Terry Virts on Space Travel, Immigration, and Politics

Terry Virts is a retired NASA astronaut, ISS Commander and col. in the United States Air Force turned speaker, director, and author. Virts has directed and contributed to films such as IMAX’s A Beautiful Planet, and is the author of books including A View From Above, How to Astronaut and The Astronaut’s Guide to Leaving Planet Earth.

Bert Martinez:

You know, I tell you what. And again, I’m an immigrant. My family and I came here from Cuba speaking of politics because we’re Cuban. I mean, if we were Haitian, you know, I wouldn’t be talking right now. So we went from Cuba to Spain to Miami, and then I grew up in Houston.

Terry Virts:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I was at Air Force Base when Andrew hit, and, well, I loved it down there. Cuba was actually my job when I was based there.

Bert Martinez:

Really? Meaning, what would you do in Cuba? Or what would you do about Cuba?

Terry Virts:

Well, it depended whatever was required. I mean, I was an F16 pilot at the time. We were it wasn’t they were their fighter pilots were driving around on bikes. It was, they were in bad shape in the nineties to say the least.

They were driving around on bikes to train because they didn’t have enough fuel to fly their MiG 20 threes, their their fighter jets. So they’re we were like, they would practice their in formation on bikes to practice their techniques. So even though that that was our job, you know, it wasn’t they’re not a they’re not a military threat to say the least.

Bert Martinez:

I tell you that that’s I don’t know if I was a a pilot of any type, much less a fighter pilot, and I’m on a bike. My confidence is gonna be pretty low.

Terry Virts:

Well, we you know, they’re it’s not 1961 anymore. So Right. The thing about Cuba that is such a tragedy. Like, I it’s gorgeous. It’s be when you see it from space, it’s surrounded by all these blue it just looks like the most beautiful place. When you see it in James Bond movies, you’re like, it looks like a really cool place. And we just need to get past this. But open it up.

Let the tourists go. We’ll do some business. Let you know, we need to get past the the embargo. Stupid government that they have, the communist government.

Bert Martinez:

And again here’s politics for you. Whether you like it or not, and when I say this, some of my communities get very upset of me. They, Castro, what whatever you wanna call it, he won because they’re still getting tourist business from Mexico, they’re getting tourist business from Europe, from Canada. The only place that they’re not getting business from is us unless you and I first go to Mexico or Canada and then go into Cuba. So it’s it is, you know, it like, I and I agree with you.

It’s time to say, okay. Look. Let’s figure out a way to work with these people because nothing’s changed. I mean, we tried It’s not like it’s not like the US just turned a blind eye. They tried multiple ways, including diplomacy, including force. For whatever reason, it didn’t work out, so let’s, you know, let’s make it happen. I mean, one of the things that I’m most proud of as as an American is the fact that Japan is one of our allies. Here is a here is a a ruthless fighting force. I mean, they did some horrible things to our troops. We slaughtered them. We kicked their butts, and now they’re one of our  allies. So it goes to show you that a bitter enemy can become an ally. And and it doesn’t have to be a permanent thing unless the egos get in the way.

Terry Virts:

At the end of the day, people are people. It’s the government that screws things up. So we have a freedom loving democracy. Generally, things will go pretty good. And if you have, you know, one man at the top who’s dictator for life, who wants to make his country great again, things won’t go so well. So but the but the people are people, and the the benefit that Germany and Japan had is is we won. Like, we defeated them. The problem that Russia has is they’ve never been defeated.

Like, they’ve lost a lot of battles, but they’ve never lost the war. And until that happens, you you end up with this continuous stream of either the Soviet government or corrupt oligarchy. You know, Putin is just a mob mafia boss. And until until you get defeated, you’re kinda stuck with what you have. But, you know, they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and hoping for a different result. We’ve been trying this for Cuba for the last 50 years and has not worked. So, you know you should try something else.

Bert Martinez:

And you know what? I I tell you something else, and this is again, this is unfortunately very political, and I am not, to be clear, I’m not a big Hillary Clinton fan. I think that, you know, it’s I’ll just say that. I’m not a big Hillary Clinton fan.

However, I do agree with the fact that many, many years ago, she said, in order to move the relationship forward, talking about, I can’t remember which terrorist group or which hostile group.

I know it was in the Middle East. She said, we have to fig we have to learn who you know, we have to learn about them, and we have to try to understand them.

Not that we have to agree with them, but that we have to understand them. And and, of course, she was lambasted for that. Right? She, you know, she’s a commie. She’s weak she’s liberal. She’s this. But Yeah. Honestly, you cannot get an agreement with somebody and really hope to keep that agreement if you don’t understand them. I mean, that’s why anybody who’s ever had a teenager in their house, let me tell you, when you those are the worst years because you don’t understand what they’re doing. They don’t understand what you’re doing, and and it’s some of the worst times for a parent. But until you understand what they’re really going through, then you can say, okay. I get it. Understand where they’re coming from. Let’s try this.

Terry Virts:

I’ve got my Taylor Swift playlist here. So and and, you know, what you’re really talking about is nuance and subtlety and openness and understanding. Those are qualities that are really missing from some of our loudest politicians today in America.

There’s no I read a funny book about or or, it was an article about why the Brits couldn’t stand Donald Trump because he has no sense of humor, and he’s not, he has no sense of irony. They they like some nuance and, like, getting to know people and understanding people, and that doesn’t mean that you can all hold hands and sing kumbaya. We tried that with Russia for after the so Soviet Union collapsed. We tried it with China. For the last 20 years, we’ve kinda given away the family jewels to the China that if we just engage with them, they’ll become freedom loving democracy. No. They won’t.

When you got you got one man at the top who’s dictator for life, and he wants to make us country great again, that’s gonna end badly. And we we need to open our eyes to that. But that doesn’t mean you don’t you shouldn’t take the time and effort to understand people because, you know, I’ve always said I’d love you know, if I was the ambassador of Russia, the first thing I’d do would be to go to the banya, the the sauna with these guys and just, like, realize that we’re human beings. Alright. Now let’s talk through through things. And that that that does not sit well with political ideologues who just wanna throw out their ideology and, you know, demonize everybody as the devil. And sometimes sometimes there’s subtlety and nuance in life, and that’s Latin with politicians.

Bert Martinez:

Absolutely. Time and time again through history, we have seen miracles. We have seen great things get resolved because there was true human empathy, not sympathy, but empathy.

And they were you know, one of my favorite stories, I think it was World War 2. Might have been World War 1, but I think World War 2 where it’s during the Christmas season, and I think the Americans started singing Silent Night and the Germans joined in, and for an hour or 2, they had peace.

They they just everybody just chilled for 2 hours and and, you know, it it is just it’s just amazing to me. And, again, we see it over and over again, the you know, when, Khrushchev took down the wall, when that happened, again, it wasn’t because we came in there by force. It would’ve never worked. It was something that they finally decided, okay. You know what? Let’s do it. Whatever clicked.

Terry Virts:

It it was Gorbachev. They were very lucky, They were very lucky to have him as the leader because if it was someone else that it could’ve like, it was Khrushchev. Yeah. It would it’s funny you say Khrushchev. I was, you know, one of our senators from the great state of Texas is Ted Cruz, and he’s voting on behalf of the Russians. And I was laughing today that he needs a nickname, Khrushchev, because that’s, that another a Cuban American.

But, you know, these things are important, and and I’ll just use Marjorie Taylor Greene. She’s the easy punch when you have people like that, you can’t govern. We’re the most important nation in the history of humanity, and I do some, I do executive coaching with executives. And I was talking to one in in Australia. And all of my European business friends, Canadian and Japanese, all of them are like, Harry, what is going on in America? You have 2 octogenarians. 1 of them is, like, a mentally ill criminal, and one of them was too old when he was vice president, and he’s still there. What is going on? And the so the I think the solution, Bert, is the primary system that we have is panders to the partisan extremists.

Like Yes. If they have a partisan primary system, you’re you’re gonna get the guy that all the extreme Republicans want and and or all the extreme Democrats want. And our system doesn’t reward appealing to the masses. I was a math major, so there’s this thing called a bell curve.

For your weight, for batting averages in baseball, for the height of everything’s a bell curve. Right? But the partisan primary system works for the extremes of that bell curve, but not for the fat part in the middle. They say in between the 20 yard lines or whatever. We’re we’re working for the 5 yards to the goal, but everybody in between the 20 yard lines is it doesn’t get represented. So we really need to change that, and I’m working with an organization.

There’s a thing called open primaries and ranked choice voting, and it’s a way to have a a system that, like, the candidates that appeal to the most people win. Right now, the candidates that appeal to the hardcore base of your party are the ones who win. And if we unless we change that, it’s gonna be more of the same. And if not, you know, things will only get worse or something. Combine that with social media and algorithms, and we’re in a really bad place. Like, we have to we have to fix this.

Bert Martinez:

Alright. So, this organization give us the name one more time and the website.

Terry Virts:

So it’s actually Adam Kinzinger. He has an organization called Country First. I don’t have the website on off the top of my head, but we’re we’re doing a big reorganization. Country First is the website. There’s another lady called or is an organization. Catherine Gehl is a political professor. She she’s the one I learned this at a lecture at Harvard a couple years ago. Very, very smart lady.

I had her on my podcast, Down to Earth with Terry Virts a couple years ago. G e h l is her last name. You could Google her and find her. She’s really the kind of the intellectual brains behind what’s happening. Several states have implemented it. I think New York City did the ranked choice voting. Alaska did it, and they had a vote last year that Sarah Palin probably would have won on a normal primary, but, a moderate one. So that’s like a one data point where it worked.

And, yeah, that’s that’s just of all the woes that if you could fix one thing, that would really go a long way. Right now, we’re we’re talking about aid for Ukraine. If we don’t help Ukraine, Russia destroys our ally. There there’s millions of people or have been refugees. Probably 100 of 1000 have been killed. I there’s a documentary called 20 days in Marieval. Highly recommended. It’s nominated for an Oscar.

It’s incredible. It’s very, rough. You know, it’s about the 1st 20 days of the war. People are dying, but it lets you know what’s happening. This is happening in Europe. And a lot of congressmen and senators, Khrushchev, one of them, would probably vote for it if it wasn’t this hyperpartisan system that we have. So people president Trump, they had a they had a ballot. They had a bill that would’ve it was, like, the strongest ever border security bill.

Plus aid against Russia, China, and Iran. It’s like the Republican wet dream. And Trump said, no. Vote against it. I don’t wanna give Biden any victory.

And these guys that would have voted for it a 100 percent didn’t because they’re afraid of the orange man, and they’re afraid of getting primaried. If they were if there were, ranked choice open primary system, they would all nobody would have voted against it, even those who didn’t like it because they would have lost their primary. So in business, people do what you incentivize. If you give them a $10,000 bonus for, parking a mile away, every the really far away parking lot will be full every morning. Right? So people do what they incentivize, and the incentive now is to be extreme, if if you’re a politician.

And that’s not good. We need to we’re we’re having rule by minority in in the country, but it’s not ruled by the majority doesn’t get to rule things. It’s it’s Marjorie Taylor Greene gets to decide what happens, and that’s a bad place for America.

And all of our allies realize it. Our the American brand is down the toilet right now. Sure. I work with mid level and high level business executives around Earth. They are not impressed with what’s going on in America. I could to say the least. Some of my colleagues from dictatorships and authoritarian states, you might you could probably guess, they admire some of the stuff we’re doing, but 95% of the world’s, like, middle class, business class is not impressed with what’s happening here. The bad spot to be in.

Bert Martinez:

Absolutely. And this is an extraordinary situation because never would I have I ever seen this and never would I expect to see this in America where one person holds so many people hostage without any kind of gun. I mean, literally, are you telling me that all these people are so afraid of pissing off Donald Trump, who most likely I mean, he does have a chance to get back into power, but not a really good chance.

I mean, I however, it’s like I don’t know. To me, it’s like, why are they letting him control them? Control their thinking, control their voting? It’s like these guys should just get together and say, you know what? If we just ignore Donald Trump, if we don’t give him any more power, guess what? He won’t have any more power, and then we can get back to helping America. We can really put America first versus putting Donald Trump first.

And and it’s just I know it’s a psychological thing. I I’m trying to remember what it’s called when when the, hostage, Stockholm Syndrome. That’s what it reminds me of, that all these people have some variation of that because, really, he has no power. He’s not the president anymore. And if you don’t put him back into power, what is he gonna do? Well, he’s gonna jump on Truth Social, and say, oh, you know, Bert and Terry are terrible people. Don’t pay attention to them. Don’t vote for them. But that’s it. He has minimal power, but they give him all of their power. It’s it’s amazing.

Terry Virts:

You know, healthy political parties have debate. Unhealthy parties have witch hunts. And one of our parties is in the unhealthy category. You probably guess guess which one. Steve Bannon back in 2016 Trump was, for all of his faults, was very smart about this, and Steve Bannon was very smart about this. They really figured out the secret vows to get power, and it’s it’s by appealing to our worst angels. Right? Like, the Republican message is a message of hate. It’s a message of vengefulness.

It’s a message that appeals to all of the worst inside of us, and it works. And they’ve gotten tens of millions of people to vote for him. Now they lose. Trump lost in 2016 to Popiarga. And every other election since then, he’s either lost badly or underperformed what should have happened. And almost, like, probably 90% of the candidates that he endorses lose. So he’s he’s continued his lifelong streak of losing, but he has a way of using other people’s money to benefit himself, either in business or politically. And, I mean, he’s raised, I think, $50,000,000 that have gone to lawyers.

Literally, these MAGA’s, you know, retirees are sending them $25 checks to go to his New York lawyer. $50,000,000 spent on that.

Bert Martinez:

I think I think it’s now surpassed the 50. I think it’s getting close to, like, 70 or 80. But either way, whether it’s 50, 60 It’s a lot. And, again, look, If I was gonna support a politician, I don’t wanna pay for his I don’t wanna pay for his legal bills. I don’t wanna pay for his medical bills. I don’t wanna pay for any of his bills. I want you to take my money and use it for what we agreed upon.

You know, and so the fact that his supporters adore him and and, of course, the other the other side, I know there are supporters that that because they they vote the party line. I used to be a hardcore Republican, and about 30 years ago, the Republican Party and the insurance companies got together again, and they started passing all these laws that would diminish, injured people’s rights.

And that’s when I stopped being a hardcore Republican. I just could not imagine my party extinguishing the rights of people who have been injured. And I just thought, this is that’s that has nothing to do with politics. That’s that’s anyway, not to go down . . .

Terry Virts:

They’re helping Russia destroy a European democracy.

Bert Martinez:

Not only a European democracy, but, again, our ally. And we need as much allies as we can get.

Terry Virts:

And so I I’m actually working to to also support an organization called no labels. I don’t know if have you heard of no labels? Well, you’re I think you’re gonna hear about us pretty soon. The basic premise is we’re gonna run what we’re calling a unity ticket, a bipartisan presidential ticket, 1 Republican, 1 Democrat, assuming that it’s Biden Trump, and it’s looking like it’s gonna be Biden Trump.

The the Biden Trump matchup is, like, the most historically unpopular presidential race in the history of unpopular presidential races. It’s something like 2 thirds of Americans don’t wanna see this, obviously. There’s some small diehard Trump fans and the, of course, the liberal democrats want Biden, but but most of that bell curve does not want it. So we’re looking for, you know, a list, well known, established Republicans and Democrats that have already been vetted. They’ve already held out, you know, serious candidates, not Ross Perot. You know? So not like some crazy guy with a lot of money, but actual legitimate candidates.

So we’ll see where it goes. I would expect I I don’t know. I’m not I don’t work for no labels. I’m just supporting them. So I don’t know when they’re gonna have the announcement, but it’ll have to be soon. You know? The rate race is heating up. But the idea is to put a and that would be a really interesting way of governing with a say, hypothetically, a Republican president and Democratic vice president and a cabinet that was made of both. And it would really, it threatens the established parties, which I think is a good you know?

Bert Martinez:

Think about it, Terry. If if all of a sudden you had a bipartisan presidency administration, you had a bipartisan cabinet, you know, the squabbling would . . .

Terry Virts:

Imagine that. And not Marjorie Taylor Greene and AOC in the same cabinet. That would never work. But, like That would never work. There’s good Democrats. I know I text some some of them. And so if those types of people were in office and they wouldn’t always agree. And sometimes somebody would have to say, appreciate the input, but this is what’s gonna happen. But Right. But, yes, again,  like you, I stuffed envelopes for Ronald Reagan when I was in high school, but that party is gone.

Bert Martinez:

I tell you what, I was I was very impressed. You mentioned Adam Kinzinger both him and I should say him and Chris Cheney, a few other people stood up, not for the Republican party, but for democracy. They stood up for America. And I was impressed. You know, Liz Cheney, I think she really showed her honor, her integrity, the fact that she really wanted to do right by the people and and she was willing to lose the race or lose her position there. She reduced the amount of of campaigning that she was able to do. And, of course, the the the the MAGA supporters did their best to oust her, which they finally did. But I think, you know, she mentioned this multiple times that, eventually, these people will will be judged by by by their children and their grandchildren and history and stuff like that.

Terry Virts:

History will remember it. They’re ashamed. She has more balls than Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Kevin McCarthy. All these guys completely put party over country.

Bert Martinez:

Well, I would say they put Donald Trump over party. It’s like Trump, party, America.

Terry Virts:

No, there’s the gold, silver, and bronze medal. Party America.

Bert Martinez:

Because if they put the party first, I think they would have said, okay. Let’s let’s get rid of Donald Trump. If they were putting the party first, they would say, look. This guy is not really about the party. He’s not about America. He’s not about the people.

Let’s get him out. But, no, it’s it’s Trump party then America. And, yeah, I think dead on about Lindsey Graham, you know, just a flip flopper and and, it’s just amazing. Again, Stockholm syndrome because these guys are being held hostage or or they’re they’re they’re now in alliance with their hostage taker. They can’t seem to shake it. They they have no reason. And I just love the excuses they they came up with. January 6th, at first, everybody was agreeing that, you know, that was a riot.

It it maybe it was an insurrection. That was totally, unlawful. It was it was chaotic. People were hurt. It was the worst of America. This is just unacceptable. A few months later you know, it wasn’t that bad. It was actually peaceful.

Oh, no. No. It’s worse than peaceful. It was it was instigated by the by the federal government.

Terry Virts:

It was Nikki Haley’s fault because she she could have called the National Guard out, but she didn’t. And she didn’t secure the capital when she was in charge of the capital. Of course, it was Nancy Pelosi, not Nikki Haley, but Donald Trump’s failing octogenarian brain got those 2 confused.

like 20 years ago, the Democrats hated George Bush with such a passion. Like, everything was w’s fault. We used to joke about my flight’s canceled today. George Bush, damn it. He got the you know, he caused this weather the clouds to come in. We’re we’re in a we’re in a real mess right now.

Bert Martinez:

It it it’s incredible. I have and I say this with all sincerity, with all humility, and I and I want I would love everybody to join me in this, and that is I have never prayed harder for America and our leaders than I do on a regular basis now. It is the only thing I think that will help us is to hopefully get some spiritual intervention. You know, that that’s we need a miracle. And, really, the miracle, and I know I’m gonna get a lot of crap for this, if if Biden and Donald Trump both passed away peacefully in their sleep, boom, that would solve all sorts of issues, and maybe it would reboot the parties and we can get back to taking care of business.

Terry Virts:

Or, like I said, if no labels and amen. We I agree. We’d we need real we need real prayer, not that this kind of perverted Christian GOP that’s not that’s not Jesus’ old Wayne Watson song from 30 years ago. But, no labels is another option.

Bert Martinez:

I’ll check out no labels. I’ll see you. I will invite some other leaders on. I wanna check it out. I’m not heard of it.

Terry Virts:

The I think a lot of unless you’re a inside baseball kinda political person, you probably haven’t been following it. They’ve been on, meet the press and all the Sunday morning, shows. And so there’s they’ve generated a lot of interest. The the Democrats, especially, are really freaking out because they think that we’re gonna take votes from Biden. But the reality is our the polling we’ve shown has shown that we take votes from both sides because we’re kind of, in the in the middle. Folks like Jill Stein and Cornel West, you know, are the super radical left wing Green Party. They’re clearly gonna take votes for from Biden.

No no Trump voter is gonna vote for Cornel West. RFK junior is gonna probably get a lot of votes. He’ll probably get 5 or 10%. I don’t know what he’s gonna get, something like that. But he appeals to the anti vaxxers, conspiracy theory, the moon or the government’s whatever. But I think that I think he’s gonna hurt Trump more than he hurts Biden. That you know, that’s the kind of voter. But the no labels if if you put, like, a reasonably adult from each party, I think that will appeal to a pretty broad part of Americans.

And Americans want the only reason that no labels is doing this is because people clearly want something different. We’re sick of Biden. We’re sick of Trump, and we want, you know, some adults that can work together. You I remember, it was Ted Cruz, and he said, he was tired of talking about this thing. They they it was tie we needed to really focus on our enemy that we could defeat, and that was the Democrats. And I’m like, the Democrats aren’t our enemy. The Democrats are Americans. Like, Russia is our enemy.

North Korea is our enemy. Democrats are democrats. They’re not the enemy. And that that worldview that the other guys are the enemy, the enemy is somebody you kill. I was an f 16 pilot. You’re not nice to the enemy. You kill them. And that’s not that’s how political, the political system worldview is nowadays, but it that needs to change.

Bert Martinez:

Alright, So I wanna talk about space.

Terry Virts:

Let’s talk about something fun.

Bert Martinez:

I wanna talk about space. First of all, when did you start thinking about going in outer space?

Terry Virts:

You know, I tell the story a lot. I’ve written, I got a new kid’s book out.

So it’s like a illustrated elementary school, middle school kinda age. And I tell the story that my first book that I read was about space. It was 1 I think it was a cardboard book with, like, one line. I just remember reading about Apollo and the moon program, but I was hooked. I grew up with posters of the space shuttle and galaxies and nebula and stuff like that. It was something I wanted to do ever since I was little.

Bert Martinez:

So give us and I know this is probably repetitious for you, but it’s our first time talking. So give us give us your I don’t know. A quick doesn’t have to be quick, but an overview of here you are, you are in space, and you’re being flooded with all these emotions. You’re it must be overwhelming, and your dopamine is through the roof. I mean, how was that experience?

Terry Virts:

That you just described the the very first minutes in space. Like, during launch, it was still amazing to see the shuttle did this roll, the heads up maneuver, and I looked out and I could see I 95 on the East Coast of America. I I I the biggest chapter in my first book, I did a National Geographic book called View From Above, was about the 8 minute launch. So so many stories, but once I got in the space, the the blue sunrise you can’t see it. I have some I have some photos in my studio here. The blue sunrise that I remember thinking, I’ve never seen that shade of blue before. It was just so gorgeous. And the shuttle has liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen fuel, and so it freezes once you get into the vacuum and darkness of space.

And, of course, the shuttle’s banging and there’s rockets firing, and so this ice breaks into thousands of little pieces. And as we were flying into sunrise, all these this ice cloud was around the shuttle, and the sun was reflecting off of this ice. So there were all these, like, spectacular it looked like diamonds just reflecting all around us.

It was amazing. I’m seeing, like, a color of blue that I’ve never seen before, and I’m surrounded by this cloud of glass. And we were upside down at the time flying over the Alps, and the Alps were like, You know, every few seconds, we were crossing a mountain. And because I I remember when I lived in Germany, it took, like, an hour to go to the next mountain, and these are going by every couple of seconds. So that was my first few minutes in space.

And I had to go, alright. Focus. You have to fly the space shuttle. You’re the pilot. Like, stop looking out the window because you got a fly shuttle. It was very distracting because it’s so beautiful.

Bert Martinez:

That you know, again, I know more or less the science behind flight, but but I’m always I still marvel at the fact that these tin cans, if you will, these, you’re a pilot, and you’ve flown some of the most powerful jets and stuff like that as well as the commander, of the space shuttle. But I’m always amazed that we get these heavy aircrafts in the air, and we land them safely. And I just I would love to do a space shuttle and just go up there, and and I’m kinda, geeking out that we have not 1, not 2, but 3 different billionaires trying to make space a commercial flight. It’s just what a wonderful time to be around. Right?

Terry Virts:

It’s you know, if you sell some more ad space on the podcast, you can buy a ticket to space. The the Bezos rocket and the Virgin Galactic rocket are both, you know, taking paying passengers.

And and there’s this there’s a company called Acxiom that launches you they’ve been launching about launch it twice a year, private missions to the space station. So for 55,000,000, you can actually go to the International Space Station and spend a couple weeks.

Bert Martinez:

For just 55,000,000? Wow. That’s pretty tough.

Terry Virts:

I think if you get 2 seats, you’ll, you can get a discount. I don’t know. You have to negotiate with them.

Bert Martinez:

Absolutely. Alright. So let me ask you this. I have, I like to compete and I like to set some big goals and stuff like that, but I’ve noticed that, like, a couple years ago, I was in a couple of competitions. I came in 1st and one of them did 4th in another one. And and I mean, I was high, for, like, a month off of these two races, but then I crashed. Right? They  talk about the dopamine crashing, and it’s gotta reset. Do you guys go through the same thing after you guys come through that whole cycle?

Terry Virts:

Really worried I was worried about that. After my first shuttle flight, I wanted to go back. It was cool. It was only 2 weeks. I was ready to go back. Then I went back about 4 years. It took 4 or 5 years for me to fly again with the Russians.

I was there first 200 days on my second flight. And I remember you land in Kazakhstan. It’s 24 hours to get to Houston. And when I made it back to Houston, the first thing I did was go I went to the gym to do my workout, and I was super dizzy. It was it was miserable. But I did my rehab, and my son was there. My son was 16. He had gotten his driver’s license while I was in space.

So after after all this, he’s like, dad, let’s go car shopping. So I got I went in the car, he drove, and we went to the Ford dealership and looked at f one fifties. He ended up getting a Mustang. He he he bought a used Mustang. It’s pretty cool. And I remember as we were driving there, driving out of the highway, I 45 in Houston. You’re from Houston.

I thought, I’m on Earth. Like, back on Earth, I remember this is NASA Road 1. It’s, there’s the McDonald’s. You know? I I was back on Earth, and and I was so happy because I I thought I’d be depressed and it would mess with my brain. I know a lot of my colleagues, they I always joke that astronauts’ favorite mission is their next mission.

Like, it they all they care about is their next mission. And for me, I was like, well, that was great, but there’s other things I wanna do in life. I’ve got some film and TV projects I wanna do. I’m obviously passionate about politics. Business, I’m really interested in business, and I’m doing some coaching and consulting. So, I was glad that for me, personally, after my second flight, 7 months in space, I was ready to hang up the cleats. After the first flight, I was not.

Bert Martinez:

That’s incredible, that’s you know, the thought, again I’ve already talked about this. We can get a man to space. We can get a man to the International Space Station. We’ve gotten men to to, what do you call it, to the moon, but yet here on Earth, we can’t seem to manage our way out of a paper bag sometimes. It it’s just incredible.

Terry Virts:

Well, it was funny, to to put that in perspective that I so I was at NASA for 16 years, and that was enough. I’d done everything there was to do. Like, I it was easy. I had had all the jobs. I had like, I knew everybody. I just knew everything. There was no more learning left for me to do. I coulda and the boss called me, and he’s like, well, you you can get back in line.

It’ll be about 5 years before your next flight. And and then I would have done the same thing over again. Like, literally, what there was not it wasn’t like we were going to the moon anytime soon. So I was ready for another challenge. And I think that’s a great philosophy for congress. You know? Like, after 2 12 years or 8 18 years or whatever the number is, like, that’s enough time. You can move on. Do your lobbying.

Supreme Court, same thing. If you if everybody was 18 years, senator could get 3 terms. The Supreme Court, every president would get 2 picks unless somebody died. But, you know, if you’re 18 years in congress, you can be committee chairman and whatever. That’s more than enough time. Like, maybe less maybe 12 years, maybe 16 years. I don’t know what the right answer is, but you wanna give them enough time to, you know, get good at what they’re doing. And the leaders need to have some experience.

I get that. But they don’t need to be 80 years old. I so I think I think we need term limits and a age limit also for the house, the senate, and the supreme court.

Bert Martinez:

Sure. I mean, here in Arizona, you know, they they’ll give you we’re famous for our driver’s license. I believe I don’t have to renew my driver’s license until, 75.

I mean, if you come here there, once you get past a certain age, they give you this ridiculous expiration date. To me, it doesn’t make sense because how can you assume that I’m gonna be okay to drive? I’m 60 now, so if I don’t have to renew my driver’s license till I’m 70 or 75, what happens in between then? A lot can happen. You know, what’s kinda comical to me is both parties will tell you they believe in term limits. Yeah. Now we have both parties that agree that we should have term limits and campaign reform. And these are the basically, the only two things that our parties agree on, but yet we can’t seem to pass either term limits or campaign reform.

Terry Virts:

If somebody’s there for 30 years, that’s how the lobbyists, they develop relationships, and then they increase the skids and campaign financial form, then they can’t give them money. And when you give them money, blah blah blah. And these poor congressman, it’s a terrible life. It’s a horrendous life.

If you have to run for the house, you have to run every 2 years, and you spend half your time, literally 50% of your time on the phone asking for money. It’s a continuous ask for money. And the ones who say crazy stuff, like Marjorie Taylor Greene can say something crazy and she’ll raise $1,000,000 from around the country, but the normal kinda Clark Kent, normal kinda congressman, They don’t have the followers. They’re not saying crazy stuff. They don’t get all the Twitter donations. And so it’s a really it’s a really bad system.

Bert Martinez:

Yeah. It is. It is. I I’ve had the opportunity to sit down, on two occasions with senator Hatch, and I think he passed away last year at, like, 96.

I’m sorry. You know, unless you own the company, there aren’t too many professions that are gonna have a 96 year old on payroll. And I think that you’re  gonna be the chairman, you know, retired, whatever. But  the thing about it is not only not only should there be term limits, but I think if you cared about your constituents, if you cared about your country, you would just step down. I mean, look. You’re 96 year old. How much more wheeling and dealing? How much more power can you get at 96? You’ve got 1 foot in the grave and the other foot sliding into the grave.

Terry Virts:

I was talking to a congressman that probably everybody’s heard of and knows. And he said, Terry, the problem is this is the coolest job these people have ever had.

It’s cool to be a congressman, and you’re on TV, and you’re in power. And I’m and I was because I was we we were talking about me running, and I was like, oh, this is definitely this would be, like, number 4 or 5 on my list of cool jobs that I’ve had there or or lower.

You know? And and that’s what it it should be. It should be like public service. I’m gonna give up my business career or my military career or my acting. Whatever it is you’re doing, go serve for a few terms and then come back and be done. And that’s what the founders intended, and the founders lived to age 55. And then they were by our age, they were dead.

And now you live forever. RBG, Rick Bader Ginsburg is like the the heroine the heroine of the left. She’s badass. All the women are in love with her. She’s they have books for little girls and T shirts and with notorious RBG. Her selfishness kept her in office until she died. She could have retired when Obama was president. They would have put a liberal justice in, but instead she hung on. Trump got that pick, and now we have the supreme court now we have a 6 degree supreme court.

So it’s the selfishness that you’re the only guy that can win. Like, Biden, I don’t think Biden’s gonna win. He’s so old, and the border’s been such a disaster. And he’ll only have himself to blame. Like, he could have bowed out and let this a young crop of 50 year old Democrats fight it out. So the ego and the focus on self above country is profound, and it’s not a Republican or Democrat thing. It’s both. It’s just It’s both.

Bert Martinez:

Yeah. And I agree with you. I think that, you know, Biden made the the statement that if Trump doesn’t run, I won’t run because I’m the only one who can beat Trump. Are you? Really? I mean, I  don’t think Camilla can beat Trump, but those are aren’t our only choices. We have some good people that can beat Trump. And and and the same thing to the Republican party. Really, Trump is your go to choice? I mean, let’s dig.

Terry Virts:

All the polls show Nikki Haley beating Biden by 10 to 15 points, if not more. All of them. And Trump and Biden are neck and neck. So if Republicans really if Joe Biden really is the devil and we have to beat him, then nominate Nikki Haley, and she’ll beat him handily. Right. But they’re they keep on nominating the serial loser of the century of the last 2 centuries. And the the I was talking I I thought long and hard about running this past, this this cycle right now. And I talked to a 20 year campaign manager veteran, and they we came down to, Terry, you can’t win because, you’re normal, and you can’t you have to win the Republican or the primary.

You have to be crazy, and you have to be extreme.

I so I  couldn’t win a, and he said the only reason you should run is if you have a serious mental defect where you have to be the center of attention, and you have to be talking all the time, and everything has to be about you all the time. And And if you have a serious problem with narcissism, then you should run. But if you’re and you seem like a normal guy, and I I don’t think that’s for you.

So it was an interesting insight from somebody. He’s worked on presidential campaigns. He’s done, like, the county commissioner board campaign, you know, of all levels for 20 years, that was his advice. Unless you have a mental defect of narcissism, you probably shouldn’t be a politician.

Bert Martinez:

Especially nowadays. You know, there was a and I can’t remember what party he belonged to, but he was a young senator or at least a young congressman. And he was trying to live within the budget, the the payroll budget that he’s afforded as a elected official. And he says that he had to sleep in his office. You know? And he made headlines. He I think he only got that one term because he was normal. And he you know, and he denounced the fact that the only reason that these other people have these houses is because they’re getting so much money from other sources. But if they stayed within their their  payroll budget, they can’t afford anything there.

Terry Virts:

And So, I don’t know what the house members make probably 170, something like that. Which is a good salary. Right?

They’re they’re also running a 4 or $5,000,000,000,000 company, and they have to have 2 houses. You have to keep a place in your district, and then you have to keep a place in DC, which is, like, incredibly expensive. I think the rent there is I don’t know. For a really bad place, it’s 3,000 a month. For, like, an okay place, it’s 5,000 a month. And, yeah, I it adds up pretty quickly. And, so that that’s not it’s not a job that most people would, you know, would wanna do. And then you’re just getting your personal life is getting attacked all the time.

A friend of mine is running against one of the crazy, members and for the Adam Fish is a friend of mine. And, he ran he’s running against Lauren, but he was running against Lauren Boebert. Almost beat her last time, lost by a couple 100 votes in a very solid red district. He almost beat her. And he’s doing so well now that she actually left the district. She changed districts because she doesn’t wanna run again. So, he told me that for 24 months in a row, he’s been home 5 days a month.

He’s just out fundraising. He’s out going to the Moose Lodge and the school board and, you know, driving around. He has a huge club. He has, like, half of Colorado and Colorado 3. It’s a terrible life. And, thankfully, he was a businessman, so, like, he’s earned his money before he can afford to go without a salary for 2 years and drive around. Yeah. It’s a terrible life that these guys do.

Bert Martinez:

You know, what amazes me that, some of these other people like Merit, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ted Cruz, you know,  they’re comfortable being the follower. They don’t wanna be the  leader. In other words, they’re not they don’t have the I don’t know if they don’t have the talent, the courage, or what to run for president. So but, hey. Right here, I’m pretty comfortable. I have quite a bit of power. I get a lot of perks. I get to, you know, I get quite a bit, so I’m just gonna stay here and I can, you know, I can, support whoever I wanna support or demonize whoever I wanna, demonize.

And I always thought that to be a little weird because if you’re this outspoken, why not just run for the office? Just go for it. And, anyway, real quick, I wanna going back to the space stuff, right?

Before your first mission, do you sit down with your family and say, okay. I’m going up in space and because you gotta prepare for the worst. I mean Yeah. There  is a chance that you may not make it. Space is dangerous. Flying is dangerous. So do you have that conversation? What is that like?

Terry Virts:

Well, I had been attached to the Columbia families as as their we call them family escort. I was there to help the wives and kids while the astronauts were in space, and then, of course, Columbia didn’t make it back. So I was very intimately involved in the in that disaster. So I was very aware that this might happen, and we didn’t talk about it. I I had I wrote some letters. So I have some letters that were never delivered. Thank god. But, yeah, it’s a really serious it’s a serious, issue.

I actually I actually wrote and directed a short film about this topic, last year. Hopefully, it’ll get turned into something much bigger. But, yeah, it’s a it’s something that is staring you in the face. Knock on wood. It’s been 20 years since we’ve had an accident, but, it’s when they talk about, you know, is the rocket safe or what level of safety, safe is the wrong adjective to use when you’re talking about a rocket. It’s like, how dangerous is it? We want it as as least dangerous as possible, not as safe as possible. It’s a risky profession for sure.

Bert Martinez:

Let me ask you because there are some people that think we’re wasting our time and money flying to outer space, visiting the International Space Station that is, you know, I forgot how old it is, but it’s pretty old. Do you think there’s still a valid reason to keep going in outer space?

Terry Virts:

You know, one of the things, if you amortize the cost of the shuttle program or station program and divide it by how many people flew, each of my missions was about $1,000,000,000. And I’m so very thankful to American taxpayers for spending $1,000,000,000 to launch me in the space on on each of my flights. But I noticed when we got there, the space shuttle were in orbit. You open up the payload bay doors, to let the radiators out to cool the shuttle down. If the if the payload bay doors are shut, you only can last, like, an hour or a couple hours. You you have to land immediately. And when we opened them up, we didn’t launch a $1,000,000,000, $1 bills out in the space. All that money was spent here on Earth.

You know, one of the things, if you amortize the cost of the shuttle program or station program and divide it by how many people flew, each of my missions was about $1,000,000,000. And I’m so very thankful to American taxpayers for spending $1,000,000,000 to launch me in the space on on each of my flights. But I noticed when we got there, the space shuttle were in orbit. You open up the payload bay doors, to let the radiators out to cool the shuttle down. If the if the payload bay doors are shut, you only can last, like, an hour or a couple hours. You you have to land immediately. And when we opened them up, we didn’t launch a $1,000,000,000, $1 bills out in the space. All that money was spent here on Earth.

You know? They need to have a job, or they wouldn’t be studying accounting or whatever, criminology or whatever. So, there’s a lot of advantages. Plus, you can look at the world and you can look at countries that don’t have space programs and countries that do. And I’d rather be in look. If you look at that list, I’d rather be in on the side of the ledger of countries that do have space programs.

Bert Martinez:

I and I agree with you. I think we still are innovating. What is your take when you first heard that Elon Musk was gonna start doing this private stuff into space, were you pro? Were you con? Were you suspicious? What was your initial reaction?

Terry Virts:

Yeah. I was cautious. This was 2005. The administrator at the time was a guy named Mike Griffin. He had a program called COTS, commercial off the shelf. And so SpaceX was basically, bankrupt. They had blown up a couple rockets, and Mike gave Elon a contract for it was, like, a $100,000,000 or 200,000,000. It was a smallish contract, but that was, like, literally, he was able to make payload payroll that month because of this contract.

Mike had the architecture. It was really smart. I remember thinking, oh my god. Like, that kinda makes sense. And and then the next president canceled it, and then it just but they wouldn’t really cancel it. Most of it’s still there because congress wouldn’t let anyway, it went it went it became the SLS, which we joke stands for Senate Launch System. But that, just a few months ago, launched for the first time. So Elon went from 2005 to 2011 delivering cargo to the space station.

The constellation program went from 2,005 to 23 launching the first rocket, but it’s only half a rocket because they don’t have the upper stage yet. And it was unmanned. There was no astronauts on board, and it’s gonna be another, probably, I don’t know how long, 5 years or more until they actually land people on the moon. So you can contrast the difference between a government program and a private industry program when it’s run properly.

Bert Martinez:

Should we be going back to the moon? I mean, you know, people talk about especially, again, Elon Musk will talk talks about having a station on the moon and then going on to Mars. Yeah. So What’s your take on this?

Terry Virts:

I’m a test pilot, and they they taught us the buildup approach. So you don’t just when the Boeing 787 takes off for the first time, you don’t fly from Seattle to Tokyo. You you don’t even raise the gear. You take off, you leave the gear down, you come around, you land. And then the next flight, you stay up 5 minutes longer. And then the 3rd flight, you raise the gear and you put it back down. And, you know, you take your time building this thing up. And, the moon is a great build up point.

It’s it would be really good to go land there, practice building bases, practice your landing technique, practice everything you need to know before you go to Mars and beyond. The problem is it’s really expensive to go there, and the the architecture that we have is is designed to land 4 people. Apollo only landed 2. And that means the planners are huge, and they require lots of refueling in Earth orbit before you go to the moon. And it I’m afraid that we’ve designed an architecture that’s too big. And our our deficit is exploding. Like, it’s really bad. We’ve been saying the deficit is bad ever since Ross Perot 30 years ago.

The deficit really is bad. COVID kinda put us over the limit, and it’s not slowing down. I mean, these the Biden deficits are over a $1,000,000,000,000 a year well over a $1,000,000,000,000 a year. So, there’s just not a lot of spare change to be spending on space exploration because it’s not we don’t have to go to the moon. We have to have schools. We have to have the military. We have to pay the interest on the debt. It’s a nice to have, not a must have.

Bert Martinez:

Yeah. You know, you mentioned Ross Perot a couple of times. I think that Ross Perot today would do well because he’s, you know, he’s kind of out on that fringe. Hey. Hey, everybody.

Terry Virts:

That’s a good that was a great, thing. You know, people don’t understand. I’ve I’ve been mad at Ross for the last 30 years because I thought he gave the election to Clinton. I since I’ve been working with no labels, I I there was a CBS poll, like, the day after the election. He actually took equally from Clinton and George a h w Bush. I think it was 34% for Clinton, 34% for would have voted for Bush, and the remaining 26%, 28%, whatever the numbers are, the remaining wouldn’t have voted at all. So he he took from both sides. He didn’t get into the election until February 22nd is when he announced.

Bert Martinez:

They both need to be just you know, whatever word you wanna use, disqualified, removed. They just need to go away. One’s too old, and one whatever you wanna call the other one.

Terry Virts:

His mental gaffes are terrible. Like, I was listening to a a podcast today. They were just saying the things that he says are crazy. So he but he’s forceful, and he has energy, and he has this manner. He doesn’t seem as old man as as Biden does, but he’s mentally not there.

Bert Martinez:

I don’t think either of them are mentally there. I think Trump, not only is he failing mentally, but then he’s got that criminal element to him, that, that narcissistic, I, you know, I must be in power. He’s only running for the presidency because he wants to get even with everybody that has run against him, that that he feels is his enemy.

Terry Virts:

He said it. He that’s what he says. Like, he doesn’t hide.

Bert Martinez:

That’s He doesn’t hide it. You know what? And I appreciate about that about Trump. Whatever he’s thinking, it just comes out. I mean, literally, no filter. There’s, you know, whatever. And I tell you, when you look at the 2016 campaign, his message was very clear, very succinct, make America great again, and he had points. I’m gonna bring back, you know, jobs.

I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna be tough on China. Yeah. Blah blah blah. He had 3 or 4 points, and I think that was definitely good from a marketing standpoint of view. And and, again, a lot of people don’t know this, but Ronald Reagan was the 1st president to use let’s make America great again. So that was borrowed from, from our beloved Ronald Reagan, but, now he doesn’t have a message for America other than revenge.

And every now and then, he kinda goes, oh, I’m gonna do something about jobs and immigration, but revenge revenge. I must have revenge. I’m gonna I’m I’m gonna be the dictator for a day, maybe 2 at the most, a year at the outside.

Terry Virts:

Look. We’re flirting with something you should not flirt with. Right. And the problem is not with Trump. The problem is with the tens of millions of people. But I understand, like, I understand if you don’t like Biden, I totally get that.

But Trump is the wrong man for the job. You got Nikki Haley. If you just want somebody that’s gonna be, like, small government and, you know, strong military and tighten up the integration system, vote for Nikki Healy. Right.

Bert Martinez:

Well, you know what? Look. Look. In in to your point, both these guys are so old. Let’s get some fresh energy in there. Done. You know? There’s no reason I think Biden’s like, what, 82, and then Trump’s like 78 or something like that. You know, they’re both in their you know, roughly, they’re both in their eighties one way or the other.

And and they’re not doing well. I mean, look. Trump is obese. I don’t know. I I tell you, I’m impressed with this level of energy.

He he has forever said I don’t do drugs. I don’t drink. And I used to believe him, but now that I’ve gotten to know him as a president, I don’t believe anything he says because he lies so much. So maybe he’s mainstreaming, mainlining caffeine or maybe he’s a a coke fiend or whatever, but the guy has an abundance of energy, and I have to give him props for that. He does have tons of energy. And when he speaks, he speaks like he knows what he’s talking about, like he’s confident. This is the way it is. You know, the grass is green and the sky is blue.

And if you vote for me, the grass will continue to be green. I’m the only one that can make the grass green and the sky blue. You gotta vote for me because if not, the world goes to hell in a handbasket. And then, you know, then you have, Biden, who again is definitely showing wear and tear. He’s like you said, he was too old when he was vice president. And I think that the Democrats are doing a great disservice to America by not just saying, look, Joe, time to move on. You’ve done a great job. Thank you for your service.

Let’s get somebody else in here that can tackle not only Trump, but the problems that we’re having. Because we’re having a lot of problems, and they’re all big.

Terry Virts:

Yeah. Well and Biden somehow gets the he’s tough on Ukraine. He’s actually been amazingly weak on Ukraine. The the the north star the north star for this administration has been timidity and fear and don’t upset the Russians.

that’s not how you defeat the Russians. Like, it it’s been so painful just it took us a year, 1 12 months to get them 1 Patriot battery. It took us a year and a half to give them 31 and 1 tanks. A year and a half. The whole Russian army is rolling around Ukraine, and we just won’t give it to them because we don’t wanna escalate. We finally gave them HIMARS missiles, but the short range versions, not the ones they really need. We still have not given them ATACMS. They still don’t have F16.

And I don’t know that we’re gonna give them all the weapons they need. What what An F6 is fine, but what really matters is the weapons that come along with it. Right? What kind of so Jake Sullivan and the Biden administration had been so humid. If Ukraine loses this war, it’s because of them. It’s because it they delayed and delayed delayed this counter offensive that, quote, unquote, failed. Of course it failed. They don’t have air superiority. Like, you can’t defeat the Russian army without air superiority.

There was there’s no possible way to do that. And they don’t have it because we we could have given them stuff that would have helped. I’m not saying they would have just rolled over them, but they would have done much better had we actually given them what they needed, and Biden has been way too weak. It’s a democratic way of the world. They’re always timid. They they were just talking about Iran. Iran armed Hamas. They they are the reason why Israel got attacked.

They’ve been arming Hezbollah for years. They’ve been arming the Houthis for years. They blew up a Saudi, refinery a couple years ago. It was terrible. Literally, the global economy is getting crushed because of Iranian missiles and the Houthis. And Europe is pitiful. They don’t have a navy. They Europe can’t take care of it.

America has to go take care of it. Only 10% of our trade goes to the Red Sea, but all of Europe’s does. So, anyway, in a 160 attacks on American facilities until finally one of them killed our soldiers tragically last month. A 160. And Jake Sullivan and the Biden administration were out of their way to make sure that the whole world knows that we’re not here to escalate. We don’t want a war with Iran. We’re not escalate. Why do you tell them that? Maybe we do want a war with Iran.

Maybe the Iranian navy is going to the bottom of the ocean. Maybe you shouldn’t have been fomenting evil in the for 50 years in the area. The don’t tell them what you’re not gonna do. Tell them actually, You probably ought to fire up your surface air missiles because there’s you know, it’s about to happen. It’s about to get real. But so this even though and but okay. So that was a really long answer of why Biden is weak on foreign affairs. Trump is treasonous. He’s not weak. He’s treasonous. He’s, like, on the side of the bad guys.

At least Biden is weekly fighting back. Trump is, like, promoting the bad guys. So we need, we need a better answer badly.

Bert Martinez:

Absolutely. You know, Trump would do really well, and he should consider going to. . .

I was gonna say, there are several places in South America that would just embrace him. I mean, look.

I don’t know why, but South America has had a tremendous long standing love affair with dictators. They just you know? The Hispanic people, I’m saying this as as a Hispanic, there you can look at their history and they just go from one dictator to the other to the other, And man, they just they love them, and then they love to to complain about them.

Anyway, listen. We’re out of time. I wanna thank you so much, Terry, for stopping by. And, anything that I can do anything that I can do to promote, to help, reach out to me. I’ll be glad to, promote and help and, you know, maybe you can help me get some of these other people, on the show. But, anyway, thank you so much for stopping by.

I had a fun time getting to know you and learning about your experiences.

Terry Virts:

This is a lot of fun. Thanks for having me on. We probably could have talked for many more hours. It could have been a road.

Bert Martinez:

Yes. It would have been 2, 3 hours at least.