#1425 - Garrett Reisman

Joe Rogan (0:02)

Three, two, one, welcome. Thanks for doing this, man. I really appreciate it.

Garrett Reisman (0:06)

Thanks for inviting me. This is awesome.

Joe Rogan (0:07)

I've seen a bunch of videos online of you talking about space and your dream of being an astronaut as a young man. And what is it like just to see the Earth from above and to be, you lived up there for like, what, 95 days?

Garrett Reisman (0:22)

95 days, which actually is kind of a bummer, to be honest with you, because you know this if you saw that video, maybe. But the thing is, if you stay for 100 days, they give you a patch, right? And I'm at day 95, and the Space Shuttle Discovery shows up to bring me home, and Mark Kelly was the commander. He goes, Garrett, it's time to hop in and come home.

And I'm like, man, I just need five more days.

Joe Rogan (0:47)

To get that patch.

Garrett Reisman (0:48)

Can't we just like go around a few more times or something?

Joe Rogan (0:52)

It seems like 95 days should be enough, man. Give the man a patch.

Garrett Reisman (0:57)

Right, right, how much does a patch cost?

Joe Rogan (0:59)

What's the longest anybody stayed up there?

Garrett Reisman (1:01)

The longest for an American was Scott Kelly's nearly a year in space, his longest in a row, basically. But it was a Russian that stayed up there for longer than a year, and he has the all-time record.

Joe Rogan (1:16)

When they come back, what is 90 days like coming back? Because I've talked to people who've gone there, when they come back, their balance is all off, the equilibrium is all screwy.

Garrett Reisman (1:28)

You're kind of messed up. And your vestibular system is what's affected the most. At least that's what's most noticeable when you first get back. Actually, the first thing I noticed, let me back up, is how heavy things were again. I took off my helmet and I was holding it in my hand, and it felt like I was holding the anchor to the USS Nimitz.

I'm like, how am I ever going to brush my teeth? It'd be too arduous.

Joe Rogan (1:53)

Does your body severely weaken in 95 days?

Garrett Reisman (1:57)

Well, back in the day, back when I was going there, so that mission, my long-term mission was back in 2008 And back then, we were still losing bone density and muscle mass as we're going up there. You lost about 1% of bone every month.

So I was about 3% low.

Joe Rogan (2:14)

They don't anymore?

Garrett Reisman (2:16)

They don't anymore, because we found out, we came up with better countermeasures to prevent that.

Joe Rogan (2:21)

What are the countermeasures?

Garrett Reisman (2:22)

It's basically working out.

And it's resistive exercise that does it for you. Which we knew back when I was going, but the problem was we had this machine that was kind of a first generation of the workout machine. And it could do large reps, but low load.

So you're doing like a lot of reps at low weight. And that helped, but what helps, it turns out, we found this out kind of by happenstance, but it turns out that high load, low reps works much better. And so we got this new machine that you could really crank it up to 11 And the guys now that are working out on that thing are coming home with no muscle or bone loss at all.

Joe Rogan (3:02)

Wow, that's, because what's the Canadian gentleman that we had on? Yes, Chris Hadfield. When Commander Hadfield came back, I believe he said it took him a whole year to recover.

Garrett Reisman (3:14)

Yeah, I mean, that was still like in the early, still kind of in the early days. So I don't know which machine he used. He probably did use a new one.

But overall, it does take to get everything back, to get your full vestibular system back, your sense of balance, to get your all your bone, all your muscle back to baseline. It took me a year to get all that back too. Wow. It's kind of like rehabbing from a major sports injury.

Joe Rogan (3:38)

That's gotta be so strange. Your body just wants to shrivel up when you're up there because there's no gravity.

Garrett Reisman (3:44)

Yeah, it's really interesting because it's an adaptation and the body is incredible. So what it's doing is it's realizing, hey, you know, I don't have to carry my own weight anymore. So why do I need this big bulky skeleton?