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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

In March of this year, Mark v. to High Return to Earth after spending 355 days in outer space.

Today on the show I talked to Mark about what it was like to spend nearly a year in orbit,

and how he ended up sending a new record for the longest spaceflight by an American astronaut.

We first talked about how Mark went from being a soldier in the army who served twice in Iraq to working for NASA.

Mark explained the application process for becoming an astronaut and what he thought were the hardest parts of his training.

He then shares how you exercise in outer space, what a typical work day in the international space station is like,

and how it feels to do a spacewalk.

I asked Mark whether he was worried when the Russians threatened to abandon him in space,

whether life on the space station is hard and morale, what it's like to physically return to Earth,

and whether it's a let down when it's finally time to hang up your astronaut pack.

Out of the shows over, check out our show notes at aum.ias slash space.

Mark Van De Hei, welcome to the show.

Well, thanks, Brett. It's great to be here.

So you are an astronaut and you just got back in March from nearly a year long stay in the International Space Station.

We're going to talk about that. That's an American record.

We'll talk about the day, how that happened.

Before we do this, talk about just being an astronaut.

How long you've been an astronaut? What's the stuff you've been doing as an astronaut?

I became an astronaut in 2011 prior to that, I was an astronaut candidate here at Johnson Space Center starting in 2009.

And from 2011 on, a lot of its maintenance training, trying to make sure you're ready for a space flight.

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