Three ... Two ... One ... Liftoff ... No matter how good a story you tell, people are captivated by real world accomplishment.

I ask myself, have I done all that I can for my country and for my family?

As the first Black American to be on the International Space Station for a long duration of time, how do you think of those upon whose shoulders we stand?

Your mom and I talked a lot about what this was going to be like.

I was scared for you.

Were you ever scared?

There's always the what if.

I have fantasized about stepping on the Moon.

It's my dream.

My dream is to work on the surface of the and being able to launch humans from American soil is a very big part of that.

[Rocket engines roar] Title: The Color of Space He's a naval aviator and test pilot that's flown over 40 different aircraft, your Artemis II pilot, Victor Glover!

[Applause] I'm looking forward to to whatever facet this Artemis II takes on.

I'm Victor Glover - NASA Astronuat, Navy commander, husband, father, big brother, and son.

[applause] TEXT: Glover will make history as the first Black astronaut around the Moon The benefits of the Artemis program are technological, but they're also cultural.

What really means something to me is the inspiration that will come from it ... inspiring future generations to reach for the Moon, literally to reach for the Moon.

That baton has been passed generation to generation and from crew member to crew member.

I think I speak for all of us.

I want to thank our families for the amazing support.

It's your love and support that has made this journey possible.

[applause] What does family mean?

It's definitely important.

I'm not a an adrenaline junkie or looking for extreme experiences out in my real life because my work life is is so chock full of those things that I like to just sit, read a book and have quiet moments and spend time with my kids.

[Military aircraft takes off] Having been in the Navy for 22 years, it's definitely been a family adventure.

I've deployed several times in the Navy on an aircraft carrier.

And we had kids every time.

A different amount of kids each time.

Spending time with my family is the most enjoyable thing that I get to do.

What inspired me?

My parents.

I was born out of wedlock.

I didn't live with my mom and my dad at the same time, but they both cared about me becoming the best person I could mentally, physically and spiritually.

I was in fifth grade and we had a program called MESA - Mathematics, Engineering and Science Achievement.

What got me into it was building cars powered by mousetraps.

Building bridges out of popsicle sticks and balsa wood.

But our adviser, his name was Mr. Hargrove.

And he said to me, he said, you know, if you work hard, you would be a great engineer.

His belief in me made me think that I could do it.

I'm 45 now.

I've got three engineering degrees because of Mr. Hargrove telling me that in fifth grade.

[Shuttle engines firing] The same time I saw a shuttle launch on television.

Astronaut was not even on my radar.

I just thought to myself, I want to drive that thing.

I want to drive that thing.

Roger, roll Atlantis.

I went to college, was fortunate to wrestle in college while pursuing my engineering education.

And so that experience impacted what I thought I wanted to do as a professional.

I really enjoyed engineering academically, but I wasn't sure I was ready to just work on design.

I wanted to use those designs, and so being an operator and being out doing things was important to me.

And one of my mentors, I'm in his office waiting for him to come in.

He's one of the few Black faculty members at my university, and he comes into the room and as he steps in, he is in this full regalia, the black suit with the gold around the wrists and the hat.

And and I was like, “Wow, sir, when did you enlist?” And he said, “I'm actually an officer in the Navy Reserves.” Boom.

The next version of what I could become.

And that to me was there's so many lessons I pulled from that.

But the power of exposure and seeing yourself in something.

My name is Connor Clinkscale.

I'm 15 years old.

I enjoy aviation and space and I look forward to being a pilot for NASA one day.

This is where I take flight lessons and I get flight hours.

People other than my friends don't really know much about what I do.

As much as I grind to train for my missions, I am also looking for my replacement in order to ensure that I have a replacement, I need a pool of young people like Connor.

The first time when I met Victor was in October 2015 and I was seven years old.

I think that's really cool that he's going to be on one of the first missions back to the moon in 50 years.

A few role models in my life are definitely my parents.

Charlie Bolden and Victor Glover.

I admire Victor Glover because he's audacious.

I think that they're definitely role models for me because they show me that my dreams are possible.

[airplane propellor sounds] All of these shirts are from people who soloed for the first time and I'll be soloing on my birthday which is in May.

My parents took me to DC, to the Udvar-Hazy space center where I first saw the Space shuttle Discovery.

And I was really little.

I was standing at about like half the size of the front tire, and I asked my parents if I could fly it today.

My mom told me that I could definitely fly it one day.

[cockpit audio] I thought to myself, if I learned to fly this plane, surely I could fly the space shuttle one day.

I think that is very important and motivating to see people who look like you.

And it's important for people to see a version of themselves.

[Sounds of an airplane] [music fades] I joined the Navy in college because of representation, seeing a Black Reserve officer on my campus and I'm finishing my combat tour and I go to test pilot school.

I go into test pilot school and we as a class, have to go to a conference.

And at this conference, the keynote speaker is Pam Melroy who is, I believe, the second female shuttle commander, She tells the story about the cufflinks.

That's they use the cufflinks.

On my command flight STS-120, we had a problem.

While we were unfolding a solar array on the International Space Station, it ripped.

And that was a very, very serious crisis for the station.

The solution was a set of so-called cufflinks, which were really just a way to stitch up the solar array and make sure that it had structural integrity.

It was an extraordinarily dangerous spacewalk.

It was really the pinnacle of my experience.

And she tells that story.

And that's the day I decided, all right, I'm throwing an application in.

We'll never forget my first meeting with Victor.

He introduced himself to me.

He told me about hearing the story about the cufflinks.

He just had this extraordinarily thoughtful approach to things.

In about 3 minutes, I had it figured out that this was somebody who was probably going to be an astronaut.

Today, I'm pleased to announce that NASA has selected America's next generation of space explorers.

Women and men who are committed to ensuring that our nation leads the world in exploration.

I was sitting at my desk in the Russell Senate Office Building when I worked for John McCain, TEXT: Glover was assigned to the personal staff of John McCain in 2013 and I got a phone call from a Houston phone number and I grabbed my cell phone, I ran out in the hallway, and by the time I answered, I missed it.

[laughs] And so I called back.

I was transferred to Janet Kavandi, who was the chair of our board, and she asked me if I wanted to come to Houston.

These new astronauts we are introducing today will help us to continue to lead the world in exploration, Hey, Mr. Dixon.

[instrumental music] All right, that's great.

Chin up just a little bit, Christina.

Did you notice NASA's did something for the first time when they picked our class?

Our leadership decided generations ago that we were going to make an effort to make our science and technology workforce and our astronaut corps look like America.

If you just look at the picture, it doesn't look like it did when we started this.

The Mercury 7 were essentially all the same guy.

If you look at my class, there were four men and four women.

Never before done and hasn't been since repeated.

All right, here we go.

Training your first mission.

There's the basic competencies, I guess, flying T-38s, the high performance jet flying that we do ...

The NBL training, the diving in the full pressure suit, the spacesuit to train for spacewalks, As I've gotten to know Victor, he's an extraordinary pilot.

He's enormously technically competent, but also he takes that leadership aspect, that teamwork aspect so much to heart.

I'm very glad I kind of stumbled upon flying as a career.

But the other thing I love doing is working with students.

Being in a classroom is one of the most meaningful things I've ever done.

Even to this day.

I have to find myself.

You know, like sometimes having a lack of motivation, often telling myself I can't do something if something gets too difficult.

I see myself kind of like almost giving up.

How do y'all stay motivated?

One thing that I think about - it can also be the power to keep going.

I love thinking about the civil rights era and the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom They had bags in their hands.

They didn't make those sandwiches.

There was a party making sandwiches.

And then there was a different group of people that took the sandwiches to the people.

And then there was a different group of people directing them to get on the busses.

They were organized, right.

And that all that that work was done so you could sit in this seat.

And when you think about that, our legacy runs from the very beginning up to you right now is deep.

[off camera] It's deep, bro.

It's your job to keep going.

And sometimes that can seem like a burden, but it's also a privilege.

There's not always going to be somebody there to cheer you on.

So one, that's one of the important parts of learning and getting around groups of people like this that are diverse.

You learn and you add another facet.

You put another tool in the toolbox I am surrounded by love and support.

And it's humbling and overwhelming sometimes.

[soft music] I'm a father to four beautiful daughters, and even with a military career and being deployed.

And one thing that goes through my mind constantly at the end of a day is knowing that my wife and my children are safe.

[Broadcast audio] Today sending four astronauts into orbit Victor Glover, Mike Hopkins, Shannon Walker and Soichi Noguchi are flying on a six month mission to the International Space Station.

Of course, there have been more than a dozen Black Americans who've traveled to space prior to this, but it would be the first time an African-American has become a full time crew member on the International Space Station.

When I got assigned, my wife and I were actually on vacation and we had some time to just talk.

about what this meant for our family and what it meant for us individually.

Outside the O&C building, we have friends and family gathered there for final goodbyes prior to lift off This is, I think, what a lot of the folks that go to test pilot School dream of doing.

There aren't many opportunities to work on a new spacecraft.

My overriding thought when I envision us getting to that point is don't screw up.

It's one thing to know something intellectually, but another thing to feel it in your bones.

That ten ... nine ... eight ... seven ... Was the first - I'm like ... this is really about to happen.

I'm leaving the planet y'all!

And it this got real.

Liftoff!

[Launch sounds] And resilience rises.

Not even gravity contains humanity when we explore as one for all!

[music fades] [hum of Dragon capsule] The video just doesn't do it justice.

It is pretty amazing, though.

We have one member of our crew who does not have the appropriate accouterment for his uniform.

And so it's we're very [indecipherable] to be able to give Victor Glover his gold astronaut pin for passing 100 kilometers.

Congratulations.

Let us know if you are go for approach to and docking.

And there they are, first across the hatch, Mike Hopkins and here is Victor Glover.

[off camera] Marker two ... Mark it.

[off camera] There we go.

Should I just start questioning?

[off camera] Yep.

Yeah ...

I was scared for you.

Were you scared?

Like, were you ever scared?

Well scared is the wrong word to use.

I have a respect for these things.

Your whole life I've flown high performance aircraft, deployed on ships.

and those all have dangers and risks associated with them.

It makes me want to work very hard because I want to come back home to you all.

You told us about a launching of a different aircraft and it exploded like they didn't make it.

And that terrified me.

I learned that people train you for this stuff and they're there to make sure that doesn't happen.

So it made me feel a lot better.

But you know, there's always the what if.

I I have a respect for the things that I do and the risks that come with that.

The thing that I had the most discomfort or the biggest emotional response to was leaving you all.

[Music ends] [chanting] No justice!

No peace!

There was a lot that happened in the country while I was at space.

The trial the officers that murdered George Floyd was going on.

The verdict was rendered.

I actually took something really special with me, a painting of George Floyd that a friend of a friend made.

A vaccine for COVID-19 was developed ... and what happened on Capitol Hill.

I was in space during that time.

One of the most amazing things about his mission was that Stephanie [Wilson] organized a Zoom call for us all of the Black astronauts to talk to Victor.

Staying connected to things here on Earth is very important.

We had all these things that we were thinking about down here on the planet but having this connection with our brothers and family and people helped us all get through things.

This sense of family rallied together.

They called my family.

They called my wife to check on my kids.

Just knowing that they were checking on my family.

What matters most to me.

My goal in this entire endeavor was to make sure that it continued to be a family adventure, that they look back on this time with fondness and not as that, hey, that was that stressful period where her dad was gone a lot.

Flying the spaceship is one piece.

There's also the very important mission of being on the International Space Station.

We will conduct spacewalks to upgrade and keep the space station flying and healthy.

We will do maintenance inside to keep the space station running.

We will use that orbiting laboratory to conduct science or really to to do the hands on part of the science experiments that happen on space station.

[soft music] The crew would just all gather around the table.

We'd float around the table and pass food and snacks and tell stories about what worked, what didn't work, and talk about each other's families.

What did you think about our video conferences?

You remember what we did for most of them?

Yeah.

What?

Cherades.

I never felt like I had to go, “Come on, guys.

Dad's calling from space.” Because at some point, right, even it's still neat that that's Dad's calling from space, But like, after 167 days ... [feigned annoyance] “Dad's calling from space.” You know?

I don't think it was ever like that.

Like major, [feigned annoyance] “I don't want to go” because, Because you made a great impression the first time we played when you did escalator.

That was my high point.

My charades escalator was ... because you could just float.

Weightlessness, right?

I mean, you know, it was good.

And then we got it right away.

[laughter] Please stand by for the Vice President of the United States.

Victor, can you see me?

Can you hear me?

It's Vice President Kamala Harris.

I'm calling from the White House.

Madam Vice President, welcome to the International Space Station.

I understand you recently got some fresh air because you went on a spacewalk outside of the space station for the first time.

What was that like?

One of my colleagues said to me, to keep your world small, to focus on that thing right in front of you, and then slowly widen out that world view.

TEXT: Jan 27, 2021 Glover's spacewalk lasted for more than six hours.

Being able to really just stare out into space like 13 billion light years across.

That sounds big, but when you look and you can actually see down at the Earth, the sun comes up and you can see that beautiful color band of atmosphere and it's really small and you can see the earth, that curvature 8,000 miles across.

And then you look out there in that sun that I can feel warming my whole suit up is just one of all of these things out there, those stars.

It just really creates this, you know, wow.

As we think about the history that you are making as the first Black American, the first African-American to be on the international Space Station for a long duration of time.

I want to ask you, how do you think of those upon who shoulders we stand?

I think about that piece often.

Every astronaut or cosmonaut has ever done has led to us being here now and this special time.

I really appreciate that legacy.

And I try to work my hardest to honor it.

[Kids reacting to seeing the SLS rocket] [Group counting 3, 2, 1 ...] Really what I'm most excited about is the future of human spaceflight and the fact that this is going to be the future.

[music fades] When he first got interested in space, he was an astronaut for Halloween, but then he just kept wearing it.

[laughs] Well, he or he didn't call it a costume.

He called it his uniform.

I think that every parent feels in some shape, form or fashion that their child could potentially change the world.

What we really like to do is listen intently to our children.

We've started having conversations about the vastness of the universe and the vastness of space.

And when my husband pointed to the Moon and told Connor that there were actual footprints, there, Connor's response was, “How do I get there?” My family has always supported me.

They've always supported my dreams.

And what I wanted to do.

One reason that I really like flying is because of the overall experience.

The view is really cool.

It's really cool to see something from like a bird's eye view.

He doesn't even think about like, the impact that he has on people - young and not-so-young.

[applause] When I was on the stage with Victor Glover, I really felt like out of my space because there are a bunch of really cool, really accomplish astronauts that I really looked up to as a kid.

Connor wants to be an astronaut, but I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that he becomes one.

It's really, really cool that I can inspire others.

[Airplane engine running] [music fades] One of the most important things to your ability to achieve success is your understanding and definition of what success is.

So number one is to be gritty G-R-I-T-T-Y to be gritty, it means not quitting.

And the greatest challenges you'll ever experience are from within.

And if you cannot control these challenges, external challenges are no big deal.

Number two, be a lifelong learner.

Learning inside and outside the classroom.

Your ability to acquire skills is the thing that really is going to be so valuable to you in the future.

The last one is to be a good teammate.

It's the people to your left and your right because it takes the focus off of yourself.

I think this job highlights something that maybe several people deal with I've dealt with throughout my 22 years serving our country.

And there's these terms, I think, in psychology or sociology called imposter syndrome and survivor's guilt and being selected for this job, you you can't help but to think of I've got so many friends that I know could do this job well and that feeling of, wow, why didn't they get it?

And why they pick me?

That's the survivor's guilt piece.

And imposter syndrome is just, you know, feeling like you're not really good enough - cut out for the job.

And I felt all of those things.

I felt all of those things.

And I would say that that doubt being a father, a husband, all of those things come with doubt.

And my life hasn't been about trying to get rid of the doubt.

It's just trying to get comfortable with it and being able to still take one step at a time and be prepared for whatever's coming at you because anything you practice, you can get good at.

And so I think you have to learn to get comfortable with the doubt.

I think it is an incredible honor to just be a part of this legacy.

[crashing waves] We will be that next chapter that that continuation of continuous human presence.

And that is in an amazing responsibility and privilege.

All right, point your toes and let us know if you get stuck, or if you need any help.

Pushing ourselves to explore is just core to who we are.

[music builds] TITLE: The Color of Space [credits] We all share the same goal of achieving what we want in life.

To any young people that dream of accomplishing their goals, I would tell you everything about because God always has something in store for you and to dream big and definitely do bigger.

[credits]