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joining us now live here on space

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station live is an old friend of ours

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here is pam melroy who is a former

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astronaut she now has moved on to uh

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possibly bigger and better things we'll

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talk to her about that but pam how have

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you been

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uh hey josh it's great to hear your

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voice and be talking to my friends at

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nasa

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so first of all let's update people on

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what you've been up to since you left

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nasa

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couple years in industry at lockheed

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martin

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and

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moved up to the washington dc area

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and got some experience with the

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commercial space side at the faa

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and now i'm overseeing research and

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development in space and aviation at

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darpa the defense advanced research

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projects agency

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so do you do you miss being here in

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houston and hanging around the the

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johnson space center

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i sure do i miss jsc i miss houston and

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most of all i miss the people that i

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used to work with every day

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well it's it's good to hear from you

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we've been talking about the

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anniversaries of valentina taraskova and

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sally ride all this week on space

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station live we've had quite a bit of

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interviews we just talked to

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your former colleague peggy whitson just

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a few minutes ago but you know talk

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about what

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those two flights in particular and even

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the one that you flew with peggy we're

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looking at the picture right now on

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screen of

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the the hatchway handshake that you guys

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did back on sts-120 but talk about what

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those anniversaries mean and to you

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personally and just to human space

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flight in general

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well i think the

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the first feeling i have is how

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important it is to

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honor and recognize trailblazers and

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acknowledge the fact that

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they had

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difficulties and resistance

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that's really hard to imagine

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for someone in my case who came

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so many years after both

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tereshkova and and sally ride

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and and so to to take a moment to honor

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them and remember that you know what

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they did was incredibly hard uh

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especially at the time that they did it

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it's also an opportunity to sort of

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reflect on the change in times and

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peggy's

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and my flight together two women

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uh commanders flying in space at the

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same time

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was really a reflection of how much

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things had changed that two women could

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uh completely by coincidence be uh

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commanding at the same time and so that

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it's a great reflection on on how far

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we've come and how many women have have

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flown in space and and it's also an

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opportunity to be excited and think

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about the future and men and women going

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to mars together booster ignition and

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we're taking a look at uh your flight on

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sts-120 your background is in science

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just like peggy's you've got a bachelor

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of arts degree in physics and astronomy

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and you've got a master science degree

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in earth and planetary sciences

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you've also got the military background

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but but talk about women in science and

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what got you interested in in the areas

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that you wanted to focus on

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well to be honest it was nasa

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watching uh the apollo program

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and watching uh people step out on the

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surface of the moon

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was very pivotal for me at a key age

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uh to to see that and to say i want to

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explore the universe i already had a

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fascination with astronomy

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but the idea of actually visiting

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space and going potentially out to

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another planet was so thrilling to me

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that it just

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locked me

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into the goal of studying physics and

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astronomy and earth science and

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planetary science so there's no question

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that was uh that was my inspiration

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so this is probably an obvious question

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but whenever you flew your first flight

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uh you've done all this studying in

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earth and planetary sciences but did it

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really sort of change your view on that

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once you finally got up into space and

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could look down at the planet below

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well it's funny one of the things

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before i flew in space uh you know

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when you're a new astronaut and waiting

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for your flight assignment you still go

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out and you talk about the space program

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and you do prs and

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and so forth and people used to ask me

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what my favorite planet was and i would

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talk about neptune because my master's

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thesis was on the atmosphere of neptune

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and whether it was turbulent or layered

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and and so forth and so

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um being knowledgeable about it and

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interested in it i always used to say my

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favorite planet is neptune

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and

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uh of course when i went into space the

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first time and looked down at earth

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it was sort of one of those forehead

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slap moments where you're like

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you idiot your favorite planet is earth

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um i just had never put it into that

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context before

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and i realized earth is my favorite

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planet i don't want to live anywhere

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else

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yeah it's it's always good to hear the

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astronauts talk about you know how their

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views have changed once they get up

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there it's interesting sometimes you got

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to leave the planet to really

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you know appreciate it in a different

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light once you get out there

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absolutely so whenever you talk to you

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talked about how you used to go give

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speeches to students and kids and things

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like that i'm sure you still do some of

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that what do you tell them in terms of

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the ones that are interested in science

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like how do they figure out what they

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want to go do

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well

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i think there's a lot of evidence to

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show that boys and girls are interested

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in different aspects

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of things and so i i try to bring all

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those things together

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uh you know boys i think uh get really

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motivated and excited about um

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you know cool technology for its own

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sake they love rocket engines and

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aircraft and and so forth girls tend to

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be more focused on they get engaged and

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hooked when they think about

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science and solving problems and

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engineering that solves world problems

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and so uh the great thing about space is

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that it has everything it's uh you know

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you're gonna fire off a giant rocket and

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you're gonna go explore space and

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understand uh the nature of the universe

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and the human body and our own planet

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and those are very real and engaging

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problems

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so i i think

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it's you know space is just sort of

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uniquely positioned to inspire both boys

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and girls but i i basically tell them uh

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because i do meet a lot of kids who are

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interested in science and and i often

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ask them do you know is there something

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you like in particular do you want to be

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an engineer do you like

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space do you want um

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do you like biology or chemistry and

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what i've found is

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the

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best way for kids to think about that is

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actually get exposed to real life

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situations like you right there in

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mission control

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and the opportunity to to kind of seek

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out those real life situations and find

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out which one really resonates and

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catches you and and so that's i think

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the best way to figure out what kind of

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science you actually want to do in the

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future is to go out and talk to real

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scientists

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well last question for you pam you took

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up a

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really important part of the

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international space station that was the

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uh harmony uh node which sort of started

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this huge expansion of the space station

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back on sts-120 because kibo came after

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that and

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uh the columbus laboratory and a lot of

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other pieces but you were on board for

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quite some time

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you probably saw some of the science

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that the crew was doing up there talk

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about uh you know what was your sort of

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your favorite experiment or what does

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the space station mean overall in terms

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of science and research and why is it

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important

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well i think the

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the most

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enduring

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science that's been done from the very

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first day in which i participated in is

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the science on the human body and i

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think

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studying how the human body reacts in a

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microgravity environment gives us key

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insights to

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aspects of living here on earth and one

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of my favorite medical experiments is

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the

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functionally dehydrated in space and you

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would think that people would have all

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kinds of problems with kidney stones and

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gall stones and things like that but

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statistically it's much less than you

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have here on earth

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and that is such a serious problem i

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mean it puts so many people in so much

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pain

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and

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such a central piece of of what is done

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on the space station but i think the

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other exciting piece about it is

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studying the earth from space and

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understanding our planet better

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and the final piece of that is testing

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technologies that will allow us to go

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outside low earth orbit and visit other

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planets and help us understand our earth

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even better so it's sort of a pretty

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broad portfolio from very immediate

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human to uh our understanding of the

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universe well pam we thank you for your

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time it's uh it's always good to hear

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from you we we miss you around here we

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hope that uh someday you'll come back

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and and say hi and come visit us