Today, we’re talking to Explorers Club member, Dr. George C. Nield. Dr. George C. Nield is currently the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration (or FAA). He has over 30 years of aerospace experience and has worked with the Air Force and NASA. Dr Nield came to the FAA from the Orbital Sciences Corporation, where he served as a Senior Scientist for the Advanced Programs Group. He has a wealth of experience from working as an Astronautical Engineer at the Space and Missile Systems Organization to working on the Shuttle/Mir Program and the International Space Station Program.
Today, we’re talking to Explorers Club member, Dr. George C. Nield. Dr. George C. Nield is currently the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration (or FAA). He has over 30 years of aerospace experience and has worked with the Air Force and NASA. Dr Nield came to the FAA from the Orbital Sciences Corporation, where he served as a Senior Scientist for the Advanced Programs Group. He has a wealth of experience from working as an Astronautical Engineer at the Space and Missile Systems Organization to working on the Shuttle/Mir Program and the International Space Station Program.
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Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/the-explorers-club-an-interview-with-george-nield
CALLI: One day Dr. George C. Nield found himself somewhere few humans have ever gone before. In March 2022, you were in space. Is that right?
GEORGE: That is right.
CALLI: How long were you there for?
GEORGE: The total mission was just a suborbital spaceflight. So just up and back down, just over 10 minutes. But it was an incredible and awesome experience.
CALLI: It’s pretty remarkable that only a few hundred people have been to outer space - it’s called the final frontier for a reason… and yet, statistically speaking, it’s a place most of us will never get to see but dream of experiencing, including Dr. Nield.
GEORGE: So I've actually been interested in aviation space my entire life and used to cut out newspaper articles and collect pictures from Life magazine and make a scrapbook for myself. As we were hearing about the Space chimps and Mercury astronauts and all the rest grew up in math and science and went to the Air Force Academy to help me to learn more about the aerospace field and so forth. And as you mentioned, I was in the Air Force and worked for NASA and then the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation. So I've always had this interest in space, but it didn't appear that I was going to have a chance to personally
CALLI: But Dr. Nield got lucky when Blue Origin announced they were auctioning off seats on some of their very first flights.
GEORGE: So I flew on the fourth human space flight on March 31st.
CALLI: That is amazing. So March 31st and then you came back down and it must have just been the most surreal experience.
GEORGE: It was awesome, really. It's hard to put into words. People talk about the best book they've ever read and how it changed them, or they saw a particularly good show or a movie or a special song that somehow moves them or warms our heart. This was all that was rolled into one.
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NATE: Today on Curiosity if you haven’t already guessed - we’re doing something a little bit different. I’m Nate -
CALLI: And I’m Calli, reporting for duty! Buckle in for a suborbital mission as we see space through the eyes of Dr. George C. Nield. If you’re dropping in for the first time, welcome to Curiosity, where we aim to blow your mind by helping you to grow your mind. If you’re a loyal listener, welcome back!
NATE: Today, we’re talking to Explorer’s Club member, Dr. George C. Nield. For the folks at home, Calli, who is he?
CALLI: Dr. George C. Nield is currently the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration (or FAA). He has over 30 years of aerospace experience and has worked with the Air Force and NASA. Dr Nield came to the FAA from the Orbital Sciences Corporation, where he served as a Senior Scientist for the Advanced Programs Group. He has a wealth of experience from working as an Astronautical Engineer at the Space and Missile Systems Organization to working on the Shuttle/Mir Program and the International Space Station Program.
NATE: So Dr. Nield knows a lot about space.
CALLI: Yeah, he does! He spent his entire career as a space researcher, but it wasn’t until this flight that he actually got to see it with his own eyes. And we’re going to learn a lot more about space today from him, but Nate, do you want to give us a little rundown on what we’ll be covering today?
NATE: Sure! So, you mentioned earlier that Dr. Nield went on a “suborbital” spaceflight.
CALLI: Yeah what does that mean exactly?
NATE: Great question, if we break down the word - we have “sub” which means under and “orbital” and in this case we’re talking about the Earth’s orbit, as in it’s orbital patterns. A sub-orbital flight reaches outer space but stays close enough to Earth not to make a full orbit of the planet or fully escape the atmosphere. That takes a lot more power and generates a lot of heat for exit and re-entry -
CALLI: I’ve seen a lot of movie spaceships burst into flames re-entering the atmosphere.
NATE: Yeah, a lot of the commercial space flights want to avoid that.
CALLI: Which is a perfect segue into my NEXT topic, Nate, give me the rundown on Blue Origin.
NATE: Blue Origin is a sub-orbital space flights and aeronautic manufacturing company founded by Jeff Bezos. Their mission is to make space travel both more accessible and more sustainable. They have contracts with NASA, Boeing, and the United States Space Force, among others. The company has been auctioning off flights on their reusable rockets...
CALLI: Got it. So when Dr. Nield heard about the auctions, he jumped at the opportunity.
GEORGE: And I thought that would be great. So filled out all the paperwork and put in a bid. However, the price rapidly climbed and did not end up winning the auction. But later on the company got back with me and was able to find a slot on a later flight. So I flew on the fourth human space flight on March 31st.
CALLI: That is amazing. So March 31st and then you came back down and it must have just been the most surreal experience.
GEORGE: The weightless experience, which we had about 3 minutes, was just amazing to be able to float around and do somersaults and all the rest. It was fun. It was exciting. But the high point of the flight for me, without a doubt, was The View. They have six people on board and every seat is a window seat. Great big window right next to your seat. And after we had blasted off to be able to look down and see the curvature of the earth and that Thin Blue band, that is the atmosphere. And then above it is the Black Sky, and it's the blackest black that you could ever imagine. It was just, frankly, the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Really, I get goosebumps and choke up a little bit just thinking about it. Just an incredible opportunity to see the planet below.
NATE: To study something for your entire life and then finally get to experience it is so cool. What was the preparation like for a flight like that? Regular astronauts have years of training.
CALLI: This was a little different. Dr. Nield wasn’t leaving the earth’s atmosphere. But yes, he definitely had to do some training but nothing compared to the years of instruction that is normally required.
GEORGE: Most of the rest of the training was frankly just practicing, getting in and out of your seat, both in one gravity on the ground before launch and after landing and in weightlessness in space, because that is a different experience to try to connect all your belts in harnesses when they're floating in front of your face instead of just sitting on the seat.
NATE: Got it. So in the next few years someone could presumably… board a space shuttle like a bus and just take off?
CALLI: Not quite. Again, astronauts spend years - sometimes a decade learning everything about their craft and their mission. This is very different. Going back to your analogy, Dr. Nield isn’t the one driving the bus so he didn’t need to take his drivers license test. But the Blue Origin did have a 3-day training course to help acclimatize the passengers with the New Shepard, which is the reusable suborbital rocket he traveled on.
GEORGE: First, one of the things that I really enjoyed about the training was we spent a lot of time in a mockup capsule for a simulator which looked just like the real thing with the seats laid out and displays and so forth. But Blue Origin had previously made a recording of all the noises and the sounds that would take place during the flight on a previous mission, and they played that back for us while we were doing the rehearsals. And so you hear the fans going and the clanks and the bangs and the sound of the engine. That would probably be rather nerve wracking and people would wonder, What is that? Is everything okay? But having been through that time after time during the practice, yeah, we were all prepared for that. So when we heard the countdown and the and the noises of the fans and the engine light, it was something that we were prepared for. Here's what you need to know about the rocket and the capsule. Here's the timeline of things that will occur. Here's the display that you'll see in front of you. Here's how you talk on the radio and then reviewing all the emergency procedures of what could go wrong and what you'd have to do in response to that.
NATE: Wait, he said rocket and capsule. Is that the same as a shuttle?
CALLI: I had the same question. Spoiler, it’s not.
GEORGE: So the shuttle is is the nickname for the space shuttle, which, of course, NASA operated for 30 years. And and that was really a different kind of thing. And it actually went into orbit around the Earth. This had a capsule on top of a booster. What's different about this is both the booster, the rocket and the capsule are completely reusable. So that is going to be the key to how we're going to start bringing the cost back down. Another key difference is the spacecraft was completely autonomous, so there was no pilot on board. There was no pilot on the ground. The computer was dictating how the flight proceeded.
CALLI: And so that sounds terrifying.
GEORGE: Some people might be concerned about that. Another way to look at it, though, is there is no pilot error. There's no opportunity for somebody to mess it up. Once you've got that computer and the software the way you need it to be, it does a great job of having everything take place at the right time and in the right sequence. And so that was frankly very comforting. So back to your question in this particular case, since we didn't have any particular duties in terms of flying the spacecraft or experiments to perform, it was just the experience itself that we were going through.
NATE: Did he say autonomous flight? No pilot? That’s gonna be a BIG NO from me.
CALLI: Weirdly enough, autonomous flights are more common than you think! Some sources say that 93% of regular flight functions on commercial airliners today are automated and those who preach the benefits of autonomous flights often say that 80% of accidents are caused by human error. So, there's a general consensus in the aviation industry that moving toward autonomy is the best way forward.
NATE: If I were sitting on the launch pad of a non-piloted spaceflight I’d be scared.
CALLI: I’m pretty sure we’d both be, but Dr. Nield wasn’t.
GEORGE: I was surprisingly calm. Again, this was a huge milestone certainly in my life. And I recognize there is risk associated with spaceflight still today. But this is something I've been working towards my entire life and most of my professional career. And I was very impressed with the team at Blue Origin in terms of their capabilities, professionalism, the way they had designed the systems. And so I felt pretty good. We had had enough training to get to know one another on the crew and know what to expect during the flight. And we felt like we were ready to go.
CALLI: This part is probably a little bit more difficult to describe, but can you try and give us a picture of what liftoff itself felt like?
GEORGE: I've heard astronauts who flew on the space shuttle say that when they left off, it feels like you're getting a kick in the pants, a real sudden jolt. This was not that way. It was a very smooth but rapid acceleration pushing you back in your seats. We had like three G's during ascent, so that means that you were being pushed back as though you weighed three times as much, or there is something heavy sitting on your chest and then you just see the clouds in the sky and the ground go that go by. And pretty soon we were going more than 2000 miles an hour faster than a rifle bullet. And it's just an incredible thing. And then when the engine stops, the capsule separates where you got to unbuckle and start that 3 minutes of weightlessness. So just quite an experience.
NATE: That sounds unbelievable.
CALLI: Totally! It’s mind-blowing to think that one day you or I could be up there, too. I asked Dr. Nield about the future of commercial spaceflights and he said he saw a major shift happening.
GEORGE: If you go back to the dawn of the space age, almost every major milestone and significant accomplishment in space was done by government, whether it was Project Mercury, Project Gemini, the Apollo, moon landings, 30 years of flying the space shuttle and then building and living and working onboard the International Space Station. That was government that was responsible for all that was happening.
GEORGE: Going forward, though, that is not necessarily always going to be the case. We're seeing private industry have a more significant role, and I think that the so-called space tourism is a perfect example of that.
CALLI: How soon do you think space travel is going to be feasible as a commercial flight sort of situation?
GEORGE: I think we're going to see more people flying every year. We're going to see a lot of progress being made. NASA is working with other companies to have commercial space stations as early as 2030. And we also, I expect to see, have companies pursuing what is referred to as point to point transportation through space. So be able to take off from one place on the earth, fly to the opposite side of the earth in, say, an hour by flying through space. I think that's going to be a game changer. Instead of 20 hours on an airliner to be able to talk to people, to travel and to do business in that kind of a timeline. And I see that coming in the next ten years or so. So it's not quite there yet, but some exciting things are happening and I see a lot of progress in space in just the next few years.
GEORGE: I think the more we fly, the more we learn, the more we understand how to build these systems more safe, more reliable, more cost effective. We're going to see a lot of great opportunities, just the same way that aviation evolved in 100 years of flying airplanes started out, a lot of fatal accidents, a lot of strange looking designs, and now as the safest way to travel. My hope is we're going to have that same kind of evolution for our space systems, and we'll either experiment with how they're designed, how they're built, what kind of capabilities that have, what kind of backup systems we'll use and so forth, or and how we use those systems to conduct life science research cures for various diseases. How do I have a better life on Earth? Through what we learn from space.
NATE: What a beautiful sentiment to end on. If you’re curious about space, we tend to cover it regularly on Curiosity, so stay tuned for more.
CALLI: Thank you so much to Dr. George C Nield for joining us today to talk about his spaceflight! I hope to one day get there myself. Until then, I’ll just keep enjoying life on Earth.
NATE: Good, if you stay here that means you get to tune into next week’s conversation with another amazing member of The Explorers Club.
CALLI: A man who’s dedicated his time to exploring and uncovering history on Earth, a long-buried shipwreck.
PETER: Well, the big the the key attraction in this wreck is that cultural connection. It was an incredible tragedy at the time. I want to say one of the worst maritime accidents in Mexico's history with over 130 people killed. It's during a very prominent time in U.S. history during the Gold Rush era. And that west coast of Mexico is littered with steamships, literally from Nicaragua all the way up to San Francisco. It's incredible the amount of wrecks that litter the Pacific coast of the United States. And it brings forth that that spirit of entrepreneurial ism that the American spirit has, that they're willing to gamble everything in order to pursue their destiny. And a lot of people didn't make it.
CALLI: See you back here next week, and until next time, stay curious!