John Herrington: Space Walk Onboard the International Space Station
John Herrington is the first Native American astronaut. Join him on an out-of-this-world adventure as he takes us on a space-walk onboard the International Space Station. Hear what it feels like to be blasted into orbit at 17,000mph, learn what it’s like to live in Zero-G, and then step outside the hatch for one of the scariest, and most profound, adventures on the planet: a space-walk 220-miles above the Earth.
But this is episode is about more than just adventure. Astronauts report a psychological phenomenon called The Overview Effect, a shift in cognitive awareness, when they return home from space. Through our journey, we see the Earth through John Herrington’s eyes – a bright jewel floating in the vastness of space - and come to realize, as he did, how precious, and amazing, our planet really is. This adventure may just change your life.
“There was nothing between me and the edge of the universe … it changed me profoundly” - John Herrington
Highlights include:
- Heading out with John Herrington, the first Native American astronaut, for a space-walk 220-miles above the Earth
- Learning about life aboard the International Space Station, and finding out what makes the ISS one of the humankind’s greatest ever achievements
- Following John Herrington through basic training, including the notorious ‘vomit comet’
- Discovering what it feels like to launch into orbit at 17,000mph
- Seeing the Earth as a whole through John Herrington’s eyes, clouds rushing past, continents drifting into view
- Learning about the ‘Overview Effect’, a cognitive shift in awareness reported by many astronauts after seeing the Earth from space
- Discovering John Herrington’s Chickasaw roots and how that has inspired his life and career to date
Check out the full episode transcript at the bottom of this page.
John Herrington’s new Imax movie is ‘Into America’s Wild’ – www.intoamericaswild.com … please check it out to follow more of his amazing adventures.
In the episode, I mention Carl Sagan’s masterpiece book: The Pale Blue Dot. It’s one of my favorites. If you’re interested in checking it out, I highly recommend doing so. Here’s a link: https://www.amazon.com/Pale-Blue-Dot-Vision-Future/dp/0345376595
And here’s that amazing photograph, which inspired it all: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/536/voyager-1s-pale-blue-dot/
I also mention a service that let’s you experience Zero-G, without being an astronaut. Check it out here: www.gozerog.com Original music by Michael Comber, aka L.I.D. (Life in Development): http://lidmusic.co.uk
Check out more from Mike here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1FHmkcsnRqo0OaNSHKRLiu
ADVENTURE STORYTELLING PODCAST The Armchair Explorer podcast is adventure storytelling with beats, original music and cinematic effects. Each episode one of the world's greatest adventurers tell their best story from the road. No long-winded interviews, just straight to heart of the action.
AARON MILLAR TRAVEL WRITER Host Aaron Millar is a multi-award-winning travel writer, journalist and author. He contributes regularly to The Times of London, National Geographic Traveller (UK), and many other national and international publications.He has presented travel documentaries for National Geographic TV, written two books for London publisher Icon - 50 Greatest Wonders of the World & 50 Greatest National Parks of the World - and is the 2014 and 2017 British Guild of Travel Writers Travel Writer of the Year. Aaron grew up in Brighton, England but is currently hiding out in the Rocky Mountains of Louisville, Colorado. @AaronMWriter https://www.instagram.com/aaronmwriter/ Facebook: @armchairexplorerpodcast
TRANSCRIPT
Aaron
Hey, welcome to the Armchair Explorer, where the world's greatest adventurers tell the best story from the road. My name's Aaron Millar. I'm a travel writer and man, I have been waiting for this episode to come out for a very, very long time.
John Harrington is the first Native American astronaut. He's from the Chickasaw tribe. He's an amazing guy, tells an incredible story, and he is literally gonna take us out of this world. We are going for a space walk on the International Space Station. Are you ready to blast off? Yeah, me, too. Let's go.
John Herrington
You know, when I was eight years old living in Colorado, I used to play astronaut. I would sit in a cardboard box and dream I was going to the moon, even shot rockets out of Black Forest. We would just shoot rockets and I would put beatles in the payloads of the rockets.
When you first get selected, you spend about a year and 1/2 learning about the space shuttle and space station, about NASA in general, so that you have some some background when you go out to the public and share with them what NASA does. But once you get assigned to a space flight, you may train for as many as a year and 1/2 to 2 years for that specific space flight. And since I did three spacewalks, a good portion of my time was in a pool in Houston, performing spacewalks underwater, learning how to train under water. And then also, since I was a flight engineer on the space shuttle, I did a lot of ascents and entry simulators with the commander and the pilot because that was my job was to support them, going uphill and coming down with any malfunctions that may occur.
Aaron
So in order to have the right stuff to be an astronaut, there is loads of training. They have to do loads of classes, loads of science, loads of engineering and loads of languages. They have to actually learn Russian in order to speak with Mission control so every single person that's up on the Space Station has to speak at least two languages, which I think is pretty cool.
But John's specialist job on this trip was to go out and do the spacewalks, do the repairs on the outside of the space station, and the way you train for that is in what's called the Neutral Buoyancy Lab. It's basically the largest swimming pool on the planet. It's over 200 feet long, 100 feet wide and 40 feet down, and inside, underwater, is a replica of the International Space Station itself. So John will go down in full astronaut gear and floating there, will kind of simulate the neutral buoyancy of zero g gravity. He will practice over and over again, the different repairs and stuff that he's gonna need to do in space. And by the end of it, he would have spent more than 100 hours down there underwater simulating that space walk.
But all that's quite fun, isn't it? The thing that I personally could never do is what's affectionately known as the Vomit Comet. Basically, if you imagine the most disgusting, sickening roller coaster on the planet, it's not even close.
John Herrington
You do a series of parabolas, and every time you go over the top of the parabola, you go weightless for about 20 seconds, 25 seconds, and then you come out of the bottom and you pulled out 2G. So you know, it's this really wild roller coaster ride that you do about 40 times and if you don't get sick somewhere in there, you're not human because it's up and down, up and down, up and down,
And they do it over and over and over again, and it's almost like a wave like pattern: up and down, up and down. And as it goes up, and just before it goes down, there's a moment where weightlessness occurs and according to the angle of the wave that the plane flies in, they can create different variations of weightlessness so they could do true zero g. Or they could do like 1/6 of the Earth's atmosphere, which is basically what the lunar surface is like.
Aaron
They say that 1/3 of the people who do it are violently ill, 1/3 are moderately ill, and the other third are just a little bit ill. And I know where I would be. Let's just say you wouldn't want to be floating next to me.
But the cool thing is you don't actually need to be an astronaut to do it. There's a really cool company called Zero G, that takes mere mortals on this flight and shows them what it feels like to be weightless so you can actually experience weightlessness without going to space as long as you have an iron stomach.
But then the moment comes when the training's done and you've got to strap on the suits and do it for real. For John that moment came in 2002, onboard the space shuttle Endeavour
John Herrington
I was fortunate. During my career as an astronaut, I spent about two and 1/2 years actually working at the Kennedy Space Center, helping strap astronauts into the space shuttle, recovering them when they came home. So I knew what the experience was from the aspect of supporting it. But when you finally get a chance to do it, you realize that the day you put the suit on may not be the day you fly because there could be a problem. There could be bad weather. There could be something that makes you take the suit off and try again another day. So I tried three times. We had two scrubs before the final time I put the suit on, actually took it off in space rather than taking it off crew quarters.
It's usually about four hours before launch. You get suited up and then you could be out on the launchpad for probably two and 1/2 to 3 hours waiting to fly before the main engines actually light and you go to space.
One thing when you work out there on the pad for a couple of years, when they fully fuel the vehicle, there's only a certain number of people allowed out because it's a dangerous thing. You've got a lot of hydrogen, a lot of oxygen, so nasty stuff could happen. And so you vent off a lot of this oxygen off the vehicle. It's like it's breathing and there's ice. There's some of the stuff is so cold that a lot of pipes on the launchpad get ice on them. And so you get out there and you feel like it actually feels like it's living. It really is. And so when you go out there for the first time to actually fly it, it takes on a whole new dimension. And since I was since I worked out there, that part of it, I understood. So it wasn't as strange to me as it would be for somebody that had never done it before. And there are astronauts that the first time they ever see a launch is in the review mirror.
Aaron
It's like it's breathing. I love that. John describes the space shuttle almost like it's a dragon like it's this hissing, living, steaming thing, which is lovely. I think, in a way it shows how close he is to that shuttle like it's almost like a pet or something like that. But this isn't a pet that you would want to have in your house. This really is a dragon breathing fire beneath it as it launches and explodes into space. I can't imagine what it would feel like to be strapped into that, knowing that you're about to be launched, hurled an insane speeds out of our orbit. And there is no turning back. And knowing also that that launch, that moment of launch, is the most complicated and dangerous part of the whole journey.
John Herrington
There's a big hold, a launch hold. It occurs where they checks all the systems out, and you have since you're going to space station, you only have a five minute window with which to launch. So if you ever, if you have to hold the launch because there's a malfunction, there's only about five minutes that's allowed to solve that problem. Because if you can't solve it in that short period of time, you don't launch that day. You have to come back the next day and try again.
And so when you're on the launch pad, you come out of the last hold at T minus nine minutes. And so from nine minutes the countdown a nine minutes the time you lift off things get very busy. Especially for the pilot and commander. Essentially, they have to start and do a variety of things. The pilot has to do a lot of electrical things and start start auxiliary power units. And so you support them and watch all of the indications when they start these things up. So if there's any malfunctions that you could help deal with him. And so a lot of stuff happens from the time of T minus nine minutes to the time you lift off. And the last 30 seconds I thought to myself "huh, I'm going into space!"
Aaron
The force that he's about to be hurled into orbit is just almost incomprehensible. In six minutes, he's gonna go from 3000 miles an hour. That's fast enough, by the way, to just over 17,000 miles an hour. That's quite a ride.
John Herrington
So you pull about two G's on the 1st 2 minutes. The second minute of launche is about two G's and the solid rockets fall away, and you actually feel like you're slowing down. But now you're on the main engines and the main engines burns off so much hydrogen, so much oxygen. The vehicle keeps getting lighter and lighter and lighter, and so it accelerates faster and faster and faster to the point where you're pulling about three G's. You're three times normal body weight in the last minute of launch, and then it feels like somebody's sitting on your chest. And so when the engines quit, you go from three cheese to zero G's instantaneously. I mean, it's like you go from, uh, to whatever was on your chest has now jumped off.
And now everything's floating: your checklist, your seat belted in. So you're not floating yet, But the minute you take your seatbelt off, you realize you have to hang on because you're floating out of your chair and you look out the side window, you go. All those clouds are really moving pretty fast.
Aaron
It's every kid's dream, isn't it? It is actually every 40 something travel writer's dream too - to be weightless, to fly. I mean, it's just incredible. And that view, you're suddenly in space, and one of the first things you'll see is movement. The image we have of the Earth's static, right? It's a photograph, but that's not the truth. The earth is spinning at 1000 miles per hour and the space station is is orbiting at 17,000 miles an hour. So when you're up there, what you see is the earth as a moving thing. You see clouds flashing past. You see oceans come and go. You see cities light up and then disappear. You see continents moving. It's a living thing. Not only is that one of the most beautiful on or inspiring views you will ever see, it's also a very important and powerful one, too, because when astronauts come back from space, they report this feeling of a kind of cognitive shift in awareness. It's called the overview effect, and once you see the Earth as a whole, once you leave the earth's atmosphere and you see the earth as a whole. You see this beautiful, as Buzz Aldrin called it this "brilliant jewel on a black velvet sky." It changes you. That view changes. You start to realize how precious it is. You start to realize how petty our little squabbles between nations are, and you start to realize that we are all in it together. We're gonna come back to that later on. But for right now, John and his crew have to dock on the ISS. And that's no easy feat.
John Herrington
Well, when we dock to the space station, my job was to control all the computers and to set up the cameras. Commander flies the vehicle. We have different folks shooting lasers out the window to measure how fast we're closing in on the space station once we dock, we transfer cargo. A lot of the cargo on the shuttle has to go to space station of vice versa. So you're moving. You're moving stuff back and forth and packing it.
Aaron
So imagine guiding a 200,000lb object moving at 17,000 miles an hour towards a seven story building which is orbiting, itself moving, 220 miles above the earth. And you have to hit it within three inches.
But they make it. And before John picks up the story of life on board the ISS, I just want to set up how amazing the International Space Station really is. I wrote a book a while ago about the 50 greatest wonders of the world. And the coolest thing about doing that book was I got to choose my own wonders and I wanted to put in a load of new ones that had never been been there before. And the ISS, the international space station, was top of my list for that.
Quite simply, it's one of humankind's greatest achievements. It's the largest and the most complicated structure that's ever been flown in space. It's one of the most ambitious projects that's ever been conceived. And it's happening right now - the ISS has been continuously manned since the year 2000. For more than two decades now we have had an actual colony in space.
And what's even more important than the engineering on the the ability to build it is that we did it together as one human species, and we still operate it that way. The crew of the ISS is always a mixture, a combination of people, of scientists from around the world, and it is truly our greatest peacetime collaboration that that has ever been achieved. I think it's a real example off what we can do when we put down our petty petty squabbles and start thinking about bigger and more amazing projects that we can achieve together.
John Herrington
Imagine having a four bedroom house but you can play in all corners of the house, not just the floor. You can go to the ceiling, you can go to the wall. The wall could be the floor. The ceiling could be the floor. So in the space station's, it's made that way so that, you know, up, down, left, right. You could have experiments on the ceiling and you could feel like you're actually working. You know, you're you're standing up next to the wall because the orientation of the each is based on what you see. It's not what you feel because you're in constant freefall around the earth
And it's pretty noisy. There's a lot of fans and a lot of machines. It was not this quiet, peaceful existence that you imagined you would have. It's a pretty high, pretty high decibel level. You have 16 hours of your 24 hour day is dedicated to work, and you have eight hours dedicated to sleep. That's the way the timeline works, and you're busy every single minute until you finally get to close your eyes and rest.
Aaron
So its main purpose right now is like a giant science lab and a really, really unique one, too, because the microgravity environment on board enables unique research opportunities that just you just couldn't do anywhere else. They're developing new medicine. They're developing data and tools about climate change and cosmic rays and dark matter. But perhaps the most important work they're doing right now is they're studying the effects of space exploration on the human body. If the ISS is humanity's first step into outer space our next is almost certainly gonna be Mars. But in order for us to get there it means this huge, long kind of 18 months, two years journey just to get there. And we really don't know what the microgravity environment for that long let along being there and coming back does to the human body. So they're studying a lot of those physiological changes and challenges as well as psychological challenges. So it's not surprising with that in mind, that life on board the ISS is incredibly busy. Every second is filled. That time is so valuable. Some of the most important experiments going on the world right now are happening up there. But even when you get some sleep, it zero g and that is not easy.
John Herrington
It's weird. Imagine the very first time in your life not touching anything. And when you close your eyes, you know, sometimes these high energy particles come out of the depths of the universal and smack you in the eyeball and kick off a little flash of light. So you have these high energy particles called Z particles that kick off a photon. So that's that is disconcerting for sure. But once you get so, so tired you're working so hard, that doesn't matter. You go to sleep, you go to sleep even floating.
Aaron
But the real work for John was to do something that is perhaps the most nerve racking and dangerous thing on astronaut can do. Lucky for him, he's a climber, so he has some experience dangling from precarious places, though definitely not as intense as this. Definitely not 220 miles high. Definitely not with the Earth rushing past beneath you at more than 17,000 miles an hour
John Herrington
You know go up on Taggert or go upon Rosie crucifixion, or go somewhere up in Boulder Canyon, or Eldorado, and put yourself out of your 20 feet out your pro and you're thinking "this sucks". But you know where your rope is, you know, where your protection is the same thing on a spacewalk. If you know where the tether is, you know where your handholds are. You know where you're going, where the hard parts are, and you know you have to pay attention to the task and make sure that you don't get tangled up in your rope. You don't get tangled up in your tether. We're doing spacewalks, but you're always cognizant of what the other guy's doing or woman's doing because you know you, you may be their lifeline if they have a problem. And so anything about climbing and climbing with a partner is you pay attention. You're the one that's gonna keep them from dying. Hopefully, if if they fall, you're the one that could get them back in the airlock, if they have a leak or they have a decompression problem or the bends or something, then you're the one that's responsible. One Italian guy went up and had a leak in a suit about drowned in his helmet, you know, so that's a tough thing. Imagine that: you go on a space walk and end up drowning?
Aaron
No, thank you. That sounds just terrifying and horrible. And the irony would just be too painful. But despite the spacewalk being the most dangerous thing that an astronaut can do, it's also worth the risk because the view you get that feeling of being alone in space with the whole of the planet Earth floating past beneath you, you can only get that if you open the hatch and walk outside.
John Herrington
You have this whole different perspective on the world and if you ever afraid of heights, it's a bad place to be.
Aaron
That might be the biggest understatement that has ever been uttered. I love how cool and laid back John is about it. He really is Top gun isn't he? If you're scared of heights, maybe doing a spacewalk 220 miles above the Earth is not gonna be your happy place.
John Herrington
You know, it's not good. But I'm not so I know that you're not going anywhere. You're falling, but you're all falling together. And so it's not like you get sewing machine me leg like when you're climbing and you're extended out there, you just realize you're in this really remarkable spot you have work to do and you don't want to make a mistake. Your fear is not dying, your fear is making a mistake.
We're about 220 miles to 230 miles or 40 above the earth. And so you know, it's the ultimate cliff. I had a chance to climb over the side of the space station and push the plunger and hold on with a thumb and forefinger. And there was nothing between me and 220 miles straight down. Nothing between me and the edge of the earth and the Universe.
One time I was doing was working on the backside of space station and the Bahamas floated into view down. You see this actually gorgeous white blue, the ocean depths of the tongue of the ocean down there in a really dark blue, and you get to watch it float underneath you, as you're going over the top of it. And that was that was fabulous.
Aaron
Nothing between me and the edge of the earth and the universe. Holding on by a thumb on a forefinger, you see the northern lights in one corner of the globe, you see thunderstorms rushed across the Atlantic. You see continents float by, you see oceans with waves crashing. You see the Great Barrier Reef, you see mountains. You see cities light up like stars and something just as beautiful happens 16 times a day every 45 minutes. Sunrise, sunset
John Herrington
sun comes up or goes down you 45 minutes. It takes 90 minutes to go around the earth roughly. And so the sun comes up or goes down, and you just know when it's coming. You turn your headlights on when it gets dark. It happens very quick. Sunset happens, really, really quickly
Aaron
It happens quick, but it stays with you forever, because while the world rushes past beneath you, people wake up and go about their lives and you fly over them, your perspective changes. Seeing the earth as a whole changes you profoundly. That is overview effect
John Herrington
It fundamentally changed my perspective. My appreciation for our planet and our existence here and how it's important that we do our very best, you know, to manage what we're doing to it. Because we're not people talking about going to Mars and Terra forming Mars and things like that. Well, that's a far cry when we can't reform our own planet, when we have the ability to make her life here better. People fail to recognize the danger associated with this and understand the science behind it. So, yeah, that really changed me.
Aaron
So when we first went into space, when we first went to the moon, we were looking towards the stars. We were looking to our destiny in the stars. And that's where our focus was. But it may turn out that the most important result of our of our journey into space was not looking towards the stars, but looking back towards the earth from where we came in 1948 the astronomer Fred Hoyle said "once a photograph of the earth taken from outside is available. A new idea as powerful as any will be let loose."
So I want to read you a little something. It's from one of my favorite books by the great Carl Sagan. The book is very famous. It's called Pale blue Dot and I urge you to get it and to check it out yourself. And the book was inspired by a photograph that the Voyager spacecraft took him from the edge of our galaxy back in 1990. This was a distance of some four billion miles from Earth, and they turned the cameras back towards Earth just to see from that distance what the Earth looked like. It is staggering how small and insignificant the earth is in the vastness of space around it. You can barely see it. Uh, it's a tiny tiny speck in a aunbeam surrounded by absolute vast empty space on all sides.
And here's Carl Sagan. Look again at that dot that's here. That's home. That's us on it. Everyone you love everyone you know everyone you've ever heard of every human being who ever was lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering. Thousands of confident religions and ideologies and economic doctrines. Every hunter and forager, Every hero and coward, Every creator and destroyer of civilization Every king, every peasant, every young couple in love. Every mother and father hopeful child adventure explorer, Every teacher of morals every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species. Live there on a motive dust suspended in a Sunbeam.
Wow, Just amazing. And that's what the overview effect is all about. This is more than our home. This is who we are. And that's the idea that, if let loose, may just change the world. But John realized something else up there, too. He realized we're not alone. No, he didn't see any aliens. I'm sorry. That would be just the most amazing episode ever. But what he did realize is the e absolute enormity of stars and space around him
John Herrington
You know, there's no doubt in my mind that from a probability perspective, that I believe that we're the only things in the universe, that life must exist out there someplace else because the probability is so great, given the number of planets, given number stars that exist in the visible universe, and we know they're planets around those stars. So I think it's very short sighted of us to think that we're so special that we are the only creation that's out there because we are made of the stuff of stars. We are the same stuff that exists, you know, throughout the universe. Why can we not be someplace else? Why cannot life be someplace else? I think the probability really is pretty good.
Aaron
We are made of this stuff of stars. I love that. It's true. The molecules that make up every atom of our body were forged in the furnace of distant suns, we are literally stardust, you and I, and it's that kind of profound change that happens, to astronauts, which led in part to John wanting to share the beauty of not just of space but of our world here too. That's what his new film Into America's All about, and we'll let John talk about that a little bit.
John Herrington
It's like travelling. It's just goes back to this movie. It's ideas, you know. You don't really appreciate all the different places until you might get a chance to go there and experience it. You don't appreciate other people until you spend time in their environment. Unfortunately, I think a lot of times a lot of people don't have that opportunity for whatever reason, be it money or otherwise, to experience something outside of their their own existence. And then until you do, it's very difficult to have an appreciation for what others have to deal with. And I think that's one of the things that you know this flat world we live in now we have this ability, you know, communicated on, see other people, maybe electronically or virtually. It's not the same as being there.
Aaron
That is beautifully said and something I'm so passionate about. Travel builds empathy and understanding, not just with other people and other cultures, although that is vital and increasingly vital in our divided world. But it can also build empathy to the land to nature to the planet itself. And that's an ethos that reflects strongly from from John's Native American roots, which resonates through his new film, which I know he's so super proud of.
John Herrington
You know, I value these places. We got to go and the share with others not just the beauty of it, but the culture behind it. The stories, the history geology, because that has to be something you can educate people with. At the same time, you'll blow them away with these actually gorgeous, gorgeous vistas
Aaron
In the movie, John says: "In the wildest places, we can still find the connection." Well, that's what this movie is all about. It's about stepping off that beaten path connecting and exploring for yourself. It's about going on journeys to beautiful landscapes, and it's just a hell of a ride to go all the way from the wilds of Alaska and the beautiful, lush wild Pacific coast of Oregon to the canyons to the Southwest all the way over to the Appalachian Trail and the beautiful Adirondacks. It's an adventure. It's a great film. I'm gonna take my kids. I love Imax is a format. It's just a really beautiful, inspiring thing to see. And I know John's really proud of that work, so I urge you to check it out to.
Then, at the end, I asked him about what it meant to him to be the first Native American astronaut, which is a wonderful achievement. I wonder what that experience of native cultures growing up, how that influenced him and how it led to this, this path and how he was able to take that those teachings on this great adventure.
John Herrington
So I've always been very proud of being Chickasaw. That's something my mom always made a point of, you know, for us to recognize. But I didn't grow up in a culture where we had the language. My great grandma spoke their language fluently, but for some reason chose not to speak to her kids. You know, for whatever reason, at a certain point in history, you know, it was challenging to be Indian. It was challenging to, you know, to your existence. And so for one reason, you know, she chose not to. But I've always been very proud of it. You know, I'm learning my language now. I work for my tribe. You know, I value the fact that my tribe is still here. So, you know, looking back in the history of my tribe where they came from in the southeastern United States, eventually the Indian territory, you know, the hands of the U. S. Government. And so, you know, I think about my ancestors. So I think I could look back on what challenges I had and just kind of related to what my ancestors had to do. Yeah, I figured, you know, if they did it, and they allowed me this chance to walk the earth. Then why not me allow someone else, maybe even flying into space? Or do something that fundamentally change this life on Earth. That's a fabulous, fabulous feeling. I'm honored to have a chance to do that.
Aaron
Well that is just a beautiful place to end. Thank you, John. Thank you so much for taking us into space. Thank you for showing us through your eyes Earth from outer space and the profound amazing power that that view can have. Please check out John's movie into America's wild dot com. It's really a beautiful film and inspiring, and it makes you want to explore one of my favorite countries for adventure and also my adopted home here in America.
I want to thank also my man Mike Comber Life in development L I D. For doing the music on the soundtrack today. I couldn't do without you mate. It sounds absolutely beautiful and awesome and you enhance everything that I do.
We'll leave you with another Carl Sagan line. "It has been said," He wrote. "that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot The only home we've ever known."
Thank you so much for listening. Get out there. Have some adventures. Do some exploring. Dare to be truly alive. I'm Aaron Millar. Come back from or we have some incredible episodes coming up. We're going to the summit of Everest. We're going gorilla trekking. We're going down the Yukon River. We are doing some incredible adventures, and I really hope you can come and hang out with me @AaronMWriter is my social media. Hit it up. Let's hang out. If you love travel and adventure will get on.