Breaking Barriers: The Journey From Earth To Space

Welcome to this edition of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

Hello everybody. Let's have some fun this afternoon talking to Anusha and. Sorry. And Anusha's just told me she's in Maryland right now. She's based out of Dallas. And so Anusha, what I like about in reading your bio, you're someone who obviously came up with a certain unique passion and you made certain things happen in your life and that's what I want to hear about. So as you were growing up, what motivated you? What did you get excited about? And how early in your life did that light bulb go on? That this is something that really captivates me.

I was very young, probably around six or seven years old, and my curiosity really got me interested in space. I was born in Iran, grew up in Iran. And summer nights we would sleep outside and I had this opportunity to look at this beautiful night skies and my imagination and curiosity drew me to try to learn more about what are those beautiful shiny objects out there and wanting to actually go to space. And that's what interested me in math and science and physics and astronomy and has been a driving force in my life and this desire to go to space and explore space and just to.

Tell everybody, give them an overview to what their appetite. You didn't go to the moon, but you did everything but talk about that. You have been in space.

Yes.

And you didn't do like William Shatner, where they shot you up like a monkey in a seat and you go up and you come back down. No offense, William, but you were up there for quite a while, talk about that.

Sure. I was actually inspired by Star Trek. I was a Trekkie and watched Star Trek growing up and wanting to actually explored the universe onboard Starship Enterprise. I didn't get to do that, but I did fly to International Space station and spent 11 days in space and performed some experiments for European Space Agency and was able to really understand what astronauts talk about when they talk about the overview effect. And this profound experience that I had shaped a lot of what I'm doing right now.

So what's that like you're sitting in now? You have to be, you're the elite of the elite to be able to get to where you're sitting in that rocket ship, that space capsule, getting on the launch pad, getting ready to go off. What, what did you go through to get to that point.

So my life actually has been a very interesting zigzag way of getting to what I wanted to do. I started off kind of, I came to United States, studied engineering and computer science and actually became a tech entrepreneur first and built a few successful products and companies. And once I sold the company, I decided that I want to go back to my original passion, which was space. And that's when I went back to school, studied astronomy and became involved with XPRIZE foundation, the organization that I'm the CEO of right now. And at that time, this is in 2000, late 1990s, 2000, and the X Prize Foundations that was started by Peter Diamandis. The goal was to try to create a way for everyone to access space and reduce the cost of access space and make it accessible. And we did it through a competition. And this competition was a way to ask the people around the world to go build a spaceship to go to 100 km, which is the edge of space, and do it twice within two weeks, which meant that it's a reusable rocket. So this prize and this competition was something that drew me and started my career in space. And I, my family and I sponsored the prize and that was my entry into the space program, if you would, several years later. And a lot of successes through seeing how these small companies were able to build their spaceships. And hundred millions of dollars were spent actually to win this 10 million. So this leverage model was an amazing achievement of this model. And the prize was won by a US company. And design, which was Spaceship 1, was licensed by Richard Branson, became Virgin Galactic. And at the anniversary of this competition is when I got the opportunity to go train and fly to International Space Station with the Russian Soyuz. At that time, the shuttle program was not flying to the space station, so only Soyuz was flying to International Space.

Station, which is the Russian.

The Russians.

The Soyuz.

Yes, the Soyuz. Russian, exactly. So that's how I ended up about training for a year in Star City outside of Moscow and flew on, on a mission in 2006. Star City.

Star City, yes. Now, the thing is that as a way of perspective, the reusable rocket was a radical idea at that time, way back to now with Musk and everybody there that, you know, it's acceptable. They proved they could do it, but that was really a stretch of the imagination that could even happen. And so you guys ran a competition to help do that. Let's dial back before that. How did you and how quick in your career did you decide? I'm going to be an entrepreneur. I'm going to start my own company. Because here's what. One thing I want to bring out, Anusha, is the fact that the incredible injustice Iran is doing to the world by keeping their females under wraps and in the house because you're one, you know, you're one female from Iran and look what you've accomplished in your life. Impacted businesses, industry, inspired people all over the world. And you're one, one female out of Iran. And so this just shows the devastating impact of a repressive political regime in terms of starving the world. Putin's going there, killing off all of his men, you know, starting the war. So they're never going to be able to make their contribution. They're going to be dead. And so now the same thing kind of happens when you stifle half of the population. But it's be amazing to see what could happen if these bright minds were unleashed. So you're, you know, you're a champion, you're a message, you're a beacon and I want to appreciate you for that. And hopefully that will change, you know, somehow, hopefully that will change and these women can be unleashed because it's no telling what could good could come from that. And also I appreciate you mentioning Star Trek, because that'll get me back for sure in William Shatner's good graces. If he listens to this, he won't walk away. He will walk away with the fact that I impugned his trip into space. So anyway, the thing is that what you come up. And now you graduated from school, how early did you decide? I'm going to get a business of my own. I'm going to start. I've got ideas. And what was your main products that you came up with? This business, of course.

So it was about four years after I started working in, in the industry that I decided that I wanted to start a company. I did that with my husband. So I had a good partner in crime in that. But one thing that I think people should appreciate is this is right around 1993 timeframe. So entrepreneurship and venture capitalism and the Silicon Valley didn't exist as it exists today. So it was still very difficult for startups to really get the funding they needed and create big companies. And especially as a female CEO in the tech industry, venues for getting the product done and funding the company was narrow. So a lot of the work we did and the way we built the company was through bootstrapping and just using our stock option from our work and our savings and Credit cards and whatever means we had at our disposal to build the company. It was a learning experience because I was an engineer, but I wasn't a businessman. I never went to business school. So it was really learning the business. And the way I would look at the product was putting myself in the shoes of the customer. So it was very customer focused and customer centric. We started with doing a lot of consulting. So through the consulting work we understood the needs of the customer basically. And then based on that learning, we built products which was for the telecommunication industry. This was in the early days of Internet. So a lot of products that would use the Internet, that would be mobile centric. And one of the biggest product that we built that was ultimately the biggest success we had was the software that enabled voiceover IP if you remember back then.

Oh, really? VoIP? Really?

Yes. It's a soft switch. I remember when I started my career we would pay like $2 per minute for long distance international calls and now it's free. And the reason for that is this transition from analog to digital and voiceover it and demonetizing basically long distance and international calls. So our software was one of the enabler in that path.

And how did you, did you guys write the software? Did you hire software engineers to do it?

Well, we had a team who built the software. So we had about 50 software engineers building different products with one major one was the soft switch product.

Wow. And so what would you say, the first big lesson that still sticks in your mind that you learned about business, you know, the business side of it. What would you say pass on to people that are starting their own businesses now, but they don't maybe don't have a business degree, haven't really run any businesses before. What would you say is the first thing that hit you, that you learned and has stayed with you.

So looking back, I would say one of the most important thing is sort of rigor and passion. Because if you're not passionate enough and believe enough in what you're building and your business, it's a really difficult road and journey to build a successful business. It's not a short term thing, it's something that you need to be committed to long term. And you will have many failures, you will have many obstacles. Unless you have that strong belief and rigor in your work and passion for what you're building, the product you're building, you will give up. And a lot of businesses, if the founder is not dedicated enough to what they're building and they're not passionate, then the first Two or three obstacles they would give up and move on to.

The next thing would you say is this is something that when you got into the business world, you realize the complexity of it, the demands of it, the harshness of it. And that's when you realized if you don't really have the burning desire to be. To do this and to do great at it, you're going to get washed. Right. It's just going to crush you. Would that be what it is? Is this something that you had to come to a decision about with your own commitment?

Absolutely. I think I see sometimes young people say, I want to start a business. And they. The reason for wanting to start a business is not the right reasons. They don't want to solve a problem. They don't want to build something. They want to make money. Well, there are other ways to make money and it will be much easier. So the reason for someone to start a business is to really a problem that they want to solve or a product that they really believe in. Building. It's about building things. And building things is difficult, and it requires time and energy and effort. So you have to have that dedication and be able to sustain the time and the obstacles that you need to overcome.

How long did it take before this started to become satisfying to you where you felt like this is tough, you got to have a passion for it. But I really feel like we're making an impact and we're adding value out there in the world, and I feel good about what we're doing. How long did that take?

It didn't take that long, actually. I'm, as an engineer, I like building things, so that whole process of building is satisfying. So building the team, starting to put things together, and of course, the first test that you do that is successful, that's one milestones and it gives you satisfaction and drive to go to the next one. The next milestone that gives you a lot of satisfaction is the first step sale that you make, the first customer and the deployment of that. So throughout the journey, you find things that gives you energy and drive to continue on and measure your success along the way. So within the first year, I would say it was already satisfying to me to be in business.

It's important to celebrate those early successes, even though they may be small.

Yes.

Because you had to really fight for them. And so it's not. You don't belittle those things. You celebrate them.

Absolutely.

And I remember when I went to North Carolina to start a, in 1979 to start a sales organization after the End of the first year, I think we had a handful of people and I gave out my most valuable person. I had three people. I had the most valuable person award. But my. The award was this like five by seven piece of wood. And I said, you know, you're the most valuable person, but we're small now, but you are the most valuable person. These awards will get bigger as we go.

Absolutely.

But it's important to celebrate even though it's small and so. But going up to, you know, like, well, we had 50 people. It's a big deal getting up to where you got 50 software engineers working for you. I don't know if there's anything. I think managing 50 cats or 50 monkeys and making them line up and parade in formation would be easier than working with 50 software engineers. In my cause they seem to be the weirdest type people to communicate with. What was that like?

Well, I had the fortune of being an engineer myself, so I could speak their language. I think most important thing with working with software engineers is to gain their respect so they would actually follow your direction and listen. So being able to speak their language, understand their work, and speak intelligently about what I'm asking them to build it, it was a big part of it. The second thing that I sort of practiced throughout my career as an entrepreneur is because I've worked in the industry myself, so I was an employee at some point. I always try to look at it through that lens. It's like what things did I appreciate as an employee, what things I didn't like as an employee about the company or management that I was working with and tried to avoid those and try to build an environment where the team felt like they're being listened to and they felt like they are part of the company. They all own shares in the company, so they knew that the success of the organization will lead into success for them individually as well. So I think that all helped put the team together and bring them together.

And the other, you know, in addition, like, attitude, allowing them a chance to get some skin in the game. The idea of breaking down what their jobs are very clearly, piece by piece, and how that contributes to the whole allows them to relax and just throw everything into that one piece of the puzzle that they're responsible for. And that's an ongoing, hour by hour, minute by minute thing. I mean, it's very intensive. Is.

Is. It's not something that you do once and then it will be on autopilot. You have to continuously tend to it, pay attention, course correct, adjust, because you make certain assumption and you start to start building something that will take maybe two years to build or three years to build the market. Things change, technologies change, customers demand and needs change. So you continuously have to reevaluate what you're building and make sure that there is still a market fit. And you may have to be course correcting and making small adjustments along the way. So communicating those in a timely fashion and a clear and simple manner, getting the buy in from the team who's been building something and now you tell them, oh, you need to slightly move to the right, getting them convinced that's the right thing. So that's all continuous management and operational challenges that you face day to day.

Well, it's important that people realize that if you're growing, you never are on autopilot. Autopilot. It's easy to go autopilot on your plane when you're going into the earth and you're just going to crash the plane, just put it on autopilot and relax and enjoy the ride. But if you're building something, everything's always new. You're evaluating your systems, your market, your products, your people, your procedures. And you're constantly tweaking. And there's. Because you're going in, it's really like going into space, you're going into the unknown. Don't you think when you're creating something like that?

Absolutely. That's a great analogy. And on top of that, if you're successful, actually you will be copied. There will be competition out there and you need to always continue to stay ahead of the game. And that requires always looking into the future and anticipating what's next and trying to stay at least one step, if not too ahead of the competition.

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So how long did you stay and did now? Did you evolve from company to company to company? Did it expand your company to whether you're running two or three companies at the same time. How did. And how long were you in the entrepreneur phase?

So we started in 1993, as I said, with consulting, and then started building multiple products within the same company. And then as the products matured, we sold out the product lines. And in 2000 is when we sold our company and I continued with the company as part of Sonus Network, which was the acquirer of our company, and stayed with them for another two years and. And ran the division that was basically my company now inside there. And then that's when I left and went back and decided that, okay, now I want to go and pursue space. I still worked on other ideas and in a new company that we built, but my focus shifted to space around that time and went to space station around the same time.

Now, was your focus at this time to be involved in space exploration or how long did you have it in the back of your mind that I want to go? It's one thing to work on this stuff, but I want to be there?

Oh, I wanted to go since I was 7 years old. I knew that the first opportunity I would get, I would say yes. And it really, if you look at what happened to me, I. When I went to train, I was a backup. I wasn't supposed to be part of the primary crew, so I just said yes. And I wanted to go and just be with astronauts who were training and learn the ropes by myself. And as part of that whole backup training, three weeks before the flight, the crew member who was supposed to fly, the primary crew member, actually developed a medical condition so he couldn't fly. So I got my chance to fly because I said yes to the opportunity. I went and trained for nine months as if I was going to space, not knowing that it will happen or not. And because I was there and I took that chance, the opportunity came and it took me a millisecond to say yes, I'm happy to take the primary seat. And three weeks later, I was strapped on top of the rocket. Going to International Space Station, that's like.

Training for the Olympics, but you don't know if you'll make the team. You still got to train for months and years, and then it comes down to the trials or a few months before. There's only so many spaces on the team, and then if you don't make it, a lot of times it's not your fault. It was a fluke or this injury, but so a lot of things have to fall into place. How many people were, would you say? How many People were competing that you have to overcome to get in there. Is this something that thousands of people apply for or is it just a few people because they don't know how to apply or don't even know what's going on?

Well, for the NASA astronauts, usually every few years they have a open call for astronauts to apply, and they get several thousand, I would say probably two to 3,000 applicants, qualified applicants, and they go through a down selection which takes over a year. And only a few, probably about 10 to 15 people, sometimes only get selected out of thousands of people. So it's quite difficult to get into the program. And the program has changed over the years. You know, the right stuff. At the beginning of the space program were mostly people from military and test pilots. Nowadays they're looking for scientists and people with multiple degrees because it's more of an exploration and building maybe a permanent base on the moon, people who understand different aspects of sciences to be able to build a permanent station. So it's a different type of application that they looking for.

Well, and it's good news for people that have more of a science and technology bent and ability, but they would never. They're not motivated to go in the military or they're too far down the road and they would otherwise just say, I wouldn't have a chance. But now in this new era, especially what you're saying, that's something for people who have that interest to think about.

Absolutely. And and also on top of that, now you have a very vibrant commercial space program with many companies. I mean, the reports estimate that the commercial space marketplace in the next 10 years will grow to be about $10 trillion. And this is not just launching launch systems, but you have a lot of new satellites for Earth observation. There's opportunities in the future for manufacturing in space, using solar energy, for providing sustainable energy sources here on Earth. So there's a lot of activities and businesses that are being built in space that will benefit humanity here on Earth. And that's also an opportunity for people who want to be involved in the space industry, but not in the government space programs to participate.

Yeah, more countries are getting involved in it. The United States is. We've had, I don't know how many years now that I guess last four, six, seven, eight years we've had. Trump started the Space Force as a whole nother department inside the government for space, which before it was just NASA. And so, in fact, my brother, I was out in Lompoc, I was out in Santa Maria, and on the other side of the hill is Lompoc, where they have Vandenberg Air Force Base and the space facilities out there. And they're launching those rockets fairly regularly. It's like over the other side of the hill. But it's going to be something that more people are aware of because they're really launching these things everywhere. Do you know this? I'm curious. It was like yesterday they launched that big, supposedly the biggest thing, heaviest object, let's say biggest object that was ever lifted off of the Earth. The Musk. SpaceX. Yeah, Starship. So talk about how big is. Do you know how big that is in comparison to like an ocean liner or something or office building or something like that? How big is the biggest thing to ever been launched in space? You know that put you on the spot.

Sure. I don't know if I will have an accurate comparison, but I can tell you is the largest not because of just the size. The size is bigger than the Apollo capsule. So the biggest launch system we had were the Apollo capsule which were built for, for taking the rocket launching for moon missions. And the starship is built to launch for Mars mission. So it's I would say probably five to ten times bigger or heavier than the Apollo system. But the most important part of the starship, which is very exciting, is it's reusable. So it's not only biggest or heaviest, it's reusable. Which means the cost of access to space is going to come down. And I think what Elon had talked about in the past is once it's fully operational, it will be about $250 per kg, which is compared to about $25,000 per kg when we launched X Prize competition. So as you can see, this big cost reduction in taking things to space will allow us to build these businesses in space to launch new satellite Constellation like he's building Starlink. But there will be a lot of other means of getting intelligence about our environment, about how our atmosphere is changing, about how our planet is changing. And that will allow us to predict things better, to be able to deal with adverse weather conditions, to decide how we want to build our agricultural plants across the world. So the intelligence we'll get from space will help us really build better and more safer life for humans and other species on Earth. And that's, I think it's the biggest part of Starship and what it will allow us to do.

We use the word, you hear the word pioneer, but you're like a real pioneer in this arena. How significant was it for you? A female from Iran to be to go into space and spend nine days on the space station. How unique and how special was that? From a pioneering standpoint, it was pretty.

Significant on several fronts. One was I was the first self funded women to fly to space. But on top of that, because I was from Iran and Middle east, it became a very sort of inspiring story for a lot of women. As you said, women in Middle east and Iran, they don't have a lot of opportunity. And a lot of young girls grow up being told that there are certain things that women should not do or cannot do. So my story and the fact that I was able to do the things I accomplished gives hope and it gives inspiration to a lot of young women around the world to really go for big dreams and try to achieve them. So that to me that was the biggest achievement that I could think of. That it was helping millions of other women across the globe to do things. And the reason I know this was because I started writing the first blog from space and millions of people started reading it. There were about 20 million readers two months after I came back. And the young people who were reading would write back and say when I read your story, it gave me hope because I wanted to do this thing always in my life and I thought it's not possible. But now seeing what you've done, I have hope that I can do the same. So seeing that with young people around the globe was really made me happy that I was able to share my story and inspire others to go after their dreams.

Now talk about you're up there, let's just say so you get in the seat, you fought your way into the seat and you're thrill, your heart's pumping. And how many people were launched up with you? How many went up?

There were two other crewmates, one Russian and one Spanish American crewmate, Michael Zlopas Alegria. And they we were sort of strapped in this tiny capsules, the three of us. Uh huh.

And what was that? The experience of doing that yourself. You're at that point, you're where did you launch from? Where did you launch from?

We launched from Kazakhstan. That's where Soyuz launches take place place. And back then it took two days to get to the space station. So you would get to space, but then you would have to orbit until you would sort of get into a position that you could dock safely with the space station. That took two days. So it was not a very comfortable place to be in this tiny, you know, capsule for two days, but it was worth it. Because then I got to spend nine days on the space, space station. And there were three other crewmates, one from Germany, one Russian, and one American on station when we arrived. So there were six of us for the nine days I was on station.

So during that two days, could you move around in the capsule or did you have to like stay in the seat, the whole thing or what?

I mean, you know, you're. Fortunately, when you're in space, you're weightless, so we could get out of the seat where you would float. We didn't have a lot of space to move, but there was enough space for the three of us to sort of be standing or floating around. And there are two parts to the capsule, so we could split off and two people could be in bottom piece and then one person on top and we would exchange location physically.

What do they prepare you for, by the way? Do you have to learn Russian? I mean, it's all the training in Russian.

Yes, that was the hardest part of the training, trying to learn a whole new language and in six months or less, so we had to learn Russian. You do a lot of physical training, not because that you need to get stronger, but to build stamina. You learn a lot about emergency situations, so you do simulations of different emergencies and how to do repairs and fix things. You do zero gravity training through what they call the vomit comet with the parabolic flights. You do centrifuge tests to understand the body get.

Does the body get where it can adapt to that? Where you might. Your vomiting reflex type thing gets under control, you learn how to control that, or it adjusts or.

Yeah, you. So there's a couple of things. One is you train for it, so you build more resilience against motion sickness. But also you can take medication, of course, like when you go on a cruise, you take medication. And the rest of the training is really the duration of the training. The nine months to 12 months that you train, your body builds more and more resilience against adverse effect. But I also learned that our body adjusts really well. So when you're in space, the first two days you're, you know, you get back pain, lower back pain, headache, because your spine is stretching, so you become taller, the fluid shifts in your body, so your sinuses are inflamed, you get headache. But all of this after the first two to three days, the. These side effects go away and you adjust, and then you go back through the adjustment back to the gravity well of our planet when you come back from space. But that was a big Learning like our body can really is resilient and can adjust to different environments quickly.

Yeah, so you get into it's high adventure. You finally get on the space station. You're up there with how many people did you say? Once everybody got up there, there were.

Six of us together.

Six of you? And are you interacting with each other all the time? Everybody. So what's that like? You've got a little. You've got a little community up there.

It is a little community, an international community. And we speak different languages, different backgrounds and personalities. So it was a little microcosm of what could be like if we all got along well. And when you're on space station, you understand that your survival depends on how well you work together as a team. And that's I think a big part of it. And you know that if you don't like someone or if you get upset with someone, you can't just open the door and shove them out. So it is something you have to learn how to work well together. And that's why we all become friend afterwards and we stay in touch. So I'm in touch with my crewmates and visit them from time to time if I'm in their neighborhood. And it's something we can learn on how international collaboration and cooperation can lead to building big things. I mean, the International Space Station is a collaboration between 16 countries. They all came together, built different pieces of this amazing laboratory in orbit and they assembled it in space. It's not like we put it together to make sure it works here on Earth. We actually assemble it in space. So if we can do things like that, I'm sure we can collaborate and build amazing things here on our own planet as well.

How big inside is your space you had to move around in?

So the Soyuz is pretty small, but the space station is the size of like a football field. And it has different modules. Yeah, it has.

Really?

Yeah, it has different modules.

That's huge.

It is. There's inside these are like the length is this football field. But your. It's a cylinders. These cylinders put together like pieces of the puzzle. And you have the Russian segment, you have the US segment, you have Japanese modules, you have European Space Agency modules. And there are experiments running inside the space station. So there's a lot of equipment. So the space for people to live, it's limited, but it's more of a tiny laboratory orbiting our planet.

Well, when you get up there, do you have one common area where everybody stay in their own separate worlds and. Or you have common areas where they're eating and sleeping and interacting. And then you go the separate areas for the research and the projects.

The research and projects are spread around. So depending on what project you work, your workstations may be different. But usually during the meals, especially dinner time, we all come together and we have a meal together, which is a great moment every day for people to share stories, to get to know each other and talk about their experiences. So it's not, not all talking about science and work. It's really more of sharing our personal stories and lives together. And that's what brings us together. We don't have, we don't have to cook meal, but you have to heat up. So someone takes the task of being the host that day and heating up the food for everyone. And great conversation takes place around the meal time.

Well, what language did you speak up there?

So there are two official languages is Russian and English. When you're up on the space station and depending on the number of crew that leans toward one side or the other, then mostly that language is spoken. I was more comfortable speaking English, but I learned enough that I would understand Russian. So with my Russian crewmates, I would speak English, they would respond in Russian and we understood each other. So it says multilingual space. Yeah.

Your particular. How much can you get done in nine days? Your particular assignment, do you remember exactly, you know, what you accomplished? Because you're supposed to accomplish things up there. And what was your assignment?

Sure. There were four experiments I was doing with European Space Agency. Two had to do with how being in space changes human body and doing different measurements from muscle systems or pain resistance. There were also an experiment around bacterial life form and taking samples every day of different parts of the body and the station to understand microbial life form, transfer, transference and growth rates and also radiation effects. So taking blood sample for effects of radiation. And I did, I had several experiments I was doing with schools because one part of my mission was to communicate this experience with people on Earth. So I did talks with different schools across the globe and letting the students ask questions and share this experience with.

While you were up there?

While I was up there, yes.

I need to do a podcast from the space station.

You should. That would be fun.

Live from the space station.

That would be. I can tell you the students loved it. The fact that they were talking to someone in space was just mind boggling for them. So it was great.

Sure. Now, did they prepare you for like when you go to foreign countries and everything? A lot of times you'll have your Orientation, your cultural orientation. Before you go, don't say this. In this country, they don't do this. They don't tip or they don't bow, or they, you know, they address people with how you address them and greet them. Did they do that? Like, before you go, like now, when you get to the space station, don't do this, don't say this. Or do they. They give you training on how to get along with the other crew members before you go?

No, honestly, you don't get training on it, but you train with your crew. So at least the people you're flying with, you have some, you establish some relationship before you go to space, so that's good. And then they do a lot of psychological tests on you to make sure that you're someone who will collaborate, follow instruction. So the simulation tests that we did, for example, some of them are full day simulation. So you're in your suit, you're inside the mockup of a space station. Different things change, different things break, you have to go repair. So they tried to really test your endurance and your ability to follow instruction and collaborate with your crew members to fix a situation. So you're put to test, but not a lecture on how to get along.

When you got to the space station, how long did it take you to get comfortable around the other people and feel like, okay, the awkwardness is over and now I'm into the routine.

I would say immediately because as I said, we train together. So you already know your crewmates. And before you fly, you spend three weeks in quarantine. And when you're in quarantine, you primarily just interact with your crewmates because you can interact with the outside world.

So I'd forgotten about that. I think I'd heard about that, but I'd forgotten about it. Three weeks of quarantine before you go.

Yes. So we got to be really close friends and shared a lot of stories before, before our flight.

Wow. And so when you got up there, what was the first, your major impression about? You know, you get into unique situations or where there's a lot of pressure, a lot of new things coming at you, fast and furious, meeting new people. A lot of times it feels surreal and it's hard to feel like, take a while to settle down where you can really feel like you can absorb what's happening to you when you're up, especially if you're looking out the window, you see the Earth and you're flying, barreling through space and all that. Just getting familiar with the space station had to be Quite an adjustment, let's just say.

Absolutely. It was not only an adjustment, but it was a very emotional experience as well. Because here I was. My entire life I had focused on. On this big dream I had in front of me. And I was living it. I was living my dream. And I knew it was limited time. I only had nine days on station. And then I would go back to my ordinary life. And just being there and being able to see our planet, our Earth, from space was such a profound experience of realizing we live on this planet that looks nothing like those maps you see in geography courses. There is no big black line separating us or different colors that says this is this country and this is that country. You could not tell the countries apart. And this realization that we're all one inhabitants of one home we call planet Earth becomes so real and profound that you wish you could take this message and propagate it across the world. Because we would live different lives, we would do things differently if we had that realization. And it really changed me as well. In terms of when you're up there, you only see big picture. And you realize that little things occupy a lot of your mind space. And you spend a lot of time thinking about little things. But the most important things are you don't spend enough time on it. So if we switch that and spend 80% of our time on big picture things, important things in our lives, and only 20% on the noise of life, you would accomplish so much more and live such a satisfying life. And that was a lesson for me. When I came back. I decided that I'm going to do my best to spend 80% of my time on important things in life for me, and only 20% on noise. And that has helped me really focus what I do, what I spend my time on, and be happier with what I accomplish.

When you're an entrepreneur or any kind of leader, there's a lot of loneliness to the job because you have to evaluate, you have to think, you have to plan, you're interacting with a lot of people, but you have to kind of withdraw and evaluate. And so when you're up there in the space station, how much time was there? A lot of time where you're by yourself, had time to think, or is it constantly interacting with other people on these experiments and things like that?

No, you actually do have a lot of time by yourself. So except the morning where we all come together and talk to the ground station to get instruction. And then in the evening when you come together, usually people are working on their projects the rest of the day. And unless you're working with someone else on the project, you wouldn't necessarily interact with everyone all the time. Which for me also it was good because it gave me time to do a reflection on the experience and try to take it all in. I spent some time just floating over the big window and watching the Earth and just trying to imagine what's going on in the minds of people who are working and living on Earth. And I was in this sort of out of body experience, watching over them, looking at the date line where the night and day line moves across the globe and thinking some people are going to sleep and some people are just waking up on the other side. So all those things that you don't get to see in your daily life when you're living it, you know, on Earth was just such a fascinating and unique experience that I just took it all in and tried to memorize them.

How do you stay on schedule up there? Because there's no, I guess you got clocks or watches or. So how do you stay on schedule? And did the time go very fast or slow or just normal?

For me, the time went really fast because I knew my time was limited, so I wanted to cherish every moment. But you have a clock basically, and they adjust the clock based on either Houston time or Moscow time, depending on where the launch, the, the crew is joining you on. Right? So, so it, you basically, you have a schedule. It tells you what time you eat breakfast, what time you do your experiment, what time you talk to ground station, what time you sleep, all that. So your schedule is preset and you pretty much stick to it. Sometimes repairs and experiments throw the schedule off, but pretty much everything is set and you just follow the clock and do what you need to do.

Now there's a crew that went up there and supposedly they went to deliver something or whatever and deliver the groceries or something, and then something went wrong with the module that's supposed to take them back. And so all of a sudden they're up there for another three, four, five, six months. I guess you kind of relive that when you were like, what would I do if I was in that kind of situation. Do you think they were happy that they got to stay up there that much longer? Do you think they were, do you think they were like upset or they. How do you think they reacted to that and how they. What do you think they're thinking now?

So I happen to know one of them, Sunita Williams, and I can tell you that she probably was happy to stay longer. She loves being in space. She ran actually she was the first person who ran the Boston Marathon on Space station. So as it was going on here on Earth, she ran the Boston Marathon on the treadmill on the space station.

Wow.

Yeah. So she loves being in space and I'm sure she enjoyed it. It's hard on the family though. If you think about your family members. Just having someone in space is hard, difficult enough. And then if you plan things around having your mom or dad or your loved one back in certain time and now they say they can't be back for another six month. And I know that disrupts a lot of family life. So it's harder on the family than it is on the people on station. Especially if they know that it's just waiting and then they will come back safely. Now if it's a situation where their lives is at safe, then it would be of course very stressful. But in this scenario they knew that they will just come back on the separate mission, which they did.

Now when you came back, did they have to your taxi that came to get you to take you back to Earth, was it attached the whole time or was it, did it show up to come get you at a certain time?

That's a great question. So I flew with my two crewmates on the Soyuz and then the previous crew, two of the members of the previous crew were finishing their six month mission and they were supposed to come back. So basically I switched seat and I went back on the other Soyuz that was there that carried the previous crew up. So we, I came back with Jeff Williams and Pavel Ben Algoratov from the space station.

Now when you went back, did you splash into the ocean or did they have a soft landing?

When you come back with Soyuz you land on the ground. So we landed in Asana in Kazakhstan and it was a pretty hard landing, but that's normal for Soyuz. So they don't have a lot of water around the landing area. So it's in Apollo case or right now with SpaceX you land in water because United States has a lot of body of water around it. But when you do go from Russia, you don't have that.

Is that a high anxiety trip?

Yes, of course. I mean space is still dangerous and a lot of things can go wrong. You have to accept the fact that things could go wrong and you may lose your life. And I was okay with that. I had written a letter to all my family members before I went up and I gave it to someone while I was in Quarantine And I said, after my launch, please give this to the. Just in case something happens to me. So you have to be okay with that. And most of the astronauts that I've talked to, they understand the dangers, but they're. They're so dedicated in advancing human space exploration that they're happy to do that. And I just wanted to make sure I feel weightless and I make it to space. If something was to go wrong, I just wanted to make it up there. And then if it went wrong, I was okay with it.

Anything else was okay now. So you land. Do you go into quarantine when you come back?

Yes. You spend another couple of weeks in quarantine because your immune system gets weak when you're in space. So they want to make sure that you don't get sick by exposing you to other people's germs, basically. So you're in quarantine. You also, you do a lot of physical therapy because your body becomes weak, your muscles are weak, so walking and doing things, strenuous things, becomes difficult. So you go through sort of a little bit of a training and getting back to normal.

We have to wrap this up. But I'm really curious. How did your family, what did they feel like maybe how you had changed or did they notice a change in you? What did you hear from them about how they thought the experience impacted you?

I think 2 comments I heard all the time. One was that they never. They've never seen me smile as big as I did that entire year that I trained for it and I was in space, so they could see my happiness visibly on my face. And the second thing, everyone told me, I'm calmer, like you became very Zen after your space trip. So I think this realization of I shouldn't worry about the little things and not spend too much energy spending your.

Time on the big things.

Exactly, exactly. It gives you peace of mind.

I mean, what's your life been like since the experience primary thing you've done?

So I did a lot of speaking when I came back, and I continue to do speaking, especially for students. For example, I'm here in Maryland because I will be speaking at the, you know, elementary school the next couple of days. So I do that. I wrote my memoirs to share a lot of my entrepreneurial experience as well as my space experience in my dream of stars.

My dream of Stars.

My dream of Stars.

My dream of stars.

And now I've been running XPRIZE foundation for the past six years, which I've never worked this hard in my life. But I've never enjoyed it as much. Just trying to use entrepreneurial energy and driving capital and innovation to solve humanity's biggest challenges. It's, it's a way that I feel like I can do this job forever because it's such a success.

So what actually are you doing with your time, with people in that role to drive it? What do you are actually, where are you making the impact?

So we run three to five year competitions, hundreds of millions of dollars. For example, we have a carbon capture competition is to drive innovations, to capture carbon at gigaton level, which is what we need to avoid going over two and a half degree temperature rise. Or we are doing a healthspan competition which is to extend the healthy life of humans in muscle, cognition and immune systems by 10 years or more. We're running a competition to stop wildfires, to detect fires from space or ground station. And once you detect it, you have to put it out within 10 minutes. We are continuously working on new prizes in education that we're launching next year, new forms of sustainable energy and we're doing one on desalination to scale up desalination solutions so they become affordable and effective in addressing water scarcity issues around the globe. So we have all these active competitions. We've launched half a billion dollars worth of competitions and have been able to leverage it.

Half a billion dollars worth of competition?

Yes. And we've leveraged it 50 times. That's even more important because we leveraged every philanthropic dollar 50 times with outside capital and investment in teams. And we had many successful teams. They've raised hundreds of millions of dollars. We have some unicorns, we had some that went public. So we're really using this entrepreneurial engine and, and focusing that entrepreneurial energy towards solving some of these big problems that we've been stuck with. And that's where X prizes are really effective, the areas where the normal forces haven't solved the problem.

Well, this Ansari X prize is kind of, it's like, kind of like a Nobel Prize in the sense, but specializing in areas of active competitions in climate change, health, technology, things like that. Right.

And so absolutely we, and we ask people to go build and demonstrate to win. So it's not like a past accomplishment, but it's, we give them a target, very specific target. And we say you have to do these five things and demonstrate that to a group of expert judges. And if they say you accomplish it, you get a big check and that's how we run the prize.

Well, congratulations. Sounds very well thought out.

Thank you.

And You've already already awarded 81 million to innovators and launched 360 million in active competitions and I'm sure that number is growing. I'm sure those numbers are way behind. So thanks so much for being on. I wish you all the best. Look forward to having you come back down the road and tell us how some of the success stories from these competitions and who knows, maybe we'll get some of the people that have won your competition would love that get on and share their successes. You'll have to make some suggestions to us about who we should get on.

Would love that they have their own story.

Right. It's a matter of spotlighting positive, productive people out there in the world that the spotlight doesn't usually find. And so thanks so much for being on. I always let my guests have the final word to pass on to upand cominging leaders and innovators and entrepreneurs and so do you have any last comment you want to pass on?

Sure. 1. Thank you Larry for having me on and inviting other entrepreneurs from XPRIZE to join you. And I will tell all the entrepreneurs out there to dream big and put your energy to work towards something that wakes you up in the morning and drives you to do better and better every day. So I wish you all lots of success.

Thanks so much and thank you for what you're doing to spur that initiative, those initiatives on. And congratulations on your incredible achievement and the inspiration you provided to so many around the world. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind podcast.

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