I want to talk kind of as an old wizened man, and you might look at me and say, "Who's this guy? Why's he think he can talk like that?". Well, I've gone about 50 million miles and that's about 2,000 times around the earth--equivalent distance is to the moon and back about 110 times--so I look as bad as I look today because I've put in a lot of miles. Over that time, I had a grand, grand view of the planet Earth, and I had five months to think about things and reflect and kind of narrowed down in my mind what's important and what life lessons I had learned. This big, broad perspective of things, I think, wizened me a bit. I'd like to share five points that I've sort of structured my life after and some lessons that I learned in space. Hopefully, I'll make you feel like spacemen and spacewomen and not like earthlings today. We'll talk about space a bit.
The five points are: 1) taking small steps to achieve your goals, 2) of decisions having direct consequences, 3) of believing in yourself and embracing change, 4) of courage and what it means, and finally 5) having the pride and staying power to see things from start to finish and finishing whatever you set your mind to.
The first point is you achieve things step-by-step and not in giant leaps. How many people remember, or at least have heard about for the younger folks, when Neil Armstrong stepped out on the moon? You know, I will never forget it, and I said I wanted to be an astronaut when I saw Neil Armstrong stepping out on the moon. All he did is a very simple thing. He did this (Linenger takes step). We could all do that. It is a very small, small step but along the way he took many, many small steps and eventually it was one giant leap for mankind.
You have taken a leap at this point in your careers, and you are ready to go tackle the world. You've done that in a series of small steps, and in my experience of becoming an astronaut it was just one small step after another. I went to the Naval Academy. I'd go study a subject at night, take differential equations first cause it was a struggle, and I'd reward myself after an hour with the history of seapower or something that read like a novel. You give yourself little rewards along the way, take little steps along the way, and eventually you are in a position to do the things you want to do with your life and your dreams become reality.
Let's pretend we are in a spaceship. I am still a bit of a spaceman, and when I look at this room I say we can fit, oh, 100,000 people in here, no problem. I still see volume, and I see lots of sleeping spaces up in the rafters. My favorite spot was the wall--that's where I slept for five months and we've got all kinds of room.
The second point I want to talk about though is that the decisions you make have direct consequences. Let's pretend we're in a spaceship. We better close the doors. We've got a vacuum of space outside. You cannot survive for a second, but inside the spacecraft we're all doing fine. We're in our robes. We're all floating around. Nobody would be listening to me. We'd be doing somersaults, spins, barrel rolls, and you'd be having the time of your life. It would be one great fun time!
Let's talk about decisions having direct consequences and, in a closed system, how you see that very much. I think a lot of times on the planet we make a decision--we do something--and the consequence is so blurred and so far down the line, we don't realize our actions have direct consequences. In space, in a closed system, it is not the case.
For example, I push the wrong button on a computer, we lose attitude control--that means the space craft starts tumbling. It starts tumbling. Solar panels aren't lined up any longer. If solar panels aren't lined up, you don't have power. You go to the dark side of the earth, you come out with flashlights in your mouth. You need oxygen. You need power to run the oxygen generator. You take water. You split the hydrogen off, vent it to space, you breath the oxygen. H2O. So, as you can see bad action, you live with the consequence in a downward spiral for the next two days as you try to regain power and survive. The actions you take, the decisions you make--whatever field you go out into as you march forward now--those decisions are going to affect your life down the line. They affect the people around you. Think about those decisions and know what you are doing before you do it. It does have direct consequences.
The third point--you have to believe in your abilities and you have to believe in yourself. Whether you know it or not, you are all very, very well-prepared. You're a step ahead of 90 percent of the people on the planet, and you've a lot of responsibility because of that. You need to believe in yourself, and you need to have self-confidence. You need to be willing to overcome the barriers and the difficulties that you face.
The fire. The spacestation Mir. Picture yourself in space again. You've got an electrical problem, so you start using a back-up oxygen generator. You flip the lever. It bursts into flames. You've got a three-foot flame barreling out directional, blow-torch-like. You've got hot molten metal being melted and splayed across on the bulkhead on the other side. Within thirty seconds, you can't see your hand in front of your face. So much smoke.
What I did was dive for a respirator. Put it on. Just about running out of air. Take a breath in. Nothing. Take my second breath in. Nothing. Decide we've got a faulty respirator. Get rid of that one. Look low for some good oxygen. Being an earthling all my life, that seemed like the logical thing to do. Being in space, warm air doesn't rise. Smoke doesn't rise. Smoke throughout. There's no clear air. As I'm flying for my next respirator, I get a smile on my face cause it crossed my mind I need to open a window. So, you know, you are sitting there on your last gasp, gulp of air, and you are laughing, a little smile, and then I start talking to myself and say, "Get that respirator on." I found the respirator and put it on and was sort of over the crisis and checked my crew mates and made sure they were breathing okay.
Then you start talking to yourself and say, "You can do it. You've been trained. You've been in tough situations on aircraft carriers, you've been in tough situations throughout your life and you're going to get out of this thing." You have confidence in yourself, in your ability, and your training, and you talk to yourself and you say, "We're going to get this fire out, and I'm going to get home." It's confidence in your abilities, and you guys all have the ability to do great things. You need to believe in yourselves.
The fourth point--you need to be willing to embrace change. It is a very tough thing, and human beings are very, very adaptable animals.
Let me give you an example of a space operation. I'm in space right now. I take my notes here. I let them sit here. They float. I fly away. I'm a little thirsty. Grab a tube of water. Get up on the ceiling. Suck some water down out of the tube. Type on the computer up there. Enter some data. Put a sample in the furnace. Fly back across over into the ward room. Try to grab some jellied fish and suck that down for dinner. And I stop again, and I get a smile on my face and I say, "Jerry, you don't even know you are in space anymore."
The reality was that I was a spaceman 100 percent. I was as comfortable in space as I am standing here talking right now. Actually, I was more comfortable than standing here talking right now in front of all these people. Basically you get to the point, where, for forty-one years of my life, gravity prevailed. I'd stand. I wouldn't work on the ceiling. I wouldn't fly, and all of a sudden after a month in space, I'm a spaceman, and I feel perfectly comfortable. I feel like I've lived there all my life, and I realize that life goes on and we can change. We are adaptable, and we can't be afraid of change. We can't be afraid of new challenges. And I will never again say, I can't do that, because I realize we are adaptable beyond your imagination, and you can do anything you can set your mind to.
The last point--concerning courage. You know, people come up to me a lot of times and say, "Man, you launch in those spaceships--they go about 7,000,000 pounds of thrust--there's a huge explosion, like a volcano underneath you, you lift off, you get yanked back into your seat, you must really be brave." And I say, "Well, not really, I don't even think about that I'm trained, I'm thinking of the 2,000 switches and, in the astronaut viewpoint, that's 2,000 mistakes, is the way we look at switches--you can make 2,000 mistakes very quickly. So, during the launch I'm not particularly brave, because I'm trained to do it, and it's my job, and I work in space." Flying off aircraft carriers, you do it because you're trained to do it, and I didn't feel particularly brave, particularly courageous.
During the space flight, I had a space walk. I opened the hatch and, in my suit, go out the door, climb over the edge, totally responsible for my own life, keeping myself attached, kind of like a rock climber with carabiners hooking myself up. All of a sudden, I feel the speed. Very similar to flying an airplane, when you're inside you know you are going fast because you see landmarks going by. As a matter of fact, in space, I would say, "Ah, there's Houghton, ah Detroit, Toronto," and that's how fast I'm moving."
I know I'm going fast, but I don't feel 18,000 miles an hour. I go outside the door doing a space walk, and I felt 18,000 miles an hour, much like going out on the wing of an airplane. So what would you do? 18,000 miles an hour feels like you are falling off a cliff. Feels similar to freefall parachuting except that you are going about 100 times faster than when you freefall parachute. Speed absolutely unbelievable, 18,000 miles an hour, is an incredible feeling. What would you do? You'd grab on, I think.
And, I'm not ashamed to say, I grabbed on for dear life and said, "This is not good." I've got five hours of work to do, and I need to get it done. I've been training in Russia for a year and a half. I've conquered the Russian language and spoke Russian for the last two years, and all communications from the space stations were in Russian, and I went through tough times.
I trained inside a big swimming pool as deep as this gymnasium and I knew what my task was. I was going to carry out a 500 pound experiment optical properties monitor. And, I could carry it out on my finger. I was kind of having fun with it. Spinning 500 pounds doing this, you know, Mr. Olympic-type guy. But I told myself, "Jerry, you gotta do this, you know it's your job and what can I do." So I told myself that I needed to do a bit flip, and I tried to intellectually talk myself out of it, but I told myself it's not going to work, because reality is you are free falling and you are going 18,000 miles an hour.
So I said, "Okay, Game Plan B." And, I looked down at the earth and I said, "Odin, dva, tri, chetiri, pyat". Counted to five. Looked up. Looked back down again. Said "I haven't hit." It's okay to be free-falling as long as you didn't hit the bottom. I rationalized my way into it. I tucked it back into my head. My pulse got back down to about 70 as measured on the earth, and I went about five hours of work out in space installing and retrieving different experiments on the exterior of the space station and going great distances. From here to the corner of the auditorium on the end of long poles being dangled out there kind of like a fish on a very flimsy fly rod. So it was quite an experience. One I'll never forget.
I used to write a letter to my son every night. And that night, I wrote to my son, and I said, "John, dad has courage." And, I meant it. I went to the Naval Academy, and we used to talk about leadership, used to talk about moral courage, about doing the right thing regardless of the consequences. We used to talk about physical courage in combat, and I thought I understood what courage was. But at that moment I felt courage, and I had courage. I would submit to you that most of you all have it, and when you need it, it's there, and it's a very nice feeling when you've spent it and you've accomplished your task.
I think in earthly terms a lot of it is moral courage. That's probably just as hard as going 18,000 miles an hour in space: doing the right thing when it's not going to benefit you personally. So I hope you all find the courage to do the right things as you become the leaders on the planet.
Finish what you start, have some pride. When I came back to land, I gathered the crew the night before and I said, "Please I don't want anyone touching me when we land." I laid in a recumbent seat because you are pulling a lot of Gs after five months in space, your body's weak, and your bones are soft, but I said my mission's over when I get back to crew quarters in my bed, that's when this thing ends. I'm going to take it to the end, and if I start something I'm going to finish it. You heard some of my degrees along the way, and all that was was if I set my mind to something I was going to do it from start to finish. I was not going to quit along the way.
And so for the flight, I come in, land, I swing out of my chair, take my parachute off. I've got two big gorillas that are going to come on the shuttle and carry me off, and the flight surgeon is the first one on about fifteen minutes after landing. He says "You can sit here as long as you want. We can come get you in an hour. How are you doing?" and I said I was doing fine, I'm ready to go, and don't touch me cause I'm walking off, or I'm crawling off, or I am doing whatever it takes. I am not going to have anyone carry me off this thing until I finish this mission
I got up and walked and it felt like you were on my shoulders. But I walked, and if I moved my head it felt like I was going to do somersaults. But I walked off the shuttle, and I got a good clap out of the two gorilla guys that were supposed to carry me. They were proud to be Americans, and they were proud that I took it to the finish. I just hope that you all take it to the finish. You all started one great life adventure, and I want you to take it to the finish.
Last thing, I guess, in conclusion. When I came back, one of the common questions--well, we had a dinner last night and someone asked me the question that everyone asks--"What did you really miss about the Earth. What did you really miss doing? What's the first thing you really wanted to do?"
Think about that: you're in space for five months, missed a lot of things on the Earth and I'll tell you my biggest joy was walking in the backyard.
First of all my biggest joy was seeing my two little boys and my wife. But after that it was walking in the backyard and seeing the color green and looking at the trees and having air to breath without having to think about it. Without having to make it, without worrying about whether it's going to be there or not. Having the sun in your face, you know, pulling weeds with my hands, feeling the dirt. Just some very, very fundamental simple things, and I have changed. I think I have a different perspective on the world.
I appreciate the snow falling down this morning, and I appreciate the feeling of it hitting my face, and we all have it very, very, very good on planet Earth. We're all very lucky, and we should never have a frown on our faces because we live in one beautiful world here.
I know everybody in this room has big smiles on their faces because we've got a lot pride in the people who have been successful, in the people who have taken it to the finish. They've shown courage to stick it out. I just wish you all the very best and I was, during my flight, always proud to represent you, and I'm glad now that you represent Michigan Tech and hope you do it with pride and carry it off to the very finish. Thank you very much.