it three times. i didn't know what i was doing. i didn't know how to do it and i sort of wanted them to, because they had hurt me or somebody i cared about and i wanted them to feel uncomfortable. for the pain i felt. unfortunately they all die. >> watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> .. next on booktv's "after words" astronaut scott kelly recalls this year aboard the international space station and other voyages into space. he's been edited former nasa administrator charles bolden. >> host: scott, how are you

doing today? >> guest: great. >> host: i'm not a big reader but but i was enthralled by your book. i found it to be inspiring, informative and exciting. i'm just wondering, if you can tell me how the way that i was touched by your book, is there something that is, did a similar thing for you that got you on your track? >> guest: i guess where i will start to try to answer the question is will bid for the back, and that is when i was a kid growing up i was kind of the opposite kid you would expect to become an astronaut because i wasn't a good student. i couldn't pay attention in class. absolutely impossible for me to do that. i was the kid in the back of the room looking out the window or look at the clock trying to will it to run faster than -- i did that more than anything else. i went to college because it was expected of me to go to college and i still struggle there.

one day i'm walking across the school campus, college campus, and i just happen to go in the bookstore to buy some gum or something, not a big book. i wasn't a big reader eb. i saw this book on the shelf and it had a red, white and blue cover and you really cool title. it may be pick it up and i looked at the back and was interested enough that it took my gum money to purchase the book, took back to my dorm room, laid there for the next three days on my unmade bed and read the stories of the fighter pilots that begin the test pilots became the original mercury, gemini astronauts. the way tom wrote really captured my attention, this kind of creative nonfiction kind of way. i felt like i was in the moment. i also recognized like doctor mistakes that these guys had that i felt like i had, too. with one exception, that i was this kid who couldn't do his

homework. i thought i can solve that one problem baby i can be like him someday. >> host: one of the things i found exciting about the book is it's incredibly candid and very personal. was that purposeful, or did you start out that way? >> guest: yes. first of all i think i have a little bit of a reputation of being a straight shooter, sometimes a little blunt, maybe some people might think to blunt at times. but but i did that purposefully because what i found when i read other peoples stories can with astronaut stories or even some people that are not involved in the space program but they write an autobiography, they include all the good stuff. you think is that what the lives are lived like, like you are always a straight a student, always the best athlete, always the best this? there's nothing negative at all in your life.

i think to tell a complete story that would be very believable, you have to include some of the enjoy the moments of your life, some of the stuff that isn't the greatest. i think that helps the validate the good stuff. >> host: i got you. you remarked that your high school principal, i guess his name was -- that he never gave up on you, just out of curiosity because i had teachers like that and one of the things i regret is i didn't go back and thinking. have you had an opportunity to be in touch with him since getting into the astronaut office or getting to your launches or anything else? told us about your relationship with him. >> guest: interestingly enough you never did give up on me. even though i was kind of a, i was a bad student in high school. i graduated the bottom half of my class. despite that he still nominated me to go to new jersey boys stay

because you recognize like it, this could have some of leadership potential, some potential. it's not schoolwork but it's something. he still, despite my bad grades, let me go do that. then i kept in touch with him. even my other teachers that i was embarrassed to set didn't live in a whole lot from them but for whatever reason, it had nothing to do with them and everything to do with me. i stuck at the relationship with them over the years and some of them came to my shuttle launches i had. >> host: vcs to the principal? >> guest: no. he became the school superintendent and now he's retired. >> host: let me come back to your family. your mother. my mom and dad were teachers and sort of inspired me but your mom, you say was an inspiration, wmata you and your twin brother mark. would you do me a favor and take your book there and would you share with us a little bit that

you say about her decision to get on the orange new jersey police department and what she had to do and pick and choose as you build? will? >> this is great because been people there in the book in my own voice or not to grant by the audiobook, too. but anyway -- >> host: i tell them to buy the audiobook. better than reading. >> guest: which is not easy by the way to record and audiobook especially when you're not a professional narrator. and i write when i was about 11 i'm of the decide to become a cop. i will pray for of a bit but she was a regular mom. my brother and i were getting a little older. she wanted to have a career more like my father pick my father was a police officer. he was one of these very stereotypical like new jersey cops like you see on tv during the day. i write a lot of male police officers would've felt

threatened the thought of the wives trying to become offices as well. but not my father. to his credit he encouraged her to my mother study for the civil service exam which took time and effort after she passed that she had to take a physical fitness test. the toughest part was awol where she would have to scale seven feet and four inches. knowing that, , my father built the practice wall a bit higher than the real one. at first she couldn't touch the top. it took a long time before she was able to jump up and grab the top of the wall. eventually she is able to pull yourself up and get a leg over and by honing this technique and practice sessions everyday she got to where she could scale that while on the first try every time. the day of it as she actually scaled the wall but is that most of them in. she became of the very first women to pass this test, and that made a a big impression on mark and me. she had decided on the goal that seems like it might not be possible, and she had achieved it through sheer force from

determination of the support of people around her. i still hadn't found a goal for myself that would give me that same kind of drive, but i had at least seen what that would look like. so my mother made huge impression on me. she was quite the lady. >> host: how old were you at the time? >> guest: mark and i were 11 and she had as when she was 18 or 19. >> host: so you learn differently from those kids. you learn at a very early age that your mom wasn't stupid. >> guest: yeah, as a matter of fact. >> host: let me ask you if you would share, as you grew up and you find decided that you want to try to find a path in your life. marquette preceded you going to kings point, going into the merchant marine academy and i read that you decide you'd give it a shot. you went and i guess it was the superintendent or the dean who sat with you. can you talk a little bit about

your disappointment at being told no way? >> guest: yeah, so i figured after you read the right stuff and i started to be a buffett of how to do my homework i was on my way. i went to my brothers college, told them hey, i'm here. my brother has been doing great. he was great getting straight a's. the guy sent me down, talk that we can look in the record and basically said no way. with these grades in high school, the sat score, you're not getting in. i was crushed. i don't think i started trying but i was probably pretty close. because i thought that was my opportunity to get into the navy. but then i picked myself up and brushed myself off and figured out some other options and eventually i went to school that was really a perfect fit for me. for one, it wasn't as challenging as kings point was academically but it also the military environment that i needed. i need that discipline. it was a place called state university new york maritime college which is in the bronx.

really i could never found a better place for me to be able to grow and develop and become eventually a young ensign in the united states navy. >> host: share with us a little bit about, i know you had been impressed with the right stuff and all the astronauts and everything, but what took you from new york maritime to the decision that okay, what the hell, i'm going to apply to be asked. talk a little bit about the road to that point. >> guest: for me it was this thing i had in my mind since reading the book, but it wasn't something that was real yet. even once i became a test pilot i served for a few years as an f-14 pilot, flying the tomcat, got pretty good at that. apply to test pilot school, was surprise that he got selected on the first time i applied. went off to become a test pilot.

then i was just kind of going about my life thinking that i would do this for a few years and then go on back to the navy and five f-14 for a while. and they may be like years down the road i might have the qualifications and experience to be competitive the 2b and ask that. one day i'm sitting in my cubicle and one of my mates was working on a stack of papers. i asked him what it was and he said it's my astronaut application. i asked him when it was a duplex he said in a few days. and i thought to myself, what the hell, you know, i'm just going to fill out the opposite of his application, send it down there and hopefully i'll get a call. but i wasn't expecting anything. and actually i was quite surprised when eventually i got called for an interview. >> host: during the week, can you talk about your wardrobe for your interview? >> guest: well, you know my brother had much different path than i did, so when we were in

the eighth grade our dad sat the status of look, guys, you are not college material. we will start looking at the vocational training. my brother is like a weight, i want to go to college. immediately started getting straight a's. i on the other hand, have no recollection of this conversation because there was probably a squirrel running outside and i was looking at it. he became a navy pilot, too, and was a test pilot at the same time as i was even though i was playing catch-up for a while. he got a call to be interviewed but he didn't have sued. he knew i had won because he knew i'd just been to a friends wedding so i don't do my suit. he goes down to houston, interviews, has his interview. comes back and gives me my suit back, and then like a month later nasa calls me and i tell my brother here i was shocked by the way. i got called. first i thought maybe they wanted to talk to him again.

they called me and i told my brother, i said, hey, you have to buy me a new suit because how ridiculous with outlook are showing up in the same clothes? mark was a cheap navy lieutenant said something i don't think i can see in here, although it is cable tv. i won't say it anyway. it ended up with me wearing the same exact suit for the interview, which was actually in some ways a blessing in disguise because i walked into the room and i'm sure you've been on the board before and you certainly interviewed before, that you kf get to tell your story at the first yes, it was, i bet this looks really familiar. using this suit before. so i have the only suit that's been selected to be an astronaut twice. >> host: let's move a little bit you finally got selected and then go through the astronaut training and you get inside your first mission.

i have fond feeling for having left hobble on orbit not exactly what should've been, yours was what, the third servicing mission. having been a part of that mission and having become an official hubble hugger, talk to me about what you believe the legacy of hobble is, or does it have legacy? >> guest: i think it's incredible. it's been up there come you would know better than i have long -- >> host: 27 years. >> guest: doing that kind of science on a daily basis and, you know, letting that only the scientists experience the data that they get from it, which is most of the stuff you don't see, but also the public engagement that is delighted and let people kind of get a sense for what we are in the universe, which is pretty insignificant if you consider those images. i think it's been a great

success, and it was a great first mission for me. when i was writing the book, i realized that i read that book the right stuff in almost 18 years to the day later i was flying in space for the first time. and, and not only that, and i don't even write about this in the book is i never thought about it much, but i was actually the first american in my class of 35 people to fly. and forgive that probably had add and couldn't do his homework, that's pretty remarkable trend what it is tragic i almost don't believe it myself. >> host: well, i'm certain you probably feel okay now. ready to go fly again, however we got a big bump in the road. we lost columbia and her crew. can you talk a little bit about the role you played in the post accident recovery and preparation for flight for the

return to flight? >> guest: when that day happened, which was february 1, 2003, i was at home watching the landing on tv. and on those low inclination flights, not going to go into much detail here on what that exactly means, but it means when the shuttle is coming home it has a very likely possibility to fly over houston and where you could actually see it getting on the time of day. you could see the shuttle reentering the atmosphere. i actually looked outside fort, saw a flash of light and thinking by just some kind of atmospherics, went back inside and quickly realized we had a tragic tragic accident for the second time. three of my classmates were on that flight, seven of our colleagues and former colleagues, and within a couple of days i was, along with my other coworkers, many of them, in the area of the crash, which

was in eastern texas, and how ironic it was, right, of all the places the space shuttle would crash it crashes like within a two hour drive of houston where the crews lived. it was a tough time. it was sad. i had to ride back with remains to be air force base. i i was the escort. very moving. but just out trying to recover whether it's remains or -- >> host: what about the response from the public works you mentioned in the book just the people who came out wanting to volunteer. that must've had some hopefully positive impact on your opinion about people support for the program. >> guest: so heartwarming to see the support that the people in that area but also in the

nation and around the world gave us when that accident occurred. not a christmas goes by where i'm not putting money in the salvation army kettle, because after the columbia accident i realize the great work that they do. they just showed up immediately and was like taking care feeding people and giving them coffee and places to sleep if he needed it. all kinds of support. not asking anything in return. >> host: we lost challenger tint is activated for my first flight and i remember what went through my mind. did you think about leaving the astronaut office after the accident? >> guest: i never did. i always felt like, even after challenger, i had a friend of mine, he knew i wanted to be an astronaut and he said hey, this is going to change it might give you pause about this? i thought, you know, i believe in nasa, in our ability to do incredible things when we put

our minds to. i know this is risky, and it's a tragic accident especially for the people that were directly involved and the families. but i do believe in nasa enough that i know that we can rise to the occasion. we can make this safer than it was when they flew. it's never going to be perfectly safe, 100% reliable, but never crossed my mind was to leave. >> host: for anybody who may be watching her think she had to do everything right all the time, can you go back, i mean, beyond the test pilot school and all that when you were a young f-14 pilot and you were not the base of the base. can you share a couple of the things that you just said, how did i i ever get her? >> guest: initially, and my brother tells and i will share some of the words he says, how good you are when you start is a

reflection on how good you can become with hard work, perseverance, never giving up. that has always been kind of the case with me i think. i wasn't the best student in the beginning but i became a really good student eventually. i figured out how to deal with whatever issues i have. i i wasn't the best pilot at first, especially back in those days there were a lot more close calls may be because people, maybe just were a a little more careless at times. i certainly was not immune to that. i had a number of occasions where i almost killed myself and my tax eater. after you wake up calls. certainly, despite the fact i have thousands and thousands more hours of flight time now that i did then, there are things i did then i would never do in a million years now in an airplane now that i get older. but i have those cases of almost light into the water, flying around the ship at night and

getting disoriented and distracted and having the guy in the back just yell pulled up. you pull back on the stick and you look at the altimeter and the vertical speed indicator showing us how quickly we were descending, realizing we were just less than about 15 seconds from crashing into the water, being one of those guys. it was definitely, not always the best of things but i've always able to get pretty good at the end. >> host: perseverance and persistence. you know, a career naval officer, career pilot, trained to take on any enemy that may come. you have flown all over the world, persian gulf, asia. your second flight actually sent you to the international space station taking her crew up their where all of a sudden now you're going to be working with these guys that, shocks, -- what are

some of your early thoughts about going to the station and working with the russians? >> guest: my early exposure was, , even earlier than that because i was the head of the nasa office in star city or about nine months and then actually trained as back up on expedition five. i had some exposure to working with the russians before i flew in space. but what i've always found is that first impressions are often not correct. with working with the russians, i have a few observations. one is that despite their kind of gruff exterior, which i think i may be victim of having a similar thing at times, when you become friends with them, it's much easier to become very, very close friends with a russian person happens much quicker than does i think in our culture even. the friendship seems stronger

and just more rich, which is odd when you're doing this with a person that used to consider your enemy. and as i i spent more and more time in space with cosmonauts and spent more time working with the russians in the space program, people often ask do you ever let any conflict we have now in a country on earth that is between us and russia, doesn't ever affect our ability to operate and community in space x the answers absolute not. we rely on each other as friends, colleagues. in some cases literally rely on each other for our lives, and that kind of supersedes any kind of political discourse that is going on on earth. we would talk about these things at times but almost like you were talking about it in an abstract way, like to other countries like china and germany

versus our own. >> host: because you mentioned in the book, it's pretty sensitive and it may think i'm being crude, but you mentioned your marriage to leslie and the difficulty of the entire time it lasted. when you finally decided that okay, the right thing to do is just nuts in this. you had some -- what was the impact on them and how did you deal with that to try to help them work their way through? >> guest: it was very hard. and i sort of struggle with even talking about that in the book because it's a very personal thing not only between me, but also with my kids and my ex-wife. ex-wife. i came to the conclusion, again that i didn't want, i had this 17 year marriage and two children, and you can't kind of make believe that didn't happen. i think you need to be fair to

the truth. so the way i handled it, i hope i handled it well. i'm not sure how leslie feels about it, but i hope she thinks i was fair in this description. i talked about her in the credits and hopefully a way that she might appreciate, you know, i understand that it does hurt the kids the most, absolutely. >> host: within you talk to someone else who came into your life and it seems it made absolutely tremendous difference, not to you but also to the girls. can you talk about what effects she has had on your life since she came into it as your partner? >> guest: so after my divorce with leslie, i'm in a relationship, you to work in nasa public affairs and she was there for 20 years and we started dating in 2009, ten-ish,

and we've been together ever since and now we are engaged. she was a very big part of my last two flights, which is 500 days of my 520 days of space, she was there with me. she definitely made it a better experience. i think i was very lucky to have her, especially because the whole social meeting was becoming such a big deal. it just left a huge -- it allowed me to work on something with her that was fun, in space that had like real-time feedback. and i think especially for the long flight, it really helped, it was in large part of my psychological support to have this project that i could work on with her together that it kind of like real consequences

and feedback. , let me put you back on station again now, and talk about another trying time in your life. you are going along in your first long-duration mission and you get a call from the ground that breaks news do that they, your sister-in-law, congresswoman abbey giffords, has been shot at a shopping mall. what went through your mind? how did you deal psychologically? you are not coming home for the next day. what kind of challenge was at for you? >> guest: it's challenging when you hear that your brothers wife come someone who is very important to me as well was shot in such a violent, i mean most shootings are pretty violent. i don't know if you can't have shooting that's not violent, to be victim of such violence and senseless violence were six of the people killed clearly a

ten-year-old girl. others injured, and she sustained significant injuries. then later i was told ship actually passed away when i was in space. i immediately got on the phone with my brother, talk to them as much as i could. titus would at best as a could. took some time for myself but i was the command of the space station at the time. i had a job to do. eventually i tried to just kind of compartmentalize, separate what's going on on earth from what were my responsibilities in space, and tried to focus as much as occurred on that but at the same time take care of my brother. it was actually, i i wouldn't y there was anything, i wouldn't say is like a serendipitous anything but is actually a good time allowed me to cut the court a little bit with my two fellow crewmates that were up there and let them kind of run with some of the stuff because they had been there for a couple of

months at that point and then i was going to leave them a couple of months later. so that was a guest of a bit of a good thing that allowed me to set them free a little bit. but yeah, it's not easy. that's the worst part about being in space for a long time. it's not your personal risk or worrying about what could happen to you. it's what could happen to the family on earth but in no way to come home. >> host: in the book you mentioned very briefly the fact that mark was also training, was assigned to be a commander, and the decision had to be made, i think i was in washington, we may have talked about it a little bit, you wisely said mark is the person who's going to have to make the final determination as to his fitness to continue training for this mission and whether he really wants to do that. did your experience on station absent not being able to do anything, did it allow you to help him at all in making a

decision, or did that not even play into it? >> guest: we talked about it. we talked about a lot of things about it, but in the end i think it was up to gabby. i think gabby really made the decision. she said hey, despite her injury, she recognized that this was his last opportunity to fly in space, it's important. it's important to his crew he had been training with. otherwise you have to start all over with the new commander. i in the end, on the fence about whether this was a right thing to do. in the

you have a very good point. you are back.

>> host: during the time you on station you talk a lot about crewmembers, individual crewmembers, and two i would pick and you can pick as many as you want but you that really seem to stand out in your respect and admiration for them were both non-americans. the other was samantha. can you talk about each of them, what made them so uniquely distinct and what was it about them that made them stand out in your estimation? >> guest: i had a great with everyone on the crew, which has really been my case. i been really lucky. i flew in space with 40 people and i got along with all of them. everyone stood out in the own way. samantha, just for technical mind combined with the ability,

this incredible ability for languages figures it seems like people they have one site of the brain or the other. they don't have both but she clearly has both. she really stood out in the way. she also stood in fact, she was the only woman on the space station for the entire year i was there. which when she's leaving and you realize you are not going to be around a woman again for nine months, it's something, i'm not talking about in some kind of weird way. it's something you recognize that a, for the next nine months on going to be here with a bunch of guys. and he such a professional. so nice, such a nice guy, kind of like, kind of like the elder statesman of the cosmonaut office at the time, and was different than some of the other guys in some ways in his

perspective on things. i write about in the book how he went down to visit this memorial for this person that was killed in russia. the guy was a political enemy of putin. i just had a lot of respect for him saying i have respect for that guy, i am going to show that by visiting this memorial. but like i like you said all te i flew with were great. that's the best thing about flying in space for a long time. it's not the experience, it's the people. >> host: in your two long-duration flights got an opportunity to see a lot of vehicles, and go here generally, many of those vehicles were commercial. the new breed if you will, although hate the term new space but the represented by some people called new space.

what was your impression and how did you come away in terms of the future of our exploration efforts and the role that commercial space will play, that private entities will play in the future exploration? >> guest: i think how the companies like boeing and particularly spacex that's actually fine to the space station now, , how they are developing this kind of right along with the plans for commercial organizations to take over access to look with orbit someday and hopefully they will be carrying the people soon. that will free up resources and funds for nasa do other things to further explore our solar system. so i think it's been great. i was originally skeptical when elon musk said he would land the first stage on a barge and i think i said something like --

one of us say that again about them. i think maybe i might say he's ambitious, but i would never doubt him again when he says he's going to do something. i think it's very exciting. i think we're on the cusp of a real moment in human history where access to space is going to become much more available in the coming years. i was recently at blue origin, and those guys are not kidding around. that is a serious business and they are serious about flying in space. i suspect you have a lot of success, to. as time goes on hopefully that will get more people in space, more people have this incredible experience, industries in space. nasa beyond the path to doing great exploration. >> host: you talked a lot about, maybe not a lot but you talk frequently about challenges, technical and otherwise, during your time in

space. can you talk a little bit about what you feel are the greatest challenges on station itself? you mentioned things like high co2 levels, that we tolerated through the years, physical and mental stressors, the toilet. you have a top five? >> guest: a lot of life-support systems, we have to focus on them some more because if you're going to mars and the toilet breaks and you can't fix it, you can no longer process your urine into water. you are not going to survive. i think we need to start using the space station as a platform to test this kind of philosophy. hey, how long can we make that go with just this volume of spare parts? how can we get, i co2 needs to be, when it's as low as we can get it, i think that's acceptable to the problem is it fluctuates pretty greatly and it gets high. i think nasa is looking at new

technologies and how to improve that. i think the life-support system equation of going to mars is something we need to focus on and think about more, especially while we have the space station to practice it. i think the psychological, the humans that have, i think we got a lot of the stuff figured out. certainly radiation is going to be a challenge that we need to solve that problem. from a psychological perspectiv perspective, when we were talking about this one day at dinner in the russian segment of how if we were on a way to mars you would not be able to look out the window and see earth and it would be daylight all the time for months and months and months, and that's going to be a whole different psychological experience for the people that do that. >> host: your girls are now older but when you talk about that particular psychological stressor, , something i think

about frequently, you leave the planet and you look back and every day becomes a smaller and smaller dot. and your ability to talk to people back home becomes increasingly difficult and longer. >> guest: and eventually kind of goes away. >> host: how do you think we are going to, how do we train ourselves to deal with that, or condition ourselves to be ready? are we doing anything on station? >> guest: we have done that. we talked about it. i've never done and expand like that that we discussed it. they talked about putting us in one module if the russians got their second laboratory module and like closing the hatch on us for a whole year i wasn't too keen on doing that. but i think it's going to come down to picking the right people, people that can deal with stress and adversity.

having flown in space with a lot of people in space station, there are certain personalities that occur for like a shuttle flight. everything is got to be perfect all the time. you can't make every thing perfect all the time on the space station flight that is six months or a year long. solo bit different personality where you are able to prioritize a little differently can focus on the stuff that's really important when it has to be, and the stuff that's not as important, maybe being able to let it go. i think that trait is going to be very helpful to people who spend a lot of time in space. >> host: as a pilot can out of the shuttle program, when you came in just like i did, pilots didn't -- no way they're going to let us go outside. but now everybody participates. you did a number of them in your time. and you talk about what you, what surprised you? what with the difficult parts of

epa that may be you assumed would be a piece of cake and all the sudden boy, this is really hard? >> guest: you do all this training in the pool in the pool is not exactly like space because gravity still affects you in the pool your neutrally buoyant but you're still affected by gravity in the suit which makes things harder. the friction with the water makes the suit harder to like move but it makes it easier to stop. when space, you don't clearly, if you don't have gravity affecting as in the same way so you are floating in the suit that makes it a little easier. but the magnitude of what you are doing and the intention that every action requires for that length of time, and the physical aspect of it. i thought it was harder than the training you do in the pool. i would say that they need to bump up the pool training a notch because at least the first

two eva that we did were really, really challenging and i was fisa easy you can can get lost on the outside of the space station when it's dark. it's pretty big. i was surprised at how incredible the earth looks from the suit, much more impressive than when you're looking through the bulletproof glass of the winds of the space station or the space shuttle. how hot it is outside or cold. when you're touching things, either, even to those gloves you feel the heat of the sun on metal, or you feel just a deep cold of it. and the contrast about as the sun goes down or comes up is just shocking. the amount of damage that's on the outside of the space station, all the loopholes and things, even bullet hole in handrails how it gets hit all the time. yeah, it was just kind of almot like an overwhelming experience.

>> host: did you come between spacewalks, was there sufficient time like fingertips, toes, stuff like that that bruce a lot, sufficient time to let them get healed up or it seemed they were perpetually soar? >> guest: i would say that definitely between my first and second eva, which is only about a week, you are still a little bit sore in places, but it was good enough. i'm fortunate that it have some cassette where their fingernails like fall off and they like never go back because of the difficulty working in the gloves, which is quite a challenge. >> host: you mentioned some lessons learned, things that now that you said now that i'm never going to go back, never say never, but now that you don't have any immediate intention of going back to space your some things that i learned or here are some things i i missed or learned to appreciate. can you run through a short list

of some of those things you learned and loved? you can use the book if you want. >> guest: i'm just try to think of the really important ones, which i will cover because i know we don't have much time, but just the importance of diversity in 18. i came from a navy that was basically a bunch of white guys like me and it was until i went to nasa that i started working with people from other ethnicities, other genders, other countries. and just having a group, a team with all these different backgrounds and different experiences and different perspectives, whether those are perspectives were from a cultural perspectives or from the fact that at a different major in college, whatever. it just provided us a different way to look at things as a group and made a stronger at solving problems, coming up with

solutions. and that is something that i learned over my 20 years at nasa. the international partnership with the space station program is so important. i mean, and malleable at the same time. i mean, it gets a something that is important for us to work on as a group rather than something negative to be arguing about all the time which seems like we often do. i appreciate earth more and the environment, being able to look at earth for a really long time from space makes you think about how fragile the atmosphere looks, how some part of it are polluted, how this is the only planet we have i'm not a believer that mars is our lifeboat. for our civilization to grow and develop and expand we will have to have people living other places, but that's not because we're going to destroy this place, just run there. we have to take care of this planet. i learned about, like to the

experts are, right? and if you want to know something about rocket science, you ask a rocket scientist. if you want to know something about climate science, you don't ask a lawyer. you ask climate scientists. those kinds of things. you don't appreciate people, be more empathetic to the planet because we are all in this together. >> host: before we run out of time i do want to get to, i am sort of a mars fanatic, but let's pretend i'm not. if we want to go to mars, i'm going to put my biases away because i am a mars fanatic, but if we want to go to mars, what do we need to do? what things, what will it take for us to go to mars? especially in the times schedule that we've laid out for ourselves, talking but getting

there in the 2030s. >> guest: when i was on the space station a reporter said to be, now that nasa has determined there's absolutely water, liquid water on mars during some time of the year, is that going to help us get there any sooner? i was like, i don't know. maybe. now if we got money on mars,, then we get there really fast. naturally what we need. i think technologically i think we can do it. i think when you have a little bit better understanding of some of the physical stuff with our vision may become a radiation affected we definitely need to shield the crew from radiation and whether we do that with a magnetic field or water or some kind of, or just get the really fast. that's something we need to think about. i think the biggest challenge to was going to mars is not, and i will use what my brother often says, it's not about the rocket science. it's about the political science, and it's about having

voters elect members of congress that are science minded people that see the value in doing something like this and put the resources behind it, and whether we change the laws or maybe we just get an administration that recognizes that nasa can be changing direction and changing plans every time we get a new president. that will be very helpful to was going to mars someday. >> host: anyplace else after mars? i'm asking for my granddaughters tragic like saturn? where we're not going to venus. people always say why not venus? venus would be too hard because of the sulfuric acid rain clouds and the crushing pressure. but maybe one of the like tighten or one of those places. a place with water. >> host: you mention in your book i think, i don't know whether it was in the prologue

but in the epilogue when you talk about your realization of how awesome water was, and there's nothing like being immersed in water. what did you mean when you said that? >> guest: you don't take a shower for a whole year, it becomes very important. and we were always talking about, can't wait to go swimming or get in a bathtub. both of us as soon as we got home, it's like the first thing we did. i just walked in my front or, out the back door and jumped in the pool. >> host: no change of clothes, flight suit and all. >> guest: even though the pool was heated to come when i get out, my body went into shock. had not had that experience, really cold. but it was a lot of things on earth we take for granted. >> host: would you like to go back again? >> guest: i would go back, yes. >> host: what would you, if you had an opportunity to pick your group, not names, but what

kind of crew would you like to put together? what type of talents? >> guest: i would pick them from the group of people i spent the year in space with, and you know, people that are helpful but not too helpful. you can't have someone up there that you think is always going to help, you know, be there to help you do your work. i think it to let people do their own thing but know that there are times to help and times there are not they're just be technically competent because it's a very collocated thing working in space and has a lot of risk. and then after those two things i would you say, like, people that are east to get along with that don't get too stressed out over things, that you can trust. i mean, on the space station you have to be able to trust people you are up there with because they're so many things that can go wrong. so trustworthiness, competence,

technical tactical competence, stability, someone who's emotionally very stable. a lot of the traits that we often don't see in government today. [laughing] >> host: you said it, i didn't. you can say it. we both can say save as a mattr fact. what are they going to do, send us back to space? [laughing] and you don't have to do it quickly. we've got time. you talk to a lot of kids, and i think you are as passionate about them as i am. hopefully there will be several thousand students who will see this at some point in the academic life. give them a few words of wisdom. go all the way back to scott kelly, the kid would never do the right thing, who did know how to study, , who didn't realy

see the need to study up to scott kelly today, you know, the people that many of us admire and consider a hero. >> guest: if i was to talk to myself back then, what i would say is, you need to find some inspiration. you could have beat me over the head with a two by four and i wasn't going to be up to do my homework. so i think inspiration is the key. and kids get inspiration from different places, different people are inspired by different things. for me i know it was absolutely impossible for me to be a good student. without inspiration and inspiration i found was from a book and it said hey, if you want to do this, you've got to do this, this and this, and this requires homework. and that's what helped me. for kids who want to work at nasa i always tell them just pick something that is qualifying, but something you are interested in. don't become a a pilot becausee were pilots. become a pilot because you want

to fly airplanes, and if that helps you become a national great. but if you'd rather be a chemist via chemist because you'll be a better chemist. it's good to have a job that you like, you will do better at. >> host: another book in the offing? >> guest: i'm working on a young reader version of this one out and a picture book actually. >> host: great. scott, it's been incredible pleasure for me to have the opportunity to sit and talk today, everybody is looking and wonders whether to take the book or the audio, get both. i get both, and they give you as you said they give you different perspectives when you're reading it and when you're hearing it in your voice. but you've absolute incredible today and thanks for your service to the nation and to nasa, and best of luck from here on out. >> guest: thank you. thank you, sir. appreciate it. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a

public service by america's cable-television companies and has is brought you today by your cable or satellite provider. >> cspan's studentcam, the tweets say it all. studentcam and action pic video editing and splicing for constitutional documentaries. this group showed how it's done. two stellar interviews in one day. these students ask some hard hitting questions about immigration reform and the dream act. we are asking students to choose the provision of u.s. constitution and create a video illustrating why it's important. our competition is open to all middle school and high school students grades six through 12. $100,000 in cash prizes will be awarded. the grand prize of $5000 will go to the student or team with the best overall entry. the deadline is january 18. get contest details on our

website at studentcam.org. >> here's a look at some of the best books of the year according to library journal.

>> it was a difficult book to write. i sold the book just before bed santos came up. and i was thinking what i wanted my other nonfiction book to be. and i thought the book i wanted to at least is a book about fatness. and then i realized that the book i should write the most. my dad always told me to do something no one else is doing. a lot of people write about fatness with the perspective of having already figured out there body. say see a woman standing on the cover of the book and half of her formally fat pants and saying i did it. i can't write that book yet but i want to so why don't i tell the story my body today.

just explanation of this is my fat body. this is what it's like to be in this world and this body. >> some of these authors have appeared on book tv. >> good afternoon. it's a beautiful saturday. at barnes & noble's. good afternoon. welcome. we're excited to have you at the barnes & noble event series featuring john hope bryant and his latest bestseller, the memo. five rosary economic liberation. were excited to have you here today. we want to thank barnes & noble for alanis to be here. john is the founder, chairman and ceo of operation