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Melissa Harris-Perry: I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. On this May the 4th, we're bringing you a special Takeaway Show and traveling to a galaxy far, far away. That's right, we're talking Star Wars, Luke, Leia, Darth Vader, Jedi, the dark side, Wilkes, just all that good stuff. Yes, we'll even be getting to those dreaded prequels a little later in the hour.

Speaker: That won't be necessary.

Speaker: Oh, but it is. Just imagine by the gods it is.

Melissa Harris-Perry: To start off, let's remember that we do have some real-life Jedis who walk among us.

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That was astronaut Chris Hadfield singing David Bowie's Space Oddity on board the International Space Station back in 2013. If you think about it, I mean, pause and really think about it. How incredible is it that humans are hanging out in space, singing, eating, reading, working, and maybe most of all, thinking in space. For most of us, videos and photos, they're the closest that we're going to get to seeing the Earth from above.

Today, we have two guests who've seen the view from the International Space Station itself. With me now, is Chris Hadfield, who is an astronaut with NASA for 21 years, a Colonel in the Canadian Air Force, an educator, a musician. Chris was the first Canadian astronaut to walk in space in 2001, and is the only Canadian to command a space station. He retired from NASA in 2013, and since then has helped run several space companies. He's also an author of several books. The most recent novel, The Apollo Murders is a cold war era thriller. Welcome to The Takeaway, Chris.

Chris Hadfield: It's a joy to be with you, and May the fourth be with you today, Melissa.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I always turned into a catechist mom and say may it also be with you. [chuckles] I'm also joined by Sunita Williams, an astronaut at NASA and the second woman commander of the International Space Station. She's also been training commercial space crews for private companies like SpaceX and Boeing. She spent 322 days in space aboard the International Space Station, and performed seven space walks, spending more than 50 hours strolling around on the cosmos. Thank you for joining us, Suni.

Sunita Williams: Hi, Melissa. It's great to be here with you guys, and May the fourth be with you.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, Suni, you are currently training for a mission right now, is that right, the Boeing Starliner?

Sunita Williams: That's right. It's a work in progress. These are developmental spacecraft, so we find things every now and then, which maybe makes the program a little start-stop. We're getting psyched because May 19th, we should have the flight of the orbital flight test unmanned, and then we'll see after that when our crew flight test will be. It's coming up before too long. We're getting excited.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I have to say, Chris, as a kid, for me, the first book that got me really thinking about what I would now think of as my environmentalism, was this book, The Big Blue Marble. I've always been a bit fascinated in this idea of what it means to be able to look back at the Earth to see it in its wholeness in a way that we just can't experience when we're on the Earth. Chris, can you tell me a little bit about what it meant for you to see and experience the big blue marble?

Chris Hadfield: One of the coolest things, Melissa, on board of spaceship is you know that the world is below you. When you float through the ship and you come down the long module that has the big window in it, and you go down into the floor into what is like a big, bulbous observational window called the cupola. I don't know whether this is true for all astronauts, but for me, as soon as I pulled my head down in there and looked, it felt like the world was suddenly above me and I was looking up at the world. It's a weird split that your head does. The reason I mention it is that's how it feels to be looking at our planet from onboard of spaceship. You're looking up like you're in a cathedral or a big redwood forest or something, and you're looking up at the magnificence of it.

Suni's had longer in space than I have, but I've had almost half a year, and been around the world thousands of times. That sense of amazement and reverence and awe. The last few minutes I was in space, I was as or more impressed than the first few minutes in space. It's just an incredible way to see and understand our world.

Melissa Harris-Perry: This point, Suni, that Chris just made both about the perceptual splits that occur, but also the point about you being there for nearly a year, more than 320 days. You talked with some young people during the pandemic about the ways that that was both an amazing experience, but also taught you something about isolation that then many of us had to learn in the context of the pandemic.

Sunita Williams: Absolutely. It actually has some interesting parallels. First of all, we go into quarantine before we go to space because we don't want to bring up anything that could get anybody else sick. It's a pretty sterile environment up there and your immune system takes a little bit of a hit while it's up there because it doesn't get to experience dirt of this wonderful planet. That's the first thing. Then secondly, of course, you're living in isolation. First time I was up there with just three people, and then the second time with six altogether. That's it. That's all the facial contact that you get with one another. If you actually wanted to touch somebody, that would be it.

You do get to have Zoom calls like we all did. It was very interesting during the pandemic. It was very parallel that you do get to call your family and look at them on the screen and talk to them. That was your connection to home. You can make phone calls as well. You do have that same sensation, like Chris was saying, looking out the window and it's like, "Wow, everybody that I know, every animal that I know, every wonderful tree that I know is down there. It's not where I am." Or like Chris mentioned up there as you look through the cupola, it's all in that wonderful blue marble. We really need to take care of that little guy down there because that houses all of us.

There are a lot of parallels, but you really appreciate the fact that we have a wonderful planet that we have.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Of course, we're having this conversation on May the 4th. Star Wars, it's always lovely to focus on the star part, less lovely to focus on the wars part. As we look back at it, in this case, actually feeling as though you're looking up at the world. This is also a world racked in this moment by political division, but by also an actual hot war occurring. We know that Russia is one of the primary partners in the International Space Station.

There's been some conversations about Russia pulling out over the sanctions imposed by the US. Not asking you so much to weigh in on the politics, but more on the notion of space becoming a place for war, at least, in that sense. Maybe not the lightsaber sense, but in the sense where instead of seeing one Earth, you still see the divisions.

Chris Hadfield: Suni and I have been in space enough times, so we've been up there during other wars as well, the war in Syria or the Gulf War. The history of humanity is a history of conflict and jealousy over borders and things that we own. That's not going to stop. That's just an unfortunate facet of human behavior. At the same time, we do magnificent things, walk through the Louvre or any of the great galleries, or the incredible creativity of the music that we have here on Earth, and the way that we treat each other for the large part with grace and with laughter and joy.

When you're going around the world 16 times a day, like we've been lucky enough to, you see the wickedness that is going on in amongst some of us. You also see the overwhelming beauty and peace that a lot and the vast majority of humanity lives under. It does doesn't diminish the horrific nature of some of the things that are happening, but at least it puts it into perspective.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Suni, I want to invite you to add as well on that.

Sunita Williams: I've mentioned this to a lot of people that I've talked to, specifically little kids when talking about looking at the Earth. It seems even unfathomable sometimes up there when you're looking down that people would be aggravated with each other, to put it lightly. How could it even happen? If everybody had the perspective that we had, Chris and I, and more and more people are getting to do that with the commercial space programs, I think they would change their attitude and their mind about that.

Like I mentioned real quickly in my previous answer, this is it, this is our little planet and it's crazy that we would try to hurt each other down here because we really don't have that many other places to live at this moment in time. We're working on that, going back to the moon and onto Mars eventually, but this is it. Our blue planet is where we all need to get along, but like Chris said, that's human nature and we need to deal with that, but I wish everybody had the opportunity to take a lap around the planet once and I think their perspectives would change.

Melissa Harris-Perry: It's funny Suni as you say, "I wish everyone could have that opportunity to take a lap around the planet." As much as I was so excited as both of you all were talking about your experiences in space, I also got to say I was a little terrified. Suni, when you said, "Everyone I know, everything I know, every animal, every object, it's all over there and I'm up here." I'm wondering about fear. Do you experience fear? If so, how do you manage it?

Sunita Williams: I'm a scaredy-cat by nature.

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Melissa Harris-Perry: After 50 hours of space walking, I don't believe it.

Sunita Williams: [laughs] You ask my husband, it's true. It is interesting, the rocket launch was not scary to me. Neither one of them that I was on because we trained for that. We understand what things can happen, can't happen, what you control, what you can't control. You're really pretty much prepared, you're pretty focused. For me, that wasn't scary, but I'll tell you the first time, the one time that I was really scared was we were up on the space station and the other American who was there, Mike Lopez Allegre, he was leaving and handing over the American part of the space station to me.

He left and that night, again, back to my fear of the dark, everything is-- Lights are turned off in your home the first time and you hear little creeks and stuff like that. I'm just thinking to myself, "What's that? Is that something I need to be worried about? Oh my God," because I had nobody there to ask. That got me a little nervous. I had mission control I know back at home if I had really any problems and I watching our backside, but just to have that responsibility and be it by yourself on something that big, I had two other Russian colleagues, but their specialty was their side.

it was a little bit nerve-wracking. I will say the first time when I went on a spacewalk, I was outside and it was dark at first, and getting to do what I was out there doing, my work and then the sun came up. Like Chris mentioned, we go around the planet 16 times a day and the Earth is flying below me and it's just me looking down at the Earth. I held onto that space station so tight for a minute and I had to get my heart rate down. I'm like, "It's okay, you're just flying formation with the space station." I got over it, but you do have these moments of, I think like, whoa.

Chris Hadfield: When we first get to space, we feel sick. Your body's really confused and so you're dizzy, your lunch is floating around in your belly cuz you're floating, and what you see doesn't match what you feel so you want to throw up. How do you throw up if you get sick in space? Here's an astronaut barf bag right here.

Melissa Harris-Perry: [laughs] Chris, I love that. Why is it important for you to talk about these mundane everyday aspects of space exploration?

Chris Hadfield: It's been my experience, I've spoken at the United Nations, I've spoken with Queen Elizabeth, when it gets right down to it, everybody wants to know what happens when you throw up in space or how do you go to the bathroom in space? It's just human. It's the normal stuff. When you take away gravity suddenly, a lot of things that you take for granted are radically different.

Like putting on a pair of shoes, if you're going to run on the treadmill, by the time you get one shoe laced up because it takes two hands and one foot, the other shoe for six months, I tried to be good at this, but by the time I got my one shoe done up, I would be upside down and my other shoe would've disappeared every time. I'm like, "Ah, you'd think I'd know how to do this by now."

Melissa Harris-Perry: [laughs] That is great. In certain ways, that's like the-- I think when my kids were small, my two-year-old just with gravity on Earth would sometimes like by the time got one shoe on, she'd be upside down and the other one would be lost. There does seem to be almost something playful about it. I wonder Chris if that's part of why this interest in, we use the word commercial exploration, maybe the other way to say this mass exploration, the hope that so many more of us might get a chance to be upside down looking for our shoes in space.

Chris Hadfield: I think it's a natural progression. If you look at any of our means of transportation, initially, there were just some crazy people trying to-- like the Wright brothers or the early people who built cars or the guy who built the rocket, the first high-speed train in England back in the early 1800, crazy and everyone just looked at it laughing, the first balloonist, but then eventually, some people figure it out.

The technology gets better and then eventually starts getting safer and now suddenly millions of people every year can go get on an airliner and see parts of the world and travel and experience our planet in a way that otherwise would've been impossible. That's where we are now in space flight. We've gone from Alan Shepard and Yuri Gagarin and the early guys who took a tremendous risk right through to now where it's still a very basic space flight, but where if you have enough money like our early aviators who needed a lot of money. If you have enough money, you can go for a ride to the very edge of space.

It's still early and we haven't figured out how to regulate it right and we're just sorting it out, but that's where we are in history. I think it's natural and it's only going to decrease in cost and therefore increase as a more common human experience.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Suni, I want to let you in as well on this idea of commercial space flight and what it can add.

Sunita Williams: It isn't simple. It's taken some time. I've been in the midst of it for about seven, eight years now with SpaceX for a little while, worked with Boeing for a little while, have friends at Blue Origin, have friends at Sierra Nevada who are working with them, and friends at Virgin Galactic for that matter too. It's a budding industry, but it's the right time.

There are so many technological advancements that have happened in the last couple decades. Computers, additive materials, welding, all that kind of stuff. The whole gamut has made this more applicable to every type of person who wants to have a company and be able to think about space travel. I'm all for it. I love like I mentioned earlier, everybody could take a lap around the planet would change perspective for that matter.

I wish everybody had that opportunity. Like Chris said, it's starting. It's going to take a little while, it's not going to be overnight, but the price is going to go down, more and more people are going to have access to space. I think it's off that also regulations and all that kind of stuff has to come as just as a matter of fact for this type of thing. That will happen, but the thrill of it, the excitement of it, like you mentioned about your daughter getting excited about hearing about astronauts, that whole thing trickles all the way down to the elementary school level where kids get excited about STEM, it's only good. I love it. I love commercial space. I hope more and more people like I said, they'll get to take that lap on the planet.

Melissa Harris-Perry: That point you just made, that's where I want to bring us now Suni, which is that although, certainly at least in this generation, most of us are not going to make it even to the outer regions of space, but there is this other place where really exciting exploration and discovery can occur and it's basically in our science classrooms. It's in chem 101, in bio 101, even in physics when all of a sudden the experiment works or when it fails and you discover something interesting anyway.

I'm such a big fan of science just for science sake, just learning something, just exploring. I got to say, I'm really worried that that aspect of our educational journey, just the enthusiasm and excitement about science and about the development of knowledge is really diminishing. I wonder if maybe you could both speak to that and ways that we can reinject that kind of curiosity and excitement about science.

Chris Hadfield: Melissa, I think it's really important that our young folks have clear examples of cool and exciting and cutting edge stuff happening that they can see a link to. It was so formative for me when I was a little kid to be watching folks going to the moon. It was like, I got my normal mundane life, I was growing up on a farm, but meanwhile, people are flying rocket ships.

It's like Star Wars or at that time Star Trek, and it really changed my ideas of what might be possible for me in my own life. I made different decisions with my life because of the example and the role models that I had. I think you might change your mind a little bit or feel less desperate maybe about our young in their schools if you could walk into an elementary school with Suni or walk into an elementary school with me when we're in a blue astronaut suit.

We are the embodiment of the edge of human capability. We don't necessarily have the right to be, but that's just by role. That's what an astronaut is. The fascination and the glimmer in the kid's eyes and the constant peppering of questions. Then you hear from the parents how the kids came home that day and what they were thinking about and the books that they're reading now. We need that. We can't just focus on problems, you also have to think about dreams and the edge of capability. Luckily, as astronauts, we get to get reminded of that directly on a regular basis. It's really optimism building.

Sunita Williams: Yes, Chris, I would absolutely agree. I think of the things that every school, I would suggest not only thinking about astronauts but all occupations. I wish, for example, in chemistry, I knew about the space shuttle, cryogenic, hydrogen and oxygen mixed together give off an electron and make water and that's how the space shuttle was powered. That's how they got water. I would have been like, "Whoa, that's pretty easy." I could do that chemistry reaction and understand it, and then I would have some applicability.

I mentioned that because I think there's many other really cool fields like medical, biomedical, whatever, engineering all that as we used to call in high school, all that motorhead stuff. There's applicability to the science that the kids are learning. I think that is one of those ways, I think any school can interject that and make kids interested. Now, space, of course, has a special allure. It's great to give space examples because then kids feel like they're connected to this really cool stuff that's going on to all these people that are starting to go to space. They'll feel like they're part of that. I think that's really important.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I have to ask you both a final super serious question. What is it you love most about Star Wars?

Chris Hadfield: It's strange, but there's a brief moment where the star is going to die on the ice-cold planet. There's this big animal, and he's like, "Let's warm inside that gigantic dead animal." He gets his lightsaber, and he cuts it open and climbs inside this warm vehicle, or this warm beast and to stay alive for the night. It just shocked me when I first saw it. Then I thought, "Hey, that person had a life or death problem in front of them. Here was a radical new solution and they just made a decision."

When it did that thing and lived to fight another day, I just thought, "That's not necessarily how I conduct my life. That made me rethink about the necessity to think about all the options and be willing to take a chance to do something in order to live to fight another day." Of all the things to me that was just a really inspired moment of writing whoever decided that should be in the movie.

Sunita Williams: I think I'm a little more shallow than Chris. I didn't look at it that deeply. The first thought that came to my mind is just I like fast cars and racing around in a 3D type of racetrack seems pretty darn cool to me. I would love to be in one of those little spacecraft zooming around racing. I think that's pretty cool.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Oh, yes. I'm for that for sure. Those were both actually really fabulous answers. Chris Hadfield and Suni Williams. Thank you both for joining me.

Chris Hadfield: Thank you, Melissa, here on Star Wars Day and it's trite. I'll start it and Sunita you can finish it. Okay. May the fourth

Sunita Williams: Be with you.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Thank you both.

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