PODCAST. ADHD and NASA: Commanding the International Space Station? Meet Dr. Bob Dempsey.
Navigating the Cosmos and ADHD: An Inspiring Journey with Dr. Bob Dempsey.
We had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Bob Dempsey, astronomer and former NASA Flight Director (call sign “Galileo Flight”).
Dr. Dempsey has an impressive background in the aerospace industry, including his notable tenure as the ISS Flight Director at NASA for sixteen years. However, our conversation delved beyond his illustrious career, exploring the remarkable journey of living and thriving with ADHD.
The Late Diagnosis
One of the most enlightening aspects of our interview was Dr. Dempsey's revelation that he was diagnosed with ADHD at 60. He described the moment of diagnosis as a profound validation of a lifetime of feeling "different" but not having the words to explain why. This late diagnosis, he noted, was both emotional and eye-opening. Dr. Dempsey's journey serves as an example that it's never too late to gain self-awareness and work towards a better understanding of one's mental health.
ADHD's Impact on a Stellar Career
Dr. Dempsey's career is nothing short of stellar, and it's even more remarkable when you consider the challenges of living with ADHD. As an ISS Flight Director at NASA for over 16 years, he managed a multitude of complex tasks, from leading expeditions to coordinating shuttle missions. In our conversation, he shared that the discovery of his ADHD prompted moments of reflection, where he looked back on various aspects of his professional life.
He recounted how the coaching he received to manage his ADHD helped him to make sense of his behaviors. For instance, the fidgeting that once seemed like mere restlessness took on new meaning when he understood it as a way to manage nervous energy. Realizing this, he incorporated tools like fidget toys, transforming seemingly minor details into practical strategies for improving focus and managing the effects of ADHD.
Relationships and Communication
Dr. Dempsey also spoke candidly about the impact of ADHD on his personal life. He revealed how it influenced his interactions with his wife and the subsequent positive changes. By understanding the reasons behind his impatience or moments of frustration, he was able to improve communication with his loved ones. It's a valuable reminder that self-awareness and effective communication can strengthen personal connections.
Embracing the Journey
Throughout our conversation, Dr. Bob Dempsey's inspiring story reminds us that navigating life with ADHD is not just about overcoming challenges. It's about embracing a journey of self-discovery and self-improvement. His late diagnosis became a turning point, leading to newfound strategies and insights that improved both his professional and personal life.
Dr. Dempsey's experiences and the openness he shared them serve as a beacon of hope for individuals facing similar circumstances. It's a testament to the power of self-awareness, learning, and continuous growth, regardless of where one is on their life's journey.
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0:00
Do you prefer Dr. Bob?
0:02
It's kind of funny. Most people know me by that cuz I was actually trying to hide my PhD when I came down to NASA and friend like day two said, Oh, you're Dr. Bob, and then it's stuck. So almost everyone knows me by that now.
0:17
Okay. Well then, yes, I'm Yeah. Why would you Why were you trying to hide your your PhD I would imagine a PhD in physics and astronomy would be applauded. Well,
0:31
I was transitioning from the astronomy world more academic, to NASA, which was more engineering and the, my, my colleagues and astronomy were saying, hey, those engineers don't like a kid. So don't let them know you're a PhD. So that's why I was trying to keep it a little on the low down.
0:49
That's interesting. That's interesting. So tell me a little bit about your background. And, you know, how, yeah, how you how you transitioned from astronomy, to physics, and but also the background here too, like,
1:02
well, I'm perhaps rare in the sense that I, when I was like, six, which happened to be when we landed on the moon, I said, I was going to be an astronaut. And while I'm sure a lot of boys back then said that, I never wavered. I always wanted to explore space. I envisioned at the time I was going to be a fighter pilot, and you know, the right stuff and all that stuff. But then learned, I had to have glasses, which ruled that out, and I loved astronomy. So I said, Fine, I'll go be an astronomer, and you know, fly in space. As a scientist, I then discovered that, you know, astrophysics, which is really what I studied is really hard. And, you know, there's certain things now when I tell this story, in hindsight, you know, with what I know now about ADHD, that I look back at some things, and it's like, oh, yeah, well, a lot of that makes sense. And, you know, we can come back to that in a little bit, if you want. But then, so I went into astronomy as an undergraduate, and then went on to get my Master's and PhD, and went off, and started having kind of, by accident, a fairly good research career going, when I decided that wasn't really the way I wanted to explore space, like I had envisioned, I'd always kind of thought that if I wasn't flying in space, I'd be like, in NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory control room where they were, you know, having probes at Jupiter or Mars or something like that. But I wasn't really happy there at the Hubble Space Telescope Science Institute, doing research, but I was really enjoying the part of my job where I was operating the systems that help the telescope function. And I decided, okay, let's literally I got on a plane, flew down to Houston, and applied. And at that time, the International Space Station Program was just really getting going. And since I've done a bunch of programming, both is for my PhD, and then the Hubble Space Telescope, they said, Well, we can put you in charge of the computers on the space station. I did that for about five years, and then change groups to the communications group. And then in 2005, I was selected as a flight director. If you've ever seen the movie, Apollo 13, if you remember the Ed Harris character in the white vest, going around saying failure is not an option. That's the flight director in charge of everyone in that room, which was a job that I did then for the next 17 years. When I left that role, I was actually the second most senior flight director in Nestle's history. And at the time, you know, it was it was it was an awesome job. I absolutely loved it. It couldn't have been any more than what I ever dreamed or wanted. But it's funny, trying to now get a little bit of ADHD talking to by psychologists and my coach. I didn't realize that what I always thought was my superpower in the control room, was actually my ADHD. And what I mean by that is, it's an extremely challenging job as you can imagine, what's happening. An analogy I often use is it's a little bit like the Chinese circus performer that's balancing like 20 plates on a sticks. You have a lot of people bringing you a lot of snippets of little information and you have to kind of darting back and forth between them. You know, it's a challenge to keep it all straight, but in a way, it's kind of a forced Does focus where you your brain jumps around. And you know, a lot of people struggle with that kind of thing. And you know, I have over the years too, but in that environment, it seemed to really, like match perfectly or resonate, if that makes any sense at all.
5:17
So at 60, you're diagnosed with ADHD. And I'm curious, you know, what led to that diagnosis if you don't mind sharing, but to just so you understand or not, so you understand. So, you know, I was diagnosed this year at 50. I'm now 51. And I'm curious kind of what led to that, and also reflecting on your own career, connecting the dots? Because? Well, let me first ask you about what led to your diagnosis. Let's start there.
5:47
No, that's, that's, that's a completely fair question. Throughout my life, especially when I was in college, and graduate school, and then a postdoc and stuff like that, the thought crossed my mind that something wasn't right. And, you know, sometimes it was like, oh, boy, these guys are a lot smarter than I am. And I just thought it was that. But there was other things with, for example, memory and kind of keeping things straight. I became very well known in school with the guy who wrote all over his hand, and put sticky notes everywhere, and would move things into the middle of the floor to remind me to do something in five or 10 minutes. But since I was succeeding in school, and then later in my career, I or confidants that I talked to would, you know, would brush it off? It's like, well, that's just the way people are, don't worry about it, you know, it's, you're doing fine. And when I was in Mission Control, there was times that it would get really, really hard to focus and think things through. And I think part of it was my coping mechanisms, as I was getting older, were starting to not work quite as well. And I think also at that time, it's like, okay, well, it's time to move on to a different job. Anyway, I've been doing this for a while, and I'm not feeling like I'm growing. So let's do something different. And then when I left Mission Control, because I guess I should also explain, when you're in mission control, you have to go through severe medical tests and stuff like that, to make sure you're a really healthy person. And, you know, if you're putting on certain medications or certain diagnoses, you no longer can work in Mission Control, which I didn't want to risk that. So I also didn't want to ask too many questions in those phases. But when it was starting to get really hard, and I left the program there left Mission Control. I said, Okay, maybe I should start exploring what this is, so I started talking to my doctor. And they then suggested that, you know, it could be something that I should talk to a psychiatrist about. And I did do that. And at first, she was a little bit incredulous. Like, well, you know, you're, you're a PhD in astrophysics with, you know, as a NASA flight director for many years, how could you have ADHD? But as we kind of started going through the questionnaire and discussion, she was like, oh, yeah, yeah, that seems pretty clear to me. Now.
8:43
I think it's fascinating to like having, like when you reflect on your career, and I speak for myself this way to like, you start to find underlying themes that are, there is a my friend, Tamsin Webster wrote a book called the red thread, about this kind of thing, but like, just following the, the through line with your career, like, as a kid watching the moon landing, of course, you're, you're thinking you want to be an astronaut. But of course, you know, many, as you mentioned, many, many people are thinking the same thing. But I'm always kind of jealous of people that are highly successful, who are neurotypical and who just like, they see football, they love football, and I don't know why said football, I don't understand football at all. But but you know, they choose the thing and they just stick with it their whole life and then they get to where they want to be. And I find with ADHD, it has had me jump from thing to thing to thing. Most of my career. Do you find similarities there in that you sort of move from from different things, but yes, but yet you had this underlying kind of thread? Yeah,
9:57
I thought a lot about that trying to kind of think At that context, I think I've not jumped from career to career. But I have more on a micro scale. And I'll come back to that in a second. But I think what helped me was a drive that I don't think is typical. I don't think that's ADHD related, I think that just happens to be a little bit of a drive that if I want that, I will do what it takes to get there. You know, so like, in graduate school, for example, you know, I sucked at math. And I would spend, you know, the entire night or the entire weekend, rewriting the textbook, trying to get it to sink in and better understand it, you know, I worked, you know, the old saying, you know, work smarter, not harder. Well, I had worked harder, not smarter. But I think that drived kept me able to just as I get knocked down to just keep going. But in the job when I was doing research, or at NASA, you know, it would be hard to stick at one thing. I craved constant change. I was example, I, I was very good at skimming documents. This drives my wife a little crazy, because we both read the same newspaper article, and I get kind of the gist and she gets the very details. And, you know, I just always thought that's how people read things. Right? But in my job, if you say, Bob, go sit down and read this document from beginning to end. Oh, my God, that's, that's, that's torture for me. Because my mind is just constantly racing. You know, I'll read a paragraph and then oh, wait, I better go off and do this, or check this or look this up. And, you know, it just takes me forever.
12:07
Yeah, I'm similar that way, too. So. And I also drive my wife a little crazy. But I saw there was a 10x, Nashville presentation a number of years ago. And as a public speaker, a lot of my work is public speaking. And I'm curious if you saw this, it was Dr. Kelly, holy, or Holly ball, Coleman. And it's called the spacetime symphony of gravitational waves. Does this ring any bells? No, I'm
12:39
afraid I'm not familiar with that talk.
12:41
Okay, I've got to send it to you. Because, like, I was so impressed by it that I wrote a blog post about it. She's an astrophysicist. And who was writing about like, yeah, really exploring the Milky Way and the work that she did, and you know, and she has this gravitational wave dance that she did that she got the audience up. And it was just fascinating to learn about that. And I see that through line for you, obviously, in the exploring space. Do you see that as sort of that through line?
13:15
Yes, I definitely would say that. And I happen to be married to a person who studies behavior analysis. Oh, wow. PhD in that. And so what I would probably phrase it from what I've learned from her is that beauty and wonder of exploring space, you know, either unlocking the cosmos or helping an astronaut perform a spacewalk. That's the reinforcer for me, that just, it just feels so beautiful. It gives me the passion or the drive to keep going.
13:56
And you can say that she studies the space between your ears
14:05
My wife is a schoolteacher. So she she called me on ADHD many years ago and multiple times and I'm like, yeah, yeah, whatever. It really the moral of the story for me is, listen to my spouse.
14:17
That's probably good, good moral.
14:20
And as far as school goes, I, you had mentioned when we exchanged emails about some of the really just some of the abuse you're you dealt with from Nans. You mentioned milk shaking. Tell us tell us about that. And maybe that how that might have driven you further.
14:42
Yes. Again, you know, it's, it's a little bit of a forehead Slapper, you know, when you when you get the diagnosis of ADHD and you know, the, the hyperactivity part of that and you kind of look back and it's like, oh, well, yeah. I was extremely hyper. raise a kid. My mom likes to tell the story about how I was climbing shells before I was walking. And I used to, when I was in my crib, bang my head on the window into the window broke, oh my gosh, just I don't know, I guess I just had energy to burn. But in grade school where I went to a Catholic school, whenever I got in trouble, which was very often, their solution was what they call the milkshake, which they would grab you by the neck and shake you up and down. very vigorously, you know, as a little kid, they were robust, stout nuns, and besides the fact that that's probably the, the least effective to do in this situation, you know, in a way it, it would kind of scatter the brain again, a little bit. And, you know, I probably had even more trouble trying to focus after that, it was just a weird thing. But that's, you know, they didn't know how to deal with it, I guess. And it was usually some form of punishment, or getting hit on the knuckles with rulers or things like that.
16:09
I did seven years of Catholic school, and I share it in a presentation idea called the root down. But the short version here is I basically failed every year, but, but my teacher would graduate me into the next grade, just so she wouldn't have to deal with me again. So it was like just passing the buck, like, just pass Dave on to the next. And it wasn't until my seventh grade when my teacher was like, Oh, hang on a second. And he was awesome. And he was the type that was just like, Okay, let's, let's pause here for a minute. And it held me back a year, which, which actually helped in the long term. But yeah, I can't imagine that kind of abuse in school like that, you know, certain like,
16:53
and I guess we can sing the praise of teachers, because I probably too, can point to a teacher that, you know, kind of notice something. And, you know, took the time to kind of help me and challenge me a bit. And I think that was part of it, I wasn't challenged in a way that, you know, found that passion or anything that kind of, you know, helped me to be more focused or participate more in school, and that teacher helped me a lot, and really kind of changed the course, I went from a failing student. I mean, when I tell people, I failed my eighth grade science project, because I never did it. You know, people look at me now. It's like, Well, how could you do that? You know, you're a scientist, and I love science, but I just sitting down to try and do a project. It's like, I didn't know how to do that. That was like torture.
17:52
And I think I have a role as a flight director, you know, obviously, actually, maybe help to explain what's involved with that as a flight director, because I imagine you're not doing just one thing. Right? It's more of you directing a whole bunch of different things at once. And I think, for me, like with ADHD, when I when I do roles, where I'm doing a lot of different things, almost all at once, sometimes, and that's when I'm doing my best work a lot of the way a lot of the time. And when it's like, as you said, when it's one thing, especially if it's something I'm not as interested in, then, you know, that's, that's tricky. So tell us a little bit about the role of a flight director and how that, yeah.
18:39
There's kind of two phases, you know, what I'll call sort of office work where you might be planning a mission. You know, you might be preparing for a spacewalk, for example, coming up. And what that might entail is meeting with lots of different people, the people who are going to be overseeing the spacewalk or the engineers that are going to be monitoring the equipment that's going to be used in the spacewalk. And so what it is, is you'll be just jumping from meeting to meeting topic to topic, try and absorb a lot of information. And as a director, you see where the issues or questions or problems or bottlenecks are, and you know, provide, okay, decision or direction, you know, let's go this way I want to do this, go make that happen. So it can be very quick and constantly changing. And then in the second phase, like in Mission Control, where you're executing it, the same sort of thing goes on, you know, now you've got to be talking to the communications person or the computer person. The people that are running the spacewalk the talking to the astronaut next to you, who's your capsule communicator, talking to the astronauts in space and You're just constantly going, you know, round robin, so to speak. And what you said a moment ago really, you know, resonates with me, because on the days where like, Hey, you don't have any meetings today, you just need to kind of review that document. It would take me all day, when it should take me an hour. But being able to jump between all those different tasks, you know, constantly changing and bouncing around. Like you said earlier, it's like, that's when I did my best work, I was able to, you know, follow that challenge.
20:36
Yeah, but I can't imagine. I mean, just just the roll of what you were doing to I'd be, like, I mean, as a complete novice, but you know, I've looked up tell us, I mean, we just actually, my family and I, you know, we just had a super moon, the Blue Moon recently and got the telescope out. And, and that was pretty cool. I actually posted a photo on my Instagram about it. And I just like, oh, are there were there moments when you were like driving home from the office? Thinking like, Oh, my God, like I have one of the coolest jobs in the world or, or just that your mind was blown. Tell me a little bit about your experiences doing such an important and incredible work?
21:29
Yeah, it was probably more frequent than you might think. I mean, there was definitely a lot of days, I felt like Lucky that people were paying me to do what I was doing. Because for one thing, it was constantly changing. It was never routine. You know, there might be the day that I was talking to my Japanese colleague, remember, it's International Space Station. So we've got people from around the world. And he just called me says, Hey, I've got to step outside, we just had an earthquake, and you take over monitoring our systems. That never happened before. And we weren't quite prepared for it. And we did it. There was another time where one of my flight controllers told me that there was some debris that was at a decent chance of hitting the space station, and we needed to do something about it. And you know, it was those constant things that were just you go home and you'd like, well, you know, I I saved the astronauts today, or, we accomplished this great science experiment today on the space station, or this spacewalk that just was beautiful to watch, you know, it was it was fairly frequently a very moving thing. And outside at the main gate at NASA here in Houston, there's a Saturn five rocket, for me, most of my time here wasn't in a building, they recently put in a building, but a lot of times coming into work and leaving work, I'd look at that rocket and I'm like, man, I've got a cool job.
23:09
Well, to think that, like you're communicating some with some, you know, with people in space, and, and you have you presumably, you know, multiple live feeds of said people in space. And I'm gonna sound like a complete idiot with most of what I talked about here, because I'm because I am. But, you know, like, I know enough to look up at the moon let's or at a star, let's say and realize like that star is from a long, long time ago. It it must have been weird to like, look up. And because every once in awhile, people can see the space station and like from the earth, right? It just, it kind of blows my mind. It's hard to, it's hard to, to communicate here.
23:55
No, I completely understand what you're trying to communicate. And I can even add some layers to it. Because, you know, you can you can look up and see something like a.of light going across the sky and go yeah, that's, that's, that's a space station with six people or five people living there and doing stuff and that's pretty cool. But then when you kind of go, you know, I you know, when those modules before we put them in space, I was inside of them. Those astronauts, I've had lunch with them. And tomorrow I'm going to go and you know, we're going to do a docking of a spacecraft to the to the space station together and you know, it just so yes, I would look up at it and there was awe and and wonder but also an extreme sense of that accomplishment there.
24:49
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. 100% I remember doing a i My family and I when the kids were little we flew to Denver into the car, we did four corners. And I remember being out like in the desert camping, we camped most of the way and just looking up and like with no light pollution. And actually, we really lucked out. Because we went to the night that we went to the Grand Canyon, or the day we went to the Grand Canyon, they were having a, I think was called a stargazing party or star party, and at this star party at night, and it's completely free, they, they kill all the natural light, or all the light, and they just have these red lights on across the park. And all these amateur astronomers show up with their, you know, amateur telescopes that costs you know, probably in the 10s of 1000s. And they all set up shop and point their, their telescopes at different planets. And then, and then, you know, you can walk around climb a little, I remember my kids like, and myself, like climbing these little ladders, or step ladders to look into them, or some had monitors set up so you can actually see what it was seeing. And, yeah, my family and I still talk about it to this day, it was just incredible. I don't know if I can
26:12
believe it. And that's definitely the beauty and the passion I was, I was more interested in planets when I was a kid. So that's why I thought I'd end up you know, like, at JPL working on him. But, you know, seeing a planet from either the telescope or from some probe just always just blew my mind away. It was it was amazing that we were able to do it and, and it was not just the beauty of the planet, but always at the same time, too. I'd be like, Oh my God, we built that telescope. We built that spacecraft. How did those people do it?
26:47
Yeah. Did you see the there's a Netflix documentary called cosmic time machine. James. Yeah, I just saw that not too long ago, like just maybe a month ago. It's an it's a documentary about the James Webb Space Telescope. What were your thoughts on that? And maybe for folks listening who are not familiar, can you can you maybe explain the the James Webb Space Telescope?
27:13
Yeah, it's, it was launched. I think like December of 21, I think it was about a year ago, year and a half, I guess, coming up on two years now. But it's a giant telescope in space, I can't remember the dimension of it. But it's much, much larger than the Hubble Space Telescope. And not only is it a large mirror collecting telescope, that can see far back in time. But it also was technically a really challenging thing. Because something that large, you couldn't just launch, you had to basically fold it up. And then kind of like a extremely complicated umbrella, you know, push a button, and it all kind of unfurl and go into place, but not just being placed, but be in place to accuracies of, you know, you know, a 1,000th of an inch or something for the optics to work, right. So it just was technically incredibly challenging to put that together and make it work.
28:16
You find watching it, you're kind of holding your breath hoping and it's not just one thing that can go wrong or right. It's like one, it's like, step one is this. And it's a huge celebration, even though, you know, I think it was like one of 12 steps. So it was like it was a huge win to get the first part to work. But then we've got to do the second and then the third. And I suppose a lot of your work was that right? Like with with as a flight director, you're you're you've got a lot of things that have to go right,
28:49
you are correct. And I spent a lot of nights laying in bed, staring at the ceiling trying to think what could go wrong, because you try to anticipate the things but one thing I've learned from the earliest days, it's probably a whole nother podcast. But I told you, I started out working on the computers. And the Station was designed it had three identical computers that controlled every aspect of the station's operations. And you had three of them because of one crash, like computers tend to do, you had two more, and then the second one crashed, you still had one. And I was always trying, you know, three was sufficient, because there's no way in heck all three could ever fail. So about a month after we had put the system in space. I was home and a colleague called me and said, Hey, one of the computers died and I was in charge of these particular computers. And I said, Okay, I'll be in in the morning to help you kind of figure out what's going on. But you know, let me know if anything's you know, you've got the other two. And I go in the next morning and we're kind of looking at things and the second one died. And we said, well, that's not good. But we still got the third one and then it died. Ah. And that's that 48 hour period is we came extremely close to losing the the early International Space Station, the only thing that prevented us from losing it is the space shuttle I happen to be docked at the time. And we could use the communication link that the space shuttle offered. But one of the things I realized, if you haven't seen the movie, Apollo 13, you really have to, we actually used to use that we still do. They use it for training, because it's so accurate. But it wasn't the technology. In fact, those computers that we were trying to figure out how to recover. Were Ancient by even those standards in 2001, let alone today. I mean, they were 386 chips, and most people don't even know what that is, but you couldn't find a calculator that stupid. Nowadays, cell phone that stupid nowadays, but the passion of the people. That's really what had that work. So you're right 100, things had to go right for that space shuttle to undock, and those astronauts that were on it to safely come home. And for the astronauts on the space station to safely stay there, we had to recover those computers. And we only had a few days to do it. But everyone kind of working around the clock. And this was one of the things that I think probably helped me become a flight director because I was leading a lot of those tasks. And we were doing it well, and we recovered it. And it was one of those moments where you, you you like you were like we were talking earlier that when you're driving home, you're like, you can't believe what you just accomplished. You know? Yeah, yeah. It's amazing and rewarding beyond belief.
31:58
Oh, yeah, I can't imagine and even. And also, as a bit of a nerd, myself, I am picturing a 386 and 2001. And I like wait, where are we better yet? Like? Like, I guess the iPhone was what 2007? I guess, the problem and we still had a ways to go.
32:17
Yeah, when you design something and launch it into space, by the time you design it, test it, launch it, it's already, you know, years later, and you know, you can't just take the latest iPhone with you while we were using this one back, then that's what you gotta go with.
32:34
Yeah, no, that makes complete sense. Yeah. Yeah. And also like, if it, yeah, if it works. That's the important thing, right? Like, if it's doing what you needed to do, I mean, that's, that's the most important thing. So
32:47
going back to the thread a little bit. You know, when I came, and I was in charge of those computers, I mentioned earlier that because I had written some software I, that's I said, Hey, you can you can be in charge of the computers. So trying to understand how they worked. I was not a computer scientists. But I would literally spend hours every night, going through the code line by line and go on, well, what would that do? How would that work? And, you know, I wasn't good at reading the user manual. I went through the code, because that was the only way I could kind of figure out how to do it. And, you know, the brain. It was, it was very challenging for me. But that's kind of how I, I was able to kind of just persevere, if that makes any sense. It does make
33:47
sense. I've always, and I know no to ADHD ears, or why squirrels as I like to call us, you know, we're not all the same. Of course, we all have, you know, different things. But we all have similar operating systems, as I like to say, and I've always been, I always like, problem solving, like, you know, I like I like challenges, where I'm using my own, you know, creativity to, to come to find solutions to things and I think, you know, even early days as I've never claimed to be a developer, but you know, I knew enough code to, you know, build and break my website. So I knew enough HTML and JavaScript and things like that, and even basic, back in the day and DOS, but you know, as a kid, we would use like, PC Magazine and transcribe the code into my Commodore 64, my trs 80, to try to like, create code and one, one little error, and there was just no way to know where it was and it was you pull your hair out of your head trying to find that one little mistake and nowadays, it's interesting where you I'm curious, have you poked around with AI with chat GBT and things where like, you can ask chat GBT give me the code for this and it just spits it out. It's wild.
35:12
Yes, I've not played around with the code like like that. But I, I work for the company, Blue Origin. Now I left NASA. Last year, I retired from NASA and kind of worked with Blue Origin. You may be familiar with them there. Yeah, they do. The New Shepard suborbital flights in West Texas, William Shatner went up a couple years ago is one of the folks. And, you know, we're planning you know, we got a contract with NASA to do a lunar lander for the taking the crew back to the moon, and things like that, that we're working on that we want to have to be very, fairly autonomous. And one of the challenges that for a while I was on a group kind of thinking about it was okay, normally kind of like what you're talking about is you write the code. And then you test the code where you say, Okay, well, the code is supposed to, if A happens do B, so you make a happen, and you make sure B happens as a result. Well, now that you're using AI to do some of this stuff, the question is, how do you verify it? Because if you're going to put humans lives at risk on that space vehicle that's been operated by code that came from Ai, how do you, if you if you say, uh, well, if he happens to be happen, is not a straightforward thing, if AI kind of coded it up and stuff. So there's definitely some interesting challenges there.
36:41
Yeah, I think of AI is sort of like guns. Not that I'm into guns, but are other tools. Let's say that that can be used? Well, I mean, good even say the internet, like it can be used for great things, but then also, maybe not so great things. And and yeah, obviously, we're very early days with with AI. But you know, I can also picture 2001, speaking of movies, you know, what are you doing, Bob? Yeah. There's, there's some concern about that kind of aspect to it, too. Have you guys been talking about that? Obviously, I would imagine. Those kinds of scenarios have popped up in your minds.
37:25
We've talked about it. But again, kind of in a fortuitous, I guess you could say, maybe fortuitous isn't the right word. But we've talked about it, but, you know, I then got on a different project. So yeah, it was kind of a limited thing.
37:43
Yeah, yeah. And you can't I mean, that's the thing with with innovation, it doesn't matter. I mean, we we saw what happened with like the music industry and the publishing industry when they didn't, you know, adopt the internet quickly enough and social media quickly enough, and kind of fell behind. So there's this line in, you know, sort of startup world of innovate or die. You know, like, you've got to innovate. I mean, we're always we always need to improve things. And it's just a matter of like, yeah, keeping track of stuff. What are you most excited about as it applies to? Yeah, space exploration and in the future.
38:22
I think the thing that I'm most excited about right now is what I kind of as a kid, thought would be where we would be, you know, in 1990, or something 1980, in the sense that, you know, it's not NASA doing a big expensive trip to the moon, you've got all these companies. And not just in America, but you've got a lot of different companies, you know, when I was a student, and people talk about things like what SpaceX is doing today, that's the Elon Musk company that takes astronauts to the space station and does some other stuff. That, you know, a company could go and, you know, make a profit off of it, that we always used to joke that if you want to make a small fortune in the space business, you start off with a large fortune. But now you've got companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin and Sierra space and axiom and a host of others that are just, you know, finding awesome and unique ways to explore space, expand our presence in space, bring the cost down and make it profitable. You know, the fact that we've got multiple companies that are building lunar landers and looking at space stations and multiple people that can launch rockets and payloads, you know, for the military or civilians or whatever, is just an amazing time in history. I think
40:01
Is there ever a concern with I'm sort of obsessed with communication and communication skills, but like, with perhaps a lack of communication across multiple companies doing this where, you know, accidents can happen, where, you know, you look at the, like the International Space Station, and of course, I'm no expert, you're the expert on this stuff. But with the International Space Station, you know, when you talked about your, your Japanese colleague who had to step away, I think of like the International Space Station that way is such an interesting. It's almost like the United Nations in a way, right, like a mix of people from different countries. And really, all of that doesn't matter, because you're all there on the same mission together. And that's something to be celebrated in a big way. Where, with multiple countries in multiple, you know, racing to space with different operations, is there worry that that communication can falter somehow, because of this? Or because of the maybe the race to innovation?
41:08
Yes, there's definitely challenges there. NASA, for example, on the International Space Station, I think is had such success. Because I think what you're touching on is there's been parts, for example, that were built in different countries that never saw each other until they were put together in space. And it worked. But the thing is, it took a lot of testing and documentation, and people checking and double checking and triple checking. So you can do that. But it's extremely slow and expensive. So as you kind of said a moment ago, as these companies are trying to innovate. Now, granted, a lot of them are kind of doing it all themselves. But a lot of times like for example, if you're going to launch a an Air Force, payload off of your rocket, you know, you've got to make sure you're, you're checking things carefully. And, you know, now when you're trying to make sure you're making a profit, but you know, you want to do it safely. There's always challenges and trades and discussions you have to have, and you just have to hope that you're really focusing on the critical parts of it.
42:18
Yeah, because it really is a collaboration. I mean, there's there's so much at stake and even with like Elon Musk and Starlink, like, as you know, and sort of potential for for problems, you know, delivering or not delivering the communication needs. I know, Ukraine has been very reliant upon Starlink for internet access, and to be able to communicate with one another. As you know, for defense. Yeah, if that goes away, or Elon pulls the plug, so to speak, because she just decides to shift over more to Tesla or Twitter or whatever it's called now. Yeah, I don't know. It's it's a very interesting time with all this, but it's it is really exciting to to see how, how this is how this is kind of unfolding. Yeah, it's exciting.
43:12
Yeah, I'm, I've been excited that I have been and that I continue to be a part of it. So I, it's just been fast. It's exceeded my dreams. And, you know, it's kind of interesting. I told you at the beginning, I wanted to be an astronaut. And then I kind of had to change paths a little bit. And then, for a long time I envisioned you know, like, I mentioned that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the control rooms, you see that where they do like the, the Mars rovers that are walking around, okay, that's gonna be me. And then one day I, I'm standing in NASA's mission control in Houston, you know, talking to astronauts on the International Space Station. I'm like, Wow, I'm doing exactly what I wanted to do. But it's totally different. And it
44:00
was just awesome. Yeah, that's such a cool revelation to have right to. I remember, I was at a tech conference in Seattle years ago and saw Scott Maxwell was speaking there. And he was one of the operators of the Mars explorer, I think the rover. And it was just like this. He put I remember, he put on the screen. A picture. It was like, the first time I was I'm sure it wasn't the first but for us anyway, it was the first time we saw a picture of, I believe was the earth from Mars. And it was just like, our minds were just blown. And then he was like, showing videos and explaining kind of how he controlled this thing. And yeah, it's, it's, it's so wild. And it's also so important, I think, for people to realize like, just how not insignificant we are and not to get woowoo but maybe a little woo when it comes to you know, considering the universe about what's out there.
45:00
No, I definitely would agree with that. There was many nights when I was in graduate school. We, that was in Toledo, Ohio. And we actually had a one meter telescope there. And basically, every night that it was clear, I would be up there observing, which really makes it tough on your love life, because try asking someone out and saying, Okay, I'd like to go on a date with you, but only if it's cloudy. But I survived, but there was an many nights where I'd be sitting up there. And I'd be looking out at the heavens. And I know, this may sound like a cliche, but you're looking out there. And you're thinking about how big the universe is, how many stars are out there. And, you know, you just logically can't come to any other conclusion. Other than out there, there are other creatures looking back at me, man, looking at the vastness of space and trying to understand it all. And it's just, it's mind boggling and beautiful at the same time.
46:03
It truly is. It's fascinating to me, it really is. It's just, it's yeah, it's it's pretty wild. As far as the ADHD goes, you know, and I know in a late diagnosis, that it's especially important not to, not to dwell too much, I think on the past in any sort of negative way. And sometimes that can happen. But are there are there? What are your feelings about that actually, like, do what, like not necessarily dwelling but certainly considering the past, like, had you been diagnosed with ADHD as a kid and treated or, you know, the treatments were as great as they are? Now, when you were a kid? Like, do you ever think about that?
46:49
Yeah, yes. There was kind of two phases. One, especially in the, in the doctor's office the first time but definitely multiple times after that, where I cried, I just kind of sat around and cried because it was validation. You know, I always struggled, I always knew in in a sense that, you know, I was different, but had no way to put words to it. And that's one thing that the coaching has really kind of helped me kind of put words to it a little bit. And so that validation was just, to me very moving. And then yes, I've, in the second phase, I've I've, since then, I've looked back a lot. And it's like, man, knowing how I feel now on the treatments. What I wish I could have done back then. And, you know, I don't want to say like, oh, you know, my life would have been better. You know, I can't say that I'm pretty pleased with the way things came out. But you know, when you think back, and maybe you've done this to you, and you know, you think about when you maybe were You were really, really struggling and feeling really low, perhaps about it, and it's like, Man, I probably could have avoided a lot of that. Maybe not maybe other issues would have been there. But you know, it's hard not to think back, after, you know, when you hit 60. And look back at many, many years without really knowing what was going on or, or treating it. What might have been.
48:30
Yeah, and I think it's important to, you know, for me personally, certainly, there are regrets and things like that. However, I also think, you know, you could walk out the door today and go left or right, or straight, let's say are back in because you forgot your keys, and then an anvil could fall from the sky. Or maybe that's but my point is, it's like I wouldn't be here today. I have a nice house. I have an incredible wife. I married my best friend. I'm very lucky that way. I've got a very cute dog and I apologize for her being happy there a little while ago. I've got two incredible kids like, my life's not perfect, but I've got a really great life and yeah, maybe had I been treated earlier on. I might have made I might have gotten left instead of right. And I could have ended up worse and or you know, in a negative bad place. So so like celebrating I think celebrating your wins are really important. And you know, I mean, gosh, yeah, I think we all beat ourselves up a little bit too much and and you've had like just such an impressive, such an incredible career. I mean, and then kudos to Mr. Bezos and his team for hiring you because I think having somebody with your experience and knowledge is, is especially important.
49:57
Well, I definitely enjoy it because Again, I guess I get to use my superpower fairly often because I might be working on a lunar module discussion one day, or a scientific payload the next day or a space station the next day. And that definitely keeps me interested and able to go on. And it's very interesting and enjoyable.
50:24
And as far as Chris goes, and coaching, share a little bit about your experience in, in working with an ADHD coach. And you know, because I want other people to do the same, I'm doing the same as well. And I have found it to be very helpful.
50:40
I'm sure it it was kind of interesting, because it was not long after I had been diagnosed and you know, sitting around a lot going, Okay, now what, what does this mean? What do I do, if anything, and, and my wife knew Chris from the coach that I ended up going with, from a book club, and mentioned that she was an ADHD coach, and I'm like, What the heck is that, you know, is that someone that sits by the sidelines and say, You can do it, you know, stay focused. So I really had no idea what it was going to be. And I reached out to her and she was just, you know, wonderful. And it was more of a pick my own adventure. I didn't know what I wanted to get out of it. And I'll be honest, at first, I'm kind of like, am I wasting money, because I'm going to go and I'm going to talk to this person. And I'm going to, you know, maybe it's good for 15 minutes, but you know, I had no idea really what was going to come out of it. And she, you know, steered me in a way, mainly, a lot of it was self examination. A lot of it was helping me to kind of put explanation or vocabulary behind things. You know, she, um, some of it was kind of like eureka moments, I guess. I mean, maybe not for her, but more for me, where, you know, I'm describing something and she goes, Well, have you, you might want to get like a fidget toy. And, you know, the light bulb went off. And I'm like, I Why do I need to get one my desk is covered with them. You know, it's a pen, it's a nail clipper, it's a it's a binder clip. It's suddenly I realized that like, the entire day, I'm fiddling with these things. And, you know, she pointed out how, and I don't know if this was science or theory or conjecture on her part. But you know, she was like, well, that, that can kind of use up the energy or, or, or occupy, I guess, that part of my brain or body that had that nervous energy and allow me to focus better. And I realized, that's exactly what I've been doing with these little gadgets on my desk. You know, I, the next day, I'm like, I'm in a meeting. And I'm like, oh, that person saying something really important. And I realized I was reaching for my, my pen to play with, and like, oh, yeah, so I have been doing that. I just never really thought of it that way. So there's a lot of things like that, that, you know, we kind of talked through that allowed me to make sense of what I experienced otherwise with ADHD, but didn't know it was that or why I was doing it? Or how maybe I could better deal with it in certain ways. So it was amazingly eye opening for me.
53:57
Yeah, and I suppose, you know, getting back to the International Space Station, right, like understanding all these different components, to ultimately make it all work. I think there's definitely similarities and that the better you know, yourself, and you know, your operating system, I think the better your life can be, as well.
54:23
I totally agree with that. And, you know, not from a point of regret, but, you know, kind of the self reflection we were talking about earlier, I've thought about like, you know, what, if I went back to this or that event, this mission that that time in school or something, knowing what I know now, and I don't mean just the fact that I'm 16 I've had a lot of life, but you know, to put into words of like, for example, you know, I've been able to have after some of those coaching sessions, you know, discussions with my wife and I like Hey, I now I'll better understand when we have this interaction, why, for example, I get impatient and get upset. And that allowed me to kind of, first of all explain it to her. So she was like, Ah, okay, well, now I'm more aware of what you're thinking and going through. And then also for me to just be that aware and go, Oh, wait, I'm doing that thing. Let me back out of that. And, you know, have a better interaction. And that's definitely happened and been helpful.
55:37
Yeah, just knowing yourself. And then yeah, improving your the way you're communicating is huge. And yeah, it sounds very familiar. Well, I want to be respectful of your time. I know, we've already gone over a little bit. Was there any topics, any questions that that I left off or anything you'd like to share?
55:56
I don't think so. I mean, it's, it's been an interesting journey. I mean, I, I was lucky. I look back and I can probably think of, you know, 90 times where I could have gone left instead of right, even though right was where I kind of wanted to go. And I was lucky that I think I had I don't know why I had that drive. You know, that passion. That kept saying, No, I know, it's hard, or you maybe don't understand it, but you want to get over that way. So go right. And now kind of knowing, you know, the giant light bulb in my life has gone off over my head. I'm like, Oh, it didn't have to be that hard. It's not as hard now as it used to be between the treatment and the coaching. It's just been maybe wonderful journey is too strong of a word. But it's been an interesting challenge and an interesting journey. And I'm glad at least in the last year or so, I've been able to do that part of the journey.
57:09
I'll thank you so much for sharing all of this with us today. It's been really an amazing conversation with you. My pleasure.
