Скачать или смотреть What’s Next for Humans in Space? NASA Astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman Explains

What’s it really like to live and work in space? Join us for an extraordinary conversation with former NASA Astronaut, Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman, a five-time Space Shuttle veteran and one of the astronauts who helped repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

In this episode of The Big Question, Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman shares untold stories from his missions, the emotional impact of viewing Earth from orbit, and the intense preparation astronauts undergo to travel into space. We explore how space changes your mindset, the risks involved in human spaceflight, and what the future holds for exploration — from Mars to commercial missions.

Chapters:
00:00 – Intro
01:45 – How Jeffrey Hoffman became an astronaut
07:32 – Life on the Space Shuttle
13:08 – Seeing Earth from space for the first time
18:25 – Training, teamwork, and astronaut mindset
24:50 – The Hubble Space Telescope rescue mission
32:40 – What it’s like to float in zero gravity
38:19 – Mistakes, risks, and learning under pressure
44:05 – How space changed Jeff’s view of Earth
50:58 – The future of space exploration: Mars, private missions & more
56:40 – Advice to the next generation of explorers
59:10 – Final reflections and closing thoughts

Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman is a professor in MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. As a NASA astronaut (1978-1997) he made five space flights, becoming the first astronaut to log 1000 hours of flight time aboard the Space Shuttle. Dr. Hoffman was Payload Commander of STS-46, the first flight of the US-Italian Tethered Satellite System. He has performed four spacewalks, including the first unplanned, contingency spacewalk in NASA’s history (STS-51D; April 1985) and the initial repair/rescue mission for the Hubble Space Telescope (STS-61; December 1993). As the Astronaut Office representative for Extravehicular Activity, he helped develop and carry out tests of advanced high-pressure space suit designs and of new tools and procedures needed for the assembly of the International Space Station. Following his astronaut career, Dr. Hoffman spent four years as NASA’s European Representative, working at the US Embassy in Paris. In August 2001, Dr. Hoffman joined the MIT faculty, where he teaches courses on space operations and space systems design. His primary research interests are in improving the technology of space suits and designing innovative space systems for human and robotic space exploration. Dr. Hoffman is director of the Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium, responsible for space-related educational activities. He is Deputy Principal Investigator of an experiment on NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, which will for the first time produce oxygen from extraterrestrial material, a critical step in the future of human space exploration. In 2007, Dr. Hoffman was elected to the US Astronaut Hall of Fame.

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Talia Sepersky has been with the Charles Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Science in Boston for 13 years and her love of talking to people about space has yet to waver, including in person under the planetarium dome, online on the Museum’s social channels, and in your inboxes with the Museum’s weekly space newsletter “Spacing Out”. Fair warning, if you get her talking about her favorite space topics, she’ll probably just keep going until you ask her to stop.

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