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Episode 395: "The Six," Mini-Deadlines and the Twang with Loren Grush
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Loren Grush is a space journalist for Bloomberg and the author of The Six: The Untold Story of America's First Women Astronauts.
In this episode, Loren talks about:
- Centering women in space
- Mini-deadlines
- And what is the "twang"?
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
Social: @creativenonfiction podcast on IG and Threads
Support: Patreon.com/cnfpod
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Transcript
Promotion for Podcast Listeners
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm bringing back the exchange of written review for editing and or coaching. If you leave a written review of the podcast on Apple Podcasts, I will edit and coach up a piece of your work of up to 2,000 words. When your review publishes, send a screenshot to creativenonfictionpodcast.gmail.com and we'll start a dialogue.
00:00:22
Speaker
Also, this is for new reviews posting from December 2023 to when I decide to end this promotion.
00:00:30
Speaker
It's like a $100 value, so if I were you, I would totally do
Non-Alcoholic Beer Highlight
00:00:33
Speaker
it. Also, here's my shout-out to Athletic Brewing. It's my favorite non-alcoholic beer out there. For those who might take part in, say, dry January, this is a great option. If you visit athleticbrewing.com and use the promo code BRENDANO20 at checkout, you get a nice little discount. I don't get any money merely celebrating a great product. Skip the hangover, man. Skip it.
Year-End Reflections
00:00:54
Speaker
Probably when I was about
00:00:57
Speaker
a quarter of the way through the book maybe or a third of the way through the book where you've written a lot and you feel you've gotten, you're fully in it. But it just feels like there's so much left. And you just wonder how on earth you're going to get all of it onto the page.
00:01:23
Speaker
Hey CNFers, it's CNF Pod, the creative non-fiction podcast, the show where I speak to badass people about telling true stories. I'm Brendan O'Meara. We're getting down to the end of the year, man. Aren't we? Kinda crazy.
00:01:38
Speaker
This CNF Friday marks four months till my book deadline. I've written more than 70,000 words. I will officially start reading some of it soon. I'm only about halfway through the story. So there was a moment at the start where I didn't know if I could reach 85,000 words, my contractually obligated minimum.
00:02:02
Speaker
Now I'm almost sure to blow past 100,000. Ah, good problem to have. I mean, eventually I'm gonna run out of material, right?
Interview with Lauren Grush
00:02:12
Speaker
Today's guest is Lauren Grush. This is a fun one. This is a good one. You know what her beat is?
00:02:18
Speaker
outer space. Lauren is a space reporter for Bloomberg, previously with The Verge. She's the author of The Six, the untold story of America's first women astronauts. It's published by Scribner Book Company. It's a spectacular book about centering women in space, a goal of Lauren's, and it was the bravery and ambition of these women, Sally Ride among them, that blazed a trail to the cosmos.
00:02:46
Speaker
Hey, you know the deal. Head to brendanomare.com for show notes and to sign up for the monthly Rage Against the Algorithm newsletter. There, you can subscribe to the newsletter or don't. It's up to you. First of the month, no spam. As far as I can tell, you can't beat it. You can also consider going to patreon.com slash CNF pod if you want to throw in a few bucks into the CNF and coffers. Subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your pods.
00:03:11
Speaker
Or not. It's up to you. I'm the only host in the world who so much as gives you the option of saying no. That said, you should totally subscribe. The pod has seen a nice little bump in downloads over the past couple months, so we must be doing something right. What that is, I have no idea. But it's not nothing. And I barely use social media. There's a lesson there. Threading or tweeting or whatever is no substitute for just shutting the f up and doing work that's worth talking about.
Women in Space Journalism
00:03:39
Speaker
I might riff on that in the parting shot.
00:03:42
Speaker
All right, in this episode, Lauren talks about what it was like to experience zero G, setting mini deadlines along the way, centering women in space, and the twang man, the twang. All right, keep it locked, CNFers, here we go, riff.
00:04:14
Speaker
your B is outer space, which is a pretty amazing neighborhood to cover. And at what point did you kind of stumble upon that the six needed a better treatment and needed some attention?
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, so my common refrain is that, you know, as a space reporter, I have been oftentimes, especially as a woman space reporter, I've often been the only woman in the room reporting on space and it can be a very intimidating experience. And there have just been many times where I've traveled for work or
00:04:52
Speaker
Gone to various launches or space events and just felt very supremely out of place and you know very lonely because I've you know just been in a room filled with men and there's been a lot of times where I've kind of wanted to run out of the room.
00:05:09
Speaker
screaming but I try to suppress that impulse and I'm glad that I have because I've had a really great career and over time I've definitely met some wonderful women in this industry and more and more women are reporting on space and that has been a really great thing for me because I feel like we have a strong bond. I have a strong bond with other women in this industry.
00:05:35
Speaker
But it's also made reporting about women in space very important to me. And I very much try to center women's voices when I can.
Research and Writing Process
00:05:44
Speaker
It's still really tough just because, you know, when you're a reporter working on deadline, you usually try and find the first person that will talk to you. And, you know, it sometimes takes extra work to make sure you find a woman who is free and available to chat with you. So that is something you consciously have to work towards.
00:06:05
Speaker
But yes, like I said, when I can feature women in space stories, I really love to do that. And I'd always wanted to write a book. And I noticed that there's a lot of books out there that focus on men, especially rich men who are
00:06:25
Speaker
propelling the future of commercial space transportation. And those books are great and necessary and wonderful, but I just didn't want to write another one of them. And so I've, you know, I was looking around for the women who came first, you know, in the space field. Initially it was, you know, who were the first space female reporters in this industry? And then it kind of transitioned into, okay, well, who were the first women in space in general?
00:06:52
Speaker
And when I discovered this group of women of these six women, you know, I really didn't know much about them. I knew of Sally, but I couldn't say that I knew much about Sally's life or her experiences. And so I really thought this was a great opportunity to, you know, kind of follow that passion of mine, that mission that I've set for myself by centering women in space.
00:07:16
Speaker
and also educating myself and educating others while giving the rest of this group a bit of a spotlight that I didn't think they'd had before. What would you identify as the most illuminating moment of your research and your reporting on this book?
00:07:32
Speaker
Well, there are a few things that I like to point to. One of the big ones is the selection process for the first American woman to fly. I probably had this preconceived notion that it was going to be this really rigorous objective process.
00:07:47
Speaker
And learning that it was not was a bit surprising. I probably shouldn't be surprised, you know, when it comes to selecting people, it is still a subjective thing. But, you know, I, I thought it was going to be this, you know, they would, they were going to type everybody's attributes into some kind of eighties computer and it was going to spit out the right person to fly on that mission. And the truth is it really just came down to one man, George Abbey, who was the director of flight operations at the time.
00:08:16
Speaker
And I was enamored with his role and how all of the astronauts kind of gravitated toward him because they knew he was the guy that could put them in a space. And so it was definitely a trip to learn about how that selection process works back then. And to be truthful, the selection process for astronauts is still a bit opaque, at least for me as a journalist these days. They don't really lay out
00:08:45
Speaker
how they do it or why they've picked certain people. So it was great to be able to talk to George and learn about his process and also the astronauts that were selected by him and how they felt about the process too. So that was one of the more illuminating things I learned and also it was fun to learn about and to write about.
00:09:06
Speaker
Yeah and specifically with Abby as well was sometimes the selection process was merely being on his radar and often times that came down to like happy hour at the bar on Friday and if you weren't in that orbit right yeah.
00:09:21
Speaker
That's what the astronauts thought anyway. But that was the thing that was told to me about George is he wasn't a man of many words and he never told you where he stood. And so the astronauts were concocting all sorts of reasons for why he picked somebody or why he selected somebody. And so, yeah, they thought maybe just being front of mind was enough. And so then whenever there were happy hours,
00:09:48
Speaker
They made it a point to be there and drinking with them, but who knows if that actually helped. When I spoke with George, he said there really wasn't any secret sauce to it. He simply matched people who had the right attributes and skills to the mission requirements. To him, it wasn't that secretive, but to others, it might not have been so transparent.
00:10:13
Speaker
Nice and to back up a little bit sometimes I like to get into the sort of the nuts and bolts of how how like the story or the book in this case kind of came together and maybe what your original let's just say vision for in book proposal form how that looked and then how that changed as your reporting unfolded.
00:10:37
Speaker
Yeah, so I would describe the proposal as like the most rigorous book report that I've ever written in my whole life. We didn't do a sample chapter, but it really was just kind of a really succinct, I mean, it wasn't succinct. It was like 10,000 words or something like that, but it was very much a condensed version of what I thought the book was going to be.
00:11:02
Speaker
who I thought these women were. And while some of it was accurate, I learned that some of it was very not accurate. So I'm glad that I spent the time to really dive deeper and to learn more about the women and what they've actually said on certain subjects.
00:11:19
Speaker
For instance, I was under the impression that Judy was much more upset about Sally being picked first than she was. And so I learned that and I massaged that as I got to the book writing process. And then in terms of my process, I think I was a little intimidated when I first got started because I felt like there was just so much research to do that I spent a lot of time researching
00:11:49
Speaker
uh, and interviewing and going through the archives before I started writing. I think that was probably some, that'll probably be something I do differently if I write a book again, just because, um, it really prolonged getting started and then it kind of pushed everything back. And then I felt like I was kind of playing catch up towards the end, but then really what helped a lot, what helped kind of jumpstart the whole writing process is I put together a pretty rigorous,
00:12:16
Speaker
outline in terms of where I saw the chapters going. And it definitely was very different from the proposal that I had come up with just because of what I had learned. But then once I had that backbone of the outline of how I saw the chapters being laid out, that gave me kind of the courage and the confidence to really start writing because then I felt like I had these bones
00:12:41
Speaker
you know, to start putting meat on. And so that was that was the process and from getting started and really kind of going into overdrive. How much time did you give yourself to write it? Oh, gosh. Well, naively, I gave myself six months. And well, I had six months of book leave from my job at The Verge. So that was my timeline. I don't.
00:13:09
Speaker
recommend that. Also, like I said, I spent about three of those months researching and interviewing and really diving deep into the story before I got started. That really left about three months to
Writing Challenges and Strategies
00:13:24
Speaker
write. When I was very clearly not close to being done, I asked for an additional three months off. I was granted that
00:13:32
Speaker
I got a lot done, but that still was not enough to get it done. And so I spent a good chunk of time. I've turned to work after, so it was nine months.
00:13:44
Speaker
And then I spent a really good chunk of time working my day job, which is a space reporter, and then working nights and weekends on the book. And I'll be honest, it was really mostly weekends. I'm just not one of those people that can work all day on space and then
00:14:08
Speaker
Think about another space related thing for another few hours. It was just, I was kind of emotionally drained and mentally exhausted by that point. So I really kind of saved it for the weekend, but that's also pretty brutal too. You know, one thing I've learned.
00:14:23
Speaker
through, uh, being a full-time reporter is how necessary breaks are and how having that weekend time to rest. You know, as much as I love working, I also have learned, I really do love not working. And I mean that in the nicest way. I mean, it's, it's just, it's balanced and you need it. Every person needs it, you know, otherwise my work isn't going to be as sharp and as good. So.
00:14:47
Speaker
It was a very stressful time, but it was just one of those moments in life that you kind of have to get through. I got through it and I feel really happy with how everything turned out.
00:14:57
Speaker
What would you identify maybe as your dark night of the soul when it came to the writing of the book? The dark night of the soul. Oh, yeah. Wow. I love that because I know exactly what you're talking about. I would say, I want to say it was like probably when I was about
00:15:22
Speaker
a quarter of the way through the book maybe or a third of the way through the book where you've written a lot and you feel you've gotten, you know, you're fully in it, but it just feels like there's so much left, you know, and you just wonder how on earth you're going to get all of it onto the page. I think that was, those were some moments there where
00:15:49
Speaker
I spent a lot of dark nights, you know, crying and, you know, just hoping I could figure it out. And then also a lot of the times I, I don't know, maybe you can back me up here, but I described the book process as kind of like, it's definitely like running a marathon, even though I've never run a marathon, but I imagine it's what like running a marathon is like. And then also just like a series of wins and losses. So,
00:16:14
Speaker
one day you're on top of the world because you've spoken to somebody that you absolutely needed to speak to and they gave you all this great information that you would not have had otherwise and then the next moment someone declines an interview or you just can't find that detail that you need and then you're kind of spiraling in that pit of despair for a little bit.
00:16:34
Speaker
So that was, I feel like during the early stages of research and interviews and stuff like that, there are definitely some moments where I had like, I would have these great weeks where I'm like, yeah, this book is going to turn out great. And then I have another week where I'm like, I don't know how I'm going to
00:16:51
Speaker
finish this book without talking to this person or this person but ultimately those moments force you to be creative right so when you do have that loss where you were expecting to talk to someone or you were expecting to get this document or whatever you find another way around it and i think that ultimately made
00:17:10
Speaker
book stronger is because, you know, you don't rely on that thing you thought you were going to get. So those were kind of the pits of despair, the soul pits of despair. I don't remember how you said it. Yeah. Dark soul, dark night of the soul. And yeah, today I had been dragging my feet on a particular source to call because it was just going to be a Titanic one to talk to. And I was just like, I have a tremendous
00:17:38
Speaker
Not like a diagnosed anxiety, but I'm not I don't like making phone calls. I don't like making cold calls It's just I'm not that way and this one was a big one. I'm a reporter Yeah, me too, and I'm just like I fucking hate it and And so I finally was like you know what Brendan buck up call the guy
00:17:58
Speaker
And I do call him and it's and he's just like I can't you know I just can't talk you know I can't talk about it and I was just like oh man that just happened today and that was like a big like I kind of.
00:18:15
Speaker
I need the guy. I need this guy. And it was just such a punch to the stomach. And I was like, okay, I think there might be a workaround. And I have some other advocates that I've spoken to for the book I'm working on who might be able to lobby for me a bit better.
00:18:34
Speaker
And so the door isn't totally closed, but it is kinda closed. And I'm just like, yeah, to your point, you gotta find maybe other ways to be creative, work around it in some capacity. But it is kinda demoralizing and you gotta kinda hang your head for a little bit, but then get back on the horse.
00:18:54
Speaker
If it means anything, I know that feeling very well after this process. And, you know, another thing that I think makes it worse is that you're all alone in this, in this experience. So it's, it's, you can explain, you know, what, what happened to other folks, but they don't have that pressure to, to complete this project like you do. So no one really understands.
00:19:21
Speaker
that gut punch feeling that comes with it. So yeah, it's you're really kind of not only are you dealing with this, but you can't really relate to anybody about it either. But maybe you can call me I guess and I'll
00:19:35
Speaker
be able to commiserate with you. Yes. You know, you just fed the geese and now the geese aren't going to leave you alone. I apologize. I wouldn't do that to you. But yeah, it's what you also brought up a point earlier about just kind of like that tremendous feeling of overwhelm too, especially when you've given you probably it sounds like you had a pretty short deadline based on
00:20:03
Speaker
just on the time you gave yourself the right and the fact that a lot of the research wasn't done. So when you were in those moments of overwhelm, of like, oh my God, like, there's still so much archival stuff to do and then I gotta find these, I gotta find these phone numbers and call these people and then, oh shit, like, I gotta start writing at some point. It's a, how did you start to get your head around it corral it? And that way you were still rowing in the right direction.
00:20:31
Speaker
Yeah, so I kind of gave myself many deadlines within each day. So for instance, I had a mentor who said to set a goal of writing a thousand words a day. And then once you hit that limit, even if you have more to write, save it for the next day. So that way you feel like the next day you're already jumping off from a great place. Don't try and overextend yourself each day. So that was kind of one trick that I tried to adhere to.
00:21:01
Speaker
And then also I tried to give myself time off when I could. I do have one kind of crazy story where
00:21:10
Speaker
It was the week before I was supposed to go back to work for The Verge and I was just in a pit of despair because I was so not done with the book. I had kind of created this crazy deadline. I was like, okay, I'm going to finish Sally's chapter. I'm going to finish Judy's chapter.
00:21:33
Speaker
And I will do it if I can do a chapter a week, you know, and which was just an impossible task. And so I was nowhere near to being done. And so I could either kill myself in that last week to try and get as much done as possible, or I could just kind of relax. And so I actually ran away to my friend's place. They have at the time had an inn in Alabama.
00:22:03
Speaker
And so I just kind of escaped for a little bit because I knew nothing good was going to come of me trying to kill myself to get that job done, you know, in this crazy deadline beforehand. So, you know, it was just kind of maybe give myself a break and reset, figure out what it's like to go back to work and then figure out how to move forward from there.
00:22:29
Speaker
I love how you said a moment ago about the book writing being like a marathon and there are the wins and losses along the way. And I think there's a lot of threads to pull on that I think are really astute that you brought up, especially this one at first. A lot of people, the parlance is that a marathon is divided into two halves, like the first 20 miles and the final six.
00:22:57
Speaker
And would you identify your book writing process as like that final, like that second half being so close to the end, that final 10K or whatever it is, was like this really laborious, exhausting push just to get to the finish line?
00:23:17
Speaker
100% especially because I want to say I had about 70 to 75% of the book done before I went back to work and then I didn't finish the draft
00:23:33
Speaker
for another like six months. So while I got a good chunk of it done, you know, during those six months of writing, I would say the last little bit, which was not that much, took me as much like the same amount of time to get that done because I was
00:23:52
Speaker
And I'm obviously a unique case. Not everybody has to go back to work or, you know, maybe somebody's been working the whole time while they've been writing the book. But, you know, this was a very unique case for me. And so because of that, yeah, it was that little, that last little bit of writing felt so much more arduous.
00:24:13
Speaker
because it was this new writing situation, um, purely on weekends. All of my weekends were, were now booked, you know, for the foreseeable future. And it took the same amount of time to get all of that debt, probably even longer, I would say. Um, cause I think I turned it in in May and I went back to work in October. So yes, it was definitely,
00:24:38
Speaker
the last push to get it done. And I remember, you know, I would finish one chapter and I'd be like, oh, I'm just so close. But then I would remember, oh, I forgot I have this section. I have to finish or I forgot about this section. You know, like it would each moment you'd be like, oh, yeah, I'm so close. And then you forget you'd remember a part that you forgot that still was incomplete.
00:25:01
Speaker
And so it was just kind of, you know, taking it day by day. And while you were you felt so close, you were you also felt so far because there was still all these these loose ends that you needed to tie up of the many things that keep me awake at night with respect to the book writing.
00:25:22
Speaker
is it's not just the research. Like I'm okay where I know where the stones are and not to leave stones unturned. What keeps me up at night a lot of times is not knowing what certain stones are.
00:25:39
Speaker
You know, like I've spoken with some people and they point me to a certain archive or a magazine that I had never even heard of and never had found if it wasn't for them telling me about it. I'm like, damn it, how many of these stones do I just not know are there to then overturn and dig up whatever I can? And so I'm just constantly worried that
00:26:02
Speaker
I'm just not gonna find those and then deadlines gonna come and it's like damn there was there was a brilliant little library over there that had stuff or this random person online has some letters that I would have I just didn't know to ask it did that did you run into that degree of panic
00:26:20
Speaker
A hundred percent. Yeah, a hundred percent because I did have some access issues with this book. And so I've even learned things after the book has come out where I was like, Oh man, I would have loved to put that in there. Yeah.
00:26:35
Speaker
I mean, to be fair, the book is over 400 pages, so it's fine. But yeah, there's this, you know, but I think that's like any book, right? These stories are so big and so complex. It's impossible. I mean, even this version of the book was supposed to be longer because I had even more details about their early childhoods. And, you know, my editor came in and was saying, you know, we don't need all of this much. You know, you have six women that you're profiling.
00:27:05
Speaker
Think about movies. You don't start with them in grade school. You drop in at the moment that the story needs to start. I had to cut a few darlings there because I had all these great details about them as young kids. Even this book, there are still details I could have put in that I didn't.
00:27:29
Speaker
Yes, it has been annoying to to hear things or see or find things that I would have put in, but they're miniscule in the in the long term scheme of things. And so that's kind of what I think about when I do hear that thing or I find that thing, you know, it's just like, oh, well, it was a nice detail, but the book is pretty complete, as is.
00:27:52
Speaker
You bring up a great point about, you know, be it backstory, childhood or stuff, stuff of that nature, and your editor saying, well, think of movies, you know, you don't start there. And so that brings up a good point about entry points and how you get into a story. And so how did you arrive at how you got into this to, you know, kind of just to let it sort of take off on its own?
00:28:17
Speaker
Yeah, actually I would say one of the great things, pieces of advice my editor gave me before I started writing was to think of it like a movie or think of it like a screenplay and rather than kind of do these information dumps that I think nonfiction can get into. And to be fair, there are a few times where I had the information dump, it just wasn't, it was not avoidable.
00:28:40
Speaker
but to think of it as a series of scenes tied together. It was great advice. It was really hard to follow, especially with a history like this and people remember things differently and people don't remember things at all. One of the things I really tried very hard, and maybe somebody will come up to me later and tell me that I missed it. I missed the detail that would have led me to this, but I really tried to find
00:29:09
Speaker
where Judy Resnick was on the day of Sally rides launch, because, um, there was a, there's a moment. And so Lynn sure wrote the, uh, the kind of like, stay at the go-to biography about Sally ride.
00:29:25
Speaker
And in that book, she details, you know, she had interviewed Anna Fisher and Anna had talked about, you know, she was the lead astronaut sports person during Sally's flight and she had to oversee the controls and the switches in the cockpit ahead of Sally's flight. And I was, and she was pregnant at the time, very pregnant at the time. And I just thought, what an incredible,
00:29:54
Speaker
vivid image to start the book on, you know, a pregnant astronaut overseeing the shuttle that would take the first American woman into space. I just thought that was brilliant. And so I knew when I when I had that set in my mind, I knew I wanted to detail where all of the six women were on the day that Sally's flight took off.
00:30:18
Speaker
And so I had everybody, I knew where everybody was except for Judy. And I asked everybody that could possibly have known and sadly nobody remembers.
00:30:30
Speaker
So, you know what? I've looked for documents. I looked for art, you know, newspapers. I just couldn't find it. So that was, you know, that was a hard point. But I handled it in the book where I was, you know, I said it does, you know, depending on where she was that day, she might have been in Cape Canaveral. She might have been watching it, you know, somewhere else. So there are ways around it. But, you know, to your point, that
00:30:55
Speaker
those were there were certain moments where when I came across them I would say oh that's how I'm going to open that chapter or oh that's how I'm going to close that chapter or oh this is how I'm going to weave something in to another section you know
00:31:14
Speaker
So when those moments did happen, it was like lightning struck. And there's no greater feeling when you finally figure out, oh, this is how I'm going to piece these sections
Editing and Continuous Research
00:31:28
Speaker
together. And so those moments, I would say, are probably the most favorite part of writing the book for me.
00:31:35
Speaker
Oh, that's great. And you bring up something I love talking about, too, which is endings. That could be chapter endings or book endings or whatever. For me, I'm always on the lookout for a really good knockout ending. And the earlier I can find it,
00:31:54
Speaker
the better because to me it's like planting a lighthouse way out in the distance and it's like okay now I have I have something to orient my horizon or like you know my my navigational equipment too and uh you know for you is that something that you're just attuned to I'm always on the lookout for and when you find it you're like oh awesome now I have I have a sight line now
00:32:16
Speaker
Yeah, I would say my favorite things to do were to find the openings and endings of chapters. And then I felt like, okay, I have my starting point and I have my ending point. And all I got to do is just follow the journey from point A to point B. And that was probably what kind of, whenever I was creating a chapter, I would usually think about, okay, how am I going to open it?
00:32:45
Speaker
what scene, because I always like to open a chapter with a scene as much as I can. And that would also kind of get the juices flowing. So if I just picked a scene to start on, then I felt like, Oh, I've, I've, I've opened the door to this chapter. It's not so intimidating to me now, you know, I have my opening. So all I have to do is just keep going.
00:33:09
Speaker
Yeah, and sometimes what happens too is merely you might not feel like you have enough research, let's say, to carry the day, carry the chapter, or certainly carry a certain significant portion of the book, but you start writing anyway. And when you're writing,
00:33:25
Speaker
I like I liken it towards to like laying down road over the course of laying down road you start to see where the potholes are and then those potholes tell you oh I can go to that person or maybe that newspaper or that search and Patch up that hole is that something you experienced?
00:33:43
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I would often leave the potholes in the chapters. I knew one section was going to occur, but I didn't know how I was going to get there. I would just put stars or some kind of placeholder in there.
00:34:06
Speaker
go flush out the section that I knew I needed to set to flush out. And then I would go back to it. However, I would say it did catch up with me if you remember towards the end when I realized that certain sections still needed to be finished. Those were often the sections that I realized, oh, I hadn't properly done a transition between this section and the last section. So while it did help me, you know,
00:34:33
Speaker
keep things moving forward, it was kind of those last potholes were probably the hardest to fill in towards the end. Yeah, and I've been building in redundancies into my whole process here, and that requires, okay, as I'm writing, I'm also reading and rereading my transcripts and my omnibus spreadsheet
00:35:00
Speaker
And I know invariably I'm going to have forgotten to put something in. And I'm going to be so familiar, my hope, with the manuscript as I start to read it, all my transcripts that it's just like, oh, wait, I didn't use that thing. And now I'm going to backfill it over here. But it's like a kind of a constant circle of redundancy to make sure I don't miss anything. Did you experience something of that nature as well? Yeah.
00:35:26
Speaker
Absolutely. In fact, speaking of things that I should have put in, I went back and looked at some transcripts recently just curious about something and I stumbled upon a really great quote that I was I was thinking, man, I could have put that in too. So just goes to show that books are, you know,
00:35:43
Speaker
They're never quite done, even though we are forced to finish them. There's hundreds of roads that you could take to finish the book. I'm trying not to put too much pressure on myself for it being perfect.
00:36:03
Speaker
Like I said, there are so many different details you could have added. Would it have made or broken the book? I don't think so. It just would have been a different, unique detail. But ultimately, I think the bulk of the stories are there. And yeah, I'm still finding stuff that... Because I had so much...
00:36:24
Speaker
interview transcript to go through. I tried to highlight and remember the sections, but when you have so much material, stuff just inevitably falls through the cracks.
00:36:34
Speaker
Yeah, and my friend Bronwyn Dickey, when I talk to her sometimes just about various book angst over the course of the project, she's very quick to say not to put too much pressure on yourself. Don't think about writing the definitive book. Just know that your book right now is
00:36:54
Speaker
Is just along a river like you you're the next one in line Or you're just standing on the shoulders of whoever came behind you and then someone down the road might be standing on your shoulders and they'll find new stuff and stuff so just write like the the best you can and in the current moment and Stop trying to put the pressure on yourself to be the definitive Biography of so-and-so and that kind of takes the pressure off. I think
00:37:22
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I would be remiss not to mention that, you know, this book would not have been possible if it hadn't been for the people, the chroniclers who came before me. You know, there have been so many great biographies and histories that have been done on this time period, autobiographies from some of the astronauts themselves. And so, yeah, it's just I just kind of see the six as one chapter in a long line of chapters about this era in
00:37:52
Speaker
the space program.
00:37:55
Speaker
And some of the, like one of the more bonkers facts that came out, just in reading the book too, just something I had highlighted, it was like, it took just, you know, when a shuttle was in flight, it took them just eight and a half minutes to cross the entire Atlantic Ocean. And it just like blows my mind the sheer speed that they're hitting up there. It's just, it blows my mind half of the, like all of this stuff really.
00:38:24
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that's most, most launches to get to orbit usually happened in under 10 minutes. So, you know, it's just, and I hope that that is stuff that people take away. One thing I pride myself on as a journalist,
Space Travel Insights
00:38:40
Speaker
As a space journalist is explaining space in a way that people can understand and helping them to learn new things and not make it feel intimidating for them. I feel like space can be a little scary for folks just because it seems so technical and lofty pun intended.
00:39:02
Speaker
I hope that I write, I was really trying to write in a way that made it accessible for people. And, you know, it's really hard because when I mentioned it in the book, these people talk in acronyms, they don't actually talk in like,
00:39:17
Speaker
You or I, it's an engineer speak and it's easy to fall on those acronyms. So I was constantly trying to, you know, I couldn't avoid all of the acronyms, but I did try to check myself constantly to make sure I was explaining things in a way that, you know, an average reader could pick up on.
00:39:38
Speaker
Yeah, and there are moments too where you explain, you know, the shuttle launches itself and how there is that moment where the shuttle tilts backwards and it's very disoriented. They feel like they're going to fall back and fall off the launch pad, but that is a totally normal part of a liftoff.
00:39:56
Speaker
And that was something I learned myself, uh, through this reporting process. You know, I have a background with the shuttle, but mostly as a child of NASA engineers. Uh, so while I did know some of these facts going in, a lot of this was learning for myself as well. So when I learned about the twang, as it were, um,
00:40:16
Speaker
I was enamored with that. I was constantly watching videos of it, trying to learn more about it. And I had to explain it because I thought that was just so incredible. What a wild trick of the space shuttle to just kind of leap off the pad like that. I encourage you to go watch a video of it. It's really something else.
00:40:36
Speaker
So during the edit here and in hearing Lauren just say, you got to go watch that video.
Challenger Disaster Reflections
00:40:42
Speaker
So I go to YouTube and I go space shuttle twang and it is spectacular. You see it rock and then the engines fire up. And if you're wearing good headphones, just listen to the sheer.
00:40:58
Speaker
Heavy metal force of those boosters. Holy shit. Go do it. Do yourself a favor. Go do it now. Just do it. You're listening to this on your phone. Go look it up. Yeah, there's another moment where you describe, I believe, I don't know if they were in, gosh, I don't know if they were taking off or it was reentry or whatever, but you had written a small particle that penetrated partly into the window pane and now my Kindle just shut off.
00:41:28
Speaker
creating a tiny impact crater and it's just like this bitty bitty little thing you know the size of a thumbtack or something could like spell catastrophe and it's just you get a sense of how little these things are that can lead to just total disaster.
00:41:47
Speaker
Right. And it's the same way for space today. You know, space debris has only gotten worse in recent years. And it's something that the astronauts in the International Space Station deal with on a constant basis. They're constantly maneuvering the ISS out of the way of
00:42:04
Speaker
a suspected space debris, just in case it doesn't penetrate. And there have been various leaks on board the ISS. Granted, we're trying to figure out the source of those leaks, but it's possible they could be debris or micrometeoroids. And so it's a constant concern. And it's just a reminder that these vehicles aren't just floating in space. They're moving upwards of 17,500 miles per hour.
00:42:30
Speaker
And there's a moment about midway through the book where you really foreshadow the Challenger explosion by just dropping in this little grace note of O-rings and how important they are toward the integrity of the vessel.
00:42:46
Speaker
and you know you just kind of leave it there and i'm just like okay like that i feel like that's going to echo later and sure enough it does and i wondered at what point did you know you were going to say drop that there was it like an early drafts or was it something you were like oh in a rewrite you're like oh let's put this here because it's going to echo later i think it was
00:43:08
Speaker
going through the Challenger or the Rogers investigation, the Rogers Commission investigation, when I was learning, because I had known some of these facts, but not in depth. And so when I was going through the Challenger information, and I was learning about these things that had happened on previous flights, and when I found out
00:43:37
Speaker
It was very early days of archival or of research. And when I was looking through the Rogers Commission Report and I saw that STS-41D was one of the flights that had this abnormal behavior of the O-rings. And then I looked at it further and don't quote me, but I think it was what the first time they had blow by, right? Or where the first ring had just completely let gases through.
00:44:06
Speaker
I just thought, wow, what an awful, you know, tragic coincidence that that happened on Judy's flight. And yeah, it was, it was really once I was kind of diving deep into that part of the research that I was like, you know, I think it's important to foreshadow this here in her chapter because it is going to play a significant role later on.
00:44:30
Speaker
Yeah, and I didn't know that Judy Resnick was on the Challenger mission in 1986, I guess it would have been.
Sally Ride's Legacy
00:44:40
Speaker
And I was wondering, what role the Challenger explosion might play in this book as I was kind of going through the timeline of how the book was unfolding.
00:44:52
Speaker
all right there hasn't we we're not in 1986 yet and then all of a sudden like certain missions are getting punted and then down the road and then all of a sudden we're in 86 i'm like okay i think it's gonna it's and definitely with that o-ring thing i'm like okay how are we gonna get there and then sure enough one of the six happens to be on that terrible terrible flight and it's just like i i wonder for you like when you you know you're on a collision course with that that moment you know how are you thinking about it as you're looking to retail it
00:45:23
Speaker
Yeah, I actually put off that section for a really long time just because knowing what was coming and how tragic it was, it was just very difficult to put yourself in those final moments with them.
00:45:38
Speaker
Um, because they do, they do, there is a transcript that explains, you know, some of the things they were saying before, you know, they launched or yeah, while they launched. And, you know, it's just knowing what's about to happen to them was really awful. And so, yeah, it just.
00:45:57
Speaker
It was I hate to say it this way. It was an easy section to write because there was all of this detail. But at the same time, I wanted to make sure I did it justice and, you know, handled it delicately.
00:46:12
Speaker
And so that I just kept skipping over that part. In fact, I started I started the part of the reactions of the other five women well before I wrote about the challenger, you know, the lead up to the challenger accident itself because I felt more comfortable.
00:46:30
Speaker
in their reactions because they were so vivid and they remember them so well. Those were those moments that were kind of like those flashbulb moments that they, like everybody in the astronaut corps remembers exactly where they were when Challenger happened. So everyone has a really vivid memory of that moment. So that I felt much more comfortable in and the lead up to Challenger itself was definitely a difficult portion to dive into.
00:46:57
Speaker
And of course, Sally Ride becomes the first American woman to be on a space mission and go to outer space. Maybe speak about the blessing and the curse that that was for any of the six, but specifically for Sally.
00:47:17
Speaker
It really was. I mean, that is you described it so well. It is a blessing. It was a blessing and a curse in a lot of ways. I think all of the women were competitive. And so they all were in a competitive group. The 35 new guys that they were the group of astronauts they were in. And so they're even if they didn't want to go first, they certainly wanted to fly as soon as they could. So, you know, grappling with that and not being
00:47:45
Speaker
not being able to fly as soon as possible was probably difficult for some of them. And so for Sally, the blessing was that, you know, she got to fly before most of her coworkers and she got to go into training. Uh, but then, you know, there's.
00:48:02
Speaker
Much of her chapter, it's why I have really two chapters about her, the lead up to her flight and then the flight and the aftermath, because most of it, you know, when she came back to earth, that protective barrier that she had when she was training really disappeared and she had to, you know,
00:48:22
Speaker
really deal with the public kind of wanting a piece of her. And NASA was kind of obliged or they were open to sharing Sally with everyone because they wanted to celebrate this great achievement. So they would often encourage her to do these talks, accept these invitations and whatnot.
00:48:43
Speaker
But over time, it really became very burdensome for her, especially as an introvert and someone who didn't really seek the spotlight for much of her life. She wound up seeking therapy for it.
00:48:59
Speaker
at one point. But it also did shape the rest of her life. Through becoming the first American woman in space, she met lots of children. And she realized that working with children and inspiring children and young girls really was something she wanted to dedicate her life to. And so that's ultimately what led her to create Sally Ride Science, that nonprofit through UC San Diego.
00:49:25
Speaker
So while it was this kind of tumultuous time in her life, it really did end up shaping the latter part of her life and directing her on her chosen path.
Space Crew Selection
00:49:39
Speaker
and maybe give us a sense of the puzzle of sending a crew of whatever it is, five to six people into outer space and the chemistry it takes to make sure that that is as harmonious a group as possible.
00:49:58
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that still is a bit of a mystery in terms of each individual crew. I think when they came to selecting the astronauts for the program, one of the key traits that they were looking for was team players, obviously, just because these crews were going to be much bigger than crews of the past.
00:50:21
Speaker
And also they were looking for people who were interested in a diverse range of fields. So for instance, Sally was both an astrophysicist and a tennis player and that kind of combination was something that the selection board really
00:50:39
Speaker
favored because it showed that she, you know, was well rounded and could work in various different fields. And for this role, this mission specialist role that they were recruiting for, you know, that those astronauts had to wear lots of different hats. You know, they were either going to be working on experiments, they were going to be deploying satellites, working with different types of payloads. So it was very important to them to find people that
00:51:09
Speaker
You know we're interested in and stuff beyond their own chosen profession and then additionally I this is the part I loved a lot you know it was the trait of patience was very important and I think it's it's a reminder that astronauts
00:51:28
Speaker
you know they spend very little amount of time actually in space most of their time is spent on the ground preparing to go to space helping others go to space and so it's very key to find people that they thought were willing to wait
00:51:43
Speaker
and wouldn't, you know, just up and quit when they didn't get the selection that they wanted. And so all those traits combined, I think is what they were looking for when they first were selecting people. And then the hope was, you know, they found the right people that could be mixed and matched for each mission so that they could really create all sorts of different crews whenever the astronauts were on board.
00:52:11
Speaker
Now, as we kind of, you know, sort of our conversation coming to a close, running out of time, I need to get your impressions and your on the ground insights for when you flew zero G. I watched that video and I was like, nope, nope, not, I don't have the stomach to fly from Eugene to Seattle, let alone do what you did there.
00:52:40
Speaker
Um, I, I would say if anyone has the opportunity to do that, it's, it is expensive. I will say, um, okay. Well, Lauren ain't kidding. It is expensive. The zero G experience five hours, approximately 15 parabolas. Look it up. $9,070 US dollars. So start saving up your allowance.
00:53:09
Speaker
But it was such a great experience, and it really is the very smallest taste of space that you can get without actually leaving the atmosphere. So I really enjoyed it. If I ever have the chance to go again, I'd 100% do it. Definitely felt a little nauseous toward the end. I think my body was like, OK, that's enough.
00:53:34
Speaker
I did not throw up, so I did not live up to the vomit comet name, but it was an incredible experience. Yeah, watching you go through that, I was like, oh boy. What's trippy is that they're able to simulate the Mars gravity, lunar gravity, and then zero gravity. So that must have been pretty wild too, be like, OK, this is interplanetary in a way. Yeah, absolutely.
00:54:03
Speaker
What are your thoughts on commercial spaceflight of the SpaceX and the Virgin Galactic and Blue or whatever the hell Bezos' thing is? What's your feeling on that these days?
00:54:20
Speaker
Well, I just, all I like to say is that it's a very exciting time to be a space reporter. As you mentioned, there are numerous companies working to send people to space or send new payloads to space or try and, you know, create new machines or new capabilities that we'd never even dreamed of, you know, many years ago. So, uh, definitely keeps me on my toes. There's, you know, spaced the space industry is an industry like any other.
00:54:50
Speaker
in the U.S. So just like the tech industry, there's all sorts of promises and there's all sorts of wild speculation and it's our job to kind of wade through that and have a measured take on what actually is happening, what's realistic, and also to keep an eye on companies behaving badly and how they treat their employees and things of that nature.
00:55:16
Speaker
Just as these companies expand and as the space industry expands, there's just plenty to focus on and it's going to keep me on my toes for a very long time.
00:55:28
Speaker
I'm kind of glad you brought that up, because, yeah, I'm primarily a sports writer. And so it's like, I'm sure a lot of people from the outside looking in might say like, oh, covering the World Series or Super Bowl, that must be great. But like 99% of it is like a lot of munitions, a lot of boring stuff. And especially if you're like a small peanut sports writer like I am, oftentimes it's like covering very small local things, but also keeping your eye on various other non-glorious, unglorious, inglorious things.
00:55:57
Speaker
So for you too, a space shuttle launch is like, that's kind of a big deal, but 99% of your job is focusing labor issues in space, I imagine.
00:56:09
Speaker
Yeah, I actually say that just kind of like with the astronauts and how going to space for them is such a small part of their job. Going to space or covering going to space is such a small part of my job. I feel like a lot of it is the buildup toward these missions, the promise of new missions and how that has an impact on the future of space travel moving forward.
00:56:37
Speaker
Yeah, going to space is such a small part of it. I mean, it's definitely becoming a bigger and bigger part of it as we go to space more and more. But, you know, in terms of the things that we report on on a daily basis, launches are kind of a small, small part of that.
00:56:51
Speaker
Very nice. Well, Lauren, as I bring these conversations down for a landing, I always love asking the guests, you in this case, for a recommendation of some kind for the listeners. And that can just be anything you're excited about that you'd want to share with them and maybe have them experiment with.
00:57:08
Speaker
Oh, gosh. Well, I guess I'll bring it back to space. One thing I like to talk about with promoting the book is, you know, it's a great time to be thinking about women in the astronaut program because NASA is looking to go back to the moon with its Artemis program. And one of the stated goals of that program is to send the first woman and the first person of color to the surface of the moon.
00:57:33
Speaker
through Artemis. They've set a very ambitious deadline of 2025. I don't think anyone thinks that's realistic, but it is something that they're actively working toward. And so it will be a great, it's a great program to follow, especially for a reporter. And so I think over the in the coming years, there's going to be a lot of really exciting milestones for both people to cover and to witness on the ground.
Social Media Rant
00:57:59
Speaker
Your next book, question mark? I am taking the rest of the year to relax and have the one job. You know, I like to say I was working two to three jobs there for a while, so I'll just do the one job for now. And then we'll see, you know, next year I think we'll bring some change. I don't know what the change is, but we'll see if a book is part of it.
00:58:28
Speaker
Cool man. Cool dude. Thanks to Lauren for coming on the show. That was awesome. Name of the book, again, is the sixth, the untold story of America's first women astronauts. Lauren and I share the same agent. Wouldn't you know?
00:58:45
Speaker
In the intro, I teased a riff about how threading or tweeting or just social media in general is no substitute for the work. It can feel like work and that you fool yourself into thinking it's all about the brand or the platform building. It's a waste of your time if you think that's gonna get you published. Getting good at the threads will not land you the book deal you want.
00:59:13
Speaker
It's not gonna sell books. The constant barrage of people trying to hawk their shit on social media. I mean, I guess it builds awareness in the same way you drive by a billboard, even though you're never gonna go call that attorney or get, you know, dental implants from that guy, but you see him all the time. Here's the only way you're gonna sell books. All right, take it from someone who has not sold a lot of books.
00:59:40
Speaker
Make something so good that other people talk about it. Write a book so good that I buy it, but I also buy three extra copies from my friends. Let the readers talk amongst themselves on social media. You don't need to be there. Let the readers hang out there, because you're too busy writing another book.
01:00:01
Speaker
But how do I let people know it even exists? Well, you can do in-person things. Ideally, you've spent years cultivating a newsletter base of people who genuinely want to hear from you directly. They subscribed to things that you're doing. They're into you. You're not trying to just spam them with a thread.
01:00:21
Speaker
I'm not suggesting you don't post on social about your book or an event, but maybe consider posting nine times about someone else and once about you.
01:00:33
Speaker
And maybe don't do these god-awful performative things of your writing routine and just maybe write a book that begs to be shared. I hate the pictures of people that clearly like lean their phone like across the room to get a picture of them like staring contemplatively at their computer, at their laptop.
01:00:57
Speaker
And it just comes across as so phony. Don't turn your life into this curated reality show to prove how authentic you are and when in fact it ends up just doing the opposite. Do what you set out to do. That was just like published writing. Expressing your thoughts in a way that is of service or at least entertaining to a readership. This is how people then seek you out.
01:01:20
Speaker
I mean, Gabrielle Zevan, she's not on social media, but she is a writer who people want to read. This is how you grow an audience without the algorithm. All social media ends the same. It all slouches towards the same endgame eventually. But you, you can be timeless. Be searchable, be seek-outable. It's slower.
01:01:47
Speaker
It will feel like it's not working. As Seth Godin says, drip by drip, that bucket does fill up over time. Another analogy, another metaphor. It's like crock pot cooking versus fast food. You know which one has more depth of flavor.
01:02:03
Speaker
your reputation will grow as an inverse relationship to the time you spend on social media. I'm telling you, you want people to know you as a great writer, not because you dunked on someone on threads or Twitter and got more likes. That stuff just gets washed away in the ocean of the infinite scroll. But a book, a documentary, a movie, an essay, a podcast,
01:02:32
Speaker
These are pieces of work that ideally have meaning in staying power.
Episode Sign-Off
01:02:37
Speaker
Don't lose sight of that. Stay wild, CNFers. If you can't do, interview. See ya.
01:03:08
Speaker
you