.

• 12:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck.

• 12:23Chuck Nice?

  I just said once.

• 12:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck.

• 12:25Speaker 03

  Oh, she cheated? Are you saying she shouldn't?

• 12:27Chuck Nice?

  Yes, I am. I'm saying she cheated. I didn't want to say it, but now that you brought it up.

• 12:35Speaker 03

  I'm I'm gonna let you tell that to Sunny, okay?

• 12:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait, just to be clear, just to be clear, she has devices that weigh her down onto the treadmill.

• 12:45Speaker 03

  I got it.

• 12:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's the whole thing.

• 12:47Speaker 03

  Okay. It's probably harder up there, Chuck, than it is on the ground. She's got this this elastic band around her waist with straps that go down to the base of the treadmill. So she's running and trying not to, you know, levitate up, but those bands are keeping her down on the treadmill.

• 13:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 13:05Gary O'Reilly?

  And that's going to affect her her actual technique. So she's going to have to learn a new technique to run with all of that equipment attached to her.

• 13:12Chuck Nice?

  All right, I take it back. I take it back.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  So no cheating.

• 13:15Chuck Nice?

  No cheating. She was she was actually she was at a disadvantage.

• 13:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Did you take a pigskin up into the shuttle and start whizzing that thing around?

• 13:24Speaker 03

  The NFL Hall of Fame gave me a football to take to space. And we also took, Gary, the the NFL Super Bowl coin for the 2010 Super Bowl.

• 13:35Chuck Nice?

  Nice.

• 13:37Speaker 03

  So we flipped the coin in space.

• 13:39Chuck Nice?

  And and it never came down. And it never came down.

• 13:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's at Jupiter now.

• 13:45Chuck Nice?

  Everybody's still waiting for the game to start.

• 13:48Speaker 03

  I know, right?

• 13:48Chuck Nice?

  They're just sitting around.

• 13:53Speaker 03

  We did rocks, paper, scissors to decide who was gonna get the toss. That's cool.

• 13:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, very good.

• 14:00Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so you you prepare to go to space. You do your thing while you're up there, and once you return, there's these effects that and consequences. But how did you feel about the return? And is it the same for everybody? Or do we have a a personal variation in the way things present?

• 14:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, interesting.

• 14:18Speaker 03

  Gary, as a professional athlete yourself, you really understand how your body works in 3D space and, you know, jumping up to kick a soccer ball or walking or running or whatever. And when I came back, you know, it took me. Probably about a week to get back to some semblance of normalcy because your vestibular system, your inner ear in space, it's the data that it's giving because if there's little rocks in your inner ears are floating, all that data is wrong. So when you start moving and turning and trying to figure out what orientation you're in, that's when you sometimes get sick because your eyes see one thing and your ears are telling you

• 14:59Speaker 03

  something else. And your brain is confused. And so your brain shuts all that down and then just looks at your eyes for orientation. But when you come home, it's trying to reintegrate the inner ear data. And now there's this conflict. And so if you're walking in a straight line and this just started turn, you could just fall over because your brain is really screwed up trying to figure it out.

• 15:22Chuck Nice?

  So every astronaut will fail a sobriety test.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 15:27Chuck Nice?

  Officer, I am not drunk. I just got back from space.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, and then he'll go, yeah, right.

• 15:35Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so how do you, two things. I mean, I've just got off a plane yesterday and had a transatlantic flight, so I've got some jet lag. Do you then experience a similar thing from returning from space? And how do you work with time? Because you don't have the same sort of reference points unless, of course, everything's tethered to a certain time zone back on Earth.

• 16:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So you're saying we have jet lag. You wonder if there is something called called rocket lag.

• 16:05Speaker 03

  Space lag.

• 16:06Chuck Nice?

  Rocket lag.

• 16:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And aren't you on the time zone of Houston? Because they're the ones yapping at you all the time.

• 16:13Speaker 03

  Well, we always have multiple watches on with different time zones. So you might have your home time zone, you have GMT, you know, you have, also you have mission control. So you have all different time zones. But Gary, when you come home, you're

• 16:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, why do you care what time it is in Greenwich, England, when you're in space?

• 16:31Speaker 03

  Because the space station is kind of slave to that. Because you have people all over the world working.

• 16:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's the agreed upon time. I got it. There you go.

• 16:42Gary O'Reilly?

  Plus, they have a marketing deal with the watchmakers.

• 16:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But it is international space station.

• 16:46Chuck Nice?

  And they all listen to the BBC. So.

• 16:49Gary O'Reilly?

  Why wouldn't you?

• 16:51Speaker 03

  Man, you all over this.

• 16:55Speaker 03

  When I got home, my, you know, because you've been floating and doing this floating, I went to bed and I got up to go use the bathroom like most people do in the middle of the night. And I started pushing off of my back like I was just gonna float to the toilet.

• 17:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to be clear, older men get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.

• 17:13Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 17:15Gary O'Reilly?

  Thanks for introducing that.

• 17:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You confess the state of your prostate in that, in that sentence.

• 17:21Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah, well, listen.

• 17:22Speaker 03

  If you drink a lot of water, you're gonna be.

• 17:24Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 17:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 17:25Chuck Nice?

  Yes. We're just properly hydrated.

• 17:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Hydration.

• 17:29Chuck Nice?

  We're properly hydrated, that's all.

• 17:32Speaker 03

  But your brain, your brain is still thinking that you're in space and you're trying to navigate now the one G, the one gravitational pull world. And so you think you can do things that you were doing in space. Like if you're eating a meal, you might have a plate, you put some on a plate, and then you just let go of it and turn around and the plate hits the ground. Because in space, it just, everything just floats.

• 17:55Chuck Nice?

  That's amazing, I love it.

• 17:58Gary O'Reilly?

  What is it harder to do? Prepare for a space mission or recover from a space mission? And, you know, as, as we've discussed, a professional athlete, a former professional athlete like yourself is so conscious of their body because they've used it to, to do their business. So I'd be interested to hear how you feel about either side of a space mission.

• 18:22Speaker 03

  Okay. Again, back to, as Neil said, the short duration space shuttle versus the long duration ISS living, very different. You know, I basically had a vestibular system issue for about a week trying to, you know, navigate turning and moving in, in 3D space and just, you know, not being cardiovasculary in shape like I was before I left because I was running, I was doing all this stuff. But people that go long duration, they come back and they have all kinds of things happen. Like, there's something called the intraocular pressure in your head that pushes on your eyeballs.

• 18:57Chuck Nice?

  Eyeballs, that's right.

• 18:58Speaker 03

  And causes you to have to wear glasses if you haven't had to wear glasses before. And that is not necessarily reversible when you come home. So they're still trying to do the research to figure that part out. Um, you know, your, your muscle atrophy, your bone density, those things do diminish a little bit, but if you do the two hours of exercise, cardio and, and the weightlifting equivalent. You, um, you know, you can, you can kind of mitigate.

• 19:25Chuck Nice?

  Whoa, did you say two hours? That's every day?

• 19:28Speaker 03

  A day. Every day they have to work out two hours a day.

• 19:33Gary O'Reilly?

  They have got a space gym.

• 19:36Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 19:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Basically, that's every, every astronaut has to do the same thing.

• 19:41Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 19:41Gary O'Reilly?

  So, um, you know, imagine you're having to stagger your rotor, right? If you've got jobs and tasks that you need to fulfill, but you still need to fulfill the two hours per day. I mean, it's, there's so much more involved.

• 19:54Speaker 03

  They schedule that into your day, though.

• 19:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 19:56Speaker 03

  I mean, you have scanners on the ground that put that in for you because that's, that's a countermeasure that we use to stay, stay healthy.

• 20:02Chuck Nice?

  And, and when do they schedule the couch and potato chip time?

• 20:07Speaker 03

  That's on your time.

• 20:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Leland, a last question before we let you go. Uh, and what, can you imagine a future where we find a planet that has slightly more gravity than Earth? And you bring in an entire athletic team there to work out under these heavier gravity conditions and then bring them back to Earth and have them kick ass in whatever sport they're in.

• 20:30Speaker 03

  That's called, that's called cheating. That's called cheating.

• 20:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Just, just so I haven't had my own damn rocket.

• 20:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Is it cheating? Is it cheating? We, we take athletes to altitude train, warm weather, and we.

• 20:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To high altitude.

• 20:43Gary O'Reilly?

  Oxygenate their blood and everybody does it. So.

• 20:47Speaker 03

  But Gary.

• 20:48Gary O'Reilly?

  Just get your own rocket, dude.

• 20:49Speaker 03

  Everyone have that access to it, right?

• 20:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 20:53Speaker 03

  Access.

• 20:53Gary O'Reilly?

  That's the deal.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  Right?

• 20:55Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 20:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Level playing field.

• 20:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The inclusion.

• 20:59Chuck Nice?

  That's, that is, that's what the Russians argue all the time. They're like, everyone has access to steroid. So.

• 21:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Leland, we got to say goodbye to you, but StarTalk will continue with Dr. Sheyna Gifford, who's otherwise known as the Space Doc. Let's find out why when StarTalk returns. And Leland, really good to see you. We'll catch up with you again. We'll be back.

• 21:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk Sports Edition, Space Cowboy. Gary, who'd you bring in for the second segment?

• 21:50Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, we've spoken to the Space Cowboy, and that's obviously a reference to Leland Melvin's time as a Dallas Cowboy. Couldn't resist the title. What I, from, from speaking with, with Leland, all the questions start to tumble as to how you prepare, how you recover, what you do while you're there, but then throw that forward even further into, with the answers we get to those questions, how does that enlighten what we do in terms of space travel in the future? How does it educate and direct us? So for that, we need someone in the medical profession who has an experience of dealing with these sort of cases. The perfect person is Dr. Sheyna Gifford. Now, this, as we remember at the beginning of the show, is self-titled The Space Doc.

• 22:33Gary O'Reilly?

  The reason being, she was from the 2015, 2016 High Seas 4, one-year mission to virtual Mars. So to go through that whole discipline, that whole knowledge set exists in one person. So for me, this is our perfect follow-up guest.

• 22:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, Sheyna Gifford, welcome to StarTalk. And so tell us about High Seas. What was that about?

• 22:58Speaker 04

  All right, the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation.

• 23:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, so acronym it.

• 23:05Chuck Nice?

  Isn't it always an acronym, though?

• 23:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It always is.

• 23:10Speaker 04

  In space, it's always an acronym. In fact, maybe my name is an acronym.

• 23:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what does it mean, a one-year virtual mission to Mars? Does that make you a virtual doctor?

• 23:19Speaker 04

  Well, if I'm taking care of you over the internet, it does.

• 23:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Good one, good one.

• 23:26Speaker 04

  So, yeah, no, I mean, virtual missions, I may, I'm a virtual, I'm an analog astronaut. I have participated in space simulations. My first was for NASA at Johnson Space Center, locked in a big air hangar in a spacecraft, and they locked, they locked us in, they shut the doors, and all we saw on the screens was space. For about a week until they told us to get in our rocket ship and explore an asteroid. And then they flew us home. We had mission control, the whole setup. It was very real.

• 23:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 23:51Speaker 04

  And very scary at times. And then we did so well on that that two of us got sent up to simulated Mars for a year. And we spent a year living on the side of a barren, although not totally unactive volcano. The volcano occasionally woke up and reminded us we were on a volcano. But hey.

• 24:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You spent a year?

• 24:11Speaker 04

  366 days.

• 24:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did I hear you correctly? A year?

• 24:15Speaker 04

  Neil, you know I did. I made you a movie from that.

• 24:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And there's no, I know, but I still don't believe, it's still, it's still crazy. And there's no, there was no like vending machine for Twinkies in it or something? You, you had to.

• 24:30Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. What else, what else would you take to Mars? Twinkies never spoil.

• 24:33Speaker 04

  Well, let's see, the Pringles, PB and J. An entire hospital full of equipment, nurses, phlebotomists. Yeah. Uh, yeah, that would be great. Unfortunately, I literally had a doctor bag, like the doctors of old.

• 24:47Chuck Nice?

  Really?

• 24:48Speaker 04

  That's what I had for a whole year.

• 24:50Chuck Nice?

  Like a little black doctor's bag, like the, like, like a Norman Rockwell doctor bag?

• 24:55Speaker 04

  Indeed.

• 24:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. And it, does it unbuckles and open?

• 24:58Speaker 04

  It has a brass latch and everything.

• 25:00Chuck Nice?

  Wow. I would, I would think they would have at least like played it off and gave you one of those little tricorder readers that they, from Star Trek.

• 25:07Speaker 04

  Oh, and they did. And it had a little laser function. Everything made great fun sounds, but it didn't actually do anything, unfortunately. It's very disappointing. So let's, let's, let's get, let's get this into an interesting subject.

• 25:18Chuck Nice?

  One, one question before you go, Gary. I gotta, cause you know, I gotta do this, cause you're the, you're the space doc. Did you ever even just mess with somebody, turn to anyone and go, he's dead, Jim?

• 25:37Chuck Nice?

  Or say, "I'm a doctor, not a butcher, damn it," or something like that.

• 25:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, but when a colleague's spacesuit almost caught on fire and he had to come out of the airlock so that it didn't catch on fire, I thought to myself, "Am I a doctor? I'm a doctor, not a fireman, right?" Yes, right. Okay, your spacesuit can't catch on fire. That's right out.

• 25:57Chuck Nice?

  That's kind of cool.

• 25:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you gotta be, you gotta say that.

• 25:59Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, you gotta say it.

• 25:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right?

• 25:59Chuck Nice?

  "I'm a doctor, not a fireman, damn it."

• 26:01Speaker 04

  Not a fireman, not a fireman, damn it. That's right.

• 26:05Gary O'Reilly?

  That sounds like a practical joke that went wrong.

• 26:07Speaker 04

  It, uh, everything goes wrong in space.

• 26:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Spacesuit catches on fire.

• 26:11Speaker 04

  This is why we practice. This is why we do space simulations, because everything that can go wrong in space will go wrong fantastically in space.

• 26:18Chuck Nice?

  That's brilliant.

• 26:19Gary O'Reilly?

  You mentioned, I mean, all right, we got onto Twinkies and everything else, and then you realize you're not up there with a kitchen, a fully functional kitchen, but you must be doing something up there to get some fresh produce. Are you growing? Are you culturing? What's happening in that environment? Or is it all like, you know, what's to go, dollar in the machine and out comes whatever it is you need?

• 26:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And just to be clear, it's not up there, it's in there, right?

• 26:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 26:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where was this?

• 26:46Speaker 04

  In our dome, dome on the range, dome on the volcano, we did actually have a fully functional kitchen because it started as a food study. In fact, we had a gourmet kitchen. But on the ISS, they don't exactly have a gourmet kitchen. And in the experiment at NASA, we were the rehydrators in chief. We literally had a bag of warm water and we injected it into our meals, shook it vigorously, and enjoyed. This worked well, except for the cereal. When you rehydrate cereal, which had milk powder on it, it does not go well. Those Cheerios, those Cheerios do not hold up. I'm just saying. But no, we grow, to answer your question, Gary. We grow, we culture, we cultivate, but in small volume. Space is at a premium in space. So you can get some micronutrients and some macronutrients.

• 27:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that line. Space is at a premium.

• 27:33Speaker 04

  So really, we could grow as much as we needed to live.

• 27:37Gary O'Reilly?

  So we were discussing with Eland about, you know, your bones and the density. Is there anything you, as a doctor, can do to mitigate those circumstances? Or have we already done it by adjusting the gravity within the environment you're in?

• 27:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, because Chuck would just rather take a pill and go back to his couch.

• 27:57Speaker 04

  We've tried that, Chuck.

• 27:58Chuck Nice?

  I would like to take a pill and do anything.

• 28:03Speaker 04

  And I could see that, I could see you doing that, just about anything. Next time we meet, I'm gonna give you some pills and ask you to do some things.

• 28:09Chuck Nice?

  All right.

• 28:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, we've tried everything. We have tried pills called bisphosphonates, which we give to people with osteoporosis on Earth, who don't have enough bone. It turns out that the risks outweigh the benefits. We weren't getting a lot out of it. So we stopped doing that. We do supplement, though, calcium and phosphorus and other things you need, just like on Earth, to build bone. So in my patients who are in wheelchairs, who don't load their skeletons by walking, in space, you don't load your skeleton by walking, we heavily supplement vitamin D, calcium, those things you need to scaffold and build bone. So the astronauts get their vitamins and minerals. And then, like Leland was saying, two hours a day of exercise where we load people on the T2 treadmill by putting a waistband on them and literally bungee courting them

• 28:57Speaker 04

  to the treadmill so that they do some advancing and they do some strikes. It's the foot strikes.

• 29:02Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:03Speaker 04

  It's that.

• 29:03Chuck Nice?

  It's the pounding, right? I read a study years ago that talked about how runners actually have better bone density because of the pounding, which is also something that wears their bones. So it was this weird kind of, you gotta find this equilibrium.

• 29:21Speaker 04

  It's, yeah, it's a rejuvenative thing. So what was funny is during COVID, I take care.

• 29:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, if it doesn't break your bones and give you shin splints, it'll make you better.

• 29:28Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, or for my Boston marathoners, if it doesn't make you pass out after mile 20, right? But I used to take care of marathoners, sportsmen, sportswomen. And during COVID, they stopped running for a while. They told everyone, just stay indoors. And immediately, all these people developed knee pain, hip pain, back pain. And they came into my office and they said, Doc, I've been running 20, 30, 40 miles a week for years. Why am I hurting now? And I said, because you stopped.

• 29:55Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 29:56Speaker 04

  You stopped.

• 29:57Chuck Nice?

  And I feel, I feel that way about drinking.

• 30:02Speaker 04

  You've been, you've been treating your existential pain with alcohol. But Chuck, you haven't, you haven't stopped drinking. So how do you know?

• 30:11Chuck Nice?

  Oh my God, that was so well played. I'm at a loss.

• 30:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That was so well played and there's no.

• 30:18Chuck Nice?

  There is no.

• 30:21Chuck Nice?

  Did she win top gun on me?

• 30:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She just.

• 30:26Chuck Nice?

  Okay, wait.

• 30:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She was in the penalty box for 10 minutes.

• 30:28Chuck Nice?

  Let me defer, Sheyna. I will now be goose to your maverick. You can be maverick now. I gotta be goose.

• 30:36Speaker 04

  Chuck, I'm feeling the need for speed. I think our director would like us to move on here.

• 30:40Gary O'Reilly?

  Here we go.

• 30:41Chuck Nice?

  That was great. All right. Sorry. Go ahead.

• 30:43Gary O'Reilly?

  All right. So, Chaney, you talked about some of your patients being wheelchair propelled. All right, there was, there was, there was a mission Astro Access experiment that you were involved in.

• 31:00Gary O'Reilly?

  I mean, these, am I right here? The para astronauts?

• 31:03Speaker 04

  Correct, yeah.

• 31:04Gary O'Reilly?

  And then if you look at that in, in a microgravity, were these people actually able to propel themselves upright rather than not have to be wheelchair propelled? And how is this developing in terms of astronauts?

• 31:18Speaker 04

  That's a great question. So, Miss, Mission Astro Access, we put, myself, two flight surgeons put, and, and a whole team, an amazing team, put 12 people who I say are adapted visually. Some of them had no sight, auditorily or vestibularly. Some of them had no, no hearing. And then mobility wise, some of them propelled by wheelchairs on earth. But you put them in space.

• 31:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With their own arms.

• 31:39Speaker 04

  With their arms, with their own arms. Or in the case of Dana Bowles, who's, who works for NASA and was one of our wonderful ambassadors, she was born without arms or legs. So she propels by a, via electric wheelchair beautifully and has worked for NASA for many years. They, in, in, in microgravity or lunar gravity or Martian gravity, we had all kinds of gravity during this mission. Many of them could, could, could stand, could extend into full extension. And the look on their face when you haven't stood in 12 years or 10 years, when you haven't extended without many people helping you or without having to hold on to a bar, when of your own free will, you just stood. It was incredible. And one of our ambassadors, who has a very rare genetic condition, stood on his own for the first time in his life.

• 32:24Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 32:25Speaker 04

  In lunar, in lunar gravity. It was remarkable. It was remarkable. Eric, you are amazing.

• 32:31Gary O'Reilly?

  So let me ask this follow up question. Are para astronauts teaching scientists now of maybe how being adaptive in a microgravity will help future space endeavors?

• 32:48Speaker 04

  I think para astronauts and para athletes, people who are adapted to life on Earth and have to function differently here all the time. You know, you put high functioning people like Leland, who are literally rock stars, superstars, star athletes. You put them in space and suddenly they're disabled. They have to learn how to function in that environment. You take people on Earth who are who are labeled as disabled, but they function beautifully. You put them in a new environment and they just flip on a dime. They know what it means to adapt. They know what it means to change, to have to do things differently, to not be suited to the environment you're in. They are so much better and faster at this than any of us ever will be, that I think they have a lot to teach us. I really do. I can't wait till we get one of them up there.

• 33:27Chuck Nice?

  That was a that was a premise of the movie. What's the movie where the blue people on the planet Pandora, but the main character?

• 33:34Gary O'Reilly?

  Avatar.

• 33:34Chuck Nice?

  Thank you, Avatar. But the main para, he was a paraplegic and because he couldn't use his legs, he immediately acclimated to the Avatar.

• 33:45Speaker 04

  He was he was completely used to just changing his mental environment.

• 33:49Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 33:49Speaker 04

  Really, how we function in the world is about our mental model of the world and what we're supposed to be able to do and how we function. When your mental model is, I'm going to make it happen no matter what, you cannot stop me, which is the mental model of every single adapted, every single disabled person in the world.

• 34:03Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 34:03Speaker 04

  You then you put them in a new environment, they're just going to adapt. It doesn't take them a minute.

• 34:08Gary O'Reilly?

  So are we are we looking at this? I'll call it the standard body shape, maybe not being the best solution in a microgravity environment?

• 34:19Speaker 04

  It goes to being one of many possible solutions, one of many possible ways to be, not the best way, just a way. And now Sawyer, for example, Sawyer works for NASA as well, down in Florida at Kennedy Space Center. You know, he's been ambulating, propelling with a wheelchair for many years. You put Sawyer on the International Space Station, he's going to move around as well as anyone else, and he's not going to try to use his feet. It wouldn't occur to him to do that. Everything is going to be arm powered and he's going to be fast. Much faster than people who are used to walking are going to be. The second you put Sawyer up there and Sawyer, we're going to get you up there, my friend. You just wait.

• 34:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so it sounds like it's not only from what we learned from Leland, what you do with your body to get in shape, but your mind as well. The adaptability of your mind and how it then thinks about your body. It seems to be at least half the effort up there in space.

• 35:12Speaker 04

  I'd say it's closer to 80%.

• 35:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, 80%.

• 35:15Speaker 04

  The other 20% is following the procedure. The checklist that says, do this, don't do that, do this, don't do that. And by the way, Chuck, there is a point in the checklist where you get to it and you're like, time to panic. Oh, oh, good.

• 35:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yes, exactly. I'm going to take a break and we're going to come back to that in the third segment of StarTalk Sports Edition, Space Cowboy and Space Cowboy Doctor. Space Doc on StarTalk.

• 35:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk Sports Edition. We're talking about being a space cowboy and being a space doc. Relevant to that, we've got Dr. Sheyna Gifford here, who Sheyna, your expertise is rehabilitation. Is that right?

• 36:06Speaker 04

  That's correct.

• 36:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we got to hear Leland Melvin talk about, he didn't use the word rehabilitate, but readjust to one G after being in zero G. And he gave us some details about his auditory canal and his brain and his. So what role do you play in this where they just have to shake it off over a week of earth gravity? Can, can you help this? Can you, what's your role in getting astronauts to get back to one G?

• 36:35Speaker 04

  So we can shake it off and we call it re-acclimate. Kind of like you re-acclimate to coming down from an altitude or to traveling to another time zone. There's things you can do. One of them is sleep. While they've been on the ISS, we give them,

• 36:48Gary O'Reilly?

  I can do that.

• 36:49Speaker 04

  We give them, I believe you. We, we give them eight hours a night to sleep, but they usually don't. They usually get closer to six for a lot of reasons that are complicated. So we get back to Earth, we say, sleep, please sleep. And then we say, remember, when you put down the water bottle, it won't float. You need to put it down with your hand on, on a surface. And then they say, okay, and they drop it. We say, that's okay. Try again. Try again. And you know, they get it after a few times. So all of that clicks into gear very quickly. They stop dropping things. They start remembering that you can't just, you know, put stuff down. It's not going to be there when you reach for it again. But then when it comes to the walking, that takes a while, a little while to come back.

• 37:30Speaker 04

  So which is why every picture you see of every astronaut, they're being flanked by someone on either side as they're walking away typically. Or they're standing still. But when they go to walk down a straight corridor, there'll often be one person on either side because they may start to drift. And they may start to drift because the fluid in your inner ear, it's continued to swish around in space. But the sensors that pick up that swishing have shut themselves down after the first few days to a week in space. They just said, we don't need you. And they, they literally turn off in most people. So the ability to sense where am I in space relative to my body and the walls and other things in space? That's off for a little while and it takes a little while to come back. And we can do some vestibular retraining.

• 38:13Speaker 04

  We do that with them, people who've had strokes, people who've had injuries. We can do some vestibular retraining to try and get that to come back more quickly.

• 38:21Gary O'Reilly?

  So are, are you talking about, sorry, are you talking about here that anyone who's had an extended period of time in microgravity, basically becoming allergic to gravity?

• 38:32Speaker 04

  You know, it's, it's almost like you've been redesigned.

• 38:38Speaker 04

  You were designed

• 38:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that.

• 38:39Speaker 04

  to function well in this gravity well. One G.

• 38:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I like that.

• 38:44Speaker 04

  Your body now says, oh, all that stuff I needed for that. I don't need that anymore. Your body is amazingly good at forgetting. It's also good at remembering, but it's great at forgetting. It'll forget that dripping faucet. It's called habituation. It's gonna turn that off. We don't need that. It'll forget those traumatic experiences, maybe. We don't need that. It'll forget that I need to use my legs to walk. You'll forget that. You'll even forget that on Earth if you're lying in a hospital bed for too long, which is why even my patients have had a surgery, I say, get up. They walk in and say, doc, I can't. You won't be able to if you don't start now. You need to get up. I know, I'm sorry. And just sit up for me. Dangle your legs. Put your feet on them.

• 39:22Chuck Nice?

  So that's, it's not just atrophy, muscle atrophy. That's actually something that happens with the brain connection.

• 39:27Speaker 04

  You remember and you forget. So your muscles and your bones start atrophying right away. First thing. Like, anyone who's had a long illness can tell you, it only takes days. And then your body starts to forget. The muscles forget, the bones forget, and your actual, the actual circuitry starts to say, do I need to be here? I'm not being used. I don't know. Not sure. And so part of rehab is reminding everything. The bones, the muscles, and the brain, this is how it's supposed to work. Now we need to work together.

• 39:53Gary O'Reilly?

  So if you have three astronauts that return to full gravity, wherever that might be, like I say, a moon base, Mars, back here on Earth, will they all present with the same symptoms? Or does it vary from individual to individual?

• 40:08Speaker 04

  Like everything else, there'll be, there'll be shades of difference. But everyone will still be in the same color scheme, if that makes sense. So you're all gonna come back feeling a little blue, but it may be light blue, navy blue, midnight blue. You know, some people are gonna come back and they're just gonna step right back into it. Mark and Scott Kelly like to say that, you know, after a few days, they were feeling pretty good. And then some people, and different things come back differently.

• 40:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In case no one else is on a first-name basis with them, we're talking about twins. One stayed on Earth and one went up into space. And then the one in space got the overview effect. So, no, but they were up for a very long time and became sort of the model medical experiment for the effects of space versus Earth living. And so...

• 40:55Speaker 04

  You know, the two of them have both been up. And then one stayed home to care for his wife, Gabby Giffords, after she was injured. And that's the one who's currently a rep, I believe. And then Scott was the one who was up for a year. And he was good enough to call me during my mission and wish us luck. And he was so kind. But they've both been. And, you know, according to Endurance, which I believe is the title of Scott's book, he acclimated in many ways very quickly. He was sitting at the table with his family, eating dinner there a few days after he got back. But then he woke up in the middle of the night with incredibly swollen legs. Because his body, his veins, forgot how to pump the fluid back up against gravity. They had just given up doing that for so long.

• 41:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They didn't need to, right, right.

• 41:40Speaker 04

  They didn't need to, why did they need to? So he woke up with these very swollen legs. That was his shade. Other people come back and they have different shades. They stumble more, or it takes them much longer to get back to running. So we put them in special treadmills that are filled with water. And they literally run in a water treadmill until they get their groove back to running on Earth in full Earth gravity. So everyone is back, they're back in their color. They're like, I'm feeling a little blue, but maybe it's a different shade. Everyone has their thing.

• 42:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Do you get sort of like pressure sores from, if you've been in microgravity a long time, from just sitting because you're not used to the contact?

• 42:16Speaker 04

  Yeah. Thankfully, skin shearing, like the health of the skin and pressure sores. Pressure sores happen when people don't have the sensation and don't know to move away from the pain.

• 42:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 42:26Speaker 04

  So as long as you sense your nerves are intact, usually you won't get a pressure, and you can move. Usually you don't get a pressure sore. What they will get, though, is the bottoms of their feet have lost all their calluses.

• 42:39Chuck Nice?

  What?

• 42:39Speaker 04

  The calluses, their calluses.

• 42:41Gary O'Reilly?

  So it's like going to space and getting a pedicure.

• 42:43Chuck Nice?

  It's the best, the best pedicure I've ever had.

• 42:46Speaker 04

  It's so soft and smooth. It's so smooth. So, so they get calluses on the tops of their feet. Because they're always hooking into the.

• 42:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, they're hooking on. Yeah.

• 42:55Speaker 04

  And the bottoms of their feet literally shed and it is super gross.

• 42:58Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 42:59Speaker 04

  Ask one of them, all of them have pictures of it and it's gross.

• 43:02Chuck Nice?

  Well, that's a bad, that's a bad trade off.

• 43:04Speaker 04

  They come back to earth and they have to redevelop their calluses.

• 43:06Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, yeah, nobody's looking at the bottom of my feet when I'm wearing some flip flops, so.

• 43:11Speaker 04

  Is anyone ever looking at the bottom of your feet?

• 43:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's true, very good point, Shana. Wait, so what, what you're saying is that the, uh, the bottoms of the feet look like they're molting or something, is that correct?

• 43:23Speaker 04

  Yes, they are shedding, they're shedding skin.

• 43:25Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 43:25Speaker 04

  Quite a thing.

• 43:27Gary O'Reilly?

  Let's, I mean, with all of this experience and knowledge that we've gained, how, how do we need to overcome the physiological issues to say, take us from Earth to the moon, maybe to Mars or further, and not find ourselves having to deal with all of these problems once you return to a full gravity?

• 43:51Speaker 04

  We haven't.

• 43:53Chuck Nice?

  Right, well, wouldn't it be, wouldn't the solution be to create gravity in space?

• 43:59Speaker 04

  So 2001.

• 44:00Chuck Nice?

  Artificial, an artificial gravity?

• 44:02Speaker 04

  If you've got a 2001 Space Odyssey type solution where part of the station rotates, that will, that will give you some, some relief, it will.

• 44:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It should give you 100% relief, why not?

• 44:14Speaker 04

  Why not? So, because when you lock somebody in a box away from.

• 44:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's different, okay.

• 44:20Speaker 04

  The, the isolation piece is still there, the radiation piece is still there, even if you've given someone gravity back.

• 44:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and the homicidal computer, you know.

• 44:27Speaker 04

  Please don't give them that, please skip on the how. Let's, let's, let's pass, let's not stop for 200, let's pass right past how. They will still have immune system issues. They may still have psychological issues. And they still have to worry about radiation. Unless we've come up with that, do we have a magic wand for that too? I would really like that.

• 44:44Chuck Nice?

  You know what's funny? It just dawned on me that what you said, we are seeing the effects of, from just the pandemic. And we weren't even locked in a box, we were just locked in our homes. I mean, unfortunately with our families, but still, that was.

• 45:00Speaker 04

  Well, now we know how Chuck feels about his family.

• 45:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, apparently, apparently.

• 45:05Chuck Nice?

  I make no bones about it.

• 45:07Speaker 04

  Honey, I love you.

• 45:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, thank you. Say the nicest things.

• 45:12Speaker 04

  That was for you, Gary.

• 45:13Gary O'Reilly?

  I can understand the calcium bone situation. But how does our immune system begin to suffer in space? Because you're in an environment that is pristine. Or is it? Am I wrong there?

• 45:25Chuck Nice?

  Wouldn't that be the problem?

• 45:26Speaker 04

  I would not call the ISS pristine. I don't think Leland or anyone who's been up would call our space environments pristine. It's, you know, it's a vehicle one yard shy of a football stadium. It's an enormous, enormous place that people have been.

• 45:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The space station is.

• 45:43Speaker 04

  The station is. The station is. Yeah, so 109 meters long. And we've been inhabiting it for 20 years. And we've never sent up a full blown cleaning service.

• 45:53Chuck Nice?

  Ew.

• 45:53Speaker 04

  So I wouldn't call it pristine, but I would say.

• 45:57Gary O'Reilly?

  And astronauts exercising two hours a day.

• 45:59Speaker 04

  Two hours a day, every day for the last 20 years.

• 46:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And do they recycle the water from people's sweat and pee?

• 46:04Speaker 04

  Oh, everything.

• 46:05Gary O'Reilly?

  No, they just open a window and let it out.

• 46:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I gotta go with Gary. You could just roll down a window for a few minutes and let some fresh air.

• 46:13Speaker 04

  So NASA's, NASA's, Brian Crutchen, who's the expert in this, will tell you that a couple of things happen. When, anyone here box? Do you have a box? And you gotta get your elbows down or your guard up and you get in your stance. So our immune system's like a boxer. It's looking out for the bad guy. It's looking, it's ready. And then in space, our, one immune cell called a cytokine, which is kind of like, kind of like a referee. It tells our immune system where to aim. It gets really confused. It's like, where, where, where am I looking again? Because normally that, you gotta square off against the person in front of you. But suddenly, yeah, and people sometimes their immune systems react in strange ways. Childhood diseases reactivate.

• 46:54Speaker 04

  They get strange rashes. But again, it varies. Everyone's different. But the immune system.

• 47:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Sheyna, I don't want to go into space anymore.

• 47:02Chuck Nice?

  I'm telling you, I mean, seriously, it kind of sounds worse than being at one of those one hour motels.

• 47:10Speaker 04

  What's happening to you in those motels?

• 47:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Never been Chuck. I don't know what your situation is.

• 47:16Chuck Nice?

  I was very sleepy. I needed a nap.

• 47:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, for an hour.

• 47:20Speaker 04

  You took the pill, didn't you?

• 47:22Gary O'Reilly?

  So the thing is, what you've described is, sounds horrible. What you've just described, Shana, sounds horrible. So why would we want to put ourselves through all of that?

• 47:31Speaker 04

  Well, this also happens to people on submarines, Gary.

• 47:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 47:35Speaker 04

  And this happens to people in aircraft carriers and in Antarctica every single year. And every great mission and every great endeavor involves some change.

• 47:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In Antarctica, there's a research station and no one is frolicking on the ice sheets. They're basically inside with each other.

• 47:51Speaker 04

  You know, they do frolic a little in the snowmobiles. But, you know, it's been, it's been there for 50 years and people spend, people overwinter every single year and they're kind of locked up on the base a little bit during that time.

• 48:03Chuck Nice?

  I have to tell you though, you really didn't answer Gary's question.

• 48:06Speaker 04

  Why?

• 48:07Chuck Nice?

  He said, this sounds awful. Why would people want to do this? And then you said, well, they also want to be in submarines in Antarctica. And all those things off also sounded awful.

• 48:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  She was just saying it was not a unique problem.

• 48:22Speaker 04

  The US Navy is now writing you a love letter, Chuck.

• 48:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Chuck has always known he was the wrong stuff, right?

• 48:29Chuck Nice?

  You know what? Listen, Neil, I know you're kind of joking, but I think you, I'm going to put that as on my tombstone.

• 48:39Speaker 04

  Chuck Nice, Chuck Nice is the right stuff for a nice cushy seat in mission control. So as I like to say, space needs everybody, but it doesn't need you all in the same place at the same time. It needs some of you in mission control, that nice cushy seat, the warm coffee. It needs some of you building the rocket. It needs some of you launching the rocket. It needs some of you repairing it. It needs some of you in the rocket in space. It needs everybody to be where you need to be. And some people love this. I love this. Mark and Scott Kelly love this. Leland loves this. And maybe you love your coffee and your air on chair in mission control, Chuck. There's a place for us all in space. It's just not maybe in space.

• 49:18Chuck Nice?

  Let me just say this, failure is not an option.

• 49:23Gary O'Reilly?

  If we cannot travel in space without this discomfort, these problems, are we stuck on our little blue marble?

• 49:31Speaker 04

  Absolutely not. And by the way, we're gonna get over that discomfort. I think some very rich and very, people very used to comforts have been in space now, and they've done just fine. In fact, they came back crying, if I recall William Shatman. You know, he's not a hard player. He's not passing the pigskin as Leland is. The man lives a comfortable life, but he came back from his seven-minute exposure to microgravity in tears, barely able to speak, so profoundly moved. And he's not a sentimental man. And so, I'm gonna say, it's, I think it's a-

• 50:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And he's, and, and, he's hardly ever a man for no words.

• 50:06Speaker 04

  Right.

• 50:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The man can talk.

• 50:08Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, he really can.

• 50:09Speaker 04

  He's well-nervous, kind of like Chuck. So, I would say, it's a place for us all to go for some period of time, maybe just a brief glimpse, or maybe for the rest of our lives. It's, what do you need out of it? What's gonna be your best trip to space? Make that trip.

• 50:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay. Space needs me, apparently.

• 50:24Speaker 04

  Space needs you.

• 50:25Gary O'Reilly?

  In whichever role I can find.

• 50:27Speaker 04

  In whatever capacity.

• 50:28Chuck Nice?

  And right now, for the little price of $110,000, you can go.

• 50:32Speaker 04

  No, the first airline tickets were that much. The first, the first civilians who went, went flying after World War II paid a lot of money.

• 50:41Chuck Nice?

  You're right, you're right. Yeah. It was, it was kind of a luxury curiosity, more than it was a mode of transportation.

• 50:51Speaker 04

  And T-minus 60 years later, save up a little bit, you know, on your summer job, and you're off.

• 50:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In fact, there's, there's a line in a Cole Porter song, the one, "I get no kicks from champagne." One of the lines is, "I, I get no kicks in a plane."

• 51:05Speaker 04

  Really?

• 51:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, that was a, the plane was a reference point for people who would take thrill rides in that song when that song was written. So, I'm just showing off my Broadway knowledge there.

• 51:17Speaker 04

  There you go.

• 51:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So, Sheyna, I think we're gonna have to call it quits there.

• 51:20Chuck Nice?

  Oh, no!

• 51:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta end on that note where you said, "There's, there's a little bit of, there's a little bit of space experience for us all that could possibly change us for the better forever."

• 51:33Speaker 04

  There's something out there. Get out there, find it.

• 51:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's something out there for us all. All right. Gary, did you have any last questions you have to put on the table?

• 51:42Gary O'Reilly?

  No, I'm good. I mean, I'm gonna go away and unpack what we've learned from this show.

• 51:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, good, good.

• 51:48Gary O'Reilly?

  It's pretty amazing to understand what astronauts like Leland Melvin have gone through, and then how scientists and physicians like Sheyna Gifford here are able to assess, redirect, comfort, rehabilitate, and just allow us to then maybe improve these situations going forward. It's fantastic.

• 52:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I'm delighted learning about the para astronauts. I didn't even know that was a thing.

• 52:17Speaker 04

  They're remarkable, great.

• 52:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To the extent we can learn about that.

• 52:20Speaker 04

  Dana, Mina, all of my para astronauts, all 12 Miss In Astra Access ambassadors, you guys are amazing.

• 52:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent, excellent, excellent. Shout out to them all. All right, this has been StarTalk Sports Edition, Space Cowboy and Space Docs. I want to thank Leland Melvin and Sheyna Gifford for giving us their time to take us where no one has gone before. Hundreds have gone before, but most haven't.

• 52:45Speaker 04

  Only 600 have gone before.

• 52:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  600, to boldly go where 600 have gone before. All right, this has been StarTalk Sports Edition. Neil deGrasse Tyson here. Keep looking up.