Well, well, everybody, welcome to the Michael Steele podcast. My guest today is out of this world. He is Terry Vertz. He spent over seven months in space during his two space flights,

piloting the space shuttle endeavor on STS 130 in 2010

and commanding the International Space Station

during expedition 4243. Space Station during Expedition 4243 in 2014 and 2015.

He served in the Air Force as a fighter pilot,

test pilot, NASA astronaut, and is a graduate of the US Air Force Academy, Embry-Ridl Aeronautical University, and Harvard Business School.

He is the author of the great new book, The Astronauts Guide to Leaving the

Planet, and it's really geared towards young readers to sort of reimagine their interest,

not just in space, but in learning in math and science.

And his other book, How to astronaut, everything you need to know before leaving the Earth.

That's also available.

But the conversation today, folks, I'm just telling you,

we set the politics aside and we just drilled into space

and had a little conversation about the grades.

All right, so all of that and more coming up

on the Michael Steele podcast right after this. to the

Michael Steele podcast it's always a treat when I have a chance to talk with Terry Berti is

as you know one one of one of that elite group know, the men and women who actually got into space and did their thing.

He was commander on expedition 43 for NASA and I've gotten to conversate with him and get to know him a little bit over the years.

And it's a real treat to have you on the podcast, Terry.

It's great to be with you again. It's been just just saw you in DC

recently but it's good to be on your podcast. Yeah, yeah. So you know I think you know I do a lot of politics obviously you and I have talked politics in the past and and I want to kind of change up the game a little bit because I think it's really fascinating what's happening right now in space and how the government and the I think a lot of opportunity

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