Episode 39 – Mission: From Fields to the Stars

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Welcome to Executive Checkpoint, where security professionals and business leaders come to sharpen their edge in a world that never stops demanding for more people to be responsible for keeping others safe. I'm your host, Tino Urbina, and today my guest didn't just reach out to the stars, he got to them. My guest today is an engineer, former NASA astronaut, mission specialist aboard Space Shuttle Discovery's mission STS-128 to the International Station— Space Station. He's also the president and CEO of Tierra Luna Engineering and Tierra Luna Cellars. His story from fields of California, being the son of an immigrant farm worker, to traveling 5.7 million miles in orbit became a 2023 Amazon Prime film, A Million Miles Away starring Michael Peña. He's a University of California, Regan, and sought-after keynote speaker on leadership, perseverance, and high-performance teams, and someone whose life and career offers lessons that go far beyond outer space. José, thank you so much for having me. Thanks for showing, um, coming over to the show. I'm excited to have this conversation. How are you?

I'm doing great, Dino. Thank you very much for the invitation. Happy to be here with you guys and share my perspective in terms of how it was I became an engineer, where I came from, and where I'm going, because we always got to keep moving forward.

So, I mean, your, your story is a very public story. But I'm sure despite that fact, there's a few folks that don't know the full story. So you are originally from an immigrant family. Why don't we start there? What was that?

Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, my story begins well before I'm even born. My parents, my father in particular, came as a 15-year-old and quickly adapted a routine where he would go to 3 different stops in California, starting in Southern California, then Central, then Northern. uh, following the harvest of the crops for 9 months, and then he would go back to Mexico.

Wow.

Uh, he started this at the young age of 15. Then he met my mom in his hometown in Mexico, married her, and brought her along this nomadic lifestyle. And of course, with marriage comes kids. There's 4 of us. I'm the youngest, and 2 of us were born here in the States because we were born during the harvest months. And 2 others were born in Mexico because they were born during the holidays, Christmas holidays. So that what month you were born in dictated what country you were going to be born in during that time. And it wasn't until a 2nd grade teacher in our last stop, Stockton, California, came to our house and convinced my parents that we needed to stay in one place that we made Stockton, California our home. Now, we still went to Mexico every year, so we kept that relationship and that cultural aspect of our Mexican heritage well alive. And so, but instead of going for 3 months, we would only go for 3 weeks centered around Christmas because that's what the teacher recommended. And my father followed those instructions and And that's how our education gained traction, Tino. And we started to learn the language, started to be good students. And I think I was 10 when I saw the last Apollo mission live on TV. So imagine a 10-year-old holding on to a rabbit ear antenna to improve reception for dear life and watching astronaut Gene Cernan walk on the moon. And then going outside, it was a cold December evening, going outside and seeing the moon almost full, coming back inside, hearing astronaut Cernan talk to Mission Control Houston. And that's when I told myself, de aquí soy yo. This is what I want to be. It was like a calling. And I promised myself I would do everything I wanted to do to become an astronaut. And that's what happened.

Wow. Well, you know, there's something about the resilience and discipline that is, is either because it's not a want to, so you have to, right? Um, growing up in, you know, uh, farming community and traveling back and forth to make money to survive, you, you have to be disciplined and you have to be resilient to do those things. Do you feel that's part of your DNA that kind of brought you to where you are today? having that ingrained culture, familia, right? And finding that discipline. Of course, sounds to me that your teacher discovered also some affinity for math and science, which that definitely does make a big impact if you have that combination. That's a dangerous combination.

Yeah, and that comes by accident, you know, because you know, you grow up in Spanish and Spanish is your primary language. And so when you go to school and you go to 3 different school districts in 1 school year, there's a lot of interruptions. And the— my only refuge was math because 1+ 3 is 4 in any language. Right. So that's what I understood. So I, I took an affinity to math because it was the natural It was— it came natural to me given my language challenges. And it turned out that that was perfect because I needed to get a STEM career going if I was going to become an astronaut. And so I had that natural tendency to excel in math and science.

You know, it's got to be interesting to have that idea of yourself at such an early age and just know that you're going to be— do something. I'm sure there were a few folks around you, and I think most people can appreciate this, but you have a dream so big that the, the environment around you is like, ah, settle down.

Yeah, you know, you know, it— parents have a lot to do with it, uh, and this is why I always like to give— I give motivational conferences, and when I talk to the parents, I'm first generation. My mom and dad only have a 3rd grade elementary school education. But I always tell people, you know, you guys worry about— you hear about the cost of a college education, how many thousands of dollars and all that, and, uh, and you worry about it. And I tell— and I tell people, I said, don't do that. I said, don't do that, because then they're gonna— they're gonna think That you don't want them to go to college. I said the best thing you can do is do what my parents did. My mom, she always set the expectation. She never said when you go to, I hope you go to college. I hope this. I hope that. She said when you go to college. Right. She was one that when we came home, you know, hacía tortillas and frijolitos arroz, and we would gather around the kitchen table because we were hungry. We would get a snack. But then she wouldn't let us get up until we finish our homework. You know, she was the one that when we went to the bank after working in the fields, muddy and crusty and all that, she would point to the bank manager in a nice suit and tie. We're in a very nice, cool environment in the Bank of America, and she says, what do you see over there? And I said, well, I see a man with a Sun and Tai. And she said, no, I see you. I said, you? She said, look at your hands. And of course they're all dirty. Says, you work with that, your body's gonna break down. She says, you work with this, you're going to be able to work in a place like this. So what do you want to do? And I said, well, I guess I have to stay in school. So, but I think the big clincher was when I told my dad I wanted to be an astronaut. Again, a man only with third-grade education. He said, "You want to do this? Follow this simple five-ingredient recipe." He said, "Determine your purpose in life. Recognize how far you are from that goal. Draw yourself a roadmap so you know how to get there. Prepare yourself according to the challenge. Y échale ganas. You gotta, you gotta be a hard worker, an ethic, a work ethic second to none. And and since you do that." Uh, you can become whatever you want, amigo. He said education is the great equalizer, right? And when he said that, I said, wow, I'm gonna be an astronaut. Because my dad, you know, when a parent empowers a 10-year-old kid, you buy the idea. You say, hey, my dad says I could be it, I'm gonna be it. And I never looked back. Never did I realize how hard it was going to be. And this is why I always add the 6th ingredient of my dad's recipe. That's my own ingredient. It's perseverance. Because I'm here to tell you that NASA didn't reject me once or twice or 3 times. I got rejected 11 times. It wasn't until the 12th time that I finally got invited to be part of the 19th class of NASA astronauts. Wow.

You know, perseverance is is, is, is grit, is discipline, is a combination of many factors. What I— what is admirable is your dad and his perspective in life from, you know, especially when you account for other families that have everything and they have a, you know, parents have the education and yet they find ways to limit their own kids. Maybe not on purpose, but that, that reflection. I feel sometimes in having that Immigrant background gives you the ability to grow somewhere in between 2 spaces, right? What everybody expects of you or what you're gonna get and where you are. That's the in-between. Then it forces like you have to figure it out, right? So your dad was right, right on that. So when you went to get your degree in electrical engineering, um, first-generation student.

First-generation.

And actually landed in Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. How was that environment? How— what'd you learn in that new, out of the field into the corporate side of things?

Well, it was great because, um, first of all, it's near Stockton, so I was able to stay home and help my parents financially, and I would drive to California Okay. And the lab, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, is a prestigious national lab dedicated to national defense. And for— I— they gave me a choice of projects, latched onto the one that was related to space. It was building an X-ray laser. That was gonna be— As a defense shield against, uh, first attack. And I could care less about the laser. I just knew we were sending hardware into space. I figured this is my opportunity to get experience with flight hardware. And so that's why I took that. So yeah, not lab prepared me to For a career in aerospace, I started off working in what was called the X-ray laser. Wow.

And so the transition from there to NASA, obviously you apply over— is this 11 years of applying?

Over a 16-year period.

I worked at the lab.

So it was over a 16-year period, 11 rejections, and it wasn't until the 12th time, I was still working for the lab, when I finally got the call to be in the class of NASA astronauts.

Wow. You see, I'm not sure if it's my audio, but I'm having some issues on your audio. Could you hear me correctly?

I can't.

Okay. Yeah, I, I don't know if it's an air conditioning unit or— I can hear every other word. I don't know if that's, uh— let me see if I can correct that. All right, now you're on mute.

Okay, how's that now?

Better.

Can you hear me? Okay.

Yeah, I can hear you now.

Okay. Yeah.

All right, perfect. So I didn't want to miss— I missed the last answer. I'm trying to guess. I don't know if you saw my face. I'm like, I'm not sure. But we were talking about the lab and that transition. So NASA, 16 tries. So in between that, you were part of the Lawrence National Laboratory, right?

Right, right. It was 11 tries over a 16-year period. period that I worked at Lawrence Livermore Lab. And, uh, and, and because NASA doesn't select an astronaut class every year, sometimes they'll skip a year or two.

I see. Gotcha.

And so it was a 6-year period. And, uh, and yeah, I mean, I, I worked on 3 major projects during that time at the lab to, uh, so that I can, uh, keep applying and hopefully get selected. And sure enough, it happened.

So you learned to, uh, to fly? You, you're a pilot?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the, uh, uh, that's what, you know, no one likes rejections. And when I had my 6th rejection, I was ready to give up. My wife convinced me and said, look, you shouldn't give up because you're always going to have that little worm of curiosity inside of you. What if? And that's not gonna sit well with you throughout life. So she said, you need to take this to the end. And when she left, she said something that stuck to my mind. I said, what do— she said, I don't know what they have, meaning the people that got selected, that you don't have.

Right.

And when she walked away, I said, you know, I can't answer that question either. I, I don't know either. So I better find out. I was so busy with meeting the minimum requirements NASA put forth, but I never bothered to compare myself with the people I want to be like. And that's a good exercise for anyone that aspires to move forward. Compare yourself with the people you, you want to be like. And in this case, I saw that they all had pilot experience.

Ah.

So I invested in myself and I became a, a VFR/IFR pilot, uh, visual flight rules, instrument flight rules. And then I saw that they were all scuba trained, certified. So I got basic certified, advanced certified, scuba rescue master-rated certified.

Wow.

And then I saw that a lot of them spoke the language of a space partner. And that's when I, I took a job no one wanted, which took me to Russia, Siberia, as part of a new— as part of the nuclear nonproliferation arena. And in doing so, I worked five years there, took twenty-five trips, had five years of Russian language training. So я понимаю по-русски. I kind of did a lot of the things that I saw that NASA astronauts had in terms of attributes. And after I started doing that, that's when NASA got interested in me, and that's when they started interviewing me. Even so. I made the— you know, there's over 13,000 people that apply. They'll select 100 finalists. From these 100 finalists, they'll interview them, invite them to go to NASA, and they'll select 10 to 15 astronauts. I made the 100 finalists 3 times. 3 times. I was so close I can taste it.

Right.

It wasn't until the 3rd time I was in the finalists, 6 You know, 16th year and 12th time applying that I finally got selected. Wow.

And, you know, to be the— this is the best of the best of the best. Basically, that's what it really boils down to. I think the perspective sometimes is like rejected 16 times, 16 years. Yes, but you're definitely a very select group of humans, right? Uh, that we had the opportunity to see the planet from a perspective.

The competition now is, you know, there's 18,000 people that apply for 10 to 15 positions. So it's very, very, uh, competitive.

Absolutely. And, you know, now going back through your history, August 28th, 2009, Space Shuttle Discovery launches. You're, you know, sitting in that chair. What are you thinking?

Well, I'm thinking, how great is this country? I mean, only in America can you be a migrant farm worker living at or near poverty, and then 37 years later, you know, you got the American flag on your, on your orange launch entry suit. You got your helmet on, you're strapped into the rocket, and you're going to go to space, be one of less than 600 people out of 8 billion. You know, out of 8 billion people in the world, Right. less than 600 have had the privilege of leaving this world and looking at our world from the outside. So I felt very blessed that I was given the ability, the opportunity. And believe me, it was a lot of hard work involved to be able to be one of those less than 600 individuals.

And it was—

now it was a dream that took 37 years to come to fruition.

Totally worth it.

I was 10 years old when the dream was conceived, 47 when I blasted off that August 28th.

Wow. And so now here we are. You're launching to space. I can imagine the feeling of being thrown, you know, with so much power. And I love always the Discovery, the shuttle program. I think that was a very elegant way to take astronauts to space and back. 14 days aboard the International Space Station. That was life. How, how were the, the teammates? Tell us a little bit about that, living in space.

Oh, our crewmates were great. There were 7 of us as part of the space shuttle crew. We were the second to last mission to finish construction of the International Space Station, a space station as big as a football field. And here we are, second to last mission to finish construction of the station.

Wow.

And so we spent 14 days up there. We docked to the International Space Station. We unloaded and installed more than 7 tons of equipment, both inside and outside of the space station. And so it was a great mission. You go around the world once every 90 minutes in continuous fashion, and your orbit is different from the rotation of the Earth. So when you come back, you're in a different part of the Earth already. And so it was just nice, you know, we made— I think it was 217 rotations, 5.7 million miles. Uh, I wish we had a frequent flyer program with the airlines, but we don't.

And technically you're falling, right? That there's nothing— you're in orbit, you're technically falling.

Yeah, you're in microgravity, so you're falling. Except that the curvature of the Earth curves before you fall.

Right.

As a matter of fact, to slow— to get back to Earth, we slow down so that then the curvature is there and we enter the atmosphere.

So, you know, to me, to me, being in space gives you a very unique perspective when it comes to engineering, safety, risk, right? So, you know, for our folks that are in the security space and the risk assessment space, you know, when things go wrong in space, uh, on the International Space Station, there's very few options, although most of them, I imagine, their practice and, you know, sequence of operations designed specifically for that. But what does NASA— what's NASA's approach to the reduction in layers of preparation for, for leaders?

Well, you, you, uh, you prepare a lot. I mean, for a 14-day mission, we prepared 18 months. We did everything we were going to be doing up in space. We practiced here on the ground with our 1G mock-ups, including spacewalks underneath the pool, robotic arm, everything. We— you practice ad nauseam And then of course the ground control is failing things along the way so that—

I see.

So that you train for whatever possible failure happens, you're there. And your systems are such that there's double, triple redundancy of your systems so that you— there's workarounds or you can do something else. But the whole key is you are well prepared to engage in the mission you're about to engage in when you blast off into space.

So what's the— I mean, you were there with 7 other astronauts, and how do you build that culture to be reliant on one another and obviously continue to operate in a very stressful environment? What are the— the, uh, what's the discipline? What's the program for you guys to, to work well in those environments?

Well, it's very, um, it's very interesting, uh, in, in the sense of, uh, that, that, that you're, you're, uh, you're there and you depend on each other, right? And, and so, and so it becomes kind of like a fraternity. of brothers and sisters. It's such a unique experience that when you experience it with them, not just the training but the actual going up into space, when you experience that with them, it's like you become brothers and sisters for life because it's such a—

Right.

It's such an incredible experience, uh, that you remember who you were with and what you were doing and all that. It's kind of like remembering Uh, you're probably not old enough, but remembering where you were when Neil Armstrong landed on, you know, walked on the moon, you know, those type of things. Hey, you're, you're living it. You remember that, right? So it's incredible. Yeah.

So, you know, elite— this is an elite team doing a unique, or well, not even unique, it's the only type of job that you can ever do. Then there's no one else in the world that is doing it or capable of doing it. So, but then, you know, your life story was of a lot of interest. Was there a book of your life story? Yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, after I, after I left NASA, I left NASA after only one flight. A lot of people say, well, why did you leave after only one flight? Why didn't you fly more? Truth of the matter is, when I landed, they announced the retirement of the shuttle fleet. And, uh, and, and, and so I knew I wasn't flying on the shuttle anymore because there were 4 more missions and they were already assigned.

Sure.

We assign them 18 months in advance because we have to train. And so I knew I wasn't going to be there, but they told me, don't worry, you speak Russian. So we signed an agreement with the Russians, and for the foreseeable future, they're going to be sending U.S. astronauts to the space station on a Soyuz.

Hmm.

And because you speak Russian, you're going to be one of the first ones. And I was excited. I said, great, I'm going back pretty soon. But then I looked at the training profile, you know, and you know, when you train on the shuttle, you train at NASA Johnson Space Center, which is in Houston. You live in Houston. So even though you work long hours, you see your family every day, right? You, um, have for the most part the weekends with your family, and that was good. Well, when I read the fine print about being assigned to a Russian flight, the rush— the training regimen wasn't 18 months, it was 3 years.

Wow.

80% of that time You're training in Russia. And it's not like you could take your family and, and take them over there for those 3 years. It's you go over there 18 months, 18 weeks, you come back 2 weeks, go 12 weeks, you come back 1 week. So your family stays in Houston for those 3 years, and then you go on a 6-month flight to the station. And then after that, you go on the road. talking about what you did with all the PIs, principal investigators' experiments throughout the country and the world. So it's a good 4 years where you're out of the house 85% of the time.

Wow.

And I have 5 kids. At that time, the oldest was 15, the youngest was 6 or 7. And I— it was one of the toughest decisions I ever made from my professional career. But the decision I made was to leave NASA so I can be at home with my kids and guide them through what I consider the most tumultuous time of their lives, the preteen teenage years, so that I could make sure they would go to college and they would be— And, you know, those 5 kids, you know, I have 2 boys, They're Eagle Scouts, Dino.

Love it.

The oldest one has his PhD and 2 masters and a bachelor's. His PhD is from Purdue. I told him, why Purdue? He said, Papi, I made a list of all the astronauts where they graduate from. Purdue has produced the most astronauts, including Neil Armstrong. Wow, wow, he did his homework. The youngest one this past Sunday just got his Went to his graduation for mechanical engineering bachelor's. My 3 girls have graduated. They're in, in between the oldest and the youngest boys, and they graduate. So I think I made the right decision. I don't have any regrets. Do I miss it? Yeah, I miss it. Do I—

Sure.

Get nostalgic when I see Artemis, those guys going to the moon? Yeah, because I said, man, that could have been me. But then I look at my 5 kids and I said, you know, it's worth it.

You know, well, I will say, and, you know, and I was going a different direction, but hey, first of all, congratulations. Um, it's a very difficult decision because what it took to get there, and some people will be like, to your point, it's like, wow, why would you? But the reality is that was short-term lift versus what you're sharing with us, which is the win.

Yeah, totally.

And that, that goes back to— I will say that is like you going back to Mexico every year seeing family, the discipline to go back and be in school. All of those things are good representation for what your kids are doing today. And, you know, congratulations. I will say also that the space industry is in, you know, in a boom, so to speak, growing and expanding, a lot of investment. That's a new opportunity for investors. because, right, there is a space, uh, companies now starting to boom, not just to reach out and put someone on the moon like Artemis is doing, but hey, you never know, SpaceX might need an expert like you that has the experience and has been there. Yeah, we'll put it out there in the universe.

Maybe, I mean, through my company Terra Luna Engineering, I mean, I'll give you an example. I have one of my engineers working on a payload It's a data center that's gonna, that's gonna orbit our planet. So, so, you know, we have hardware, we're designing software that's going in. So we still have our hands in the game. You know, I may not be going right now, but we're still involved in the aerospace industry.

Yeah. And, you know, from a security standpoint of view, very hard to You know, try to attack a data center in space.

Exactly. Yeah. And temperature reduction is the ultimate safe repository for governments, banks, whoever wants ultra-secure data. And because we're in low Earth orbit, you know, there's no transient, there's no latency. So you have immediate access. To and from the secure data.

Well, see, that definitely will— we'll definitely need to put the company info. I think that was a pretty good commercial right there. Well, you know, speaking of commercials, so to speak, A Million Miles Away, you know, great movie. Michael Peña did a great job, we think, but it doesn't matter what we think. He's— no, no, what do you think?

It's like, hey, He did a great job. You know, after I left NASA, I, uh, I, I wrote 3 books. One of them was my, uh, biography.

Okay.

And apparently Hollywood liked it that they wanted to make a movie. And, uh, and, and that's how A Million Miles Away was born. They asked me who I wanted to, to, uh, play me, and I immediately said Michael Peña, and, uh, he immediately accepted. But in all fairness, I also asked, I you know I told them that I wanted Salma Hayek to play my wife. We didn't get Salma, but but but but the Rosa Salazar did an incredible job playing my wife. She's an incredible actress, so kudos to her. And yeah, so we we have a movie. It's called A Million Miles Away. You can watch it tonight if you go home. turn on Prime Video, uh, and Google and just look for A Million Miles Away, you'll see the movie. You can watch it.

And, uh, I think it's, uh, still— you're right, it's available on Amazon.

And I think even in, um, it's been almost 3 years, which is amazing. It has— it has had an amazing run, and it's still—

it's a great story beginning to end. Highly recommend that everybody should watch it. I'm definitely with you, but it's gotta be You know, a little bit of seeing yourself on the screen and putting— obviously you wrote the book, so you, you knew what you were getting into, putting your life out for, for people to—

Oh, did you freeze on me?

To make a determination. But obviously there was some, uh, tragedy, all the, all the above. How does that feel sitting or going through that process of building a movie to be watched for, for many. And then sitting and watching it, what's the feeling? Are you proud of it? Nervous?

I'm very proud of it, but it's a surreal, you know, feeling. It's— you, you always say, I can't believe I can say I have a movie about my life story. And to me, it's very surreal to be able— not very many people have it. If you look, even astronauts, there's only 2 movies about astronauts.

Yeah.

And that's First Man, which is Neil Armstrong's movie and mine. All the other, all the other movies in space involve crews like Apollo 13, right? The Martian. You know, these are all different stories. But if you look at, you know, who has had a movie made about their life story as an astronaut, only 2 of us, Neil Armstrong and myself. And I said, wow, I mean, I'm in very special company here.

Very good company. I think I told you this, but I did have the opportunity to meet with Neil Armstrong. Let me see. That's him as a young man. That's him and I on— this is a few years ago. We did an event together. And so now I have the opportunity to have the both of you. Now, in this case, I'm glad that it's not just a movie because like you said, and this is how we started the conversation early on before we started recording, but you find a way to reinvent yourself from a successful engineer and astronaut to a published author, right? And then of course public speaking.

Author, entrepreneur.

To me, a thought leader and public speaker It's, it's a way to amplify the message. And I think it's such a key message that you're bringing to, um, a new generation of folks that see challenges as obstacles instead of seeing them as preparation for greatness, which is the case that describes your life story. Um, in that reinvention, aside from engineering and now talking about putting data centers in space, you also find your way to, uh, what I think is a different passion than, like you said earlier, brings you this full circle back to touching the earth and working in the field like you did when you were a kid. Tell us about Terra Luna, uh, your wonderful—

I mean, I always wanted, uh, when I was a kid I picked grapes and I would see the farmer in his big white truck barking orders left and right, and I said, man, I One day I wanna be like that guy.

I'm gonna put a guy back in there.

Of course I wanna be an astronaut too. So after pursuing my dream of becoming an astronaut, I came back home to Stockton and I had the opportunity to buy a vineyard, which I did. And so I like to tell people, I still drive a tractor. I still pick grapes with my father. But the only difference is it's my tractor and it's my grapes. Now I'll tell you about that white truck. I did buy that white truck, but I don't drive it. I gave it to my father porque he's the jefe, and so he drives.

He gets to bark the orders now.

He gets to bark the orders because even though it's my vineyard, you know, he's the one that has mentored me and taught me how to run a vineyard. And so the least I can do is, out of respect, is let me—

Yeah, yeah.

Is give him the truck. So, uh, so that's pretty neat. And then, uh, and then, you know, the, um, the winery which we sell the grapes to invited us for open house, and I saw how they made wine. And again, it's Chemistry 101, college chemistry, and I took a few courses at UC Davis, and then a few years later, I'm producing my own wine label. I have my own wine label under the Tierra Luna Cellars label, and we have, uh, our wine, which we have it available here in the US. We want to export it different parts of the, uh, the world, including Mexico. But, uh, but right now we have it, uh, direct to consumer.

That's great. What are you guys producing?

Well, we have— my grapes are Sauvignon Blanc. It's a white wine. But then I also source Zinfandel. Lodi here in Stockton, Lodi grows the best Zinfandel grapes. And so I make a red Zinfandel. And then from Sonoma County, I get grapes, Tempranillo, Merlot, Syrah, and Petite Syrah. And I make my own red blend. And so it's a great— A great combination.

Sign me up. I'll, I'll, I'll soon try some of them. I love wine.

So yeah, just go to tierralunacellars.com and, uh, you could become a club member or just order once. The books are there, by the way, too, so you can even order the books. I always tell people you should do the trifecta, and people tell me, people tell me, what's the wine? Yeah, you have a book in one hand. You have a glass of my wine, Tierra Luna Cellars wine, and you're watching A Million Miles Away on Prime Video.

Great branding. You say your story is not really about space, it's about what happens when someone refuses to let the gap between where they are and what they want to be and become permanent. Um, it's a, it's a great honor to have you. It's been a very fun conversation. I think we can expand this for another hour, but I know there's things you gotta take care of. Obviously, you're running a business, right? Uh, you mapped the distance, you prepared for, you know, the fail, you got, you know, backup, and you made it. So here's my question.

Yes.

Um, I think sort of to close the segment for, for a security professional or for a professional in general, the leaders, the people responsible?

You hung up. I didn't hear you. I'm sorry. Can you repeat it again?

Oh, yeah, sure. So for professionals listening to us, what will be the one lesson that you feel is the most important that you will want to pass on to the next generation?

Well, I would say, um, in, in, in, from a, uh, from a security point of view, is, uh, you know, is follow, uh, President Reagan's, uh, strategy, you know, trust but verify, right?

Right.

And it's so important to understand the security breach repercussions if you don't prepare accordingly. And so you should always have double, if not triple redundancy into your secure— your walls of security that you don't have a mishap in terms of a breach that then you're— the company is held hostage for the data, or they destroy your data, and or worse yet, sell it to the competition kind of thing. So, so I would say, you know, you do your homework and don't take shortcuts because shortcuts aren't going to get it.

Absolutely. And, you know, we still have so much that we can talk about leadership skill, future of aerospace, which we touched a little bit. Uh, you know, Tierra Luna Engineering, obviously. Uh, we can reach you, uh, via LinkedIn. We'll put the website so people can get in touch with you. Um, what'd you say? And— Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, you can, uh, social media, you know, under, under, uh, Twitter X is Astro_Jose, and then LinkedIn, look for me, Jose M. Hernandez. Uh, and Instagram, Astronaut Jose Hernandez. But, um, but I think if you go to my website, either Tierra Luna Engineering or Tierra Luna Cellars, you'll be able to get a hold of me. You could, uh, ask about information about motivational talks because I travel all over the world giving these talks, you know, focusing on that 5-ingredient recipe, a 3-element strategy to reaching your goals. Uh, you know, I leave folks very inspired, whether it's a Elementary school, a junior high, high school, college, or a company, or a conference. You know, we we we motivate everybody, and and I've never had a bad conference where people aren't aren't very motivated. They leave very motivated, and and then they go off and do great things.

Yeah, and you know what? It's such a no one can argue with you, Jose. For sure. You're living proof of everything that you speak of. So, but again, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. To everyone watching and listening, thank you for joining us on Executive Checkpoint. Stay informed and stay protected. And we'll see you in the next checkpoint.

All right.