[0:00] Hello, Dr. Jahangir. Hey, how's it going today, man? Oh, great, great, but not nearly as good as it is for you. Oh, my goodness, I could not even begin to tell you how amazing. Yeah, it was an amazing thing, fantastic. I mean, what was your initial reaction that you were up in space? You know, it's a few things. One... As I was sitting on that rocket, you know, obviously I wouldn't say I was nervous, I was excited. I felt my heart racing, my hands were obviously shaking a little bit, I think because of the adrenaline. and as it started just lifting off, I truly became emotional. I had tears in my eyes because I understood that this was 20 years in the making and I was finally fulfilling that dream I had set forth.

[0:54] And I was able to appreciate it. I truly relished that. And it felt like a glass elevator. You're in a fancy hotel, but instead of going up seven stories, it's going up, you're hitting 30,000 feet, 100,000 feet. Yeah, right. 330,000 feet and I don't know when I don't know if I was observant of like when we went from atmosphere to no atmosphere but there is no doubt when you're up there that you are in space it is so immensely powerful both seeing the earth and the curvature and the colors and seeing just the darkness right that we never appreciate. You know, because even on Earth, there's a good circuit. And not just that, like, the capsule rotates two degrees every second. So at one point, as I was sitting down back in my seat, there was the sun's glare.

[1:52] So all of a sudden, like, the sun was hitting me head on with no atmosphere. And it was just this immense Brightness and warmth and all of it. I mean, it's just every piece of it was just immense and breathtaking. Just a completely different sensation than what you would have on earth. Absolutely, absolutely. And what was weightlessness like? Honestly, I felt it and it was cool, but I was distracted by the feeling. I think at one point my crewmates had all sat back in their seats and so I took the effort to stretch out and do kind of like you know a plank and I was like wow this is like absolutely effortless no energy needed like it felt like yeah completely fluid I turned upside down which was cool but so it was neat it was happening it was definitely not the main show sure sure What is it like seeing the Earth from that perspective?

[3:00] Yeah, I mean, to see the Earth from that perspective truly does present, as Frank White, a scholar, once said, the overview effect, where you get this understanding of both how small the Earth is and how vast the universe is, and that Everything that we love and everything that we do and everything that we know is on this rock, right? This rock that's floating out in space. And it's such a beautifully colored, vibrant rock. This planet is quite incredible. So, yeah, I think that that is truly the biggest thing is just that understanding that we are just a little, you know, living organisms. on this planet that is sustaining us, and that we don't know of any other planets like this in our universe yet.

[4:01] And how else has your perspective changed from this experience? Well, at first I thought I wouldn't do another suborbital flight, because there's always risk-reward, and it's a relatively safe... Blue Origin has an amazing safety record, but it is a rocket, so there is some risk involved. And I have a family with a nine-year-old and a two-year-old, but after doing this, I would definitely do another suborbital flight, and I hope one day I have the opportunity to do an orbital flight and spend more time in space and looking at things, appreciating things. Yeah, yeah. Well, when do you come back to Vanderbilt? Yeah, so I, you know, Monday's a holiday, so I will be back in clinic Tuesday morning.

[4:48] Oh, fantastic.

[4:51] training trainings you know residents fellows and I think I have a pharmacist with me this week so back at it and have had to do you know some some extra clinics because I've had to cancel patients sure scheduling for this but I think they understand the one thing is I wish I had maybe get my schedule a little lighter because I'm sure every patient is going to take you know about 10 to 15 minutes more just to talk about going to space right right because they all know about it yeah yeah well terrific well congratulations again i guess anything that we haven't mentioned anything you like anything else you'd like to say yeah i think that We may have talked about this before, but it's good to have big dreams.

[5:40] And it's good to surround yourself with people that will support those dreams and try to make actionable goals that you can kind of take small actions to get to that dream. The way I got to space was fortunate, but I would not have been Looking if I had given up on this dream a long time ago, and I don't think I would have had as profound of a experience if I wasn't cognizant of just like the immensely, how immensely fortunate I am to have this opportunity. I think our crew is going to be somewhere between like the 700th to the 706th people who have gone to space. We have two women, still less than 100 women have gone to space. and that is pretty wild. Yes, we haven't been doing this much in terms of how long humanity has existed but we do need to try to make it to where other people can experience this because I do think it makes you more humble and maybe more gracious to the lives that we live.

[6:51] Very good. Very good. Well, thank you so much for your time and We'll be posting an update on the UMC News website with your comments. Thank you so much. I appreciate you taking the time to write about it. Great, great. Thanks again, Dr. Jahangir. See you when you come back. Thank you. Bye-bye.