Today we have a special privilege: we’re talking to an astronaut who has spent 136 days in the International Space Station and completed 2 space walks. He’s also the mission director for the recent Intuitive Machines lunar lander, the first US mission to the moon in more than 50 years.
His name is Jack Fischer, and here is our chat:
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In this episode of TechFirst, we chat with astronaut Jack Fischer. He describes the awe-inspiring experience of space travel, including the different perspective gained from 250 miles up. He humorously recounts adapting to zero gravity and the physical relief it provided for his neck and back. The conversation covers Fisher’s role as mission director for the Intuitive Machines lunar lander and space missions’ significance.
We dive into the technological and cooperative efforts required for future Mars missions, including efficient propulsion and collaboration across industries. Fisher keeps the discussion engaging with anecdotes and enthusiasm for space exploration, highlighting recent advancements and the potential for a lunar economy.
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Get the podcast transcript
Jack Fischer: I went up on a Soyuz vehicle with the Russians … that head shroud came off the windows. Light starts coming in, engine kicks off. You’re in space, you’re floating. You look outside, there’s this thin blue line of every living thing on the planet that is so dramatic from 250 miles up.
John Koetsier: What’s it like to go to space? Hello and welcome to TechFirst. My name is John Koetsier. Today we have a unique privilege. We’re talking to an astronaut who spent 136 days in the International Space Station. He’s completed two spacewalk. He’s also the mission director for the recent intuitive machines, lunar lander, the first US mission to the moon in more than 50 years.
His name is Jack Fisher. Welcome,
Jack Fischer: Welcome. Thanks for having me, John. I’m excited to be here.
John Koetsier: I’m super pumped to have you. I know I’m calling you Jack, but maybe I should call you TwoFish. I think that’s your call sign from the US Air Force Days.
Jack Fischer: When I grew up when it was okay to make fun of your name, so … lots of ways to make fun of Jack and TwoFish is probably easier to stick with.
John Koetsier: So I wanna chat with you about a lot of stuff where we’re going in space, the next missions to the Moon, Mars, all that stuff. Even beyond but I wanna start here. What’s it like to go to space?
Jack Fischer: Man, John, it’s as cool as you think it would be. I and unfortunately I’m not as much a poet as I am a pilot, so, my, my words sometimes don’t do it justice. But when I launched you’re really in the moment. You’re doing your job going uphill. It’s when the headrow comes off.
I went up on a Soyuz, vehicle with the Russians. That headrow came off the windows. Light starts coming in, engine kicks off. You’re in space, you’re floating. You look outside, there’s this thin blue line of every living thing on the planet that is so dramatic from 250 miles up.
We’ve all been on airliners. We’ve all seen, the curvature of the earth. And you get to start to see the atmosphere, but 250 miles up, you you get to really see a different perspective. And that’s what’s so cool about it because. Everything changes everything you’ve known. All those rules of if I drop something, it falls I gotta walk on the ground or nope I can float all of these rules and these things that have and parameters and constraints that have restricted you.
Your mind is allowed to redefine itself to look at everything in a new way, and. It’s magical. So, for me I got up there I was lucky enough, my body figured it out pretty quick, and with the exception of just me being silly sometimes trying to fly around like Superman and running into the things.
Absolutely loved every minute of it. It was just a blast.
John Koetsier: I have not heard of astronauts on the ISS or previous missions maybe dislocating a shoulder or breaking a bone ’cause they were doing the Superman stuff, but I’m sure there’s been …
Jack Fischer: I, there has to be, and there’s definitely some times when you’re lucky that, that you don’t whack your head or something. The first couple weeks … I’m an old pilot, so my back and neck don’t feel good anyway, and you go up there and all of that offloads. So I actually grew a couple inches and my back felt great and I was flying around and doing all this stuff and I was on the video chat with my wife and I’m like, my back feels great.
I’m sleeping great, but my, the back of my neck hurts. She goes, well dude, why are you flying around like Superman all the time? I’m like, ’cause I can. And she’s like, can’t you fly anyway? I’m like, good point. And so then I was, doing like low rider, like I’m on a Harley or spinning or flipping or it changed the experience.
So props to my wife for giving me some good advice there.
John Koetsier: Yeah. Anybody with back or neck pain, all you gotta do is come up with, I dunno, 20 million, maybe 20 billion, go to space and live there forever.
Jack Fischer: Feels great. Coming home is a little less fun, but going up. It’s a good time.
John Koetsier: Now, you said you adapted pretty quickly, right? Because we all have this sort of mental model of how the world works. I’m sitting on a chair right now. I trust that I’ll stay here and not start floating off. My phone is down on the desk. I trust that it’ll stay there.
How long does it take for most people to rewire their nervous system … their understanding of how the world works, how physics work when they go into a null-G environment?
Jack Fischer: It depends on the person. We haven’t quite figured out physiologically some people feel really bad, and some people don’t. I was one of those lucky ones that, that don’t. But it’s not necessarily tied to what you did on Earth. I’m a test pilot. I’m supposed to be able to do things that make billy goats puke, but test pilots don’t necessarily do better than anybody else when you go to space.
So we’re really trying to understand that better as far as training your mind. I think that test pilots the training that you get being comfortable, being uncomfortable is and rewiring for a new aircraft is what you’re doing in space. So knowing that I can, if I can have a wrench that I set here and don’t impart any force.
It’ll stay there and then I can go and do this and it’s still there. You get better and better as you go. I think most people about, a month or so in are pretty proficient. And then, certainly by the end I got to fly with two very experienced people Fyodor Yurchikhin and Peggy Whitson.
And they’re at a completely different level. Peggy can float down a hallway and she doesn’t even know she’s doing it, and she kinda like moves her leg over here and then floats this. It’s insane. She’s so good. Her brain is at a different level just because of all that experience. So you get better and better.
But rough cut … couple, few weeks in you’re probably pretty good.
John Koetsier: And then you wake up your first morning back on Earth and you try and float down the hall, it …
Jack Fischer: That does not work as well and it is not as fun. No. Coming home, it’s rough.
John Koetsier: Wow. There’s so much more that I wanna know there, and I’m sure there’s billions more like me. Maybe one final question before we get into some of the other stuff, and you said you’re not super poetic, but maybe wax a little poetic for us. You’re on the launchpad, you’re sitting on a time bomb.
Controlled time bomb. It starts to go, and I know you’re super trained, you got a million things and you’re thinking about all the technical stuff and everything, that there’s real danger as well. These things are not safe in the terms of what most vehicles go in that most vehicles that people go in, that we feel are safe.
What do you feel? Is it a bigger kick than anything you had in a fighter jet?
Jack Fischer: It’s actually not … so I went up on a Soyuz. It’s a liquid rocket, so the acceleration. Isn’t that great? It’s great. You go orbital in eight minutes, but it’s around three Gs. And it’s smooth. The ride is very smooth. And folks on, like the falcon in the Dragon capsule get, get a similar experience.
The folks who rode the shuttle with those big old solids, those things are, they go fast and they shake, and you’re hanging off the side, off the center of gravity. So you’re on a diving board, if you will. And then all that rumbling translates into the seat. So that is a very different experience.
As far as, uh, fear or those type of feelings, my whole career as a fighter pilot, combat pilot, test pilot. You, I think fear is a good thing. I think it brings your A game and it makes you sharp. But you can only use that for the things that you can control. If I’m gonna be fine pink mist in 20 seconds ’cause this rocket decides to blow up, there’s not a lot I can do about that.
I need to nail the stuff that I can affect the outcome that I can affect change, and I need to focus to do that. So, when I was flying, you’ve seen Top Gun, where it’s the beautiful little anthem, and then Tom Cruise salutes the crew chief, and then it’s danger zone, right? When I was flying, I always appreciated that moment.
And same thing on the pad sitting there, you got to choose a song and I chose The River from Garth. And that’s when all the emotions are going through you. When you salute the crew chief, it’s time to go to work and then you focus. And so I took that moment … the words of that song meant to me and and this, life goal that was about to happen appreciated it put that away, and then saluted the crew chief and went to space.
John Koetsier: Amazing. You’re now a VP at Intuitive Machines. We will talk a little bit about what you’re doing there and what you have done as a mission director and stuff like that, but maybe big picture, what does that company exist to do?
Jack Fischer: It exists to defy the impossible, to really break down barriers and make us make a blueprint for how we can expand into the solar system, starting with the moon. We love those hard challenges and we build and we do.
There are a lot of people out there that make really great PowerPoint and talk a great game and that’s great. But I got into space and flying and everything in my childhood was ignited when I was six years old, visiting my grandpa here at Johnson Space Center saw that big old Saturn five sitting on its belly. And just seeing it being in its presence to, to realize that humanity came together to do something so incredible and do it that’s what fired me up.
And as much as I love this space station it was a great place to live. Mind blowing for me, but it doesn’t connect with that many people because. It’s a bright spot in the sky that if you know where you’re looking, you can see it. The moon, mankind has been staring at that baby for as long as we’ve been around.
It’s it’s an emotional, passionate connection that we have. And, it’s a full moon right now. And last night I was standing out there walking my dog and. Looking up and going, holy cow, ods up there, we did it. And that doing and inspiration that comes from actually accomplishing.
I think that and being part of the whole process, a part of this team to accomplish something that we haven’t done since 1972 in this country, no commercial company has ever done. That is probably the crowning achievement in, in my entire career by far.
John Koetsier: Amazing. This is from a man who’s been to space, been a test pilot, spent 136 days in space, and being the mission director for the mission that got a lunar lander to the lunar surface. Incredible. The moon is incredible, right? It is visual, it is visceral. It’s part of our, our culture, it’s part of our heritage.
It’s been the most visible part of space, if you can put it in the night sky. It’s also a place where we can spend time, right? You can imagine us carving out living spaces that are protected from cosmic rays and solar radiation with some regolith over our heads and that sort of thing, and as much space as you plan to dig for and maybe even find some combustibles and some water, ice and other things like that, right?
So there’s real prospects for living, and there’s gravity. So you, your body should hopefully function quasi-normally, right? There’s low gravity, but it is an interesting place to to establish …
Jack Fischer: Oh, absolutely. And as a company our, in addition to the lunar transportation systems lunar access that we build just like OTI our next mission is coming in November. We also just won a contract for kind of a down select on an astronaut moon buggy. So the lunar terrain vehicle that is, as you said the lunar environment does give us that platform to launch into the solar system from to learn how to survive and thrive on other celestial bodies, to get the technologies that we need hammered out and to really reduce the cost low earth orbit.
Wasn’t as prolific as it is now until we got the cost to launch down. Thanks Elon. And the others. So we are trying to do the same thing for the moon. We’re trying to develop the engines, the structures that guidance and control, all of the things that you need to reliably efficiently and cheaply.
If you can call it that land on the moon that’s what’s really gonna ignite a lunar economy and allow us to build up the infrastructure we need to go even further.
John Koetsier: So you’re gonna start working on this rover for Artemis. Does it look like we found some good spots to land and perhaps establish a base that might have access to local materials that we can use, water, ice, or other things?
Jack Fischer: Absolutely. So NASA’s been working on this for a while. We have they’re called the Artemis Landing Sites. We have all the data from every, everything all the way back to Apollo to current day with our lunar reconnaissance orbiter. And all of the data from our mission all goes into and analyzing and understanding exactly where to land.
In fact on our second mission, we are landing at one of those sites. it is within the same picture frame of the South Pole, 89 and a half degrees. So, right next to the Shackleton crater, if you’ve ever heard of that. And it is a site that we are fairly confident we’ll have water, ice in the soil.
We’re bringing a drill with us that drills down about a meter into the soil. Has a little mass spectrometer that looks for volatiles in, in what we dig up. We also have two rovers on the vehicle and a rocket powered drone. How cool is that? It’s called the hopper. And it’s gonna fly off the main lander and then hop into a permanently shadowed crater to also look for water ice.
So another technology that’s looking for that and testing out comm systems. Like I said, what we’re trying to do is obliterate those technical barriers that really keep space confined to just. NASA science and opens it up to business where we can close business cases and not just for exploration.
You accelerate exploration by having not just NASA investing in this stuff. I’m wearing a Columbia a sweatshirt, which is a partnership we had on the first vehicle. If you saw a picture of Odie, actually we got ’em right here. I’ll just show you. Mini Odie.
John Koetsier: Nice.
Jack Fischer: on the front of Odie we had what’s called the Columbia Omni Heat material.
And originally they were just gonna put a sticker on, right. It was just an advertising thing. And then we started talking to them and just realizing the brilliance of their company and their R&D and they’re like, hey, what if you put this on the lander? And we tested it. It worked great.
We talked to ’em about how we do insulation on spacesuits and everything else. They took some of that back. They made the lightest, most efficient jacket in history. It’s a fantastic partnership and what it does is it accelerates technology because now you have a clothing company partnered with a space company and I.
We’re getting rid of the lines that space is hard and only space companies can do it. And we’re taking the very best of technology across the board. Our LTV team is the same way.
We have Roush and Michelin, AVL, all these completely non-traditional companies for working on a space system bringing the very best that they’ve done in the tire industry in Formula One racing, and they’re bringing it to bear together so that military, civil and commercial all at the same time are investing and synergizing together so that we can just move faster. It’s just, it’s an exciting time.
John Koetsier: Pretty cool. I think you’re also bringing the internet to the moon in a sense, or at least the communications array. Is that correct?
Jack Fischer: You bet. So on on that second mission we’re partnered with Nokia. We obviously have our comm system that talks to the earth. But this Nokia 4G LTE system is gonna be on the rovers, on the hopper, and on the lander itself. To create this network and really demonstrate how we might have a more capable communications system on the surface that then talks to relay satellites and back home.
John Koetsier: Nice. Nice. I think there’s something, there’s an interplanetary IP address system as well, so I’m assuming you’ll tie into something like that. I believe it’s been used on Mars.
Jack Fischer: You bet. Yeah, we use a lot of those those same protocols. NASA has conglomerated all of those protocols into a document or a standard called LunaNet. And that is really guiding another one of the contracts that we’re going after. It’s called Near Space Network Services. It is the commercial augmentation for the Deep Space Network.
And its goal is really to standardize, just like you said, have that the standard that everybody uses so that we can put up a system and it’s not the only system you can use that they all interact and get better together.
John Koetsier: I am so excited for us to be able to create some sort of permanent or semi-permanent spot on the moon. There’s so much that we can do there. Radio telescopes on the dark side, right? Free from the interference of all the EM that we put out. Just telescopes and in, in essentially perfect conditions that, that are on a platform.
There so much that we can do, so much that we can learn. It’s one of the mission goals is also to prepare for travel to Mars. Talk about that …
Jack Fischer: You bet. So a lot of our technology is scalable or applicable to a Mars mission.
You might have heard in recent weeks that NASA put out a call to industry hey, what could you do to accelerate the Mars sample return program? It was a bit behind and over budget. And can we do something akin to the commercial lunar payload services or clips firm fixed price where industry takes some of the risk, to accelerate and move quicker and get this same thing done without bankrupt. And we did put in a proposal for that as well with several partners in the industry to get out to Mars return those samples with an ascent vehicle. We dock, we come home. We’re building out reentry technology for even lunar sample return.
So that’s part of the overall infrastructure.
There’s just a lot of overlap in these technologies, so the faster we go, the more that we can really develop and just refine the faster we’re gonna be able to get to Mars efficiently. And so we’re really excited about that one as well.
John Koetsier: One of the things that you mentioned there is docking meeting up, docking, getting some samples, returning. That’s one of the, honestly, one of the mysteries of space to me. You mentioned being on the ISS and if you put a tool somewhere, don’t impart any force to it. It’ll stay there.
Not imparting any force to, it has gotta be incredibly challenging. Right. And if you’re in space, any force to any wiggle any role that you come up with. Counteracting that with just the right amount of force. I know we have computers for that these days, but they had to do that so more manually in the Apollo days.
And it’s shocking that that’s possible.
Jack Fischer: And we keep getting better and better at it, right? The the space station, God bless that arm. It has had a long and arduous life of capturing all those. But they are largely cooperative. Everything that docks to the station we know rates on the station so that. It doesn’t move much, and it’s so big that it really doesn’t it’s more that active control with the vehicle and then turning it off at the wrong time so it’s not fighting.
So that, or the arm or the station docking isn’t fighting it. But nowadays we do have systems out there that can go up to. Non-cooperative is the. Term, but a vehicle that might be in distress or is rotating because it’s outta control.
John Koetsier: Interstellar!
Jack Fischer: There you go. Yeah. And and it can still think of it like when you’re getting ready to go into a jump rope as on the playground and timing it just right to go in.
At that moment when you have a window. We do have those capabilities. We actually have several patents in this company for non-cooperative docking and capture which our work with, the Maryland NASA Center, Goddard. We have a contract that is working on a orbital docking and rendezvous demonstration.
So, that is something that is getting better by the day. Lots of companies working on that and humanity as a whole is a whole lot better than we used to be.
John Koetsier: So, I do want to talk to you about some of the future stuff and where you see us going in space and what it’ll take to get there.
Before we do that, you are the recipient of an award very recently. Talk about that …
Jack Fischer: You bet. So, Annie and the whole unified team just a in incredible group of people has started unified space agency quite a while ago. So Annie Burillo, started this she, she grew up in the music industry and working with rock stars. And she met a few astronauts along the way and saw this kind of kindred spirit of artist in a but.
But just not afraid to really put yourself out there and try to make an impact, right? Whether it’s with music or with science. A similar underlying goal. And so she started this company to do the PR for astronauts. In addition to her work with music industry and it’s grown, she represents.
Heck, most of the astronauts I know, including me. And she has now put together, okay, let’s start combining the two in a way where the accomplishments and just recognizing great achievements over the year or over a lifetime in the case of Alan Shepherd. Can now showcase that and ignite it in a different way.
Just like when you go to space, how you tell that story is gonna resonate with certain people. I am not a rock star. You don’t wanna hear me sing. So I am not going to inspire anybody with music. But if my story can be translated through a rockstar band, like OAR. And they can capture people’s imagination in a different way.
We get the same thing done. So I’m excited about it. I think it’s a great idea that Annie had. I’m completely honored to be a part of it, and I. And, just as a representative of Intuitive Machines and our banner year this year. So, honored and excited at the future of really a different way to get people inspired.
John Koetsier: Very cool. If I recall, it was a platinum award for your achievements and as a very humble person. I’m guessing you spent most of the time talking about your award, talking about the people who set it up and what
Jack Fischer: Of course.
John Koetsier: good. No worries. It’s all good. It’s all good. Awesome. Let’s turn here then.
What will it take to make human humanity multi-Planetary.
Jack Fischer: Yeah. So. We’re a lot of people working on that, right? Elon’s Battle cry is Occupy Mars.
we need better propulsion, we need better radiation. We need good power sources. All of those building blocks are being investigated today. I think the true key is where can we synergize industries?
So it’s not just nasa. NASA can’t afford to do this. There is no country on the planet that can afford to do. Really to kick the door down of the heavens by themselves. There’s also no one industry that can do it by themselves, but like I mentioned with Columbia or any of our partners, when you overlap those and you accelerate the.
The tempo of change. That’s when you can start knocking those bowling pins down one at a time and we can have a better radiation protection. If we’re taking six months to get to Mars, the sun is a finicky fellow. And when he, when he passes gas it’s got some, it’s got some oomph behind it.
John Koetsier: We’ve seen it just recently.
Jack Fischer: Good Lord. Those lights. Where are you located at? Are you in Vancouver? How were the lights? Were they awesome?
John Koetsier: they were incredible. They were amazing. They were in the entire sky. And I got video and I got photographs as well. And you see it better. You see the colors better, the camera captures the colors better, but just
Jack Fischer: That’s so cool. We didn’t really know that was coming before it was coming and six months is too long, so. How do we protect the crew? How do we protect the electronics? How do we get there faster? we have a, an old I won’t say old, an experienced astronaut named Chang Diaz. He’s developing an engine called the Vaser Engine.
It gets you to Mars in 38 days. Incredibly efficient. As we develop those technologies, that’s where. It becomes more and more possible for us to, to land. The Starship is a pivotal piece of that architecture to, to be able to land and in an atmosphere and launch again. The methyl lock technology or cryogenic engines.
That can be fueled by fuel that you make when you’re there. Just like oti that’s a key enabler. So we just need to keep taking bites outta the elephant until he is gone. And the faster we can take those bites, the faster we can become multiplanetary.
John Koetsier: Wonderful. Do you have give us 30 seconds of context on this engine that you mentioned that can get us to Mars in 30 days? That sounds amazing. That sounds like you’re under full thrust the whole time. Half the way there, you’re thrusting away and how you’re, then you’re reversing into Mars.
How the heck does that
Jack Fischer: So, and I’m not a vaser expert and that’s one of many engines, but the the basic premise is it is a very efficient engine. So there’s a thing called specific impulse. It’s like gas mileage and horsepower for your car all wrapped up into one. And a normal, a really good engine that is chemical, like the space shuttle main engine is like 400 seconds.
That’s about who cares what it means. That gives you an idea. This type of engine is in the 30,000 range, so incredibly efficient. But unlike the shuttle engine, which is a whole lot of thrust, high velocity thrust, this is well. High impact thrust it. It moves you quickly. This is a little butterfly fart.
And
John Koetsier: Slow and
Jack Fischer: it’s a butterfly fart that is very small, but it’s continuous and there’s nothing to slow you down. There’s no drag. So all you’re doing is accelerating constantly. And like you said about halfway there, you need to turn around and slow down. So it is, kinda looking at propulsion in a different way.
And we have a lot of technologies out there that are trying to crack that nut. And it will be a big part of how we really unlock Mars.
John Koetsier: That’ll be super huge. I’m gonna do some research on that. I’m assuming it’s like essentially a particle accelerator or something like that, because of course, it’s the faster you can toss stuff behind you, the more impact you get. So if you don’t wanna carry a lot of reaction mass and a lot of mass, you’re gonna throw the way behind you then.
Then you’ve just gotta accelerate it crazy fast, and hopefully not. Aim your rocket the exhaust at the earth or something like that, or some other place. Very cool. They, let’s say you, they come to you tomorrow. They perfect it in secret. It launches. Here’s a ticket. Golden ticket. It you taking it.
Jack Fischer: Yeah. My, my back and neck are not the best. But if I get
John Koetsier: Slow thrust. Slow
Jack Fischer: if I get
John Koetsier: Mars gravity. No worries.
Jack Fischer: Mars, oh yeah. I’m taking it. It you, me my life has been about trying to find great teams to be a part of so that I can make an impact. And what an incredible honor to be able to go to something like a Mars mission.
I got a lot of friends in the astronaut office who could do a better job. So I would step aside and let them go younger, stronger, faster. Smarter and I’ll do my best here with this amazing team to create the technologies and infrastructure that’s needed to help get them there and home safely.
John Koetsier: Wonderful. Wonderful. Final question, favorite space movie you already mentioned, interstellar. I just recently re-watched The Martian. One of my favorites. What’s yours?
Jack Fischer: it’s tough. But I gotta go with space balls. Love me some ludicrous speeds. Yeah, I the number of great quotes in that movie are just In fact, our,
John Koetsier: You picked the least realistic one.
Jack Fischer: it’s, the Martian was great. I thought they really captured everything. Who doesn’t love space pirates? But even our gym in this building is called Ludicrous Speed, and we have kind of a.
I’m going plaid mural on the wall. You gotta have fun and you tie back into that rockstar thing. With the award. You have to have fun. This stuff is awesome. We’re going to fricking space. You get to see the earth is a little marble. You get to see the moon, you get to touch and be a part of things that are hard to even imagine.
You can’t. Act like it’s just every day. NASA tv, God bless him, but. Sometimes you, you make a launch sound boring. That’s unacceptable because it’s cool. Rockets are cool. Fire’s cool. Go into other planets is super cool. So have some fun with it. And if you ever get down to Houston, we’ll walk you around.
You’ll see our Kessel run hallway. The crane is called Chewy. The little hoist is Han. In the other assembly room we got Darth Vader is the crane. We got Lu and Leia and Luke is the hoist Leia’s, the 10 ton crane ’cause she’s more powerful Jedi. Line up the lights sas that can come across, we have fun because this is awesome and we wanna remember that every day when you walk through.
So yeah, space balls. Ludicrous speed. I’m going plaid.
John Koetsier: Love it. If I came you just in case, me in Carbonite, so I’ll
Jack Fischer: We don’t have that machine done yet.
John Koetsier: not yet next year. Thank you so much, Jack has been a ton
Jack Fischer: All righty. Well thanks a lot.
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