“Cooler than Tom Cruise.” In this address from 2015, Sunita Williams recounted how she became an astronaut even though that wasn’t her original plan.
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00:00Of course, I wanted to be Tom Cruise, that's the cooler of the two, right?
00:03But for the first time in my life, met astronauts and realized what they do and how cool of
00:09a job and how fun it would be, even better than Tom Cruise.
00:11So I wanted to be a veterinarian when I was growing up, and that's true, I had no knowledge
00:16of the space program, no, nothing, you know, that never crossed my mind that I would do
00:21that.
00:22But my brother recommended camping, so literally, so that's why I went to the Naval Academy
00:26and then found that there's a lot of different things that you can do there, fly, dive, whatever,
00:32opened a door that I had never dreamed was possible, and flying helicopters, of course,
00:37I wanted to be Tom Cruise, that's the cooler of the two, right?
00:41But I ended up flying helicopters, but helicopters were pretty amazing, and that door which was
00:45given to me was opened, and then I realized that understanding how things work and being
00:52an engineer, you know, lend itself to understanding how helicopters work.
00:56So I went to test pilot school, and that was the place that brought me to Johnson Space
01:00Center where I, for the first time in my life, met astronauts and realized what they do and
01:07how cool of a job and how fun it would be, even better than Tom Cruise.
01:11So I think we're in that position right now.
01:13So my point there was, you know, the path doesn't have to necessarily be straight, but
01:19don't limit yourself by just the things that you know.
01:22Go out there and try different things, and some of the things I've just talked about,
01:26I think I would have considered maybe failures when I was 17 to 25, but actually they ended
01:32up leading me down a path to get to some pretty cool stuff that we get to do.
01:37Something my dad used to say to us all the time is, stop and take a look at the foliage,
01:40and from space that sounds sort of funny, but I think I translate that a little bit
01:44to just take a moment out and enjoy the journey.
01:48Don't just get to the end point, and the biggest point I could talk about that is coming
01:53home in a Soyuz.
01:55So you know, you're up there for however long, and then you're getting ready to come back.
02:00It's a little anti-climatic at first when you're first getting into leaving the space
02:05station and closing the hatch, sort of just hanging out there in your long underwear all
02:10together, chitter-chatting a little bit as the hatches are closing and going through
02:13all the leak checks.
02:15And then you're like, okay, something exciting is going to come up, so I'm just going to
02:18go sit in my seat for a little while, and you're going to undock from the space station
02:24and start to move away.
02:25Okay, we did that, and now something that we never trained for in the simulator is sitting
02:30there for a whole orbit, and you're sitting there all squished up, and you're going, oh
02:36my God, when is this ever going to end?
02:38But if you are smart, which we've passed on to each other, you have the list of everything
02:43that's going to happen, and before you know it, some really awesome things are going to
02:47happen.
02:48The ride home in a Soyuz is spectacular.
02:51You're so close to the window.
02:53If you're sitting on the right seat, your face is this far from the window.
02:56If you're in the left seat, your face is this far from the window.
02:59The commander is nicely safe tucked in the middle.
03:02Somehow the Russians picked that seat.
03:03I'm not really sure why.
03:05I saw their knuckleheads are pretty close to the fire.
03:10So anyway, so the next fun thing that starts to happen is the de-orbit burn, and you're
03:16pretty nervous about that because that's the thing that's really going to bring you
03:19back to Earth, and so if you're sitting in the left seat, your finger's on the button
03:22to start or stop the engine and go through all the procedures, and your heart's beating
03:26a little.
03:27You don't want to mess it up.
03:28So that's the adrenaline that just starts to happen just because like any race, you're
03:31getting a little bit nervous for stuff, and so that starts.
03:35Then the next thing that happens after the de-orbit burn, the vehicle, of course, starts
03:39slowing down and getting into the atmosphere.
03:42The pink stuff starts coming around the windows, which are, again, right next to your head.
03:46Actually, the little cover that's on the window burns up right next to your head, and you
03:51see the stuff flying by, and then separation happens, and the whole either side below you
03:58on your butt and above your head, pyros are going off.
04:00Things are blowing past the spacecraft as you're coming down, and you're just entering
04:05into the atmosphere, and you can't talk anymore with the ground because you're going through
04:08all the plasma and stuff.
04:10Then it seems like, okay, things are calming down a little bit until the parachute opens,
04:15and then you are like the walnut in the shell, and you're bouncing around underneath there.
04:19I'm just hoping the commercial crew guys take some lessons learned from the Russians.
04:24You really do get stuck nicely in that seat, so you're not the thing that's bouncing around,
04:28and just the spacecraft is bouncing around like crazy.
04:32Then finally, that starts to settle out a little bit, and you're just floating down,
04:37waiting, waiting, waiting until you get down to the ground.
04:40I thought I would outsmart everybody and go, you know what, I am not going to wait for
04:44that little landing light.
04:45I'm going to know when we're going to land exactly because the pressure will say 760,
04:51which I think Sergey actually called down to us because you were the chief of GCTC at
04:56the time, and warned us what the pressure would be at the landing site.
04:59I'm like, I'm going to wait until that pressure says it, then I'll know.
05:02Well, I forgot sensor's lag, you know?
05:06All of a sudden, that light comes on, and I'm not really worried about it, and I'm not
05:09really ready.
05:10The thing you have to worry about with landing is keep the elbows in, get the tongue out
05:14of the teeth.
05:15Those are the primary things.
05:16Bam, 20G, drop to the ground, bounce around for a little while.
05:20I said, oh, darn it, they were right.
05:23I think with all of my replay of the entry, my point being is really don't just pray to
05:32hit the ground.
05:33Enjoy the whole ride.
05:35Enjoy the training to get there.
05:37Enjoy the time you're up in space.
05:39Enjoy working with all the scientists and the people that make it all happen.
05:42And then, finally, enjoy being back home with family.