Scott 'Kidd' Poteet
Appearances
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I have no idea.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
But that's what he's doing. He's at work. You know? He's got my attention, that's for sure. just wish i could i mean he's trying to save us from this that's the whole thing right well look how stubborn the prophets were man he had a tough time listening and he's telling them outright i'm gonna die for your sins and and they had a hard time believing
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Absolutely. But we just don't, we don't have the humility to listen. We think we have all the answers.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Relationships that I'd built and fostered over the years. When I was coming off the Thunderbird assignment, I met a gentleman by the name of Jared Isaacman. Very successful entrepreneur. No military background, but... Started his very successful multi-billion dollar payment processing company, parents' basement when he was 16. His passion has always been aviation.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So he progressed, started the hobby early, 18 years old, and just worked his way up in the civilian world. And he started a civilian air show demonstration team. Former fighter pilots, former Thunderbirds, And I was not a part of that, but I had met them while they were doing air shows, just through the community. And then that's when I first met Jared.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Just landed on the moon with another robot company. So they're trying. I mean, it's all about exploration. We did it. decades ago with exploring countries and across oceans. So it's not too much far off that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then a couple years later, I'm the commander of the aggressor squadron for the Air Force. So there's two units within the Air Force that have dedicated missions of doing adversary support, OPFOR, just replicating the bad guys. China, Russia tactics, and that's your sole purpose in life versus, and there's only two units, one in Vegas and one in Alaska.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Otherwise, if you're like stationed in Italy or Korea, you're generating your own bad guys organically. So you'd be in your F-16, you'd dumb it down and simulate foreign tactics, threat tactics, help me train, and then we'd swap roles next day. It's not a very good use of resources. But there's two units dedicated to do this.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And one's in Vegas where we have a lot of the red flag exercises, the big coalition exercises. The weapons school is located there. So there's a lot of reasons why people go to Vegas to train. Airspace is good, Area 51 area. And I was the commander of that area.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
um organization so that's that was my job um and his air show gig went on for about two years and he wanted to do something bigger and he's always been a patriot service has been a big part of you know who he is and he had the resources to kind of you know develop some of this um novel ideas and one of them was let's let's turn this fleet of fighters doing air shows into a commercial adversary
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
organization. And now we can provide this service to the military, DOD, Air Force, Navy, Army in a CAS role, and the Marines. And it's going to be a fraction of the cost. So instead of doing it organically all over the world, 20 grand an hour at the cheapest, let's do something where it's a fraction of the cost using old fleets of fighters that
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
He will acquire A-4s, L-159s, F-1s, countries that are either disbanding their fleets of old fighter jets. There's not a big market out there. There's not many customers. Or they're upgrading their fleet of generation aircraft to the next level.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
so he goes out proactively and acquires a fleet from New Zealand a fleet from Czech Republic from Spain from France and builds the largest privately owned fleet of fighter jets wow um and this is while I was an aggressor so we had a little bit of interaction he's just bouncing ideas off me and just seeing if it's you know what what's the likelihood of the Air Force you know interested in this kind of concept um
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And so he builds this company, you know, build it and they will come kind of before he even had a contract. And they did put in a lot of hard work. And eventually when I retired, I was coming off Afghanistan. I'm like, the last thing I want to do is go fly airlines. That's a typical career path coming out of the military. And
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Long story short, my wife was diagnosed with cancer when I was deployed, right before I was deployed. And she's got to pick up the family, a 10, an 8, and a 6-year-old, move from a foreign country back to the US, establish care in Boston with her oncologist, and her husband's deployed to a combat zone. So God bless her and her service to her country.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I mean, it's going to rely upon innovative technologies to figure out how we, you know, because it can't be, in my opinion, this can't be a one-way mission to Mars. Yeah. And it's eight months to get there, and it's eight months home, and however long you need to do the mission on the surface. Eight months? It's eight months? Yeah. It's a long car ride, buddy. It's a long car ride.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So I was coming off of Afghanistan, and the last thing I wanted to do was go fly airlines. It's not my jam. I needed to do something different. So he was building this company, and I'm like, hey, you got any room for an old fighter pilot?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Because I was staring at like, if I stayed in the military beyond 20, it's, you know, Colonel, you're going to one year remote here and a joint staff here and you have less and less control over your career. And we didn't know what Kristen's future was going to look like with her issues.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So he brings me on the team and he secures a contract with the Air Force, just a basic proof of concept contract. Um, and that just ignited the industry turned into a $6 billion. It was like four primary players in this field and they would just acquire all these fleets of aging fighters, kind of sweeten them up with, with, uh, better avionics, more capability.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
But the platform was still kind of a third generation, fourth generation. Um, so it gave more iron in the sky for F-22s and F-35s to train against. So we established this first contract in Vegas, started supporting the Super Bowl of all Super Bowls, red flag exercises and weapons school. And we did that for about five years. That was a blast.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
But I started offline, but I'm like, I kind of want to do something different. So I got involved in the business development side. So I did that for about five years. He ends up selling the company because he's going public with his other company. And as soon as he left, the culture changed. And I lasted about a month, and I'm like, I'm out.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And so he pulls me over to shift four to do business development or strategy. Fish out of water. So I was doing FinTech, trying to figure it all out, just learning from him and his team. And they're recently gone public. It's kind of a big deal company. But he started having conversations with SpaceX.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So he starts building this relationship and it ended up being the first opportunity for a commercial flight, the first all civilian mission to space. So he secures the relationship and the contract for this mission. And he's got a core of individuals like me, and he brings us all together. And he's like, hey, here's my vision. And we're all excited. We might get to go to space.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And he's like, no, this is not taking your buddies fishing. This is something bigger. We're going to make an impact with this. So that's where we started to develop, and this was 2020, right in the middle of COVID. We came up with this concept of the first all-civilian mission in space.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
We're going to randomly select this crew, and within six months, we're going to train them for space, take elements of NASA's training, because they take three to four years before they go to space. So we obviously don't have that luxury and resources. And commercial space is about to make this huge, paradigm shift in their philosophy.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
There's only been, there was only two, I think, civilians that had been to space. One on a Soyuz, or both on a Soyuz, I think. I'm not sure. Someone's going to fact check me on that one. But this was like, this was the big deal. And so we randomly selected his crew. And we wanted to partner with a nonprofit so we could have a continued impact, positive impact on life on earth.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So we, um, well back up even a second. Um, once he pitched this idea, I'm doing whole FinTech VP of strategy. I'm like, I'll do whatever you want. This is more up my alley. And so I take on the role as the mission director. Um, that's a little, false humility on my part and the fact that a mission director sits in mission control and controls. That's not what I was doing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I was doing all the legwork, the coordination, the fundraising, logistics, sitting through the training, but more is just because I was doing all these cats and dogs. So we ended up partnering with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. because he's done other, he supported Make-A-Wish. He just, this means a lot to him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And we had this platform and this opportunity to continue to improve life on earth. But let's, you know, let's explore what's out there as well. So we ended up giving one seat to St. Jude. And then we were going to do a sweepstakes for another seat and a contest for the fourth seat. So we ended up selecting Christmas. I think it was either right after day after Christmas or not.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
We have a conversation with the CEO at St. Jude and we ended up giving one seat to Haley Arsenault. I think she was 28 at the time. She was a cancer survivor. She beat cancer when she was 10. And she went on to be a physician's assistant at St. Jude because they saved her life. Great story. She's a rock star.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So we picked her, and then we did a sweepstakes, Super Bowl commercial in 21, and that kicked off our sweepstakes to raise money for St. Jude. Everything, 100% for St. Jude. Whatever we made in this project was St. Jude. Ends up being $250 million. Wow. In less than a six-month period. So we do sweepstakes, 30 days, and then we're going to randomly pull a name out of the hat. And each seat had a
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
quality or concept behind it leadership uh hope generosity and uh prosperity were the three seats if you will jared's leadership hope was haley generosity was the sweepstakes donations and come to find out we picked a name out of a hat and the individual who was selected medically disqualified himself And so based on his generosity, he's like, I got to give the seat back.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I can't do this flight, but I appreciate that. And we're like, no, this is your seat. You can do whatever you want with it. And so he actually, through his generosity, gives it to one of his buddies who also made a donation. And that was Chris Sombroski. And then we did a contest for the last seat. And that's the whole, you know, he was an entrepreneur.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
He had many opportunities or he, you know, through his hard work, created opportunities in entrepreneurship and he's a big believer in that. So we had a contest, you know, someone who was starting a small business. And we, social media helped us, all these marketing companies that helped us. And we, a panel of celebrities picked, you know, the best video promoting their small business.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So Dr. Cyan Proctor was the individual pick for that seat. So the crew is set. it's like end of February, beginning of March, immediately pick them up, take them to training. And over the next less than six months, they go through training.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Um, and we do various things, um, for the training, um, centrifuge, the, uh, altitude chamber for pressure, uh, altitude, um, just getting an idea of your hypoxic symptoms and stuff like that. And then all the simulator training, uh, we climbed Mount Rainier for, um, some experiential training, some of the things that astronauts already do. We just kind of, fighter jets, we train them.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Damn.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Jared and I obviously flew and the other two crew members, or yeah, we'd swap the three in our back seats. So we'd give them experience in fighter jets and blah, blah. So we go, we do this and it's hair on fire for six months, just coming and going, constantly going to headquarters, SpaceX headquarters in L.A., We go to Johnson Space Center for training with NASA, collaboration elements.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then we go to Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, because all human space flight's out of there. Majority of the launches, almost 95% of them, there's been a couple that weren't off of Pad 39 Alpha. But it's the historic one, shuttles, Apollo, right there in Cape Canaveral. And then they go to space. They spent three days in orbit.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Very successful splashdown in the Atlantic, and we wrap it up in September. Did a Netflix documentary called Countdown, five-part series, kind of explains the entire project. It's pretty cool. The month leading up to their launch, conversations about the next project began because we're having too much fun. But this is, we never do things. It's always, what's the next step up?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And so we started to formulate a program, which became the Polaris program, which is a three-part, up to three missions. And it's a developmental spaceflight program. And this is analogous to Project Gemini. So if you look at NASA's history, you got initial space flight with Project Mercury. Proved that we could get to space.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then you leapfrog, that was the 50s, and then leapfrog over to the late 60s and 70s when we went to the moon. You got the Apollo program. Well, in between there, in the 60s, over a five-year span, there's 12 missions called Project Gemini. And the purpose behind that developmental program was to solve some big challenges.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
They had to figure out how to dock vehicles in space, to do a spacewalk, to do long-duration missions, longer-duration missions than Mercury, multi-crew missions. These are all things they had to solve before they headed to the moon.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So in a similar fashion, we kind of built the Polaris program off of a developmental concept where we're helping identify what challenges does SpaceX and other companies face trying to get back to the lunar surface and Mars and beyond. The first two missions of the Polaris program are aboard the Falcon 9 with the Dragon capsule.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then the third flight is supposed to be the first human space flight of Starship, which might be launching in the next couple hours, test flight eight. Wow. Largest rocket ever built, bigger than Saturn V. That's the vehicle that I believe will go back to the moon and that will go to Mars. So that's the idea behind the Polaris program.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
That was my favorite mission, was working with you guys. Seals, three-letter identifiers. Those were the best missions. Because you're supporting your brothers and sisters on the ground doing the mission. So to answer the second question, yes, I did a lot of casts. I flew the F-16 for 20 years, and it's a multi-role platform. So you do air-to-air, and it's the jack of all trades, master of none.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then the first mission we did in September, it's called Polaris Dawn. And based on our conversations with SpaceX and Elon about what do we want to accomplish, again, what challenges? Well, we got to do a spacewalk. The idea is that we want hundreds, if not thousands of people bouncing on the surface of the moon. We got to build a spacesuit. And we got to do a spacewalk.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So let's do the first commercial spacewalk. Well, we're pushing the envelope, so let's extend the capabilities of the Falcon 9 and the Dragon capsule and go further and faster, you know, further and farther than someone, anyone has been in over 50 years. And, you know, what came out of that is let's set the Earth orbit altitude record. It was originally set by Gemini 11 back in 1966.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon went up to 1368 kilometers. Put that in context, the station's right around 400. Starlink's right around 350, 300, 350 kilometers. Where do we want to go? Well, ideally, let's go touch the lower portions of the Van Allen belt, higher radiation level caused by the gravitational pull. and let's just push the envelope.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So it was about the spacewalk, it was about the altitude, and then communication is a big challenge, especially when we talk about going to Mars. Eight months, you know, the broadband requirements and the latency issues. Imagine sending back a Combite that's 30 minutes old, if not hours. It becomes obsolete at that point.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You've already solved whatever issue you're working on or your situation is a hell of a lot worse. So Starlink is the future of communication with it being laser-based. Let's see if we can get it to work from space for the very first time. Works on Earth, great. Thank you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So you're constantly dabbling in all these different modalities and mission sets. But the reason why I chose the F-16 was for the air-to-ground missions, and specifically the CAS. In fact, my last assignment was Aviano Air Base in Italy. We deployed to Afghanistan doing Resolute Support and Freedom Sentinel, doing counter-terrorism missions, dropping bombs, and working with you guys.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Very, very accurate platform. In fact, when I went through weapons school, Top Gun school, that was the focus of my thesis was integrating CAS missions with F-16s and Predator. That's a long story. But to answer his question, yeah, a lot of missions with JTACs, controllers, doing CAS. Call sign. Call sign. So it's KID. It's K-I-D-D, two Ds.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And this bearing is different. And we would be trying out all this stuff. We'd go home on Friday. We'd fly back on Monday for more training. And it's completely revamped. Hey, we're going to try out this HUD with this monocle. See what you like. Give us some feedback. And this was what it was like over the course of two and a half years going through this program is developing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And you look at the initial, like, holy shit, I'm going to space in this suit, to the final product. It was like, it was insane. Damn. And that took...
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
know decades for other eva suits to be developed and billion dollar programs this was done on you know millions i don't know how much it costs but and in two and a half years granted i mean it's umbilical so we're attached to the vehicle to pump in that oxygen nitrogen nitrox um
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
but full faith and confidence this is only you know it's probably revamped you know it's been six months they're probably on you know version six six to nine at this point on a new suit and they'll come up with some self-contained they they got it you know they're wow like I was like, I'm like the 51 year old, I'm like the oldest dude. They're all like 20 something, 30 year olds.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Brilliant, brilliant, very passionate. I just, I love that organization because Elon and Gwen, they set the vision. There's no doubt, this is the vision for the organization. But they're very flat structure where everyone is empowered. And everyone feels empowered and that just breeds and fosters this environment of passion.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So, you know, they're willing to work those long hours and long days because they're doing things that are changing the world. You know, Starlink and everything they're doing at SpaceX and what they're able to accomplish in such a short period. And they have this, you know, the fail fast mentality. Like when you see starship, if it blows up, it blows up. Doesn't matter.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
We're going to learn so much from that and they'll take it and make the next version even better.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I'll tell you, it was, yeah, we had our moments. It was tough. Yeah. Deploying to combat is one thing. You know, when you intentionally sign up to go to space on a developmental test space flight.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
um especially when you thought we were into our retirement years um yeah it was it was tough um god bless her for for hanging on and putting up with me is she glad you did it um yeah i mean certainly pride is not a great thing to to uh She's proud of all the accomplishments and what we did, and she's very thankful it's over, obviously, and I'm safe.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Like I said, she's a believer, and she knew it was in God's hands. But it's still a leap of faith, especially watching that rocket go off. Being strapped to that rocket is an unwavering level of trust. Because I'm not in control. You know, fighter jet. Yeah, yeah. I'm doing the inputs. I can control that. And oh, by the way, if shit's not working out, I can punch and eject.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Rocket ship's a lot different.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
No, everything was done different altitudes. Highly elliptical, meaning we'd go far and then pass on the backside really close. So 1,400 kilometers by 190. Our entry altitude was 1,200 by 190. So that was just to kind of go through some checks in the systems. And then after a couple orbits, we bumped up. We did some phase burns to get up to that 1400. We set the record.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
We did about eight orbits at that altitude to do some radiation testing. And then we brought it back down to 750-ish. And that's where we did the spacewalk. So was that the last thing? No, that was day three. So it was five days. So the first day bleeding into the second day was the altitudes. And then we phased down immediately. And then the third day is when we did the spacewalk.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
When you go through your career, it's usually something you F up, you screw up, or play off your name. So I got call signs like Pooter, which kind of play off Poteet. I had Biff for a while. Then I had Money, the movie Swingers back in the 90s. And then I ended up getting married, so I was no longer money. I was kind of a small change. You weren't a swinger anymore? I was never a swinger, OK?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then the rest of the days were all science and research, Starlink testing, everything else.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I mean, even strapping in, you know, I don't know if I told you, it produces 1.7 million pounds of thrust. So that's equivalent of 70 F-16s. 69 F-16s. because I'm a fighter pilot. One, F-16 is Mach 2, 1,500 miles an hour, pulling nine Gs. This thing is like the equivalent of 70. And what's the big delta? People ask me, what's it like comparing a fighter versus a spaceship?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Spaceship is I'm in control in a fighter. So if I'm not digging the G forces, I can ease off. In a spacecraft, it just continues to accelerate. Doesn't give a shit how you feel. And it's different G forces. So in a fighter jet, it's head to toe. This is the Z axis, I believe.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So it's centrifugal force that when you pull back on that stick, it's centrifugal force that causes that G force and that pulling of the blood in lower extremities, the fear of passing out because the blood leaves the brain. That's why you wear the G suit and do the G strain to kind of restrict that blood flow. That is a lot different because in a spaceship, based on the orientation of the seat,
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
The G-forces is through the chest. So it's this, and it builds up to about four and a half Gs. And so once you, you know, right before liftoff, this rocket is alive. It's venting, it's hissing, it's making all these knocks and pings. It's swaying. So the strong back gets retracted and it's just sitting there balancing, just waiting to go. And you can feel this sway. And it's just like...
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And all you're doing is watching the clock. You're strapped in. I mean, they cinch on you. You know, in Apollo 13, put your foot on, yank it. They don't mess up the suit, but it's pretty damn tight. And visor's down, and, you know, here we go.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
People always ask me, were you scared? I mean, that's a lot of anticipation. Dude, I wasn't scared. I was scared about drowning in my own pee. I peed eight times. Because we went delay after delay for weather. And I couldn't hold it. So we wear these, they're called mags, maximum absorbency garment. Depends. And I went eight times. And I'm drenched, and I'm freezing. I got trench foot.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's just like pooling. It's like I'm in the middle of this, and I'm freezing my butt off, shaking. I'm literally just shivering. I'm like, let's just get to space so I can get into some warm clothes. And then I'm thinking to myself, zero gravity. Is this going to float up into my helmet? You can just see the headline now. Astronaut drowns in his own hang. I don't know.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So that's what was going through my mind during this launch phase. But back to the launch, once the clock expires, those nine Merlin engines, they just come alive. And it's like an earthquake. It just shakes your world. You can't concentrate on anything. And it's like slow-mo because it just lifts off. And it just slowly starts to build and accelerate and faster and faster.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I'm just messing with you. Verification. But I lost the call sign money, and then I got named kid. And every fighter squadron, how you get your call sign, the naming ceremony is always different. And I was in the Triple Nickel, 555th Fighter Squad, a very historic Robin Oles from the Vietnam War, the best fighter squad in the Air Force.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And the first segment is 2 and 1 half minutes. And you're watching the clock. And you're watching your profile. And you're going up. It's an inclination of 51.6 degrees. And it takes you right up the coastline. And the reason why is if anything happens, the capsule ejects off the booster and splash down in the Atlantic Ocean.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So you have all those resources along the coast versus going directly out over the Atlantic and now you're in the middle of the ocean and you never get recovered kind of thing. So it's accelerating and you're going faster and faster and faster. And two and a half minutes is you're waiting for MECO, main engine cutoff.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
and the G forces start to build up and it's four and a half G. So it just feels like somebody is just sitting on your chest. And there's a lot of pressure on the neck. So it's hard to talk and breathe. And it's just, it's an endurance event. So in a fighter jet, it's just, you pulse nine Gs and you deplete your energy state. So you can't sustain nine Gs.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
But four and a half for two and a half minutes is fairly intense. And then Miko happens. And when Miko happens, it's just a big old boom. And you get launched forward in your straps and you float because of that deacceleration.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
because that you know you're no longer connected to the booster and you're waiting for the separation to happen and it's the longest 10 seconds of your life because you have to have the adequate separation for the second stage to light this is a big old uh maryland vacuum engine it's only one engine but it's massive 220 000 pounds of thrust for one engine and as soon as that light it as soon as that engine light it's just a bam you're back in the seat and now you're you're on a six minute ride
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And those G-forces build back up to four and a half. And now you're just on this trajectory. Eventually you get to about 200 kilometers and you level off because you're kind of above the atmosphere and you're just accelerating and you're trying to get as fast as possible. And you get up to 17,500 miles an hour is orbital velocity. This keeps you in orbit.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Otherwise you get pulled back down into earth because gravity is constantly pulling on you even at 17,500, but you're just falling. in the same orbit all around Earth. But if you go slower, eventually gravity pulls you back into the atmosphere. You hit all the gases in the atmosphere and you slow down, drag. But once you get up there, you accelerate, 17.5 Mach 25, you're going five miles a second.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And you're waiting for that CCO to happen, second stage cutoff. And that's where that second stage will separate. And when that happens again, it's just this boom. you've separated and now you're floating, and now you're in that transition, that fluid shift, organs are shifting, brain lift. Did I explain this? I don't even remember if I did or not. A little bit.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I talked about the space adaptation, the disorientation, that tumbling. Other things that happen is the fluid in your body is shifting. So it's free floating. So your organs are actually kind of moving around. And your brain is floating in CSF, but gravity's pulling on it. Well, up there, it starts to shift up and it floats inside your skull. And it causes this like space fog.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's almost like this fullness. And if you see images of us, we look full, like bloated, swollen. It's almost like if you hang upside down from your bed, that blood rush, it's just constant. And it's something you have to get used to. And it can have an impact. Like I had this chronic headache, mild headache. I actually did an experimental surgery for this mission a couple years prior.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
One of the big concerns is intracranial pressure. So the fluid in your spine, the CSF in your brain, the pressure changes zero gravity. So it actually applies pressure to the ocular nerve and changes the shape of your eyeball. It flattens your eyeball and it affects the visual acuity. And that actually can cause temporary blindness. A couple of astronauts have had temporary blindness.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
How we did the ceremony is you're kicked out so they can talk about you. Just usually it's a drink fest. So you don't really hear the reasons why you get named until you get brought back into the ceremony. and they've selected a couple different stories of why. There's usually one that's PG, that's releasable, and then there's another reason why.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So you imagine the concern, you're on your way to Mars and you go blind or you lose significant visual acuity. We don't know much about it because we've only done non-invasive experiments, contact lenses that take pressure measurements, little guns you squeeze and point into the eye, take measurements, but those are all non-invasive. They're not as accurate as we would like.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And NASA being somewhat risk adverse, there's never been an invasive experiment. There's no real volunteers, and commercial isn't really a thing yet. Well, kid's dumb enough. Yeah, I'll do it. So I signed up for this experimental surgery where they're going to surgically implant a transducer into my underneath my rib cage. And that transducer takes measurements.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And it's got a catheter that runs up into my spinal column. So they drill a hole into my spinal column, and they slide up about 10 centimeters of this catheter. And now that fluid can flow into the transducer, and we have this wand. you know, brush the wand over the transducer, and it takes a measurement. So you take measurements before, during, and after.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And now you can understand the pressure changes so we can learn more about it. Unfortunately, I did the surgery, and for some reason, the technique used, the catheter backs out of my spinal column, and so I just have a big hole leaking CSF. And that was debilitating. I couldn't function. I literally just... you know, lay down.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I couldn't, I couldn't, you know, it's just this massive, massive headache. And I have the most, utmost respect for hydrocephalus patients. The swelling of the brain is just absolutely debilitating. So they had to do emergency blood patch into my spinal column. And then eventually I had to do another surgery to remove all the shit in my, I had 11 surgeries. The one year leading up to space. Damn.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Random shit. Appendix, gallbladder, ERCPs, this, hernias, you name it. Old.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
1408.1 is the record, which will be broken in no time once we continue to explore and push the envelope. And then we did that for eight orbits because the radiation level was a concern. cycles on the hardware, software, as well as the human body. Didn't want to expose too much. It was the equivalent of like three to four months living on the ISS, what they're exposed to in our eight orbits.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's a pretty intense band of radiation called the Van Allen belts. And then we brought it down to 750-ish, I think it was. You were up there for how many days, three days? No, up there was just eight orbits. So 106 minutes times eight, whatever that equals, hour and a half, I don't know, 12 hours, 12, 14 hours.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
No, there was – I wish I had pictures – Do you have pictures? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. iPhone. We took thousands of pictures with our iPhone. Can you send me some? Absolutely. They're all over the internet. We have a Flickr page I'll send you that's got really cool videos, time lapse. The best pictures actually are from outside the capsule. It looks like CGI. Looks fake. It's not. Just like the moon.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So the releasable story is that kid, I looked young back in the day. My first name is actually William, so Billy the kid. There was already a kid in the sister squad on the 510th, the Buzzards, but he was KID. So they added an extra D, and there's other reasons why it ended up being kid. Come on, we'll see other reasons. Yeah. Come on. This was J.D., Jack Daniels. I might be able to.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
But they modified, again, standard SpaceX badass. They had a camera outside, a selfie cam with a fisheye lens outside the hatch, the nose cone. So it had this beautiful picture of the spacewalk, just time lapse of all the evolution of the light, all that stuff. So I'll send you plenty. So could you see the whole? No. You could see a good portion of it. But we weren't far enough away.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
There was enough underneath. And windows aren't that great. I mean, there's two windows. They're about that big. And then the Ford hatch, the actual hatch has a window in it. What's it like looking out into nothing? Very eerie. Sometimes you depend on the lighting, but you can see stars, and sometimes you couldn't.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Especially when the Dracos are firing, all you see is this hue of yellows and reds from the fuel exhaust. But there were times where it's just billions of stars. I mean, more than you could ever imagine. We did see constellation of Starlink. It passed, like, 70 kilometers away-ish, which is pretty close, I mean, relatively speaking. They track all that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's called MMOD, micrometeorite orbital debris. Any shit that's, you know, worthy of, well, anything that big would put a hole in your capsule, but... What was, I mean, what was...
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Oh, yeah. No, it was constant. We packed a lot. 10 pounds of shit into a six-pound sock. It was a lot. Because we wanted to make it, I mean, how many astronauts have there been? You know, we've got to maximize this opportunity and leverage every minute and second we have. So we had a very intense timeline. And then you talk about all the adaptation to the environment.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's just like you're challenged. Any downtime? Sleep. I slept maybe three, four hours a night if I was lucky. It's tough. I mean, if you're a back sleeper, it's okay. Because by the time you fall asleep, you're flat as a board, levitating like exorcist type above the bed. And these seats are like bucket seats, almost like a racing kind of seat.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
But you loosely connect the seatbelt because you'd float away. But by the time you fall asleep and falling asleep is tough because since you're floating, you feel like you're falling. So it was just the, once you hit like REM, it's like you get startled and wake up because you feel like you're falling. And so you go through this cycle until eventually you get so tired. I'm just, you fall asleep.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then when you wake up, you're just this flat as a board. Wow. We'd have these little down sleeping bags, just these little profile kind of things for comfort. Jared would sleep up on the top. I think Sarah slept on the bottom. I slept in my seat. It was just wherever you could find space. What are you guys eating? So people ask, what does mountaineering have to do with space flight?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Well, there's a lot of consistencies. You know, when you climb a mountain, and we did... One of our guides took us, Ed Visers. I don't know if you know Ed. He's the only American to summit all 14 8,000-meter peaks without oxygen. American. Anyways, he took us down to... Cotopaxi, Ecuador, in 19,328 foot volcano. Multiple days, get up close to the summit.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
By the time you get up there, man, you're hungry, you're dehydrated, you're sleep deprived, you're dealing with oxygen, you know, issues with altitude. You're in confined space on the tent and very consistent to how you feel in a capsule. And this gets to your question. You're just not that hungry. You're eating camp food. because we're going to bring this entire capsule down to vacuum.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So if there's a lot of water in any of the food, it just dabs it. It's just going to freeze it, and it's not going to taste good. So we had a little bit of fresh food to kick off. Cold pizza, these empanadas, and little Hawaiian roll sandwiches. Otherwise, that was gone. I was the only one eating. I mean, I'm, you know, being an endurance guy, I'm just like, rah.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And I felt great, so my crew members were like, You're a kid. And so I was the only one eating this stuff. But otherwise, it's like cliff bars, beef jerky, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Just to sustain until you get five days, five days. I mean, you didn't really want to sleep, but you felt like you had to do something. You want to make the most of it. But all of our time was science and research.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then the prep leading up to the spacewalk, that was a big deal.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Couple minutes here and there. Yeah. Because in the brightness of the sun, it's not worthy of pictures. So it's not like we're focused because it's so bright and it's dark in the capsule. So it's really tough photography-wise. It was more the transitions that were like, oh my god, that's amazing. um, the thin blue line. And then as sunrise and sunsets happened, that, that was really cool.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
The low altitudes catching, you know, crossing over, you know, Egypt and the Gaza or, uh, Giza and the Nile and Suez and Israel, that was beautiful. Because your profile, the way you fly around the Earth, it's pretty consistent. You're descending over Europe into Africa, India, Australia, and then you start climbing back up through the U.S. and then back down.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's just how the orbit is with the rotation. Interesting. How long would it take to orbit the Earth? It's 106 minutes for our orbit. Wow. It's usually like 90 minutes for the station, hour and a half to get around. We were an hour and 46 minutes. That's because of this highly elliptical profile that we did. The furthest is called the apogee, and that was 1408.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then the lowest, closest on the backside of that orbit is called perigee, and that was the 190 kilometers, which is like you're skimming the atmosphere. It's close. Wow. So we were just doing, you would catch a glimpse while you're doing all the science and research, blood samples and simple stuff that we don't think about that we have to solve for, like triage.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You stick 100 passengers on a starship that's headed to Mars, shit's going to happen. cardiac arrests, you're gonna have to incubate, CPR, whatever. Those aren't easy things to do, especially in the volume of like a starship where you don't have leverage per se. Whereas a small capsule, we had to do a CPR test. little compression thing, little trainer kind of thing. Click, click, click.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So I was born in 73, 51. We were born in Chattanooga, but I was actually, I lived five years just across the border, North Deepwoods, Georgia. Middle to low income fam. A lot of connections with Fort Oglethorpe, Chickamauga Park, kind of the, my uncle had a double wide and half the trailer was a private collection. I think he had one of the largest private collections of Civil War artifacts.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And just simply getting leverage to do CPR for two minutes. Because it's equal and opposite reaction. You push, and now you're floating. Yeah, how do you get leverage? You just put your feet on the ceiling. And so you'd have to move the patient over to one seat, because you can't get to the patient underneath the other two seats. You've got to think about every little detail. airway assessment.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So the shape, everything changes shape-wise. So your airway becomes more constricted. So if you're going to incubate and need to stick something down someone's throat, it's a different shape. So we don't know exactly what those changes are. So I did a endoscope camera exam of my airway. So this camera, this long little antennae,
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Just stick it down the nose, down to the airway, and you're taking images before, during, and after the flight. And all the smart people will go back and take this information. CGMs. Someone's going to have diabetes who goes to space. A simple CGM little device doesn't work so well in space. So just simple stuff, drawing blood, because as soon as blood, it's floating.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So you're so used to gravity on some of these devices that draw blood, they weren't working in space. So we had to test new ones to draw blood. So what, does there have to be suction? There's a little bit. It's like part of it was centrifugal force. The one we tested didn't work.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
it was a device you just slap on you push a button and it's supposed to like draw but it it was having difficulties because zero gravity the fluid is just floating man Another cool test was it was an ambulance in a box, literally just a suitcase, Pelican case, and it had all these leads.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And so you go in cardiac rest, we're sticking all these leads on doing a, and we can do an EKG and oxygen, blood pressure, pulse, anything and everything. All that's fed through Starlink down to the smart doctors on earth. And they can monitor patients from space with this new device. And it's never been tested before.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Yeah, it's... I think getting down to vacuum. Especially looking out into nothing. That was... The fear came before that. And it was as you started to go down to vacuum. Because this suit, it's the only spacesuit that is a single panel of a visor. this iridium, whatever glow gold plated kind of thing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Um, it is the only suit that is a single layer, you know, the EMU suits they wear, they're multi-layered and, you know, different shades and stuff like that. Um, so it's literally just this thin between you and death, you know, cause if, if you lose pressure, pray that it's a slow leak and you can repressurize the capsule in time, but
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Yeah, I didn't want to think about that too much. But you're watching the one on the HUD, because that's your suit pressure. And it should be additional 5 psi D above whatever the capsule is. So if we're at like 10, I'm reading 15. And then as it comes down, eventually I see 5. And I know the capsule, we're in a vacuum. So we can just simply open the hatch.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And so that is just a, and then it's just this whole compartmentalize, the box breathing, you know, I'm just, because you're in this confined space. And if you're claustrophobic at all, I mean, there were events in training where you're,
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Playing along with the scenario when you're rushing around because something happened is, you know, an emergency situation and the visor is down and it's 12 layers thick. And the idea is to retain your heat. But that is a huge concern because at some point you cross a threshold where your body can't cool itself anymore. You're just going to cook inside the suit. because it can't cool fast enough.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
The airflow isn't that great. There's some vents right here just right by the visor and the gas from the umbilical. But if you catch yourself overheating too fast, it's a point of no return kind of feeling. And you start to have this hyperventilation feeling because you're just trying to calm yourself down.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I just remember as a kid rummaging into his collection. There's really cool stuff like bullets with teeth marks, ceramic bullets from amputations, biting the bullet, the whole concept. Those are some of my memories as a kid. But when I was five, we moved. My dad worked for a company called Combustion Engineering. He worked there for 50 years, worked up from janitor all the way up to a manager.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And so you would experience this in training because you're jumping all around and you're at 1G having to fight the pressure of this suit. And it's just, so it's almost like that meditative state you had to get into for this spacewalk because of, You did not want to ever get yourself anywhere near.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I never did, especially where I was sitting and what I did, my role during the spacewalk, because I stayed in my seat. So we only had enough gas. to send two astronauts out at 15 minute increments. That's all we had. But technically the hatch, it's literally right there. I mean, space is right there. I just didn't get to stick my head out. Wanted to, but I'm locked in my seatbelt.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And same with Anna. And then Jared and Sarah were the ones that, in the middle seats, did the swap. So it was one at a time? One at a time. That's all it fits. Because you're pressurized. So the volume in the capsule, when you're pressurized, especially Jared's not a small human. He's 6-something, 6'2", or 6'1". I don't know what he is. But he takes up a lot of that volume.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I'm just a widow guy, and I'm over my side, and Anna's over her side, and Sarah's small. So enough room for him to get up, do his thing, 15 minutes, did some mobility testing out there. I mean, outside. Mm-hmm.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You have a Kevlar cord for Tether, and then you have the umbilical. And then I guess I could grab him if I had to. What are they doing out there?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
mobility tests um he got a beautiful view so as soon as he opened the hatch well we actually had an issue with the hatch opening you know i can talk about but as soon as he got the hatch open man earth just filled that entire it was it was unbelievable um and i got a great view of it and jerry got a great view about halfway through his window sunset happened. So it got all black.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So Sarah actually went out and it was just black. We were in the eclipse of the planet. So it was pretty dark when she went out. There's ambient light from the capsule and there's lights up there and she's got a light on her visor, but it's our camera.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
But the hatch, so our protocol was, Jared is going, once we get down to vacuum, everything's good, he's going to unlock it, break the seal, get out of the way, and it's gonna be automated. Because they were concerned about him exerting too much force and generating heat, and that was a big concern. Well, as soon as he unlocked and broke the seal, it would automatically close on its own.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Come to find out, the residual pressure from our suits was forcing the hatch to close. So he would open a little bit more, but it wasn't enough. Finally, again, based on the training that we went through and the rehearsals and these scenarios, it was meant for it. Our backup game plan was just to do a manual, Jared's just going to open the hatch. So that was the first issue.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
The only issue that we had was he had to default to a manual hatch opening, which was kind of cool. And so he opens it, and there's Earth. And he goes outside. First commercial spacewalk. It was... Wow. It was surreal. And a lot of people, there were a lot of doubters out there. You know, social media is an evil thing, but a lot of people doubted.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
what we were doing what spacex was able to accomplish um i'm sure elon gets it constantly i mean just starting the rocket business and doing boosters landing on you know on drone ships and now catching boosters with chopsticks it's it's it's Not a matter of if, it's just when. When are we going to accomplish all these things? And so he comes back in, and then Sarah goes out.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
But he got transferred up to New Hampshire Seacoast. So we moved to a town called Durham and pretty much started grade school there. in the town of Durham. I actually went grade school, elementary, middle school, high school, and college all in the same town. Really? But stayed there all the way through college. What were you into as a kid? What's that? What were you into? Sports. Sports?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then she gets her 15 minutes. And then we're just, our role underneath was just to manage the umbilical cords and safety, monitoring the systems. Because if anything happens, it's like abort, abort, abort, get back inside, close the hatch, repressurize. And we could, you know, we could live in those suits for hours, if not days, pressurized.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And we would eventually, you know, repressurize and deorbit if anything ever happened. Man.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You know, it's absolutely inevitable. I believe it, for sure. It's going to happen, the concept of launching these starships. And as soon as it starts taking off,
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
the first human it's it's not going to be long after that it's because they're already building out the it's called eclipse or the architecture the infrastructure inside these they have prototypes of um they got them down at star uh star base in in texas where they do the launches um these mock-ups of what it would look like in theory and it's almost like these um Thank you. Thank you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I was very competitive, obsessively competitive.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
80s so i was big into like um the celtics the red sox we would always go to games um uh patriots uh as well as on the bruins um but it was it was obsessive to the point of you know i would uh sacrifice all my friends and foes to get to the front of line for whatever you know lining up for class and it ended up you know parent teacher conferences trying to figure out ways to kind of channel that
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
gladiator attitude I had. A little bit of bribery. I kind of was able to figure out how to channel it to something a little more productive, which became sports. So sunup to sundown. Back on the day when you actually could stay out past sunset as a kid, riding your bike and just looking for my next contest of how to compete. And that was my childhood. And it became- You have siblings?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Older brother, year and a half older. Um, great relationship. Um, family was a little bit, um, I would say maybe unemotional, um, kind of kept to ourselves. Um, but I would spend my time just roaming, looking for, looking for trouble. What sports? Um, I played everything. Um, baseball, soccer, basketball was big throughout my life. Um, I got a job at the golf course, so I picked up golf.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Oh, I did?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Oh, the first podcast in space. I think that is definitely, that's right up your alley, man. That would be awesome. We got the connectivity for it, for sure. Yeah, shit, we could do it live. Why not? You got to pick your, who would you interview? All right, let's turn the tables. Let me ask you questions. Who would you interview in space?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Would you go? Yeah. To space? That was actually one thing that, upon reflection, getting down, you know, I'm trying to make sense of it all, and I keep on... Ego-wise, I bring it back to myself and what was the significance of it all and blah, blah, blah. And then I have the conversation with people and they're like, oh my God, what was it like?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
They immediately go into this mental simulation where they put themselves in the situation. And it's a... Hell no, there's no way I'll go. I just don't know if I could do that or I'll sell my firstborn to go to space kind of attitude. And that's what makes me realize, okay, stop making it about yourself. It's so much more than that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's about inspiring this next generation to want to go, to be that person,
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And it's not just the moon and Mars. It's going to be low Earth orbit as well. They're going to create habitable structures whether it's a bunch of stars. The volume in a Starship is equivalent to the ISS. So the entire structure of the ISS up there is the same as a Starship. So now, SpaceX has dozens of these lined up down there and just waiting to launch to test.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
They can manufacture these, and they give us the numbers when we go down there for tours and stuff. It's crazy. It's mind-blowing how quickly they can build these rockets. And they're only getting more and more efficient. You know, that's his business model. It's like, okay, widget X, the productions of widget X by company Y is slowing us down.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Let's bring this in-house, 3D print it, and do it ourselves. And that takes out that whole delay. So, you know, they become more and more efficient. And again, these engineers are empowered to do that. You know, with the... with the ability to take risk as needed, safety always being the primary concern, to be able to create all these starships.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And it will be reality when they're launching all the time, constantly. And now you take these starships, one of them, how about docking three, four of these together? And now you have three or four space stations up there. Create hotels and, you know, whatever. Research labs and 3D print some organs.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's been an honor. Thank you. Honor's mine, man. I just appreciate the opportunity. What you're doing is absolutely amazing. All the power to you. I wish you a lot of success because you're changing lives and just getting the message out, whatever it might be. This is the message that people need to hear. Not necessarily my story, but all the things and people you interview and
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You've talked about, like DJ, he would never have a platform like this. And now everyone knows his story and the sacrifices that he's made. And there's dozens and dozens more like DJ that you're allowing this opportunity. We owe you the thanks, brother. It's cool to be able to do it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Started... It was a good golfer. I played on the high school team as a middle schooler, but then they cut the team. So I had to figure out another sport, which became running. So I actually got involved, um, in running pretty early on. And that became my focus. Um, I wanted basketball to be it, you know, Larry Bird back in the, uh, Celtics era in the eighties was a big deal.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So, um, but I was a realist, you know, five foot nine inches tall. I knew it wasn't, you know, A likelihood of, it wasn't in the cards, playing at the next level in college. Terrible, terrible student. C's and D's across the board. Really? Yeah. I couldn't focus before all the diagnosis, but I just couldn't pay attention.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I was really good at setting athletic goals and succeeding on the pitch, the field, the dime, and the track, but I could not apply those same strategies in the classroom. And it was by the time I got to high school, I'm like, all right, I'm not going to college if I don't figure out a path. And for me, it was like, okay, I'm okay at sports.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Let me see if I can leverage those talents and use that as a path, you know, to getting to college. So that's when I focused on running, ended up winning the state championship race my junior year. And it was kind of that performance and my dedication to the sport that got me recruited to run division one at University of New Hampshire.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I applied to UNH, that school, and University of Tennessee at Knoxville. And that was it. And I got recruited. And I only got in because of the coach. So the plan worked. So the plan worked, thankfully. But even the college, man, academics was just the traditional education method is not my jam. Yeah.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You know, sit through class, pay attention, take notes, memorize, regurgitate it in an exam that you may or may not use this information in your life. So that's kind of where I found a different option. What was your major? What did you? It's called outdoor education. What is that? So it's education through experiential learning. So how that is different is that you're taught a basic skill set.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So all my classes were like scuba diving, rock climbing, winter mountaineering, whitewater rafting, Nordic skiing, advanced backpacking. I actually had an advanced backpacking class. And you would go and you would be taught some basic skills, but you immediately go out into the field and you apply these and you learn in the field. And it was only by happenstance that I came across.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
My buddy of mine brought me to class one day. In fact, I remember it was, I signed up for ROTC, another kind of a serendipitous moment that I had joining ROTC, but I was already signed up and I'm in full service dress. And it's the middle of the winter, three feet of snow on the ground, and he's like, hey, come with me to one of my outdoor education classes. I'm like, OK.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I'm very impulsive, so I'm like, all right, let's do this. So I go to class, and it's in a gymnasium. It's not in a normal classroom. And there's students in the back of the class in the storage lockers going through all this gear. And I'm in my full service, just hand-me-down polyester uniform, a big trench coat, cheap patent leather shoes, and stand out like a sore thumb.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And we walk up to the class, and the teacher starts talking. And he's like, all right, this is advanced winter backpacking, and we're going to build a Quincy. in the snow for the next three hours. And I'm like, I'm not dressed for this. And I don't know if this is going to work out. Well, come to find out, my teacher is a Navy SEAL. He was a Navy SEAL for 20 years.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And he takes us out back and we start building this Quincy. And for those who are unfamiliar, Quincy is like an igloo. But instead of blocks, you know, you dig down to the surface, you pile a bunch of snow up, you let it set. Once it's set into a big old dome, you kind of dig a little entrance. Once you get inside, you dig all around. You leave about four to six inches for a wall.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You take a little profile. dug it all out, you take a little propane stove, you light it, you glaze, heat up the inside, it glazed over, and now you have this impenetrable structure, this winter shelter. And you get, you know, 12, 15 people to stand on top of the structure. It's only four to six inches, and it holds the weight.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I appreciate that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And now it's like 20, 30 degrees warmer inside this igloo, this Quincy. And man, I have a blast. I am soaking wet. I'm just on my hands and knees digging this structure, and he's giving all these life lessons, talking about combat, because he's, you know, I'm wearing this uniform, and it was just like this profound experience. And I'm like...
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
This is the way I can get an education, earn a degree so I can go in the military because I didn't think, you know, I've got three and a half years left. to get a degree in order to go into the military because of the ROTC program. And I'm like, my grades aren't cutting it right now, but this is something. Why did you pick ROTC? What caught your interest in that anyways?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So I was walking to class freshman year, fall semester one day, and this flyer on a bulletin board caught my eye. And it was a picture of a fighter jet. And it was just an advertisement encouraging students to come experience the Air Force way of life. Sign up to be a passenger aboard a KC-135 air refueling aircraft at the local Air National Guard unit out of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
P's used to be an Air Force base, STRATCOM. They launched F-111s on alert there. It was actually an alternate landing site for the space shuttle back in the shuttle program. Heated runway, 13,000 feet long. Anyways, they have a guard unit there, KC-135s. Now it's the KC-46, the replacement refueler in the Air Force. And I'm impulsive. I sign up. You know, and when I signed up, I...
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I didn't fully grasp the consequences of my actions, because here's a couple of secrets about myself that's probably going to jeopardize credibility. Extremely prone to motion sickness. What? Always have been, always will be. You stick me an Uber, 15 minutes long, I'm done. Are you kidding me? I still get nauseous. Scared of heights. I hate heights. Me too.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Actually, Afghanistan, they took us up in a helicopter. I was a command position. And the PJs took me up in a helicopter, and they knew I was scared of heights. And doors open up at like 14,000 feet. Man, it freaked the shit out of me. Anyways, and I'd never flown an aircraft before in my life. At 18 years old, we didn't have the money to go anywhere. But here's my chance.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I'm going to sign up, and I'm going to go. So I command, I sign up, and bus takes us, big old school bus drops us off at the plane, and we board this aircraft, and I take my seat. And again, I'd never been in an aircraft, and it's hot. It's dark. There's no windows in this gutted plane. A couple seats up front, and I start to panic. I'm like, holy shit. I start sweating. I get, you know, I get...
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Heart rate goes up, breathing shallow. And I'm like, I don't want to do this. How do I get out? But there's a couple of cute girls next to me. I can't back out now. I got to man up. And so air crew comes out and briefs us on what we can anticipate. And they're like, all right, we're going to start off with some low approaches, do some training. I'm like, I have no idea what that is.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Let's do this. And we're going to go out to the airspace and refuel some F-16s. And so close the door and take off. And they immediately level off. And they come back around. And they land and take off again. 20 minutes into this flight, I just lose my lunch. I'm puking. It's like a scene out of Alien. It's just bad. And I pass out.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Two hours later, crew chief wakes me up, says, hey, son, come with me. walks me back to the observation where they do the refueling. The boom operator sits back there. And I'm like working my way up there, just trying not to puke on anyone or anything. And he takes a seat and starts doing his pre-fueling checks and trying to distract me. And I take the observation seat next to him.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And he's like, all right, there's two fighters on the horizon. They're about to reform. And I pull up to within a couple feet of our window. And man, it's like a scene out of Top Gun. There's a Fighter pilot, he's wearing his helmet, his mask. He's giving me a little shock. Boom, plugs the aircraft, and we start communicating. He's asking questions. He's telling us about his mission.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I'm just like... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Thank you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Oh, no, no.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
How did you overcome the motion sickness? It took a long, long time. A lot of driving. I actually had to hide it from my instructors. Thankfully, the 38 is, you know, is that tandem? You know, it's front and back. Yeah. And you're separated. Where the 37 was next to each other. So you see exactly what's going on in the cockpit. But in 38, you're in front. But I would have to puke and swallow.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I would literally puke in my mask and just suck it up because you get to a certain point where, you know, depending on what your issue is. You would just puke in your mask? Yeah.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
If you can hold it long enough, you can either.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
If you do have to, my recommendation is always eat something you don't mind eating again. Bananas is a good choice. I remember one time, my first... So you would puke and then swallow it again? You just got to fight through it. And then what happened again? I had a great instructor. He was Norwegian, and he... Hardcore dude, loved to party.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Drove this old 1980s Cadillac with the big old steer horns on the hood, hood ornament. He was awesome. He was sympathetic to my cause. So he would know, because I'd be doing this heaving going on, and I'm trying to fly this aircraft and pay attention. especially the aerobatics once you get to the airspace. But my first flight in a 38, I thought I was over it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Why? Oh, man. I think we just shifted our focus as a country. NASA had different priorities once we went to the moon, which I do believe we have. You do think we did? I do.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Six months, all right, it's getting a little better, getting a little better. Because eventually you get to a point where they stick you in the barony chair to force it out of you, try to just break your will. None of that was working for me. And I would just hide it. via techniques already talked about. But my first flight in the 38, man, it came on so quick.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It just, it came out of my mask and all over my visor. And I'm like doing this windshield wiper, trying to clear my visor because my pilot's in the back. And I suffer through a well below average execution on my dollar ride my first flight. And I think I made it. I think I made it. And he climbs out of it. And he climbs up into my cockpit. And he's looking around. And he goes, not a chance.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Absolutely. There's only like 650 astronauts that have gone into space. So blessed to have that opportunity and just excited to talk about it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Because there's puke all over the dashboard of this. So I didn't pass that ride.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Shit. Yeah. And you still wanted to be a pilot? Oh, yeah. Holy shit, man. Yeah, I was determined. Yeah. stubborn strong-willed ego and i don't know what it was but i'm like i have i can't fail this is i gotta figure it out because there's one kid um in my class that left he just i'm done i got tapping out i'm out um but i just i wanted to figure it out um You know, you do.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I mean, I eat a greasy pork sandwich and go do aerobatics, as long as I'm flying. Stick me in the back seat and someone else is flying. So you have overcome it? Yeah. Okay. You know, people talk, is it physiological, is it psychological? I think it's a combination of a lot of things. Inner ear. Thankfully, space is not, there's no correlation.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Cause space adaptation syndrome impacts 50% of astronauts. What is it called? Space adaptation syndrome. And it's, cause you, and we'll get to it, but like you experienced all these G forces on the way up and then it's a long ride. So it's about nine minutes, you're pulling four and a half G's.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then when that second stage separates, you're thrust forward, you're hanging in your straps and now you're in space floating. And so that transition, It can force this cross coupling illusion of tumbling and it impacts everyone differently. It can be seconds, it can be minutes, it can be long durations of this tumbling and it's different axis depending on who you are.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I don't know. I mean, I would imagine there would have been a lot more leaks out there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And puking in space with zero gravity. Oh man. You saw the movies, you know, Apollo 13. I was ecstatic. I was on cloud nine. I was on a drugged man. I was so pumped once I realized I got to orbit. I'm floating. I get through this tumbling sensation. Because you're forced to deal with your circumstances. There's no like, I'll suck this up for 30 seconds on a roller coaster.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Or you're flying a fighter jet. Can you ease off and fly straight and level for a few potatoes? No. You are forced to deal with your circumstances. There's no reset button. And that's that's very challenging because that capsule is rotating. You know, it's got to maintain line of sight with satellites for for communication purposes. So as it's going around, it's rotating.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So you look outside and you see the horizon and that makes sense. This is the top of the capsule and this is the bottom. You come inside, you float around and you look back outside and it's completely opposite because it's and now it's like, whoa. After a while, your body adapts, and the human body is amazing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You know, I would be, you know, a couple hours into it, I'd be on my iPad, laptop, whatever, iPhone, doing some science and research. I'd be completely inverted, working, just hanging inverted when that's the top and that's the bottom, but it just, you lose all reference. But back to... Wow. Back to motion sickness. Yeah, I... More or less got over it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I still get, especially if someone's a shitty driver. Wow. Wow. That's more information than... Any other hurdles? That was it for pilot training. It was academics and the motion sickness. Fair heights I got over. Planes are fine. It's structures. Yeah. Ledges. I have that too.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
okay i figured that i hate i yeah yeah jump school was not fun for me yeah i fucking hated it yeah terrified of heights we we've uh went uh free dive or free free diving yeah skydiving um part of the space training and jumping out of a plane was oh shit you had to do it oh yeah
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
That's it. But I had a bum shoulder. So this is the only program. I don't even know if we want to go here. But it was with the Air Force Academy. It's the only program in the world that is the first jump is free fall and solo. What? Yeah.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Unfortunately, I had hurt my shoulder. years back, dislocated it. And I actually dislocated it in space training, in the capsule, in full-on space suit. And it's this emergency procedures. We just splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. And now we got to do this emergency egress. So it's, you know, rush. See how quickly we can get out of the capsule.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So my responsibility as the swimmer with all my Ironmans was to get out first. And I got to throw the boat, the inflatable boat out in the water and pull the cord. And as I'm pulling, it completely dislocate my shoulder. And so this was an injury from years prior, so now I have this... I was able to get it back in because these suits, these are expensive suits.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And the docs came in and were trying to get my shoulder back in. But I'm in this suit. I mean, it's helmet. It's one piece. There's no way you can get up into the shoulder. So over time, we were able to finally pop it back in. And that event kind of just let this, like, you know, all stretched out. Yeah. So it was, but skydiving didn't help.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Give me a break. It's not easy. There's a sequence of miracles that happened. I mean, think about the computer power of what they had back in the Apollo program. We have more in our iPhones these days.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Actually, my first jump, I had to pull with my left hand. Worked out fine, but that kind of ended my skydiving career until I had surgery post space. Damn.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
No, I don't think I've ever been that deep. Shoreline and... off the Atlantic in the north is pretty shallow. I get it. I get it on that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I was just, I think I was fourth or fifth out of 12. And then we had some NATO country. We had two Dutch, two Dane, two German. So we had a big class, 20 or so. I think I was... fourth, fifth, sixth, somewhere right around there. What's everybody want? Honestly, it depends on what you, what mission you want to do. Because they all kind of function the same.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So it wasn't an easy task. And then once it was accomplished, in my opinion, the focus shift to low Earth orbit, building a station, accomplish the science and research that has been the focus for the last few decades. Amazing things have come out of that. You can do a lot more at zero gravity. with the science and research.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I mean, well, if you ask a pilot who's flown them, there's certainly big dramatic differences.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
No. So my drop, again, Air Force needs. My drop had, I want to say, four F-15Cs. Didn't have any 15Es, which is the two-seat strike platform. It's the Mud Hen, it carries a lot of munitions. Air to ground mission, but you have a WIZO. You got a backseater. Four, five F-16s, two A-10s, and then it's like, there might be a couple instructor, to go right back into pilot training to be an instructor.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
if you don't end up in a fighter jet that you wanted. It's kind of an option. And then there was some bombers, B-52, B-1, And so when I picked, I had the choice between a 15C and a 16. And I wanted a multi-role platform. I wanted to do air-to-ground. I wanted to do CAS. But I also loved the sexiness of an air-to-air mission, dogfighting and doing that type of mission. And the F-16 is multi-role.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So depending on what base you go to will be the focus of your mission. Like I ended up, first assignment was Korea, then I went to Italy, and then I went to weapons school. But those first, Korea was all about interdiction. You know, there's going to be an initial air threat if we ever go to war with North Korea. It's going to be capacity.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
They're just going to overwhelm you with these teenage MiGs, these old, antiquated weapons. third-gen-type platforms. No capability and no competency, but they're just going to try to overwhelm the South. Have you ever wound up in a dogfight? No.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
No, all simulated. They're very, very rare. Back in World War II in Vietnam, since then, it's been a handful.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Man, that would be fucking awesome. It would be awesome. But technology these days, it's all about not being seen.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So if you get to emerge, it's because either you screwed up or you just didn't get the information you needed. Yeah. Yeah. So I ended up in the F-16 was my choice.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And part of it is about the location as well. So you leave prior training with a specific airframe. And then once you get to that base for training, for me, it was Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix. You spend six months learning how to fly the F-16 to employ it. So now you've gone from the very basics, flying instruments, flying formation, just a little bit of aerobatic, That's it. You're competent.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You're safe enough. You hopefully won't kill yourself. And now when you learn how to fly the F-16, you go deeper. You start doing BFM, basic five maneuvers, the dogfighting, 1v1. And then you do TI, tactical engagements. Now it's working the geometry for a reform to an engagement, a visual engagement. And then you start adding more and more aircraft. Now it's ACT where it's like 4V4.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And you're actual, you know, you're doing long range stuff beyond visual range. And if you end up in a visual range, you're competent enough to do that type of dogfighting. And then you kind of go through this whole air-to-air flow, and then you've got to focus on the air-to-ground piece.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So you start off by going to a range, and you're dropping these little blue bombs for scoring purposes, and you're trying to focus your skill sets on learning the basics of how to employ and fly the aircraft with specific parameters. So you're comfortable in certain air speeds and altitudes and ranges and how the aircraft feels and you're shooting the gun, a 20 millimeter gun.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And we experienced that on our mission with our 40 experiments that we had lined up. that's just you know let's build up the station let's let's explore low earth orbit um and now that we've kind of made this new shift with a uh opening up a new chapter in commercial space exploration you know um allowing these companies and organizations to to kind of go off on these new tangents and and explore
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then again, that progresses. Now you're going to do close air support and you're working with troops on the ground, JTACs and SEALs are calling in, you know, engagements, and you're employing in close proximity to ground forces. What's the fastest you've gone in an F-16? It's Mach 2, 2.05, is roughly two times the speed of sound. For the layman's explanation, it's around 750 miles an hour.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It changes based on pressure altitude, temperatures, all that. But two times that, so 1,500 miles an hour. Whoa. It's all relative. 1,500 miles an hour? It's all relative. I mean, now you talk about, you know, 6th Gen coming online, this, you know, 3-4 Mach. And it doesn't really feel intense until you get low on the deck, flying fast low, because you have that ground rush.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You know, the trees are going by pretty fast. Oh, I would imagine. But there's a lot of restrictions. So you can't break the sound barrier unless you're in a specific restricted airspace, which is few and far between in the US. So if you're breaking the sound barrier, it's above 30,000 feet or higher. And the sensation isn't there. You just see a little buffet on your dial.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Otherwise, you just continue to push. What were you flying in regular pilot school? As far as the airframe? Yeah. T-37 is the first aircraft. Two-seat, two-engine, very low-powered jet. The next aircraft was a T-38. It's the, what do they call it, the MiG-20, MiG-28 in Top Gun. Mm-hmm. F-5. It's this NASA flies them. Very stubby wing, sleek, long. Airframe, twin engine, very fast. Okay.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then, so you do that for six months apiece, total of a year, and then you go off and you fly your platform.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
No, the T-38. I don't know if you did a mock run. I don't think you did. I don't even know if it could handle it. But most of these older generation fighters, it's like right up to the mock. All the fourth gen, except for the A-10, are built to go above Mach.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Altitude?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's hard to get up there. You've got to do it in a dive just because the air is thicker down low. You're burning through JPA pretty quick. A couple thousand feet. Nothing... I mean, 450, 500 knots, I don't know, 500, 600 miles an hour on the deck is fun. That's enough. Because shit happens quick when you're going that fast and low.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Thunderbirds, we have permission to fly low, 1,500 feet, pretty low. depending on the maneuver we're doing, the formation that you're flying. So that's where you really get a sensation. Talk about unwavering level of trust when you're flying, because we're flying anywhere from three feet to 18 inches apart, and you're that low.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And if you're in the formation, you're flying, I mean, that aircraft is 18 inches apart. Whoa.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
white knuckles when you first start you've been flying this aircraft for me i've been flying it for eight nine years i'm very confident in flying it but when you're that close and that level of trust and that precise it's like white knuckle you're just death grip just over time you get really comfortable you're smoking a lucky and breakfast and you're 18 inches apart
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
But it's only because you're given the opportunity to go through intense training. I mean, two, three times the amount of flying that a normal fighter pilot would typically fly in a year. 500 hours versus 150, 180 hours. Wow. Wow. And all you're doing is doing one thing, not CAS and interdiction and OCA and DCA and BFM. Those are fun.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
But a lot of that is just employing using the sensors, whereas... Thunderbirds, I didn't even turn that shit on. You know, it's all about the formation. So, all right.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
We're not only going to address low Earth orbit over the next coming years. It's all about, OK, let's go back to the moon, the lunar surface, and let's go to Mars. Because it's human nature to explore in curiosity and, oh, by the way, we can benefit life on Earth. So, you know, bottom line, I think it's just a focus. And now that we kind of shift and let's do more because we can.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Offensive counter error, defensive counter error. It's just different mission sets depending on what the scenario is. So if we're getting invaded by China or Russia and we're protecting DC... We're going to set up caps with hopefully we attack them with other things and ships. But kind of the last line of defense is going to be what we have in the air in these caps.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And we're protecting the motherland. And anything comes at us, that's what we're... But the focus is to stay back, defensive posture. That's DCA. And then you have different category of missions called OCA, offensive counter-air. That might be like an interdiction mission. Like, okay, we're going to attack North Korea. We're not.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
But if we were, there's key targets that we have pre-planned that we want to go blow up. Gotcha. and we're going to send bunker busters, GB-24s, or whatever we have these days, big 2,000-pound bombs. This is OCA. This is offensive counter-air interdiction. I'm going to fight my way in, deliver my munition, turn around, and leave. So we are on an offensive posture.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Building block. It's baby steps. So you'll start off, OK, can I fly this aircraft? You'll spend 10, 12 sorties getting comfortable in the aircraft. You'll solo, because there are two seaters. but it's meant to be a single seat fighter aircraft. That was the other reason why I wanted the F-16 is I wanted to be the sole responsible person involved. And then you learn, you learn instruments.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
OK, if the weather's bad, can I recover this aircraft to, you know, at a base that's socked in? So you got to learn how to fly instruments. Got it. OK, let's move on. Let's start doing tactical stuff. And that's where you'll do. All right, we're going to fly formation, get comfortable flying formation because that aircraft is extremely responsive. Like literally the stick moves like that much.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's all fly by wire. And throttle obviously moves a lot more, but versus like a P-51 or F-4 or an A-4, that stick moves a lot. It's hydraulics. So flying formation doesn't take much. Honestly, it's like this thought process. You think about it, and subconsciously you start doing it. So you overcorrect in the beginning. You just, hmm. That's where the nausea comes in. It's just you porpoise.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Because it's out of equilibrium, because that's what makes it such a high-performance aircraft. is that it's not a stable platform. So you're constantly looking for that sweet spot when you fly. After a while, it becomes second nature.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Now you're worried about all the shit between your legs, the radars and the targeting pods and the situational display and the cueing systems, all that kind of stuff. That's the focus. Second nature, the flying is, you know, you don't even think about it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Yeah, everything's set up differently, and how you flip certain switches, and they all kind of have an intuitive...
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
That sounds like a Full Metal Jacket quote.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Reusability and technology is improving. But it's a heavy lift. Yeah. It's not easy. Otherwise, we would have knocked it out in a couple years. We're still a couple years away.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
My rifle. This is my gun.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Yeah. To a certain extent. So you have your name on an aircraft. And you have a dedicated crew chief. And he's got his or her name on the other side. And you typically try to fly that tail, but the maintenance of these airframes, they could be down for months going through phase. They pull the panels off and all this is broken. We got to fix it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So it's constantly, the inventory is being moved around. So you might fly your tail maybe 30, 40% of the time. That's probably a little aggressive. Except for when I was in the Thunderbirds, you fly so much and you're so... cued into that aircraft, you know exactly how it's bent.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And you know how to trim up the aircraft because, you know, you can't, different air speeds, it's going to fly differently and it's going to lean one direction or the other. So you know exactly how much input you need on the trim to kind of level it out.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
and you know on certain maneuvers, when you get to the top, you know, you're 18 inches apart, and we're doing this arrowhead maneuver where I move up, I was slot, so I was number four, so I was behind number one. So I'm anywhere from three feet to 18 inches. But in the Arrowhead, I actually slide up and in, so I get even closer.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And it's literally, as close as this mic, is the nozzle, the afterburner nozzle of the Boss, the number one aircraft. And when you get up in the top of the loop, you're like 150, 175 knots. So it's mushy. It's not responsive like an aircraft would be on the deck at 450 knots. So it takes a lot more inputs and you're not used to flying the aircraft a lot in that regime.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So by flying the same aircraft over and over and over, you know exactly how much throttle you need, especially if you're deviating to a different show site. You might be at 2,000 pressure altitude. Now you go to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and it's 5,000 or 6,000. So the air is thinner. So it's going to respond a lot different.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And the more you know your aircraft, the more accurate and precise you're going to be able to fly it in those formations. But in a combat situation, combat unit, operational squadrons, you typically don't fly the same aircraft over and over. So you will have to set it up the way you want it. And some have different, you know, just different things that you like or don't like.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's 55.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You do, and you have to. It's just the nature of the beast and the inventory and the phase of the aircraft. But you were asking something about experience. You only know... you think you know more than you actually do at different levels of your career. Like, I thought it was pretty shit hot coming out of B-course F-16 training. I'm going to my first combat unit.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then by the time I got to weapons school, I look back and I'm like, oh my God, I'm glad I didn't kill myself in some of those missions. Night MVGs in South Korea, it's scary type flying. And then after weapons school, you know, further along you get, it's like...
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You don't know what you didn't know back then and you're just glad you survived all these different phases of your life going through a career of flying fighters.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Graduation, again, seems to be, I don't know, maybe it's a lot like the SEALs as far as there's... It's got to be pretty surreal. It is. Usually there's drinking involved. You got to let go somehow, some way. Yeah. Yeah. Pilot training, it's a big deal to get your wings. I still have my wings that were pinned on, took them to space. Again, I don't reflect too much my personality.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I'm always looking. I get it. I get it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You know, that was anticlimactic. There wasn't anything too sexy about the ceremony in pilot training. The real traditions that we love and cherish are in the fighter squadrons, in the operational combat units. And every squadron's different. There's a lot of heritage, because it goes all the way back to World War I, to Vietnam, on up. And those traditions have long lasted.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
They will go fly. Um, I had a, here's a Turkish. Singapore has a squatter, actually, at Luke, teaches F-16s. But typically, they'll go back and do their own thing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Because there was, maybe it was more than 12. There was like four or five light grays, F-15Cs, that went to Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. There was five or six F-16s that went to Luke. And then there was two A-10 pilots. And then there was a B-1 and a B-52. And then two instructor pilots that stuck around. I think that's right, to whatever that equals.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So what's it like showing up to your command then? So you go to Luke and now it's like, that base is dedicated to teaching. It's the F-16 schoolhouse. So there's, it's fighter squadrons, but it's still people who, you know, the instructors are all operational experience, combat, and now go back to the schoolhouse to teach. It's a good, you know, quality of life for the families.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
We're the... The plan is two, back to the lunar surface in two, and Mars in four. Back in two, in two years. I do think that's realistic. Like I said, there's a lot of things that need to be solved, and NASA's doing amazing work to get us there with the partnerships and collaborations with SpaceX and other organizations. But we've got to figure out how it's going to be done and done safely.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You're not deploying. You're just doing the nine to five kind of teaching young punks how to be F-16 pilots. And it's a six month rotation, so it's just constant. It's probably going to, North Island. Okay. Coronado for instructors. I don't know, maybe. That's probably more the weapons school at Nellis.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
No. I was just making a comment about the instructors that taught us how to be F-16 pilots. They have experience. They were out in the field doing combat missions at operational units around the world. and they'll do that for an assignment or two, you know, from three to six years, and then they'll come back to be instructors. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's very similar.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then they might go back, you know, do an assignment there for three years, and then they'll go back into an operational.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You get a little bit of taste at F-16. It starts getting this little more combat flair, operational mindset, still a schoolhouse. But there's naming traditions, and Friday's in the bar, and you're still doing combat training. And then there's a graduation for that. And then it's off to your unit. And that is, those are combat units. This is when we're actually doing the no shit, you know, stuff.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And depending on where you go, I went to Korea, Osan Air Base in Korea, which was, to me, it's like one of those kind of, It's a remote location, so there's not that many families. You can do a command sponsor where the whole family will show up, but 69, 70% of the squadron is bachelors. So there's not families there.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So the mentality in Korea is like, light your hair on fire, drinking a lot, going downtown, partying, flying awesome combat missions. Um, it's push it up mentality and it's kind of one of the only remaining, there's two bases in Korea, Kunsan, Osan. I don't know how it's changed in the last 10 years since I've been out, but that was a good, um, uh, just a, uh,
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
introduction, indoctrination to the combat mentality. Are you welcomed or are you treated like an FNG? No, you're an FNG, but you have your LPA, Lieutenant Protection Association. It's the mafia, Lieutenant Mafia. So there's... There's the senior level, the lieutenant colonels, the commander, the director of operations, the DO. And then you got all the crusty old majors.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then you have captains. And then you have the punk lieutenants. And I think there was nine of us. It was awesome. It was just an amazing experience, especially being in Korea. I mean, you saw some crazy shit in Korea. This was in the late 90s. What kind of crazy shit? Oh, just... Thank you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Thank you. Thank you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Because it's, like with our mission, it was a no-fail. Otherwise, we're going to set back these programs years if something catastrophic happens. Yeah. And the public's not willing. You know, the risk we took back in the day, you know, the 50s and 60s, was a lot... A lot more significant than we're willing to accept these days. And, you know, we're kind of risk-averse.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And it can be a positive and a negative, you know, to some extent, because it can be paralysis through analysis. At some point, we've got to put up or shut up and go.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You don't want to stay too long. The longest flight I ever had, this was actually one of my favorite deployments. It was Punk Lieutenant. And we do these traditions as fighter pilots. We have Flat Top February, Mustache March. And so in Korea, we deployed to Alaska for Cope Thunder, just Operation Exercise. It's middle of the winter, so there's no sun.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So we're pasty white, and we've got these flat tops. So we're there for a couple, raging as much as you can rage in the middle of Alaska. And then we're going to take our jets and go shoot some missiles for tests down in Panama City. Spring break. So you got these pasty white dudes and these overgrown haircut flat tops. And we start to grow these cheesy mustaches. We thought we were somebody.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
um it's a it's a partnership for sure um nasa's they do this for 11 they've been doing it for decades 60 plus years whatever it's been it's um and we typically always want to make sure that we never lose sight of these accomplishments you know we're standing on the shoulders of giants of what they've been able to accomplish
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So that was that nine corps of lieutenants, the LPA. We did that. It was like a month and a half we were on the road just doing fun stuff. So anyways, I can't remember where I was going with that. Oh, longest sortie, longest sortie. Coming home from that, we launched from Omaha, Nebraska, and we stretch it all the way to get home to Korea. It's the longest I've ever been in F-16.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It was 13.2 sortie, 13 hours. Wow. It was extremely painful. I'll bet. And, you know, we got, I can't remember how many aircraft, eight-ish, eight or 12.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And one of the flight leads in my formation, I'm a wingman, just a young punk, and it's day into night, and then there's weather now in Korea, so it's raining, and you're sleeping, it's a long, you're popping drugs to stay awake, and then it's time to get your game on, because you're landing in weather at night, wet runway. And when my flight lead took off 13 hours prior, he had a brake failure.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And at night, you know, ambient light and MVGs, you're gonna turn some lights down or turn them off or, you know, pop them to pull out the bulb. And he was getting annoyed by his brake failure light. So he pops it out so you don't see it anymore. 13 hours go by and he completely forgets about it. So he's in the F-16 in front of me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
He lands, brick one, puts the nose down, applies the brake and nothing. So back up at that point. is to put the hook down and take the cable. And if you take the cable, the runway's completely shut down. So I'm this lieutenant. I'm in the touchdown approaching his aircraft in front of me. And he's like, abort, abort. Or I can't remember what he said. But he's like, brake failure.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So you've been flying for 13 hours. It's raining. The last thing you're thinking about is your instrument departure when you're just trying to put this aircraft on the deck. And all you want to do is get out of this cockpit. pouring rain, wet runway, got to take off. And now we got to divert up to Suwon, which is just another base.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So your asses and elbows just trying to pull up charts and land this aircraft safely. But that was the longest sortie I ever flew. It was a long damn time. Yeah. And it's no bigger than this seat. I mean, it's, I got a fist width between the top of the helmet and the canopy. You got little rails you can put your arms in. I'm not a big guy.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
There's some, I got a buddy who's 6'5", and he flew vipers. But it's actually sitting height. So it's from your butt to the top of your head. If you have short stubby legs, you can be 6'5". But if you've got long legs, you're fine. If you've got short, stubby legs and you've got a long torso, that's the issue.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
The reason why the seat is banked back there is because it just fits into the cockpit, the ACES II seat. Interesting.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And we, meaning commercial space collectively, would not be where we're at without everything they've been able to accomplish. And moving forward, it is definitely a partnership.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
We deployed, this was late 90s, early 2000s, before 9-11. We were still doing Operation Northern Watch, Southern Watch. So you had the north swath and the south swath of Iraq that was no-fly zone for them. They'd launch their MiGs to do these mock runs, but they wouldn't get anywhere near, and we would sit there and patrol.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Every once in a while, you'd go after a couple targets, AAA pieces that were getting too close to the no-fly zone that were a threat to us patrolling. And then we took on the Sandy role, CSAR, as F-16s, which is a challenge. Leave that to the A-10s and the helos. But we deployed to Incirlik, Turkey. We'd fly across to the northern watch. Kuwait, we'd do the southern watch.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So we did a bunch of those deployments. And then 9-11 hit. And I was in my second year. I had one more year left at Aviano. And I was in my boss's office, the 06, and I walk in, and he's got the only TV on base, because this is, again, 2001 in Italy, and they just didn't have that kind of technology. And we're watching the tower go down.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And we immediately went into alert posture, because we didn't know what they were going to expect of us. Uh, you know, after, you know, in reflection, it was, it took a while where there was any true movement and deployments and it's not like we can do much from that location. Uh, it takes a deployment to get in that, that takes some effort and there's a cycle process.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
There's units back in the States that are on. So it's, it just depends on where you're at. And you same with the seals as far as when you're tasked to go do something, but yeah. were certainly not going to respond like you typically would.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So as things began to heat up, I got selected for weapons school, fighter weapons school, now called the Air Force Weapons School, because there's more than just fighters there. There's everything in the Air Force inventory has a weapons school now, but back then it was called the Fighter Weapons School. It's the Air Force version of Top Gun. but it's six months long.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's like getting your PhD in all things tactics. So I was selected for that, and then I went to Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, which is pretty much all thing tactics. So what exactly is weapons school? So it's a six-month-long program. You go... under the banner of your MDS, your airframe. For me, it was F-16s. So I go to the F-16 Fighter Weapons School.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And the hierarchy within the fighter community is you start off as a wingman, and then eventually, maybe a couple years, you'll go in as a two-ship flight lead. So now you can lead around a wingman. And then from there, you'll go to a four-ship flight lead. So now you can lead four aircraft. From there, you'll be an instructor. Your next step is to be an instructor.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then once you become an instructor, you can become a flight evaluator, just given exams, check rides. But once you become a seasoned instructor, you can apply and compete for Fighter Weapons School. And the idea behind Fighter Weapons School is to hone your skills, tactics, techniques, and procedures for all things F-16s, as well as everything else in the inventory.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I think it's two-way. I mean, just look at our program. We did the first commercial spacewalk. To do that, SpaceX wanted to develop a brand new EVA suit, extravehicular activity, do a spacewalk. And that's never been done in over 40 years. NASA has the EMU suit that they currently use. SpaceX is going to figure it out on their own.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
and you become a weapons officer. And so every unit's gonna have a dedicated weapons officer who's more or less in charge of that organization's preparation for combat. There might be a couple. They're called patch wearers. It's a bullseye patch, gray. The commander might be a patch wearer. The DO might be a patch wearer. There might be a couple.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
But the dedicated position that you're more or less your commitment, if you go to this school, your commitment is to be, at least for three years, a patch wearer, a weapons officer. Okay. And you are the expert. You are teaching your youngest wingman to your most seasoned IP. You're responsible for training them and preparing them for combat deployments. And it's cyclical.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You know, you'll go through different phases. You'll, hey, you know, here's my training plan for the year. We're going to focus on air-to-air. We're going to focus on CAS during this month. And then we're going to do our combat prep for the specific mission we're going to do in Afghanistan, Iraq. and then we're going to deploy. And so he's responsible for developing that.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You go to Korea to be a weapons officer, your primary job is to prepare for war against North Korea. So he or she's focused on developing those plans. Interesting. So that's the role behind weapons school. And it's six months, and it's the most intense thing I've ever done. Really? Oh, yeah. You sleep, eat, and breathe all things tactics. You have no responsibilities other than just to graduate.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You know, the day you show up, you get a manual that's stacked that high on the research philosophy or radar philosophy. It's kind of a haze, but they're like, hey, here's your manuals. You have two days to study this and you're going to have an exam.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You know, so it's just this overwhelming firehose effect because it's, you know, you're taught all this stuff going through the ranks to up to instructor pilot. That's five, six, seven years before you get to this point, post-pilot training. But you take it to a whole new level.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
um you know you'll fly one mission and it's phase-based it's that building block approach so you start off bfm that that 1v1 dog fighting skills you're going to hone those skills then the the 2v2 and then the 4v4 and then these huge massive employments towards the end of the graduation to include all the air to ground missions so you're you're
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
learning everything you possibly can throughout each phase and you might fly a one hour flight assorting um bfm one mission you'll put five six hours of prep into that you'll fly for one hour and you might debrief it for 10 hours you're dissecting every single thing that you did to hone your skills and become the best tactician that you possibly can be You'd be going to debrief sun setting.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And by the time you come out and sun's rising, you go grab breakfast at the 2-5 Club or something across the street at Nellis. But that's your life for six months. And everyone's on edge. And am I going to survive this program? Am I going to make it through? Yeah.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So they took their baseline suit, the IVA suit, the one they currently wear to and from the space station, in a very, you know, less than three years, two and a half year time span, took that suit and developed
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
There's certainly different flavors of combat. Some of the missions up in Korea, you're flying the patrol along the border, those are considered combat. The Northern Watch, Southern Watch, every once in a while you would employ against some AAA piece out in the middle. Honestly, it wasn't until towards the end of my career when I deployed to Afghanistan at the heat of ISIS, 2015,
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
doing counterterrorism missions that it was like every day you're employing. You remember the first one? I do. Yeah. So our configuration loadout, what we're carrying for munitions, we have... All my bros are going to give me shit if I can't remember. There's a GBU-38 and a GBU-54. These are 500-pound bombs. They're guided either coordinates that you put in or laser.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You can use your targeting pod and a laser designator. with the same PRF code and designate a target. But those are typically not fast movers. Those are stationary targets, buildings, KS-19 piece out in the open or camouflage, you know, based on the intel you're trying to figure it out. And we carry a Maverick. So that's the tank buster. That's, I think, a 300-pound warhead that, it's a missile.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And that can be guided same, but it's typically guided, it's the way you employ it as a two-ship. So you got one aircraft that's going to roll in, three to five nautical mile wheel rolling at a certain altitude and pulling at the target. General area, put the thing on the thing, launched the Maverick, and it just rockets off your aircraft.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
the the what we wore which is more or less the prototype eva suit now to do that on a very streamlined budget not a you know a multi-billion dollar program you know they they monster garage this thing to develop a suit that is extremely viable and and will be you know
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And the other wingman is stacked up high and through all the coordination, the nine line, the verification of target identification. Um, the designators up stacked up high and he's just staring at his four by four inch screen targeting pod. He's got the thing on the thing and he's lazing that target 20, 30 second time of flight and, and shack the target. Um, and so my first employment.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
was against a vehicle that was on the move. And, you know, depending on your timing and when you flew these missions, day, night, sometimes it got hot. It was like every time you went up, it was kind of, you're getting targets. And the way that it was run back then was just kind of a progressive approach on, we're not going to hit your average, what were they called? MAMs?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Male or military average male age. I can't remember the 3-1 term for him. But it wasn't like we were just going after your basic terrorist. They were progressively looking for a higher value target target. based on resources and all the intel and scenario and what was going on at that time in Afghanistan. I had one vehicle that had five mams, the males, all terrorists, all verified.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
We've been tracking it for days. because how, you know, they'd find one guy. Humance, we'd figure out who it was, and we'd watch him for the next, you know, what is it called? You were in on this planning process? No, most of this was done. I did a little bit at the jock at Bagram, but it wasn't, most of us, we were just getting the intel feed before we took off.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
We'd fly a four-hour sortie, refuel every once an hour kind of thing, and we'd be given a region. We flew out of Bagram, so we're centrally located, so we were flying all over. And it was pretty hot along the Pakistan border, up by Tajikistan was pretty hot, and then some of the mountains up in the northeast corner. But we'd have more and more confidence as things developed.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And we're like, okay, this is a high probability sortie kind of thing. And we get the initial intel. And then once you get on scene in the AO, they would give you an Intel update and a nine line if there was a potential for a target. And now you're building your situational awareness over the target area.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And once you get the information, you put it in your systems, and now you're just trying to get eyes on to the target. And then you got to go through the verification, depending on who you're talking to. Most of it, we're talking people who are in the jock, with feed from high def predators. And then we had a certain type of munition.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
The predators had hellfires, but depending on how big the target was or how critical it was, you were going to choose the platform that best suited that target, weaponary in the target set. And this was a vehicle that had five terrorists in it. And we decided to, it was on the move, so we decided to do a Maverick attack.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
the the baseline going forward as far as what they're going to develop regarding a suit with humans bouncing on the the surface of the moon and and mars in incapacity not a handful of suits like like nasa has this is the concept is you know these starships are going to launch hundreds of passengers um
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Doesn't come off the aircraft because it's loud. It just... And so he has to recover because you have a very, very small window in range kind of thing. So as soon as he comes off, he spooks the vehicle. So it stops all five just run. Oh, shit. So we burned the target at this point. And we're like, that was our chance. They're gone to the wind. So we leave and we stand off out of earshot.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
But we have enough gas and a couple hours left. So we just wait for the next update. Well, lo and behold, they decide, oh, they're gone. Let's get back in the vehicle. So they all slowly, one by one, come back. And they're like, holy shit, this is developing. Let's get back in this. So we get a little bit closer and, again, continue to earshot. And then we switch roles.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So I'm going to roll in and employ, and my wingman lazes it. But he was pissed. Hey, he had his chance. So you did it. Yeah. How'd that feel? It's pretty intense. You know, it's... At the time, it's like ISIS. We're watching people, orange jumpsuits, stuck in cages, drowned and burned alive. So there was a lot of rage, I guess.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And our mindset changed, too, because what we're taught in survival training, be able to talk your way out, resist any torture you might experience if you're ever caught, and how to evade. Once that all started developing, it was all bets are off, man. I'm bringing an extra. Nothing compared to what you guys are carrying, but I'm going to bring a couple clips.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I had one dude who was carrying a machete that was strapped to his leg like that's going to do anything. God bless him. But it was like, if you have to go down, you either get hit, your engine fails,
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
luck yeah you know i'd fight to the death kind of mentality versus you know play your game figure it out try to manipulate your situation until someone arrives kind of thing but you know and it was real i mean we had two guys that got hit total golden bb kind of theory um
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
He was doing an appointment and whether it was a AK-47, some guy on the side of a mountain, he can, you know, plinking shots, put a hole in his ventral fin, those fins in the back of the aircraft, put a big old hole right through that. No idea until he got on the ground and did his post-flight check, but he's like, holy shit, there's a big hole. And then one guy, he was flying too low, too long,
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You know, in Elon's vision, he stated in the past, three of these a day with full of passengers going either to the low Earth orbit, to a station, to the moon, to Mars. You know, it's sci-fi, but that's what we're accomplishing. And that's what SpaceX is accomplishing and other organizations are accomplishing.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And they took a shot at him and it hit his AMRAAM, his AIM-120 missile, which is on the wingtips. It's for air-to-air employment, which is never going to happen in Afghanistan. But it hit the missile and the missile caught on fire. So the wingtip of his aircraft's on fire. And so he's in emergency, he's trying to get back to Bagram and I'm sitting supervisory position.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And so I have a radio with me and I hear this and I'm going out to see this. But thankfully the airflow eventually put the fire out. He didn't have to punch or anything like that, but we're flying a single seat, single engine aircraft. So it's very reliable. G and Pratt Whitney, depending on what airframe, what flavor F-16 you're flying, but it's still only one engine.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And it, you know, there's no glide ratio in the Viper. It's going to fall like a rock, and you're going to have to punch.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's satisfying to grotesque. You know, in combat, the highs and lows you experience, it's all too familiar with any type of combat. And I think the most intense... emotional experience is having to make decisions that will hopefully save the lives of the friendlies on the ground. But you also have to deal with the consequences of your actions, that you're taking the life of the enemy.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I pray that when I meet my day, I'm judged based on making the right decisions based on the information I had at the time. But it's heavy. You got to deal with it. It happened a lot on this deployment. You took a lot of lives. There were quite a few.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's always been there, and I think it's... Was it there on the approach?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
No. There is a moment that, and I don't know if other pilots experience it, but it's like right before you push the button, squeeze the trigger, there's just this intense, not apprehension, but just massive adrenaline rush on... do I have all the information that I need? Am I making, and I don't know if it's the same for pulling a trigger on a gun, but, um, I've employed it all.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Because when I got involved with this program years ago, I didn't really understand the concept of boosters landing on their own, chopsticks, catching boosters, reusability. I'm like, there's no way. This is far-fetched. But look at us. I mean, tonight, Test 8 is launching in Starship. And each time they launch, they're learning new things.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I've shot the gun in anger. I've 500 pound bombs, Mavericks. It's, um, there's always this, I hope this is the right decision, but, um, And I think you have more time to think about it when it's those scenarios where it's an element of surprise. There are situations where they're shooting at me, and I have zero hesitation. I wouldn't even call it hesitation.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's just this intense feeling of, I hope this is the right decision. Because I think it's one thing to look through a scope or be close to the enemy, but I'm up at 20,000 feet. did it make you feel like your career was complete yes I'll be honest absolutely you know time means everything I think there's like in any combat role
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And if you don't do that thing in several employments, I had quite a few. It's like, if I don't, Because right now, they're getting shot at. And who knows how that's going to develop. They're hunkered down. The threat's got RPGs, and they're pinned down. And so if I do hesitate, or I miss a switch, or I'm willing to make that decision based on knowing it's helping my side, I guess.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It might not land successfully in the Indian Ocean, but it certainly well could. And they're going to catch the booster with the chopsticks. And this is just a next step to achieve that ultimate goal of multiple launches daily, going to the moon, going to Mars.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So who sets the guidelines, you know? God?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Cause there's always that moment when you're pushing, there's always the free fall of the munition, you know, the time of flight, anywhere from 20 seconds out to a minute, depending on, you know, how you're releasing it. But that whole time, it's just like, it's very compartmentalized.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's like check and double check that I've done everything that I possibly can to mitigate any collateral damage concerns. Um, But then the whole flight home, you're thinking about it. And then going through the debrief and analyzing the BDA after the fact. I mean, I don't know if you ever fully get over it other than, you know, it's there and I'll have to answer for it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
We're definitely influenced by our experiences too. And that's why, especially the older I get, the more centered I want to be on following Jesus. I mean, look how screwed up our world is. It's easy to get caught thinking the sky is falling and the world's going to end. But if you're centered in your faith, we're not in control. We're all sinful.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
We have free will and that's probably our demise, you know, but we're not in control. I hope I made the decisions that I did in combat for the right reasons. long were you over there fighter squadrons typically do like six month rotations um so that time was six months in 2015 before that they were anywhere from 90 days to six months um we were coming and going we'd spent half
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Why not? I mean, it depends on who you ask, on what you believe, and justifying these significant projects and programs. But we certainly aren't good stewards of our planet. We haven't been. Whether you want to call this an insurance policy or you want to go down the curiosity
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Aviano, that central located, I mean, you barely had time to enjoy the country because you were constantly coming and going. You'd come back to the States to do red flag exercises, big coalition force type exercises with hundreds of aircraft at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas, where we spent six years for various assignments. But yeah, that deployment was six months.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I was flying every other day, probably, every two days sometimes. I was in a leadership position, so you got the squadrons, and then above that is the group and the wing. I was at the group level, but flying with the squadrons. I was just old, end of my career. 20-year point, so I would fly as much as they'd let me.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Yeah, it's... You strike a chord with the whole feeling complete in a career. Yeah. And I don't know if it's just a fighter pilot or the operator.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Uh, because that is certainly how it is in our world. Um, I've done things that are, that take me off that track with the Thunderbirds and tests and aggressors. Um, but it's almost a, a blessing and a curse. Um,
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
No. In fact, I've been speaking more keynotes and stuff and one of my stories is combat and it's like, I almost have to take a step back because even doing interviews and talking about it, it's like, you got to put this in perspective. How do you apply this to someone who doesn't necessarily go to work? That's life or death situation other than, you know, our frontline providers.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Um, it's, um, yeah, it's, it's a tough conversation to have too. I'm struggling to articulate exactly how I feel at this point. It's just because it's definitely there. No doubt, especially as you get older, you know, and kids and... Would you want your kids to go to war?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It is. It is.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
If you ask me what I want them to serve, I would be honored. I will never pressure my kids if they want to be whatever they want. I don't, I could care less. I just want them happy and to pursue something that they're passionate about, not some societal expectation, um, sports. employment, jobs, whatever, academics.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
root of let's explore because who knows what's out there and are those resources that we could capitalize on um you know the population issues the climate issues uh you know, when is it gonna make a turn for the worst? An asteroid, you know?
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I just want them to pursue something they are passionate about because that's exactly what I did. And I feel very blessed and happy of what I went through. So if they wanted to serve, I would be very proud and honored. And there's a chance a couple of my teenagers might. But if they don't, I don't care. As long as they're living a life that they're happy with.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I certainly don't want them serving just because of me. Now, to get to your, I've been avoiding your question, would I want them to go to war? I would say no. And that's, I don't know if that's selfish in the fact that I don't want my kids at risk and the shit I've seen and been through.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Because there were plenty of times, not even in combat, just I was a split decision of death because of just the nature of the business. You know, I'm on a Thunderbird show and I... delayed a rejoin too long and the aircraft pulls nine Gs. I pulled 10.5 Gs because I thought it was gonna hit the ground. And I recovered 100 feet from the ground, which is, in a fighter jet, that's damn close.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And so it's just like, those split decisions could have gone completely different. I've had plenty of people Good buddy of mine was stationed in Aviano, Trojan Gilbert. He was in combat and he was strafing. And recovery for strafe is like 75 feet. So you get in amongst them when you're shooting the gun. And he ended up dying in combat. And so it's just like, it doesn't take much.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
But you can also get hit by a car walking across the road.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
They're talking about 2024, whatever asteroid name they have, it's supposed to, you know, a probability of five, 6%, and by 2032, don't quote me on these numbers, but that's catastrophic to certain parts of the planet. So again, it's like, if we have the opportunity and the resources and the intellect, to pursue some of these goals, why not? Hey, I'm not against it.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
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Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's not just visual. It's almost like you can feel the radiant glow of the light of the planet. And it's bright, but it's not like looking up at the sun kind of blinding light. It's just this radiant. And it's constantly evolving because you're traveling so fast. And sunrises and sunsets are happening every 90 minutes. Our orbit was 106 minutes just based on its shape.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And it starts off the phenomenon it's called the thin blue line. It's the dawning of a new day. It's just this arc of a blue purplish hue as the sun starts penetrating the atmosphere. And it just, it just grows and starts to split into this radiant sunbeams.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And then it starts to light up the entire planet and then vice versa on the backside, on the, on the sunset, as you see the, the night start to eat up and then even at night. So, At night, you're seeing all the cultural lighting. We saw the northern lights. So all the green, beautiful waves.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You see all the stars, billions of stars, because you don't have the light pollution that you're used to seeing. The moon, obviously, glowing. You're seeing strings of Starlink satellite systems. And then you have this pulsing of the Draco engines.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's just these constant engines that are firing to keep you oriented in the capsule based on the priority is to point the antennas towards the satellite for communication purposes. So that puts out this constant hues of orange and yellows. And all of that together, you're just constantly seeing something new.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And it's just, it's not something you stare at a sunset for five, ten minutes as the sun goes down. It's just this constant evolution of this radiant glow. And it just feels like it's more than just visual. If that makes any sense. Again, it's, I'm having a hard time articulating. It's only been, you know, five, six months since we were up there. And that's...
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
You know, the ISS, they're up there for six months. They're at 400 kilometers. We went an extra thousand kilometers past that. So slightly different perspective.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
God created everything. I don't see how it couldn't. It'd be a sequence of millions and millions of miracles to happen. You look at the planet, and then you look at the other direction. It's intimidating. I mean, it's black. To think what's out there, endless. That is intimidating. Um...
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I'm hoping at some point in my life I'll make more sense of the experience, and I hope I didn't miss my opportunity while I was there trying to absorb, because we're, you know, you're very operated mindset. You're focused on the mission. We got 40 science and research experiments.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I don't want to screw it up, and we got the spacewalk on day three, and the Starlink test going on, and all this radiation testing we're going through, and, you know, that's, you got this mission mindset, but... This is also something that very few people have experienced. And I hope at some point I can communicate and articulate that impact it had on my perspective.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And I think, is he still working on you or is the books written? You're just, I think you're in your next chapter.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
I love that analogy. I mean, my first thought was, and I didn't even comprehend it until you mentioned it, but you talk about good and evil, light and dark. I felt this warm glow looking on the planet. Just loved. It was mesmerizing. I wanted to put my eyes off it. And you look through the Ford hatch towards space, and it's just this intimidating.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
It's almost like you're at that cliff scuba diving in that black abyss over the ledge. You feel a lot more security, probably where that ambient light's coming from. Yeah, there's something there I like. But how do we, I mean, you talk about that marble and the constant, whether it's a struggle or not search, but constant evolution, looking for equilibrium.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
And this is rhetorical, but how do we influence more good than evil as that morph continues to happen with the marble of good and evil? Yeah, that's a good question. In God's hands.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
Do you think, I've always tied authenticity to being true to your values. Do you think you can be authentically evil? Or do you think people are naturally authentically good? And as long as they're authentic, they can maintain true values.
Shawn Ryan Show
#185 Scott "Kidd" Poteet - SpaceX Polaris Dawn Astronaut on Spacewalk, Moon Landing and Mars
So we're evil and weak.