 What brings you to the next day? So I'm actually coming home, or at San Houston. San Houston High School, where I graduated some many years ago. And it's nice to come home to talk with students, and try to inspire them to be whatever they want to be. What kind of questions do they ask you, and what advice do you give to the today's students? Yeah, I think the most common question that people ask is, what was it like to travel in space? Because I've already talked about that. As an astronaut of spaceflight mission to travel over 7.2 million miles, I have a lot to say about that. And I use that as a platform in which to engage in people around inspiration and aspiration. So it's great for us to inspire kids. That's what we do as astronauts. But also to aspire them to be greater than themselves. To realize that there are things out there that they can do, that only they can do. And remind them that they are, which are these inner beings who have the possibility to come back. And did you ever believe as a child that you would be going out into space? So it was 50 years ago, actually, that I first contemplated this idea of traveling in space. It was 1969. I feel I was wrong and Buzz Aldrich mentioned me. And when I saw that, I was hooked. I was 13 years old. What does space feel like? I don't know what it's like. What is it feel like up there? Well, in short, it takes only eight and a half minutes to get to work. So we launched from Florida, and I got on my seat eight and a half minutes later. We were traveling at 17,500 miles an hour, and we went from being pushed back in my seat to three and a half times my weight, under the acceleration of getting into orbit. There was zero gravity in the second, and then I was there floating for the first time. I floated up to the window, and I looked outside, looked down to see the earth, and it was a gorgeous sight to see. You know, at 17,000 miles an hour, we travel around the world every 90 minutes, and we get to experience the sunset or sunrise every 45 minutes. So can you see beyond there? No. Yeah. So if it's at night, with the heavens over us, you can see the stars of the Milky Way, in every direction that you turn, you can see just this thousands, millions of lights at work. You're realizing that in some of the regions, those are not just lights, they're not just other planets, they're actual solar systems that are out there, and galaxies that are out there. So that kind of blows your mind. It blows my mind when I think about it. And when you're in space, you realize that the planet Earth is just one of those heavenly bodies amongst millions and some people and billions of other galaxies. Wow. I overheard the other reporters say about Mars. What do you think we're out of that? Yeah. So right now, traveling above us at 17,500 miles an hour is the International Space Station with crews in orbit constantly. I want you to think about this. Going forward, there will never be a time in human history that will not have a human presence in space. We're starting with the International Space Station, which, of course, NASA put in place. We now have private industry that's now taking us back and forth, picking up equipment, taking up humans into space. And around 2024, there's an Artemis program, which is the lunar program where we're actually at humans going to space. This time, it will not just be men, it will be men and women from many different ethnic backgrounds that participate. This is a curse. And that will be the staging ground. And that's just to explore our solar system. So do you believe we will populate Mars? I believe that one day, in probably a few generations, we will not only be living on the moon, but we'll be living probably on Mars. One last question. Could you see Saturn turning from space? Yes, I could see Saturn turning from space, but only at night, because we're 250 miles above the Earth. And so during the day, you really can't see cities, per se. But at night, when you're passing over it, you see the lights of the city. And there are a couple of things that kind of stand out. I should say, you know, human-made things. The Great Wall of China is one. And the pyramids, the pyramids are another. But you can only see them during certain times of the day. You can either sunrise or sunset, because of the shadow that it casts on those structures. So how did you pick out San Antonio from space? Well, that's pretty easy, because you can see where the Gulf Coast is. You can see the lights of Houston, and you can come about 200 miles just west of Houston. And that big bright area is San Antonio, Texas. My hometown. Thank you. Anything else? Did you cover the door? Yeah. All right. Thank you very much. Good to meet you. You are in San Houston High School. Yeah. And you said when you were 13, you kind of got the bug. Was there a teacher at San Houston who looked at a difference in your life at that time? Well, there were multiple teachers along the way. And Middle School was my science teacher who introduced me to rocket trade, which was kind of fun. And we actually created a flying saucer that I got to participate in. At San Houston, of course, there were a number of teachers that inspired me, and particularly my chemistry teacher, my biology teacher, of my math teacher was fun. I love math, but my favorite subject is science. And that's why I ended up going to the US. So the teachers told you, yes. Yes. And my mother, the ultimate teacher who taught school for 45 years was my ultimate hero and mentor that got me where I am today. Well, good afternoon, everybody. Good afternoon, sir. Hey, everybody, San Houston graduates. Ah, yes. Soon. That's what I wanted. Good. As you heard, I went to San Houston High School, graduated from many, many, many eons ago, and it's always nice to come back home. So I appreciate it. And thanks to the folks, my friends at Silver, we have programs that we do together all across the country, focus and STEM. I understand you guys are part of, it's called PTEC, and somebody tell me, what's the name of the program? Cybersecurity. Cybersecurity. Okay, cybersecurity. And what do you do in cybersecurity? What kind of malware? Safety. Malware. Okay. Cool. So you're getting ready to be the frontline for cybersecurity and all the attacks and things that are happening as we speak. That's good. And guess what? If you do really well in this whole area, you're going to have good jobs, good paying jobs. Keep up the good work. So I want to share a couple of things with you. As I stand before you, I stand as an astronaut as you believe. You heard that I also stand as a physician. I'm a medical doctor. I did my residency after I did all the education that Joan shared with you at the Mayo Clinic in internal medicine. Internal medicine is the field of medicine that takes care of adults. What do you call the specialty that takes care of you at your age? The nutrition. So I take care of anybody that's high school and beyond. And so after I did that, and I also spent time in NASA, and I'm going to share with you what it's like to travel in space, and I want to leave some time for you to ask some questions about that. But then when I left NASA, I got involved in investments. So I started working in an industry called Venture Capital. Anybody heard of Venture Capital? Did I hear you that? I gave you an old tab. So I want to share with you because I did not know what a Venture Capitalist was. That's what I am, one of the things that I have done until I was like four years old and just now getting into the business. Let me tell you what a Venture Capitalist does. A Venture Capitalist goes, creates a company, and then raises money for that company and create what's called a fund. And then that fund is used to invest in technologies. So the Venture Capital firm that I ran invested in medical technology because I have a sort of medical background. And so we invested in an area called telemedicine. So the reason I bring that up is twofold. What I want you to expose you to a Venture Capitalist was secondly, what you're doing in this cybersecurity area fits very nicely for the companies in which we invest in. Because telemedicine is using technology like, and I can't probably get a picture of my iPhone. You see if I pull it out of my pocket. It's not in there. It's here. It uses this device to communicate with your doctor. So if you're sick, we have an app that you can log on using this device, the L or B internet computer at home, and I can actually FaceTime with my doctor and tell the doctor what's wrong. And then the doctor can use this device to send a prescription to a pharmacy. And I even have to go and see the doctor face to face. So what do you think is going to be critical about that interface? You know what the interface is on, yeah? Sure. What would be critical? What would be a critical aspect of that interface related to what you are studying right now? Make sure somebody doesn't need a host of information. You got it. You can use it at home. Make sure that nobody gets a hold of the information. So medical information is probably one of the most critical forms of information that gets passed back and forth with this device, in addition to financial information, right? Everybody is concerned about that. So encryption technology is really important for that. The only way that my company that does that can do that work is that we have encryption built into the device. But anyway, so that is related to what you guys are doing. So I want to ask you a question of you, and I know in high school, because I was in high school, sometimes when the speaker kicks on you, it's kind of like he bears you might not want to say anything, but I know this group. You guys are ready to speak up, right? So let me ask you. You got to do that first. What are you going to do? What are you going to do when you graduate from high school? What are you going to... What are you going to... What do you think about doing when you graduate from high school? Not quite sure. But during the cycle security thing, you got to do something around that. Does anybody know what they might want to do? Yes, sir? Well, go to college first and then go to the military. College first? Then go to the military? Okay, cool. I saw your hand kind of keep up. No? You're just scratching your head. Anybody else want to be brave enough to share? All right, cool. Okay, so go to college, computer technology, whatever you go into. All right, giving one more. How about a female person? A female person. And I might know what she might want to do. No? Yes. Come on. Throw something out. Of course, he doesn't think. I'm a warrior. You've got a warrior. Love it. I saw your hand. No, tonight? I saw you. I know you loved your scratchy nose, but what is it? It's almost pediatrician. Pediatrician. Fantastic. Fantastic. Now, as I said, I was in high school, well, you're not. I was in high school. And so I know that this may be difficult for you, especially with all the cameras around you and, you know, don't stare you down and all that sort of thing. So even though you might have not raised your hand, I know for sure that you will not be in this school or in this special program if you didn't already know what you're thinking about. If you are not, if you don't, I want you to start thinking about it. The reason for that question is to get you to think about what life is going to be like after high school. Because one day, I know this is going to be a shock to you. You're going to be as old as we are. And you're going to have to be in a profession and being a physician to take care of yourself and to take care of your family and to give back to your community and participate in this nation. And we want to make sure that you have the tools necessary for you to do those things that's right to you. That's why the people around the room who are investing in you is because you want to make sure that you can do those things. The reason why I told you about all the things that I have done is because I believe that each and every one of you in this room have the potential to do what I have done and even more things, even greater things. You know the limiting factor. You know what would prevent you from doing that? I want to guess. You got it. Get yourself. Get yourself. There's people that fear and they're aspirations in times. The concern about what your colleague may think if I say this or that or if I share this or they may think that you're not good enough for whatever reason, you might think if you're a woman that you can't be an engineer because you've only seen me as an engineer if you can't be an astronaut because you've only seen me as astronauts or you can't run a company because you've only seen white guys be CEOs of companies, guess what? None of that is true. That is all about limiting your mind, limiting who you are. I'm a person that's about no one else. No one else. That should be your motto. But we have a thing that we do at our company and it's a saying that we have and it goes like this, you're an infant being with infinite possibilities. That's what you are. You're an infant being with infinite possibilities meaning you can do anything you want to do in life. I know that it may not mean a lot to you but I can tell you if you take that in if you really understand what that means about your potential, about your talents and about the contributions that you should be making for yourself and for this nation we're going to be fantastic. One day you're going to be standing up here telling your story about how you finished high school and you did this and that and young people are going to be looking up to you and going like, you crazy? Just like some of you might be saying. But that's what it's about. So let me share with you in a few minutes that we have and I want to open up those questions. Probably with all those things that I've done probably the question I get asked most often is what was it like to travel in space? Did anybody tell me what on what the vehicle was called that we used to go into space rocket ship? It's a rocket ship. Yeah, what do we call that? Hang on a second. What do we call that? A rocket ship. That's what he did. Right up in the rocket ship. What do we call that? What do you call that? A rocket ship. Space shuttle. Yeah, space shuttle. Different names, right? Different names. So we actually have five of them that we used to go into space and I flew on two of them. Discovery and Columbia. You've seen that rocket ship that we've got before but you may not know that it weighs five million pounds. In order to get that five million pounds in a year, we have the light five engines that produce a thrust of seven and a half million pounds. That thrust hitting the ground, we go in the opposite direction really quickly. Do you want to know how fast it takes us to get to orbit? In fact, I'm going to not tell you. I'm going to answer the question. I'll pass. Ten seconds. Oh, not that bad. Yeah, I was going to do that. Not quite that fast. Five minutes. What was it? A little longer than five minutes. It's a little longer than five minutes. Eight and a half. Eight and a half minutes from zero to being in space. Eight and a half minutes from lifting off at Cape Canaveral in Florida and blasting off and reaching 250 miles in space and some 5,000 miles down the range. When I got out of my seat and had to look up and looked out the window, I was looking at Spain and the European continent. That's how it works. And I'd gone from zero to 17,000 primary miles an hour. And at 17,000 miles an hour, I can go around the world every 90 minutes. I get to see a sunset from sunrise every 45 minutes. Why do you think I get to see a sunset from sunrise every 45 minutes? Because of the Earth, the orbits are on the sun. Take it a little bit further. Earth, orbits around the sun. Time is different. It is different. The sun goes in Earth. Yeah. Sometimes the sun is right in the east and I'm right in the west. Yeah. So the sun, the Earth is orbiting, right? And how long does it take? 24 hours. Yeah, go ahead. Let me finish the question first. Here we go. How long does it take to Earth to rotate? Thank you. 24 hours. So on an average, how much time do we have during the daytime and nighttime? 12. Okay. And what do we call night time, nighttime? Night time. It's dark. So, same thing happens in orbit. December, as the Earth is turning every 24 hours, it has day shining on it. It's determined by the rotation. If we are going around the Earth, we are also doing the same thing. We're just going much faster. So that's why you get 45 minutes of daytime to 45 minutes of nighttime. Okay. So, once I got into orbit, it was really fun to be in a place that had microgravity. Being that there was no gravity, I could float around. If I wanted to go from that side of the room to that side of the room, I just crossed with a little finger that goes cruising right across this kind of thing. And my first mission though I learned that when I push off from one place and go to the other one, I don't use my full hand. Because I use my full hand, I don't use too much force because I don't weigh anything. Because I don't weigh anything, all I need is a little finger. So, just a little light touch and I just go cruising right across. So that when I got to the other side, I could just stop myself and then float. Where I am, one station on the other, it was kind of cool to be in orbit. Because of that zero gravity, we're actually able to explore different things. So we do different experiments on them. We take animals up there to see how they behave. We do experiments on ourselves and what we found in experiments on ourselves that we lose one percent of bone per month. We lose 15 to 20 percent of our muscle mass, especially the muscles related to a standing like our legs and our spine. We grow one to two inches when we're in orbit. Because of the unloading of our spine, we're not able to find all the illnesses that are changes in the immune system. And our heart actually gets smaller in space because it doesn't have to work as hard. So as a medical doctor, my job is to take care of the crew and my job, along with our public members, is to do experiments in that micrograph. That's what we're doing in the initial stationation. I wanted to give you a feel for what was like to travel in space. I wanted to give you a feel for what it's like to be in orbit. And in the few minutes that I have left, why don't I just open it up for questions that you might have. Yes, ma'am. What was your biggest challenge in high school? My biggest challenge in high school was trigonometry. Trigonometry came to save me. I kind of had flashback when you asked me that. Because math. So I knew, though, I had to have math. So that was probably the biggest challenge. I love chemistry. I love biology. I love basic science. Anything to do with that. Math was a little tough for me. And I had to work hard. But I ended up doing, I think, getting away all the way up to calculus out of high school, with a quantitative analysis. So, yeah. That was tough. Yes, sir. Can you suggest yourself from going to a group of you being the majority and seeing more people like you being the majority? Yeah, so are you talking about... Like going from high school being around people that look like you, necessarily, and then going to NASA being in the workforce with not many people like you? So, you probably don't know this, but back in the 70s, Santa Cruz High School was mostly white. Oh, okay. I know. I know. Because now it's mostly it's mostly white. So, there were a lot of blacks, of course. And it was on each side. Back to my family then, where am I? Family lives in Eastwood Village. My father, that's where I kind of grew up in Eastwood Village. He was the one who walked to St. Houston. And so, I had the experience, but to your point, I did get into environments where it was just me. For example, school class. I was the only African-American in my class. There were four or five of us in the entire school. When I went to astronaut school, I was the only one in my class. And there were, again, five of, no, four of us African-Americans. And in the history of the space program, we've had about 23 African-Americans out of around 400 or so astronaut students who have been in the space. So it's realizing who you are is realizing what your aspirations are and being willing to work hard to accomplish those despite what opposition is making. So it's making up that mind and making up your mind and being determined about accomplishing your goal. And you get through. Yes, sir? Can we take showers in space? Let me tell you what I said. We do it. We don't. So we have a water dispenser. That's in the hose and you can actually dial in the temperature of the water that you want. We don't have, like, a shower head that you get underneath. Because if we did, that water would come down and it would hit our bodies. What do you think would happen? It would hurt? When it hits your body, what do you think would happen when it hits your body? It falls off. What makes it fall off here on earth? Gravity. Gravity. When it falls off, guess what happens? It sticks to your skin. So the water comes out and it just hangs on your skin. And so I took a band-aid on that to kind of take a quasi shower. So I turned the nozzle on and I just hit the center of my chest because I have a lot of indentation right here. I let it fill up with water and I end up with this big water ball. And it kind of looks, it behaves like mercury. And if I move, it kind of moves like jelly. And then I take no-rin shampoo and I put the no-rin shampoo inside that big bubble. And then I take my hands and I take a, by the way, I want to give you a cool picture. Then I take that bottle of no-rin shampoo and I just put it right there right here at gravity. And then I take my hand and I reach it inside of that big bubble when I move it around and then suddenly this clear fungating mass or this clear jello-like stuff turns into this big fungating mass and I move it from place to place to place while it's clean. And then I take a towel and put it on my body to absorb the water. And then I take a towel and you brush it off real quick and you wipe yourself down. I did that so suddenly that it would be all over the place and everybody would be pissed off. In electronics and in the industry. I have a question. Yes. How did it deal being in space for two weeks or whatever it is? You know we spent six months in space. And all of those changes that we talked about that happened to you when we come back down we have to go through a rehabilitation program because we're not able to stand up. So we're much weaker when we come back. And in fact with my longest flight being around two weeks even in that two-week time period when I came back down I could not stand up. It took me about 30 minutes to get up out of my seat and walk around. I had to get used to being in gravity. I had to be careful and how I would walk around during that day because I stumbled. One of the other things I did talk about is that your middle layer that tells you whether your right side or outside gets turned off. So if I'm standing here talking and you're just getting off of the spaceship I would hit the ground and not know that I hit the ground until I hit the ground. Isn't that crazy? That's because my body is adapted to microgravity and it turns off all of those systems that we normally use here. Yes, sir? Is our flight like the only flight that's been plenty in the moon? Yeah, it's our flight. The only flight that's been in the moon. Thus far it is. So China, I think, went to the far side of the moon. I don't know whether they're in front of a flag or not. But we have a number of flags in two different areas. And you can actually see them if you use a telescope. People always ask me, can we really go to the moon? So if you get a telescope point out to a different little path you can actually go to NASA NASA.gov find out where we landed the telescope. You can actually see the lunar landers and the places where we landed. And those marks are still on the surface of the moon even though it's been over 40 years since the last step. The steps are still there. And so, your principal is standing up and my communications guy is standing up telling me that we're running out of time. Nope, perfect. We have more time. We have more time. I have a final question for you. Why are the footprints and the tire marks still on the moon? Yes, sir. No erosion. Why? No wind. What else? There's no wind. Close. Close. Don't be scared. There's no wind, no erosion. What else? There's no... That's it. What? There's no weather. A lot of no weather. Exactly. You just cut to the chase. There's no weather. Here on earth we have weather which is wind, rain and everything else. The only things that can disturb the moon are meteors that hit it every day. And the moon is that color. You see the big pop marks in it and that color is raw. Meteor is hitting it various sizes for millions of years. Without an atmosphere they just get buried. And so when you walk on the surface of the moon you're actually walking on what feels like talcum color. It's not even sand. Your foot disappears as you take it. And it's because it's been beat the surface has been beat for millions of years by microwaves. All right. How do you... How do you sleep? How do you sleep? We have sleeping bags that we use in space. Is that like little pods? Well we have pods too. In the International Space Station we have separate quarters. You have separate quarters so you've got a whole space that's probably no bigger than this. And inside there you have your sleeping bag attached to one side to one side of it and you have through your desks that you would work on on the other side. And the sleeping bag has to be attached to the surface. On my first mission at the International Space Station we just had the sleeping bags we could just take the sleeping bags and I could put mine to the ceiling onto the wall on the floor and the most eerie thing that happened to me on that first mission is that I had to get up in the middle of the night to go pee. I'm sorry. We have to do those things. And so when I woke up I woke up in the morning and I was on one side and the bathroom was on the other side and so I had to get out of my sleeping bag load through those bodies like a little snake going through and then I got on the other side and then of course I had to return without disturbing anybody and I did it successfully but I didn't do it. Anyway, let me if I can to end with especially high school students because you are on the verge of stepping out to take the helm of your life and that is to remind you of the three things that are important. Actually we have a little motto I said earlier we believe in infinite possibilities we are infinite beings with infinite possibilities and what that means is that each and every one of you has born multi-potential with the ability to do anything that you want to do anything you want to do I was probably one of the first messages my mother told me. Number two, that each and every one of you born multi-talented meaning that there are certain skills that you are born with some of you like science some of you like math some of you like playing sports basketball whatever it is is nothing that you did or studied you just like but then you can also use your brain know what this is to learn different skills, different other talents and abilities that's what school is about so take advantage of that and the last thing number three which is the most important thing I definitely like to share this with minority audiences with people that look like me and that is that each and every one of you born for a reason there's something special that you're supposed to do you're supposed to do definitely you're supposed to do you're supposed to do what you're supposed to do and you have to figure out what that is only you can figure that out the folks around the room can help you can assist you enable you but those choices have to come from you you have to choose to do that no matter what your colleagues next to you say no matter what people might think about you or say about you what counts is you and there's another saying out of this lady that has to do with success in the college success is a choice you guys heard this one? success is a choice that you make not somebody around you not your parents, not your principals not your teachers achievement and success is a choice and you have to make that choice and I believe that choice you have to make and have because that sets the stage for you so this has been great thank you guys you've been a great audience thank you you didn't say anything in the entire time I was sitting here why is that? so I hope you guys remember at least some aspect of what I'm sharing so yeah, thank you very much so make a lot of noise though if you got a little bit of shine make sure that you leave I might hear it all you know you're going to all get a picture of Dr. Harris band up I'll send her a little bit we're going to go get down let me see she's back Here we go, here we go, here we go!