Write that it had all begun with a dropped pass. Exactly. A dropped pass. I was a wide receiver on a rung team, and that mean i block a lot versus catching passes. We were at our homecoming game. I was run downing the sideline their ball was perfectly thrown any hand and i dropped the touchdown pass in my hands. And the thing is, a scout was there from the university of richmond looking to see if could i play football for the team. He walked out of stadium, my coach, jimmy green, believed in me, he said get back out there spring same play. This time i caught the ball. That one catch resulted in 180,000 scholarship to the university of richmond because the coach said he didnt give up. He consistent going. That was the grit the persevere and a second chan. Host high dud you get from playing for the university of richmond spiders to two Space Shuttle missions. Guest i think the turning a season from 010 around to 38, to 85 and playoffs, brought the College Scout the pro scouts down, and then all of that hard, and dedication and discipline, i went to work for nasa, a friend of mine gave me an application said you would be a great astronaut. Im like, yeah, right. I didnt fill the application out and someone else did and he got. My thought if that geek get in i can get in. So competition, that then believing i could do that same thing, and i applied and i got in to the astronaut corps. Host well, before we go any further, want to tell our viewer this is a callin segment. Leland melvin has been in space while, worked for nasa for 20 some years. Your chance to talk to an astronaut. What were you doing that you were able to apply nasa. Guest after leaving the Dallas Cowboys with a pulled hamstring, we end back to graduate School Full Time and got my masters degree in materials signs engineering and a woman said you should come to work for mass simple said im going to work for dupont or dell. Make more money that. She was tenacious. She said we need people like you at nasa and i applied and got the job to work at nasa langley as a research engineer. Host what field . Guest so i was a Materials Science engineer but we were working in an area call nondestructive Evaluation Sciences so were Building Systems for measuring damage and Space Shuttle tiles or Aerospace Vehicles using systems like lasers and normal systems for measuring damage. You threw something in there about the Dallas Cowboys. Guest i got drafted into the licenses, pull a hamstring, stashed grad school, then win to train with the Dallas Cowboys. So my day im catching footballs for americas team, and at night im watching material science engineering vhs videotapes, and when danny white and i went out i pulled my hamstring again. That whats end of of my football career and went back to uv and got my masters degree in material science. Host from the day you applied in nasa to the day you took off in atlantis, how many years was that . Guest i applied in 1997, got into the corps in 1998. Ten years later to fly in space. Host is that typical. Guest not typical. Most people fly within maybe three two to three years on a shuttle mission, maybe three or four years if its a Long Duration space Station Mission but i had a problem. Host what . Guest i lost all minage a training accident if went completely deaf. And i still have hearing impairment in my left ear but they forgot to put a pad any helmet that allows you clear your ears and they said i would never fly in space. Host a diving accident, correct. Guest it was training in the white eva suits so this is a 6 milliongallon pool and were in our space walking suits, but in the suit there is an actual pad that you use to press your nose against to clear your ears and mine wasnt in there, so at 28 feet, told the test director, to turn the volume up. Day took me out and blood was come out of my ear. Host and. Guest they said, emergency surgery, couldnt find anything, they medically disqualified me to fly in space. But thats when my my hearing came back about three weeks later and i ended up going to work in d. C. In this Educator Astronaut Program to bring teachers in to be astronauts, and when i was in that program, we lost Space Shuttle columbia, and i was there for the families and we were flying around the country, going different Memorial Services to help get the families through this, and the chief flight surgeon, rich williams, who was on each flight take notes as i took off and explained he watched me clear my ears. So he believed in me that i could actually fly in space, not get back in the pool north fly in the jets oar pressure situations but could i fly in space and do a job in space to help advance our civilization. Host the photo on the cover of your book, chasing space, an official nasa photo. Guest it is official. Host the best astronaut photo ever. Guest well, when you sneak your dog into nasa a and get the tike were if him if you look on the picture in the front, all 0 our hand are corrected. Two paws and a hand are combined together and n solidarity as a family trying to get to space. Host Leland Melvin is our guest, flown tying, atlantis in 2008, and at the second time was atlantis as well. Guest 2009. Uhhuh. Host to see International Space station. Lounge were you there. Guest the first mission, 12 days, the second mission, 14 days or series versa. Host with were still flying the shut would you go. Guest i would go again. Host should the Shuttle Missions ended, have ended . Guest the shuttle wag a work horse to get the heavy lift piece thousands build the space station deploy satellites. We completed the space station buildout, we have spacex and other people delivering cargo with the cost of the Space Shuttle program, we would not be able to bailed new rocket system build a new rocket and imthe orion vehicle to go past earth orbit. The shuttle was relegated to lower earth0 bit so we want to go past that and maybe assist lunar space station will help us get to mar. It was the right thing to do. Host lets hear from callers. Jane in crescent, iowa, you on with Leland Melvin. Caller hi, he lend. I wanted to ask about the girl from iowa, the astronaut that has been up there for 665 days, what do you think about that . Guest so, who peggy was my commander in 2008 on the space station. She applied 13 times to become an astronaut. Reject 12 time. She is one of my sheros and i hold up as a hero. An amazing person and i love her to death. Host featured in chasing space, who was or is Katherine Johnson . Guest Katherine Johnson is the 99yearold mat Ma Television that calculated the trajectories to get john glenn orbiting the planet, and she was a hidden figure. Margo is he daughter of bob lee, an engineer who work at nasa with me. Its like a family affair, and katherine celebrated help 99th 99th birthday in west virginia, population 800, but it tells you that no matter what zip code your from, you can be or do anything you put your mind to. Host aubrey, broncs, new york good afternoon. Yes. I know [inaudible] any [inaudible] iapologized, were going to have to hang up there, i dont think either of us could understand and i apologize for that, aubrey, lets hear from kevin in princeton, new jersey. Were lacenning, youre on with astronaut and author he lend melvin. Caller thank you for taking my call, mr. Melvin. A question. How soon might a young person begin training or academically for admission in space, and exactly not exactly but relatively speak, how much mathematics does that program entail . Guest well, the training to become an astronaut starts i think dish mean issue think training to be a scientist or engineer starts at a very early age. Started billing things with my hands when i was in middle school and i think the main thing about the training is to get people to get kids looking up in the night sky and seeing the space station going overhead to have. The building and create fog and knowing they can do anything, and what was the second question . Host stem. Guest stem. Host how much emphasis should be put on stem in schools sunny think emfa cyst should be put on steam. Signs, technology, energy, argentinas, math mate ticks. Ards are start of Stem Education and having kid building, creating music lessons, Different Things than what head prepared me for me getting and working with other people, languages, is part of the a and work with our russian colleagues and learning russian and doing these other things, all part of that training to get me ready for space flight. Host darnell in north dakota, youre on with Leland Melvin. Caller my god so great to see you. Just flipping through the channels and i saw the guise. I said, oh, boy, what ising this guy about its a fantastic story. And my question is, where have you been and why havent we heard this story before . Thank you. Guest well, darnell, think about Katherine Johnson, 99yearold mathematician that helped john glenn get around the planet. So, a lot of us have been Hidden Figures for quite a while, and i got this book out so we can get more kid, special him from different zip codes and kids that look like me to know you make in the nfl, be an astronaut and an educator. You can do anything if you have people that have your back and you believe in yourself and you work hard. Host i want to show a photo from the book. Guest a photo of dr. Bobby matcher, phd in Chemical Engineering from commit a medical doctor and the first time the two africanamerican men were in space at the same time. Tom joiner interviewed news space and called us the afro ah ts. That interview wasliened to bay Million People and kids tell me they heard the interview want to be astronauts. They nevers just wanted to be ball players and theres nothing wrong with being a ball player. But the keis is you can do so much more than one thing. Host this photo, where were you when this was taken . Guest this was we had undocked from the International Space station in 2009, and we were floating in the middeck of the Space Shuttle atlantis on sts129. Host tyler, marietta, g, good afternoon. Go ahead. Caller at nasa do the cause why theres so many conspiracy theories about the moon landing and my second question is do you think we reallyland on the moon . Well. Host do you think weland on the moon. No, do not. Host why. Caller i you go on youtube you sock sew many videos writ looks like theres strings in the background, pulling up the astronauts, also another thing heard which is really good, too is arent there different radiation belts and how were the astronauts able to pass through those radiation belts when they were headed towards the moon. Host thank you, sir. Guest tyler, my trained given their lives for exploration, apollo one, we lost people in a fire, john young, who is not lawyer, interviewed me become ton astronaut, walked on the moon. Believe in this man. Hes an honest, honorable person, i believe in the space program, and i know that we have walked on the moon because of the efforts to help advance our civilization that listen to been speier their rhode island. Some wont do believe that the earth is round. I ive seen the earth from space. The eight is round. So, you cant buy into something of this stuff you see on youtube. Anymore scientists and people that have analytical minds that can discern Different Things and understand theyre real. Host you talk about the twang. What is the twang . Guest the twang is when youre sitting in the shuttle and to the three main engines come on and the three main engines are off from the stack we call, the solid rocket boost and the shuttle and they light and the entire shutting rotates forward and then we come back, peter, the main engines lights are eight bolts with explosive charges in them that are ignited and they blow away and were off. And its amazing. When you come back, the twang on a screen door that you open and the it twangs. Thats how we come back up but we take off right after that. Host peep have raiden rollercoasters, felt the pressure on their chest, is it like that. Guest feeling three times your weight on the chest. We pull 3gs going up, and so you start to labor breathe a little bit. Feels heavy. Take really deep breaths, but after the solid rocket boosters are jettison, the ride smooths out and youre doing this for two and a half minutes and then gets much smoother, and then six and a half mints later glory space. Host when you are in space, is it just very smooth. Main engine cutoff, you see things that start floating around you. Things you dropped are now floating, dust particles and you have your seatbelt on, so you undo your seat belt, push if a were york back and youre floating towards the front seat and jo go back and forth like a pingpong ball. You look out the window and see the most incredible light show. The color of the caribbean, a sunrise and a sunset every 40 minutes. Going around the planet every 90 minutes and doing this and people used to fight against advancing the civilization. Thats the american story. Host ever run into space junk or satellites . Guest i didnt see any space junk but lots of times we could come back home, there are little pits in the window from small party kells that have actually hit the window, and my second mission, we opened up the payload bay doors of the shut and we saw this thing that looked organic and translucent, starting to float out of the payload bay and i grabbed it and said, houston, we have a problem itch didnt say that because the hair on the and a quarters would have been read it up but it was a behles that ice that broke off from the hoses but looked like a body, floating out, and like the aliens on the movie contact come thats what looked like to me. One of my colleagues, randy in speaks right now, he looked at me like he was a rookie, what is that . Youve been to space. Host well, lets hear from tamara in florida. Caller hi there. Im calling because were coming up on an exciting milestone with commercial crew program, and i was wondering what your thoughts are on commercial crew and if you would be involved in the commercial practice crew program. Thank you. Host now, tam remarks you steam know what youre talking about. Whats your background . Caller well, used to be a counselor at space exam and have been a space educator in challenger learning story good and Research Historian for Johnson Space center and now im a stayathome mom. Guest thank you for your advocacy for the space program. Im all for commercial crew. The more people who have an opportunity to go to space and experience the orbital spiff will advance the civilization and help us come together as a civilization and so whoever wants to go to space, however you want to do it, whether its nasa, elon musk, i embrace all of is because because iting only help is advance as a civilization. Host what are you doing today. Guest i talked to a lot people the National Book festival near d. C. Us a these wonderful authors, inspiring people, moat v8 people. I had a chance to sign the book and also the young rathers edition which chas stem expert steam experiments in the back and i called it steam on the cheap. Paper clippers, papers, scissor, you can build rockets, you do exciting things and the key is to help get our next generation of explorers excited and inspired to take my place to take our place, right . And to help share these messages of hope and inspiration and future. Host are you still with nasa in any capacity . Guest i read tire from nasa but i still help out in certain aspects. When there are launches in missions and thing is still am an advocate and supporter of helping the sprays program. Host how is your send serenity farm. Guest i stoles the farm but still looking to do other things involving kids and getting outdoors and believing in themselves. Host heres the cover of the book, called chasing space apt astronauts story of grit, grace and Second Chances i the author and our guest is Leland Melvin. Can you hear me . We yourself found out that michael is supposed to do a power point presentation so thats going to take us half an hour to find the power opinion presentation he forgot for bring. Thank you for being here, the library of congress, and the chairman of the festival and well have a little chat re