Our interview with NASA astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, part of our series titled Failure is Not an Option, asks crowd sourced questions to reveal what life is like in space and how Dottie, as a woman astronaut, continues to inspire young women to pursue careers in STEM.
As the first installment of our “Failure Is Not An Option” summer series—an ode to people who have pushed the boundaries of space exploration, our interview with Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger includes questions that our listeners shared with us on social media and revealing answers from Dottie about astronaut bands, sweating in space, and how she deals with the pressure of being a role model to young girls who dream of a future in space. Dottie’s first memorable encounter with failure was being last to finish a 600-yard dash in middle school, an event that pushed her to become better at sports as she grew older. Dottie acknowledges that “failure is one of the best ways to learn in life,” and her failure at that race led her to becoming a great runner in high school and college—both of which were important to her success as an astronaut. When asked about how often astronauts argue about politics in space, Dottie is happy to share that on a space mission “there’s no room to have fights over things you have no control over.” Dottie continues to advocate for greater inclusion of women in STEM, and believes that seeing positive representations of women and people of color in space is key to helping people see themselves as astronauts, engineers, and the next space explorers.
Transcript after the player.
Want to learn more about the history of space exploration? Check out our exhibition Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission to see how NASA landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969.
Host: Sean Mobley
Producer: Keny Dutton
Webmaster: Layne Benofsky
Content Marketing Manager: Irene Jagla
Thank you to Alaska Airlines for sponsoring this episode of the Flight Deck Podcast.
SEAN MOBLEY: The Flight Deck is made possible by the generous donors supporting the Museum of Flight and Alaska Airlines, committed to enhancing our community's cultural and economic vitality for over 35 years. You can support this podcast and the Museum of Flight's other initiatives across the United States and the world by visiting museumofflight.org/podcast.
[Music]
SM: Hello, and welcome to The Flight Deck, the podcast of the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington. I am your host, Sean Mobley. Today, we're kicking off a five-episode miniseries called "Failure is Not an Option. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, we're going to here interesting and insightful stories from a wild variety of people over these five episodes touching on this theme. To start us off, I welcome former NASA astronaut Dottie Metcalf-Lindenberger to the show for a crowd-sourced Q&A. Listeners from around the world submitted questions for Dottie, and we ended up chatting about astronaut bands, sweating in space, and how she handles the fear of letting not just herself down, but generations of young women who look to female astronauts like her as role models and hope for their own future.
[Music]
00:01:30
SM: I want to hear more about Max Q.
DOTTIE METCALF-LINDENBURGER: It was as fun band to be in. I was asked to be in it, I think, because I was on a national outdoor leadership school backpacking trip with Chris Hadfield, and Chris was a leading guitar player and singer in the band. And we climbed this peak with the team, and at the top, I sang a song while one of my friends did, like, a prayer. Anyway, then, Chris asked me if I wanted to be in Max Q, which I had never sung in, like, a band, a rock band. I've always been a choir singer. So, I grew up singing choir in church and then in high school, and even in college a little bit I sang choir. But Max Q started way before Chris Hadfield and I showed up. It had been—
SM: What is Max Q, just so—Yeah.
DML: Oh, yeah. So, it's an all-astronaut rock band.
00:02:24
DML: But it's also important because it comes from the physics equation for max dynamic pressure, and so, it's, kind of, the geeky, but fun, term for a band. And we play covers, and we always pointed out that this was not our day job. But some of the band members are very talented instrument players and singers. So, I'm not going to say I was. I just had fun.
SM: I don't think a lot of people realize there's an all astronaut band out there. Does it still exist as an entity?
DML: They will still sometimes get together and play. It doesn't—No. We tried to pass—
SM: Right.
DML: …it on to the next astronaut group, but they were very, very busy. Right? Like, so, our office at one time had been over 100 astronauts when I came in, and then, we had attritioned down to about 60 when I was retiring. And, you know, just everyone was very busy, and that was one more thing that it was hard to add on the plate.
SM: Absolutely. The theme for a lot of this summer's episodes is failure is not an option. What's a time in your life that you've faced a failure and how did you learn from it?
DML: Well, yeah. I think that phrase is very important to the situation. Right? That situation was we have got to get these crew members back. We don't want to watch their lives perish in front of us. But failure is very important, and in fact, we know that's one of the best ways to learn in life.
00:03:47
DML: Probably one of the biggest early failures I had was as a sixth grader. I ran the 600‑yard dash and took dead last, but that was really critical because it launched this part of my life where I wanted to become an athlete. And later, I would go on to be a college runner, not at the NCAA division. I was in NAIA, but I ended up being a very good runner. And so, by failing in that race or taking dead last, there was only about six girls that ran it. So, I think showing up on that starting line was important, but also, it gave me a goal. And I realized that goal was going to be very important as I started to learn more about what astronauts do. It's that you need to be athletic, and you don't have to be an athlete. But you need to be athletic, and so, it really started me down this path of working towards being an athlete. And so, in middle school, I started doing sports, and then, I found running in high school.
SM: Yeah. And here you are.
DML: And here I am, and I still run.
SM: How would you define failure? I mean, you, kind of, touched on that a little bit, I think, actually in your—
DML: Yeah. Well, like, at the time, it felt like, you know, I felt like I was last.
00:05:01
DML: But if you step back now and look at it, like, only a few people even showed up to that line. So, to me, actual failure is not showing up and not being seen and participating. And something that you might care about or want to have a stake in. So, I try to let young people and my family members and even remind myself when I feel like I'm having setbacks or if something doesn't feel like I'm succeeding, I have to remind people that you're showing up, and there's really good researchers that talk about that. One of my favorites is Brene Brown, but taking that risk and that is the beginning of success. And there are going to be setbacks for sure, but you are going to learn from those and you're going to be surrounded by people that will help you move forward.
SM: Well, we've got a couple of questions that came in from listeners over social media. A question here from Benjamin S. from Washington, D.C. I guess apropos for a Washington sea resident asked, "Do people fight about politics in space too?" I mean, if you're up on the International Space Station, you have people from all over the world.
DML: That's right.
SM: I don't need to leave the country to have arguments about politics. So, how do you navigate that?
DML: Right. So, the thing I really liked about space is that there isn't room to have fights about things that you don't have control over. So, we have our, within NASA and within the Russian Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, we have people that work out and negotiate for the way politics, kind of, trickles down with funding or with policies, but we don't have to deal with that as the astronauts and cosmonauts.
00:06:45
DML: In fact, we see each other as teammates, I mean, very important, critical teammates, and I think that makes us better. So, I always like in sci-fi movies, what's coming to mind is, like, The Martian where the Chinese come and help in the pursuit. And so, I think that is a good illustration of science or space being above the discussions and fights down on the ground. I think that we just don't have room for that.
SM: Yeah.
DML: We're trying to move forward.
SM: Januse [phonetic] [00:07:15] from Poland asked—
DML: Wow.
SM: …what astronauts do with their sweat in zero gravity. Are there just, like, sweat droplets floating around in the space auto? I mean—
DML: Right. That's really, kind of, a good, little question because I totally notice this and had a great way of dealing with it. In the space shuttle, we had essentially, like, a bicycle on the mid-deck, and sweat builds up and it doesn't run anywhere, right, because it doesn't have gravity to have it run somewhere.
00:07:45
DML: So, as it's making these bubbles on your skin, and what I did was I took—There's a vent that you could put right down on you, fresh air blowing across you, and that felt so good. And then, I had handy a washcloth to just wipe the sweat because it's just uncomfortable that it's building and it's not helping do what it's supposed to do.
SM: Right. It's not doing its job. Right.
DML: That's right. And so, it doesn't go, I mean, just like we watch the water droplets in the—It would keep clinging to your skin until enough of, like, if you sweat so much, but no one—
SM: Right.
DML: …really does. So, everyone does some sort of towel, washcloth. Some folks have put little porta-fans in front of the running treadmill just to, kind of, keep the air, but find a vent, you know, what can you do to keep air going over you.
SM: Speaking of vents, I've heard a rumor that you chose your sleeping spot very strategically when you were on the space shuttle.
DML: Well, one of the—So, I slept a good chunk of the time in the air log, which is great because it has transfer of air across it, and it's just really nice.
SM: I'm sorry. That just sounds terrifying.
00:08:54
DML: Oh. Well, it was, in the space shuttle air log, so you can see that over in the full fuselage—
SM: Yep.
DML: …trainer here at the Museum of Flight.
SM: Space gallery.
DML: Yeah. Of course, it used to be the air log for, and was, for the last Hubble flight, but when we're docked to the Space Station, that's the tunnel in between Space Station and our vehicle. So, it was fun, and Stephanie and I slept in there, and we called it the Women's Den.
SM: A question came from the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada. They asked, "Did you ever have overwhelming fears that would make you feel like quitting and how did you overcome that?"
DML: Wow. Such an interesting question.
00:09:35
DML: Well, if we go back to our failure is not an option, this is a thing that came up for me. It's like I don't want to fail because I feel like, as a woman and as an educator, like, I want to do a good job. So, how do you turn something that could feel daunting into something productive? Well, we learn that from athletics, music, performances, speaking. It's to not focus on, like, the failure piece, but focus on how can I be the very best so that that doesn't happen. Right? So, studying for my exams, practicing, muscle memory of being in the T-38 and, like, on the ground just practicing in the simulator so that then I'm ready to go do that in the plane. And like I try to tell young people and remind myself, hard work is part of the joy, but it's how you overcome some of these pieces. And so, it's taking those nervous butterflies or the anxieties of the possibility of failure and putting it into an actual action that's productive and not going to paralyze you and makes you go forward and go forward in a really positive way.
SM: Right. Well, kind of, along that line then, you know, another question. This came from Lauren M., who is a teacher in Madison, Wisconsin. She asked what advice would you have. You're teaching yourself.
DML: Yeah, right.
SM: What advice would you have for teachers on helping them especially get more girls, kids of any gender, but especially girls, interested in pursuing science and STEM?
00:11:13
DML: Yeah. Well, I think what we're trying to do and I think that's why museums are a critical piece and while hands-on education is critical and outside experimentation is to do stuff. Right? Robotics has been a great avenue for young people to get into STEM, going and participating in small groups where you feel a part of the team and aren't singled out or maybe don't feel as much like you belong. When you're in a smaller group, like, you have to belong and lead. And so, clubs and all these different ways. And so, how do you do that in the classroom? Breaking kids down into teams, engaging them with hands-on learning, focusing on the step-by-step versus, like, the big goal far off, you know, breaking things down and making it manageable.
SM: To wrap it up, we had a couple people who asked the same kind of question. Lucas Lindforest [phonetic] [00:12:10] who is a high school sophomore, Marin M. [phonetic] [00:12:12] who's in Bothel, she's eight.
DML: Cool.
SM: She asked, "What made you want to become an astronaut and what advice would you give to Marin and other eight year olds and high school sophomores who really want to pursue that dream of going to space?
DML: Right. So, like, a bunch of things happened about the time I was eight. I was a third grader, and Sally Ride flew in space.
00:12:37
DML: The movie The Right Stuff came out, and folks were starting to talk soon after about Halley's Comet. So, all these things were happening, and my parents were paying attention. So, I really admire my parents, but I was also starting to pay attention. And I realized that for young girls, because of Sally, that it was possible for me to go to space. Now, years later, of course, I would learn, "Oh, Valentina Tereshkova had gone as well," but we didn't talk about that. She was, again, there was that Cold War. She was Russian, and that just wasn't part of what we were learning. Yeah. Being eight, like, it was, I could tell my parents really admired what the early astronauts had done. They had been young when Apollo, the Apollo missions were happening. They would speak so highly of it. We were going to the museum, to the planetarium to see all these return imagery because we were now getting information back from our Voyager missions. And so, it was just, like, exciting, and I could tell people were excited. And I wanted to be a part of that.
But, you know, as an eight year old you don't really know how to become a part of that. So, then, this is the piece of all the different people that play a part in your life: your parents, your teachers, of course, going to museums, going to camps. And this started layering together and that's how I then would eventually become an astronaut because all those pieces coming together, I guess.
SM: I think you hit on an important point that I think it's lost a lot of times in discussions about representation too, about why it's so important to have women like you out at the front talking about this stuff because, I mean—There's a video that you can find that was made around the Apollo program.
00:14:20
SM: I think we have a copy of it here that we've circulated internally where they were asking kids do you want to go to space, and I think it was a Canadian movie, film and this was the introduction. And all the kids were saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," and they were all boys. And then, one of the last people they asked was a girl, and she said, "No. Girls don't go to space." That movie was not making that as a point. I think that that point that we're just making a film. But there were no women going to space, and that was not the message.
DML: That's right. In fact, they were actively turned away.
SM: Yeah.
DML: You know, women had wanted to be a part of the program and were declined, and now, we're seeing those barriers break down, but in our military and as fighter pilots. And the message of being other and that isn't just for women, there are others that fit into the category of being that other and being left out or told that they don't belong. And so, that's really important, I think, for then the turnaround and also changing that perception and being visible.
SM: And I think sometimes people question, you know, why do we have programs at the museum, for example, that are so focused on girls. Should it be for everybody?
00:15:29
SM: Well, of course, it's for everybody, but as you said, not everybody sees themselves there. And so, it just takes that extra effort sometimes. So, thank you for being such a significant, I know not just at the museum, but such an advocate out in the nation and the world.
DML: Thank you.
SM: Well, Dottie, I wish we had more time to chat. Thank you so much.
DML: Thanks for all these crowd-sourcing questions.
SM: Of course.
DML: It's fun to, like, go from across our country to around the world.
SM: Yeah.
DML: And then, come right back to local.
SM: Absolutely.
DML: So, that's for doing that.
SM: Enjoy the rest of your day here at the museum.
DML: Will do.
00:16:00
[Music]
SM: Thank you for tuning into this episode of The Flight Deck, the podcast of the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington. This is episode one of our five-episode miniseries "Failure is Not an Option", sponsored by Alaska Airlines. Dottie is one of the many stellar individuals who present public programs here at the Museum of Flight. So, next time you plan on visiting, make sure to visit the museum's calendar to see what events and programs are on the docket.
If you like what you hear, please rate the podcast on Apple podcasts or wherever you downloaded us from. You can contact the show at podcast@museumofflight.org. And until next time, this is your host Sean Mobley saying to everyone out there on that good Earth we'll see you out there, folks.