
Our conversation with NASA's Christina Koch
Special | 8m 54sVideo has Closed Captions
Frank Graff interviews astronaut Christina Koch.
Christina Koch broke the record for the longest space flight by a woman during her time on the International Space Station. Producer Frank Graff sat down with Koch as she's preparing to fly on the Artemis II mission, which will send humans into lunar orbit for the first time in 50 years.
SCI NC is a local public television program presented by PBS NC
PBS North Carolina and Sci NC appreciate the support of The NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Our conversation with NASA's Christina Koch
Special | 8m 54sVideo has Closed Captions
Christina Koch broke the record for the longest space flight by a woman during her time on the International Space Station. Producer Frank Graff sat down with Koch as she's preparing to fly on the Artemis II mission, which will send humans into lunar orbit for the first time in 50 years.
How to Watch SCI NC
SCI NC is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Android smartphones, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Tablet, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, and Vizio.
Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship- We as a crew of Artemis 2, we like to think that our true mission isn't fulfilled until we see someone walking on the moon.
And that's when we know we did our job.
We think about that often.
Every single time we're working with those engineers and trying to make the mission the best that it can be, it's with the thought of the future crews.
And that's just a great place for me to be.
This role of being someone, kind of having a pathway and giving to the future explorers on Artemis the possibility to go back to the moon's surface, that is a role that I'm really excited about.
Some of the new systems are all of the life support systems.
So everything from scrubbing the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to providing a breathable atmosphere of oxygen and nitrogen.
That we have a new, we have a bathroom now, we have crew displays, we have an exercise device.
So all of those things that really put the human in human space flight are flying for the first time on this mission in Orion.
- No offense, but if I'm testing the life support system, I would be a little [laughing] nervous.
- Well, it's interesting you bring that up.
And that's the exact reason why we have test flight missions.
At some point you have to fly a new system for the first time.
You can't necessarily test a life support system without the humans that it's supporting.
And that's kind of the beauty, that's why we call it exploration.
And that's what we're looking forward to.
Those riskier parts is what motivates a lot of us in this human space flight endeavor.
- Well, turn that around, though.
Why risk people?
We got pretty sophisticated robots that can do things now.
Why not just send them?
- What we found in the Apollo missions is that having a human on a mission, being able to think through problems, being able to real time problem solve, to identify rocks on the surface that look a little bit different and change the plan to go gather those, to learn something in the distance that you see, those are the real things that are valuable for exploration, and to make sure that we bring those benefits of that exploration, the knowledge gain, the technology gain back to Earth.
You really need humans in the equation to optimize that.
And the truth is, we have the technology to do it now.
We're about 50 years after we went for the first time to show that we could be there.
Now it's time to go back to go sustainably, responsibly, and stay and really reap those benefits.
- Did you always wanna be an astronaut?
Or was this something that you just kept seeing challenge after challenge and it just kind of led that way?
- A little bit of both.
I definitely always wanted to be an astronaut.
I was that kid that told my early elementary school teachers that I wanted to be an astronaut.
But I also at one point sort of decided that if I was ever going to be someone to contribute to human space flight, which I held in such high regard since the time I was a kid, I wanted it to be because I pursued things that were meaningful and fulfilling to me, my passions.
And so there was a time when I focused on doing that, on what are the things I can contribute the most to?
What are the things that amplify my talents and where I can learn more about how, you know, in the ways that I want to contribute?
It was only after then that I sort of looked back and decided, I think I am ready to throw my name in and see if I could contribute to this team.
So it's a little bit of both.
So almost four decades ago when I was about y'all's age, I loved staring up at the stars through the pine trees in my backyard.
One of my favorite things to tell students, kids, even career people that you know, early career folks that I mentor, is to reach in the direction of the things that scare you, that intimidate you.
Because what I've found is that those things are things you're intrigued in, things that bring you in that you might find meaning in, but that you think are right outside of your reach.
And when you achieve those things, that's when you really amplify your contributions and you give the most, not only to the world, but the world gives the back the most to you.
So sharing that message, and especially sharing that I never expected I would've achieved this dream and seeing that change someone's perspective is really, really awesome.
- What is space like?
- What is space like.
The International Space Station orbits Earth about 250 miles above the surface.
And you go around the Earth every hour and a half.
So every day you have about 17 sunsets and sunrises.
That alone is so awesome.
Floating.
I didn't even remember what it was like to walk by the end of my mission.
And it's so much fun to just be going about your day, day in and day out, doing the science, doing the maintenance, and you're floating.
You can flip in the air.
So there's a childhood wonder all the time in space.
But the real reason I love my time on the space station was the productivity.
Our days are scheduled down to five minute increments.
So even though that seems extremely regimented, the upside of it is that you are constantly giving back.
You know that you're doing someone's science, you're fixing something, you're upgrading something.
And that sense of contribution, along with your crew that's on board, is amazing.
And then in your off time you get to go to a giant bay window that looks down on planet Earth and just watch it go by.
And that is incredibly special as well.
So it's a wonderful place and it's place that brings us answers about things that we cannot answer anywhere else.
There's knowledge and scientific, you know, discoveries that we make up there, and that's the only place we can make them.
So it's special in that way too.
- What do you think about as you're looking out that giant bay window?
I mean, at some point you gotta just look down and say, wow.
- You do, you do.
I think there's kind of the macro and the micro.
On one hand you have a lot of, or I had a lot of self-reflection about wow, everything I've ever done in my life is down there.
Every person that encouraged me is down there.
Every time I fell and had to dust myself off, it happened down there.
Everyone I love is there.
Everything I know in the universe is in my view right now.
And then there's the macro piece of, there are no borders.
And even though you know that going up there, it is striking to look down on a planet and realize that every map you've seen is just a rendering that is overlaid with, you know, sort of made up boundaries.
- Human constructions.
- Exactly.
And I think the biggest takeaway is something that my crewmate, Anne McClain said.
She said, "When you look down, you realize we're more alike than we are different.
The same things keep us alive.
The same things are what we need to be fulfilled in life."
And that was a really profound shift that I thought about a lot when I was looking down on Earth.
- I've heard talking to astronauts through the years in various stories, they've all said that space changed them.
Did space change you?
- I do think it changed me.
I think the big difference in that sense, what you're talking about, some people call it the overview effect, for me was a perspective shift similar to the first time maybe you might travel internationally, and suddenly you realize everything you've learned is just one way of doing things.
You thought it was an absolute, but it's just one option.
And when I looked at the Earth from the International Space Station, I realized that it was just a planet in a huge, wide universe.
And everything around us that we take as absolute when we look around, the blue sky, the ground, trees, those are just one way of being, one planet's way of producing life.
I didn't see a blue sky for almost 11 months onboard the space station.
And you realize there's things that we have taken as absolutes that really are just one of many ways of being.
And I'm really looking forward to the Artemis mission where we'll not only look down on Earth, but we'll see the Earth complete as a sphere in the window against the backdrop of space.
And that perspective is something I really wanna bring back to all of humanity.
That knowledge that I hope will allow people to see the same things that I've been lucky to see, which is we are more alike than we are different.
It almost goes back to a question you asked earlier, which is why send humans?
And one of my answers to that is, human exploration has to have a human component or else we're not necessarily bringing everyone's hopes and dreams with us, and we may be less able to bring back the wonder and the awe of the things that we see.
If they're taken through robotic pictures, there's something a little bit different than when it's taken by a camera held to a human eye.
SCI NC is a local public television program presented by PBS NC
PBS North Carolina and Sci NC appreciate the support of The NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.