From Sea to Stars: The remarkable journey of a Navy Seal and … – Chicago Star Media

Its an awe-inspiring moment when you get to meet a Navy Seal who also happens to be a NASA astronaut! Meet Captain Chris Cassidy, who as a Navy SEAL, became a member of an elite special operations force in the United States Navy known for its rigorous training and ability to carry out challenging and dangerous missions on land, sea, and air. In addition to his SEAL career, Cassidy became an astronaut in 2004 for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) where he flew on multiple space missions, including trips to the International Space Station (ISS). And, on a playful note, he was also the first astronaut who took a selfie in space. That moment, which he said was completely spontaneous, immediately went viral during a spacewalk in 2013.

Captain Chris Cassidy, Navy SEAL and NASA astronaut, poses with young fans. (Photo by author)

On the occasion of our interview, Captain Cassidy made an appearance at a private home on the North Shore in support of the Navy Seal Foundation, of which he is a staunch supporter. The Navy SEAL Foundation, a nonprofit established in 2000, provides critical support for the warriors, veterans, and families of Naval Special Warfare. Cassidy shared, The Foundation is amazing at supporting the families. The Navy supports the Seal teams well but its not the Navys mission to take care of the families. So, quite truthfully, we realized post 9/11, when we started having more bad accidents and more things happen that are tragic for families, how badly the Navy Seal Foundation is needed. So, now its grown into a really robust support network that means a lot to our community. Its more than being there for the knock on the door. Its the follow-up for the kids going to school later, paying for a babysitter when the dad or mom is deployed and so much more. I was a beneficiary of these things while I was on active duty and now its my turn to pay back and be on the board.

The event included a buffet on the lawn at a beautiful lakefront home on the North Shore. (Author photo)

Before the official Q&A, I had the chance to ask him a few questions of my own. See below:

1) What's was one of your most awe-inspiring moments in space? I think opening the hatch on my first spacewalk and seeing Earth below, you know, just outside, holding on with one hand, seeing Earth go by at five miles a second. And, yeah, that was what probably took my breath away.

2) What was your scariest moment? We had a spacewalk where my buddy and I were out there, and his spacesuit malfunctioned and there was water leaking inside his helmet and we had to hurry up and get back in. That was probably the scariest moment.

3) With your unique perspective of the cosmos, do you think there's life on other planets? I think that the universe is so giant, somewhere out there, there's life. We just don't know. I don't believe it's in our solar system, but in my opinion, its naive to think that it couldn't exist anywhere in the universe.

4) What do you think about the civilians in space program and what advice would you give to those planning to go? So, it's more complicated than just buying a ticket and sitting in row 15, seat C. You know there's risk to it, but I think it's the success of the commercial companies right now that are driving that risk down somewhat. But there's always a possibility that some piece of equipment won't work the way it's supposed to on that given day and so, understanding those risks, understanding what you're getting into, and why we train so intently, its not for the good day when everything goes by the plan, but it's for when things start breaking that you can save yourself, save the equipment, keep the thing alive, and your crewmates alive. So just have an appreciation for that and take the training seriously, because it's more than just an enjoyable ride. There's a lot to it.

5) How did your training as a Navy SEAL help you as an astronaut? The military does an amazing job, SEAL teams specifically, of preparing somebody to, in simple terms, walk, chew gum, talk on the radio, and make decisions all at the same time. You're dealing with a dynamic environment. Stuff in front of you is changing. You've got to talk on the radio, communicate that to somebody else, so that you have coordinated effort in that mission. All of that translates exactly to being an effective astronaut. So, I definitely had some advantage with that training under my belt when I got there, but the NASA training is really good, and everybody gets up to that speed eventually.

The afternoon soiree included an intimate Q&A at the home of Muneer Satter and Kristen Hertel Satter. A group of about 30 guests enjoyed mingling with Cassidy, taking photos, and a lavish lunch buffet before Cassidy answered further questions and shared his history in a delightful pavilion on the grounds that was situated in front of an infinity pool with a spectacular lake view in the background.

An intimate gathering of about 30 supporters gathered to hear Captain Cassidy share his story and his love of the Navy Seal Foundation. (Author photo)

Excerpts from his 30-minute discussion are below:

1) How do you eat and sleep on the space station? You know when you're hungry, have to go to the bathroom, and when you're tired, the same exact way you do here. The sleeping part is a little bit interesting. We tie a sleeping bag to the wall and zip it up until you're floating around. It's very comfortable, but there's a few key things. Like you don't have a comfy bed that's giving you relaxation signals. Your brain doesn't have a clue, like, ah, okay, it's time to sleep and rest. So that's the only difference and not having a pillow is a little bit of a thing if you're a pillow person like me. But other than that, you sleep just fine. Going to the bathroom is an interesting thing because we capture all that urine and turn it back into drinking water. It's a critically important piece of technology for us. We recycle about 96% of our fluid, that includes sweaty t-shirts, they dry, and all that gets captured and recycled. It's amazing.

2) Are you the average size for an astronaut? Am I average size? I don't know, maybe slightly taller than average, but the original astronauts were all short intentionally for the capsule design. We don't limit that astronaut size anymore when we select people.

3) What did you do in space? Did you do any specific missions or lab work? The mission of the space station is really to advance science and experiments and research. We, as astronauts, are not those experts. There's an international team that decides what experiments get flown and what things we'll spend our time doing, but we are the activators of all those experiments. So, I'd say probably more than half our time is devoted to those experiments that can be anything as insignificant as opening a package and just putting it there, to assembling the entire thing which could take a whole day. Some of those experiments don't require us to monitor them, they just do their thing, but some of them require a lot of astronaut interaction. So, there's a whole range of experiments. Mostly I would categorize the experiments as biological, like they're testing us or animals. And what are those animals? Mice, I've seen butterflies, and little bitty fish. Fish are kind of interesting because there's an alpha fish that determines where up is, and then they all fall in line to that up. Plants grow as theyre intended to.

A patriotic salute for Captain Chris Cassidy. (Author photo)

4) Do you guys ever experience vertigo when you're up there? Yes, absolutely! The most likely time for that is immediately after the engines are cut. So, you're walking around on Earth, in Florida, or Kazakhstan, if it's a Soyuz or a Russian launch, experiencing the gravity that we have here, and then you get in the rocket. Eight minutes later, you're in zero gravity. And that transition time is a whole lot of stuff for your inner ear to deal with. All of us take sea sickness motion pills on the launch pad like 10 minutes before we lift off. I've never been sick up there but it's totally not anything we judge anyone on because it happens. I remember one crew member who was really not feeling well but it went away in a day or so. The vertigo part is all associated with that. I've talked about space sickness, but it's all kind of tied to the vertigo.

5) How long does it take to get to space? From the moment we light the rocket until the engine cuts off, it takes about eight and a half to nine minutes. But then we're not what we call in a safe orbit. If we did not fire another engine, we would impact the ground half an earth later. So, we have a few more engine burns to do to get in what's called a safe orbit. Altogether, probably an hour later, we can breathe a sigh of relief that were safely there. And then we rendezvous to the space station six hours after launch. Last time I was in space was in 2020. In fact, it was right at the onset of COVID, so I didn't experience COVID as an Earth person until November of 2020. Two cosmonauts and I were waving at you all saying how sorry we felt for you guys down there.

6) What was the impact on your body when you got back to Earth? Yeah, great question. So, if we did no weightlifting, our bones would decay at a very significant rate and we would come back six months later similar to an 85, 90 year old osteoporosis patient with very fragile, brittle bones. We've learned the hard way that we need to load up with exercise - loading your bones, particularly your butt and your thighs and your legs, with squats and stuff will mitigate bone density loss entirely. So, we can fly six months and not have any bone density loss anymore. There's a radiation exposure risk that we monitor just like a nuclear plant worker. You know, we wear those little dosimeters to monitor all that. So that's totally manageable, but it's a thing we have to monitor. And with our exercise equipment, it's not a big deal actually to come back in good shape. I was telling some folks earlier, it probably took me a month, three weeks I think, from landing to feeling totally normal. If you saw me in the grocery store like on day 10 or so, you probably couldn't tell, but I can still tell that I'm a little wobbly. But, within a month, you're totally back to normal.

7) Do you have an altered perception of time in space since there's no day-night cycle? Yeah, so that's interesting. We set our watches to Greenwich Mean Time. Theres control centers in Houston, Moscow, Tokyo, and Germany, and so we've got to live off some time, and we chose Greenwich Mean time. But there's no perception of time difference. You sleep when you're sleepy, you wake up, you use the bathroom, you get some food and coffee, you work until you're hungry again, and then you eat a little bit, you work until you're hungry again, you eat a little bit, and then you wind down. And all that cadence of life, you know, thats within a 24-hour cycle.

Captain Chris Cassidy at Navy Seal Foundation event on the North Shore. (Author photo)

8) Does everyone speak English? So English is the official language on the International Space Station. The International Space Station is the United States, Russia, Germany, Japan, Canada, and the European Space Agency, which has like 15 countries in it, Germany's one of them. All those astronauts and cosmonauts speak English, and we all take Russian language lessons, because when you launch into Russian Soyuz, all of it's in Russian. The displays, the books, talking to each other, the guy on the radio, it's all in Russian. That was the hardest part of astronaut training for me personally, was learning the Russian language.

10) What do you do for fun in space when youre not working? That's something we think about a lot. There's plenty of fun things to do up there. Saturday's kind of a half workday. We clean and clean up, wipe down things for half a Saturday and then we have a half day off. On Sunday, we are entirely off. At night, we can watch movies or read books. There's a guitar, a piano keyboard, a harmonica, and a banjo up there for musically inclined folks, but thats not me. But all of us generally feel like we should, and do, take advantage of the unique opportunity to spend time in the window. Most of us just sit in the window and take pictures or just watch. You've all been camping and seen people just sitting around the fire staring at it and not talking. And why is that? I don't know, but you're there and you're just kind of into the environment. That's my feeling. You can have four astronauts staring out the window, nobody talking, and you're just mesmerized by the Earth going by below you. It's pretty cool. It's really cool! It didn't make me more or less religious. It didn't change my personality, but it did change my view on how Earth is for all of us. I was very much more Earth-aware and appreciative that it is our home, a spaceship for all of us that we have to take care of. It changed my philosophy. You see dry lake beds; you see forests burning in the Amazon. You see that on a very global scale. You see a volcano erupting and clouds that stretch a third of earth away from the volcano. So, you get an appreciation for how tied in Earth is globally when you see it from that vantage point.

11) Did you ever see any UFOs up there? Yeah, I get asked this all the time. No, and I don't believe theyre in our solar system, but the universe is so giant. Somewhere out there, there's life. Somewhere out there, there's another Earth-like thing. I dont think we're keeping any secrets from the American public. But we've never seen it. Anyway, thanks a lot for your time. Thanks a lot for your support.

Throughout his career, Captain Chris Cassidy demonstrated exceptional courage, skill, and dedication both as a Navy SEAL and as an astronaut, making him a true American hero and a role model for many. Hes involved in many nonprofits including as a board member for the Navy Seal Foundation.

Captain Cassidy made a lot of new friends that day. (Author photo)

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, September 13, when the Navy Seal Foundation hosts its 12th signature fundraiser, Midwest Evening of Tribute, at Navy Piers AON Grand Ballroom. All details here.

Navy Seal Foundation's "Midwest Evening of Tribute" 2019 at Chicago Hilton. (Photo courtesy of Navy Seal Foundation)

View original post here:

From Sea to Stars: The remarkable journey of a Navy Seal and ... - Chicago Star Media