In the National Geographic Channel’s documentary series One Strange Rock, no less an authority than Will Smith describes Nicole Stott as “a badass.” The engineer, pilot, and astronaut has logged 103 days in space, plus 18 days underwater on NASA’s Aquarius station off the Florida coast. She is also an artist who in 2009 became the first person to use watercolors in space.
Stott is one of eight astronauts who contribute commentary to the miniseries One Strange Rock, describing Earth’s history and what our planet looks like from space. (See the Physics Today review of the series.) She is particularly prominent in the second episode, “Storm,” which shows her spending time at home with her family, working aboard the International Space Station, and explaining the Theia theory of the Moon’s formation.
Stott talked to Physics Today about her career as an astronaut and what she hopes viewers take away from the series.
PT: We often hear people say they wanted to be astronauts as kids. Was that the case for you?
STOTT: I think I always had an interest in flying and in spaceflight, but it took a really long time before I thought that being an astronaut was something I could consider. It seemed like it was something other people do. But after 9 or 10 years of working at Kennedy Space Center, I started thinking about becoming an astronaut. I was helping get space shuttles ready to fly, and it became pretty clear to me that a big part of what astronauts do was a lot like what I was doing already as an engineer. So that’s when it became kind of a real thing.
PT: What was it like to go through the astronaut selection process?
STOTT: The process was such a mystery! I pinch myself to this day. I wonder what about me stood out that time around. Was it communication with somebody who knew me? Was it something I said or did either in or outside of the interview process? I’m very thankful for sure. And I’m thankful to the people who encouraged me to apply, because it took a little bit of that for me to have the confidence to pick up the pad and fill out the application.
PT: You spent 18 days underwater in 2006 in the Aquarius habitat as part of the NEEMO 9 mission. Tell us a bit about that experience.
STOTT: It was awesome. That was absolutely the best analogue to living and working in space. Once you’re 60 feet underwater, you know you’re not swimming to the surface safely. So as a crew and as an independent individual, you have to be mentally and physically prepared to deal with something going wrong. Same thing in space. You have to deal with problems right there in that environment. And of course, you can’t just float out the door when you’re in space or underwater without protective equipment, or without appropriate communication with your crewmates and with the ground.
We talk about gaining new perspectives in space as we look at the planet on the macro level, seeing Earth as a whole. On the NEEMO mission, it was like being literally immersed in the planet. We joke about it being the “inner space” perspective. It’s eye-opening, very special for sure.
PT: What does the Aquarius habitat look like? How much can you see from inside?
STOTT: Aquarius is about the size of a school bus. It has these little view ports like you would expect on a ship or in a submarine. It’s right off the coast of Key Largo, and the water is stunning—a couple hundred feet visibility on a pretty regular basis. The structure of the coral and the diversity of the sea life were amazing.
PT: What was the most important thing you learned during training for your first spaceflight?
STOTT: Regardless of whether you’re learning how to do a spacewalk or how to fly the robotic arm, the bulk of the training really has to do with how you work effectively as a team. That’s what the NEEMO mission was about. You’re putting yourself in an extreme environment to see how these six crewmates are going to work together successfully and peacefully and get things done. I don’t know what the secret sauce is, but it really works. I felt like I was in space with my family.
On the crew I had at the space station, the only country that was missing was Japan. It’s pretty cool that we’ve got this place in space that really is the best example of how we should be working as a global community down here. There are six people working peacefully and successfully from all these different countries every day in space, and then thousands of them on the ground working in support of it all. It’s just a wonderful example of how we could operate spaceship Earth as well.
PT: What was it like to paint with watercolors in space?
STOTT: In hindsight, I wish I had videotaped it because it would have been a really cool way to demonstrate what life in microgravity is like in general. Things float. The surface tension of fluids is different. I would shoot out this little floating ball of water, and I would take the tip of the brush and stick it in the water. Then I’d get the brush in the water over to the paint—I had solid watercolors, kind of like the ones for kids—and you could almost watch the water moving from the brush to the paint.
After mushing that around, I’d slowly pull the brush off and watch the movement of the colored water coming off the paint and back onto the brush. Then I’d have to be careful about how much pressure I put on the paper with the colored water, because the paper would suck all the paint in at one time if you weren’t careful with how you dragged the brush along.
Then there’s the challenge of painting what you see in space. You can’t just paint in front of the window. Moving at 5 miles a second, what you wanted to paint is gone before you can get the brush to the paper. So I had to print out a picture of what I wanted to paint.
With the pictures that I was able to take of Earth and of the spaceship surrounding me, I’ll never run out of inspiration for painting. The art is such a cool way to share the experience. Art allows us to communicate with people who might not otherwise even know we have a space station. By communicating that way, I can do a little bit of Earth and Earthling appreciation and hopefully make a connection with a broader audience.
PT: How did you become involved in One Strange Rock?
STOTT: It was about three years ago—I think I had recently retired at that point. I had a phone call and some initial conversations with the Nutopia folks [the production company], and then I had the opportunity to continue those conversations as the concept was developing. Just through those early conversations you could tell that part of the motivation was to present something meaningful, thoughtful, stunning. And I think they’ve done it.
One thing I love about the series is that we’re talking about the planet. Each episode presents in such a stunning way something that we’re probably not thinking about on a daily basis, like how Earth was formed or how oxygen is generated for us to breathe. What I love too is that there is no dumbing down. We want people who are professionally, actively involved in science to be in our audience as well. The show’s science hasn’t been so oversimplified that you walk away thinking, “Why did I even watch that?” You feel invested in it. As you’re watching it, you want to learn more. I think people will walk away feeling connected to the planet. They’ll feel reintroduced to it, almost.
PT: Do you have a favorite episode or sequence from the show?
STOTT: I’m really thankful that in “Storm” they incorporate some family aspects. It’s part of my whole spaceflight experience—I always wanted my family to feel like they were part of my crew, to know the activities I was participating in. It was especially important that my son feel that way. He was seven when I flew the first time, so his whole life growing up had been with me preparing to go to space. It was important for me to have him and my husband there as part of the episode.
