My name is John Daniel Olivas. I go by Danny. And...
I've got a phD. And I was a mission specialist on
STS-117 and STS-128. Flew in 2007, 2009, respectively.
And did five space walks, so I'm one of the space walkers.
I would say that there's a couple of attributes. I think people tend to think that astronauts have to
be really, really smart or very, very brave. Or have any one of a number of really wonderful qualities.
but at the end of the day, the thing that astronauts have, that's...
that is universal regardless of who the astronaut is. Is that they work hard every single day
and they never give up. It's about perseverance. My first application to become an astronaut
was in 1998– I'm sorry 1988 – and it took almost a decade before I finally was accepted in NASA's astronaut program.
And even after I came into the program, it was another nine years before I flew my first mission
so the... the... I think the most important thing to remember for kids is that
if you really want something in life, you can't give up and you have to work hard every single day.
Because everything that you do is making... is getting you one step closer to your dream
So first off, when you wake up,
you know, you wake up to music. Crew members will select a favorite song
or their families will select the song and every day they rotate from one crew member to the next.
And you get woken up to this, you know, this wonderful song.
And it seems like as soon as you wake up you're already behind schedule.
So you're scrambling, trying to put your stuff away,
get breakfast ready, take a look at what's coming up with changes to the flight plan,
taking a look at the things that you know you're supposed to go do.
And it's just it's a lot of hustle and bustle.
Space shuttle missions were characterized as being a sprint,
so for example running really, really fast,
but we would launch and la– and dock to the International Space Station,
which tends to be more of a marathon. Those guys are there for a much longer period and..
and so the two worlds – when the two worlds would combine, it was actually really interesting dynamics,
but, uh, you get up in the morning, you get yourself ready, and
literally as soon as you finish breakfast, you're already working,
and it could be everything from doing robotics operations,
moving things out of the payload bay or maybe moving around on space station.
It could be going over the space station, conducting experiments. It could be reconfiguring the deck of the space shuttle.
In my case, you know, had the opportunity to do some space walks, so, uh,
going outside and actually taking a walk in space, but it was not a leisurely walk.
You usually had a lot of objectives that you had to go and accomplish.
Very critical tasks. and and when you do a spacewalk,
you know you're very conscientious of the – the spacesuit that you're wearing is basically like its own little spacecraft
and you got to be very careful because on this side of the spacecraft you're alive and on this side you're dead.
And you don't want to cut your suit. You don't want to bang your helmet.
You don't want to damage this thing that's keeping you alive.
So there's a lot of emphasis and thought about what you're doing, being very deliberate.
And I think that's probably one of the most important aspects of working in space as opposed to working here on earth,
because at earth, kind of take things a little bit more relaxed,
because if you make a mistake doesn't necessarily mean you're going to die.
But to make mistakes in space, you're never quite sure.
Probably the most significant thing for me, as a, uh,
as an astronaut, as a person of faith, was being on the the flight deck of the space shuttle
and looking out at the – through the, uh, the back windows of the space shuttle.
And this was a nighttime pass. We actually had a a little bit of time on orbit, because of a weather delay at Cape Canaveral.
So my first mission, we weren't coming right back, we had an extra half day up there.
And I was up there with Jim Reilly, a good buddy of mine, and fellow EVA spacewalker.
And so, we're out there, looking at the at the night sky I just start watching
and, as I mentioned before with, uh, growing up in West Texas, I love the stars at night,
but in space there are far more stars that you could possibly imagine.
And as we're peering out into the the blackness of space,
I saw two clouds in space and I asked my buddy JR, I said 'JR,
what are those clouds doing there?' And we looked –
Now anyone who knows anything about space knows that there's no atmosphere in space,
it's a vacuum, so how can you have clouds in space?
I reached down and pulled out some binoculars and I realized what I was looking at.
For those of us who are in the northern hemisphere, we don't necessarily see this,
but in the southern hemisphere, many, many years ago Magellan came across a celestial view
– two clouds called the Magellanic Clouds –
and actually those clouds are our nearest neighboring galaxies.
And what really blew my mind was that here I was, this little astronaut on this little bitty spacecraft,
around this little bitty, teeny, tiny planet and this you know smaller solar system in a medium-sized galaxy.
And I was peering out across space
to our next-door neighbor, these irregular shaped galaxies.
And all these stars that I saw– seen overhead without the use of binoculars,
as I peered through the binoculars, were far more stars than I could possibly count.
And I realized how, how wonderful space is.
How small we are. And how much there is left to explore out there.
And that to me, is one of the most impactful things that... that really makes me feel like
the... the path that I've chosen in my life – of space and space exploration –
is for me, because that's what I'm passionate about. It's about learning, it's about exploring and it's about the wonderment of space.
Growing up I was never... I never made the best grades in school.
I struggled. I struggled with Math. I struggled with science. I struggled with... with some of the the basic STEM fields.
And... but, it was through perseverance. It was hard work, determination, not giving up.
And eventually – I remember... I remember distinctly, one class I took.
It was in college, I was taking a Physics class.
And it was at that point that I realized,
that the thing that I was really passionate about in the way of machines and mechanisms,
in that physics class, all of a sudden made sense to me.
Because now this math, that I had been studying for so many years and had no idea how to apply it...
it all fit together.
And I no longer saw the world for the physical world that we see with our eyes,
but instead, I saw it as a – through the eyes of an Engineer.
I saw forces and vectors and moments and...
and... and measurements and weights and... and it was just a wonderful unique way to look at the world.
For me, I would say it was, I mean, they're all little bits and pieces
as you, as you interview with other astronauts, and get their experience, experiences.
You hear from them the things that were impactful and important and... and new to them.
So by the time you get there, you don't really...
You know the the essence of what you can expect.
I think the biggest thing that you don't know is how you're going to react in that environment.
and that's probably the biggest level of concern that any astronaut has.
Like, you know you're going to get... when you get into space, you're going to feel that stomach kind of go up into your chest.
Well, so other astronauts have handled it one way,
How are you going to handle it? Are you going to get sick in space?
Are you going to be able to go outside and do a space walk for eight hours with, you know, without having to go to the bathroom?
You know, you you just don't know these things until you actually go through the process and experience it.
and once you've experienced it, then you'll build that level of confidence and now you know,
and next time you get there, this is what you can– this is what you're expecting to feel,
this is, you know, how you're going to react to it,
and... and you can better anticipate how to be better prepared the, you know, the next time up.