SpaceX Astronaut Talks Montana & this Week’s Rescue

He described how grueling the re-entry into the atmosphere actually is on the body. Plus, could the rescue mission have happened much sooner. The science says yes. The political science? That's another ballgame altogether.

It was so cool catching up with Scott "Kidd" Poteet. He was the Polaris Dawn Mission Pilot during last year's first ever commercial space walk. They trained for that mission right here in Montana. We caught up with him before the space flight, and shortly after returning.

"Kidd" Poteet joined us once again on Tuesday's Montana Talks statewide radio show with Aaron Flint to talk about the SpaceX rescue mission that had a successful splashdown later that afternoon.

How grueling is the re-entry back into Earth's atmosphere?

Kidd Poteet: "So your body goes through a pretty intense transition when you get to microgravity space, but the one thing that is fairly predominant is the fluid shift that happens in your body. You know, we're used to gravity pulling on everything, to include our muscles, our ligaments, our tendons, our bone structure, the fluid in our body, but as soon as you get the microgravity- that all shifts around, your organs are shifting around and when you're up there for so long, you know, like Butch and Sunni have been, you haven't been able to use all those elements like you typically do on earth. They have dedicated time to train to, you know, make sure their cardiovascular systems is functioning properly, you know, and stays fit that way. But when you don't use all those muscles, ligaments and tendons and bone structure it does atrophy. And as soon as you start the re-entry process, any G onset, you know, we noticed that at like point 2g- you can start feelg the G forces, and that was only after five days. They've been up there for like 286, days, over nine and a half months, that sensation is going to be very intense."

Could the rescue mission have taken place much sooner? (Trump and Elon say YES)

Kidd Poteet: "Could SpaceX have done things to reprioritize when it comes to the mission? Things you got to consider is the flight schedule, the availability of crews and capsules and launch schedules- all of that can be re-evaluated and re-prioritized to get them home sooner. So obviously, I am not privy to what was going on in the office during these conversations, when it was decided upon- the final decisions. But from my experiences working with SpaceX and watching the 11,000 amazing professional men and women, some of the brightest people I've ever worked with, they certainly have the capability, capacity and aptitude to have figured out solutions to get them home sooner. But you know that those decisions are way above my head and and I wasn't privy to any of those conversations."

Full audio