Charlie Bolden and Victor Glover come together for a rare, cross-generational conversation that explores legacy, representation, and the human side of space exploration.

From growing up in segregated America to preparing for a historic mission around the Moon, their stories reveal what it truly takes to step into the unknown.

Bolden reflects on his journey from a childhood shaped by limited representation to becoming one of NASA’s first Black astronauts and later Administrator.

Glover, set to become the first Black astronaut to orbit the Moon on Artemis II, shares how curiosity, resilience, and unexpected moments shaped his path into spaceflight. Together, they highlight the importance of mentorship, visibility, and perseverance in building the future of space exploration.

This conversation explores identity, adversity, leadership, and the responsibility of representing humanity when leaving Earth.

In this episode you’ll discover:

• How Charlie Bolden overcame systemic barriers to become a trailblazer in human spaceflight.

• Why Victor Glover sees resilience, teamwork, and lifelong learning as essential traits for future astronauts.

• The role of representation in shaping ambition and why seeing someone like you in space can change everything.

• Behind-the-scenes stories of being selected as an astronaut and what those life-changing moments really felt like.

• How the NASA Space Shuttle programme expanded access to space beyond test pilots.

• The mindset required to navigate adversity, from discrimination to high-stakes decision making in elite environments.

• Why astronauts ultimately represent all of humanity, not just their country, when they leave Earth.

Quote:

“You don’t have to be number one. But you do have to know you’ve done the absolute best you can do.” — Charlie Bolden

00:00 Charlie Bolden's early life

06:08 Early inspirations and Naval Academy dreams

09:10 Encouragement to apply to NASA

11:33 Childhood adventures and exploration

15:49 How Shuttle opened space travel

17:05 Encouraging diversity in astronaut office

21:51 Getting the astronaut call

28:30 Struggling through Naval Academy life

31:42 Growing up

36:22 Visiting and speaking with troops

40:22 Importance of resilience and growth

41:26 Life lessons beyond the classroom

Executive Producer Toby Goodman Edited by Leo Hornak with Sound design by Lee Turner for Inter Astra, The Bolden Group and Kathy Sullivan

Hi, I'm astronaut Kathy Sullivan. This is a special episode of Astronauts, the second conversation between different generations of astronauts. Charlie Bolden is a remarkable man who has lived a remarkable life. When he was a child in South Carolina in the 1940s and 50s, racial segregation was still the law, part of daily life. Even in movie theaters, he and his family, like all black people, had to sit furthest from the screen, up in the balcony seats. And even in the decades that followed, American space exploration was seen as the preserve of white people. But as you'll hear, it takes a lot to hold Charlie Bolden back. As a former test pilot and one of NASA's first black astronauts, he has been an inspiration to many.

I'm also proud to call him a fellow space shuttle crew member. We flew together aboard discovery in 1990 and Atlantis in 1992. Charlie went on to become NASA's administrator, the head honcho during the Obama administration. And that still only scratches the surface of his many achievements. Next year, NASA will be launching Artemis ii, its first human piloted moon visit in decades. I spoke to one of the Artemis 2 crew members, Christina Koch, in our last episode. Also aboard Artemis 2 will be today's guest, Victor Ike Glover, another remarkable man, a naval pilot and an International Space Station veteran. And with Artemis ii, Victor is set to be the first black astronaut to orbit the moon.

And as you'll hear, Charlie Bolden is one of Victor's role models. Charlie and Victor's conversation was hosted by astronauts producer Leo Hornack.

Charlie, what would you be thinking of when Victor rounds the moon?

Ooh,

I wish I were there. You know, parents live vicariously through their kids. I live vicariously through Victor and his crew right now because, you know, I'm going to be in the cockpit with them in spirit and just trying to imagine what it must look like having been in Earth orbit. That is nothing like what I think they're going to experience. And so I'm going to, I'm going to be with him and I'm going to be saying, you know, keep on keeping on, just don't forget us back here.

Victor, how does it feel to hear

that, you know, one of the best things about being selected as an astronaut is being able to just be amongst this group. You know, if you took all the pieces that make this thing up, the science and the engineering, the machines we get to use, the people we get to work with, the best thing is that you just get to be in that picture. But also, you know what else popped into my head, Charlie? We don't Have a backup now, you know NASA hasn't assigned a backup.

I know, I know.

You're qualified. You're qualified. So, you know, come on, come on, go with us. You know, but, but ho. You know, you will be there in spirit. And so, you know, I tell you, I. I'm never going to tell someone what I might say, being there, you know, looking at the moon up close in the earth, from far away. But I will promise you this.

When I come back, anyone who wants to have a conversation, I would love to tell you what it looked like. And I would love to tell you something else. I had an astronaut pull me aside and said, a lot of. You're going to take a lot of pictures. Everybody's going to talk about what it looks like. It was Tony Antonelli put his arm on my shoulder and we were looking at the moon. He said, I want you to tell me what it feels like.

Yeah.

And I guarantee you this, Lord willing, I'm going to sit down with Charlie and try to share as much of what that felt like. You know, if this all ends successfully.

Charlie, do you remember what your first impressions of Victor were? How did you first meet?

Yeah, in fact, you know, I was gonna start by asking Victor to try to review for me because it's been quite a while. I think I met Victor when he was a student, but I'm not sure. So, Victor, let me ask you the question. When do you recall was the very first time we met?

You know, I think you were speaking somewhere and I had a chance to see you speak. So I think I may have shaken your hand at like maybe a National Society of Black Engineers conference, and you were the keynote speaker. And I think I had a chance to shake your hand. But then years later I would go into the Navy, finish flight school, and I went over and I just introduced myself and I just, and said, hey, Lieutenant Junior Grade Glover going through the F18 training squadron here. And I'll tell you, that may be the most important stepping out on faith that I've ever done. And it was, it was such a good thing.

Charlie, if I could just jump in. What, what made Victor stand out when you first kind of became aware of him?

Oh, there is no question. There are a lot of people who are very confident but, but don't exactly know how to, you know how to, how to exhibit it in an acceptable manner. And I think I remember mentioning to him then how, how excited I was because he had ended a 20. What was it, Vic, about a 26 year drought when having black Pilots for the space shuttle program. And he and I made a pledge, pledge at that time that we would do everything in our power to make sure that that did not happen again.

Could I. Could I take Charlie back to your childhood for a minute? Yeah. And what were your first memories of space and the idea of space exploration?

My first memories of space and space exploration were all science fiction. They were because I did not grow up with the desire to be an astronaut. And I think, you know, you're going to find that there are. Because of eras in which Victor and I grew up. There's probably going to be a little difference in what we aspired to do. I grew up in the segregated south in Columbia, South Carolina, and we got an opportunity to go to the local theater on the weekends. That was the only time we were allowed to go. And we sat in the balcony and they always had a western and a science fiction movie.

And usually the science fiction movies were my favorite because it was generally Buck Rogers. So I fell in love with Buck Rogers. And it's also the thing that made me think about Mars way back when I was a kid, because Buck Rogers would walk out to his spacecraft, walk in just like he was getting on a bus. They'd fly off to Mars, and they'd come back in the same day. I didn't know any difference. You know, I didn't know any better. So I thought about that, but not in a way that I said, one of these days, I'm going to do that. I became attracted to the Naval Academy at the age of 12, decided that that's where I really wanted to go to school and went through all the aches and pains of figuring how to get there, and finally got an appointment to the Naval Academy.

You know, when I graduated in 1964, we had already been to space and I got to watch Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon. When I was in flight school, I was actually in Meridian, Mississippi, and we hustled into the Officers Club on a Sunday, I think it was a Sunday night, and sat before this grainy black and white TV to see that. I was enthralled by it, but. But still not any desire whatsoever to go to space. So that it's a long journey for me to get to the point where I even thought about going to space.

And, you know, at any of those key points, you know, just as a child watching Buck Rogers and then later, when you're a young man watching the Apollo, was there any sense of any kind of diversity or representation happening in those presentations of space zero.

Well, you, you may not be able to see this, but my fingers are going zero. There was, there was another. That was the. You know, I hate to admit it, but in my early days I fell victim to. If I did not see any representation, then I believed I could not do that. I'm not like some, some other people who are some people. Sometimes you hear the term self made, and I don't think anybody is. But anyway, you see people who, in spite of the fact that they, there is no one who looks like them or talks like them or anything else, they decide they're going to go do that.

Dr. Mae Jemison, who was the first African American woman to come into the astronaut office, you know, May was one of these people who, who did not have. She didn't need anybody, any example for her. She just decided she was going to be the first black woman to go to space. And she did it for me. I actually had to be embarrassed into applying for the space program. I, I met the late, great Dr. Ron McNair.

And he was in his first year as an astronaut candidate. He came to a place that Victor knows well. He was talking about on his way to visit there from the Air Force Test Pilot School, Patuxent River, Maryland. And I met Ron one weekend during a test pilot school reunion. And I was just mesmerized listening to him talk about what was going on in his first year of astronaut candidacy. And I was extra mesmerized because he was black like me. He had grown up about 42 miles from me in a place called Lake City, South Carolina. And Ron, like many others, had dreamed of becoming an astronaut as a real young child.

Had taught himself calculus and physics in order to be able to go to North Carolina A and T, major in physics and graduate with honors and then go to MIT and get his doctorate. But I sat there mesmerized by Ron. And when he got ready to go back to Houston, he asked me if I was going to apply for the space program. And I said, no, I'm not on your life, not even. And he looked at me real strange and he said, why not? I said, rod, they never picked me. And he paused for a minute and looked me right in the eye and he said, you know, that is the dumbest thing I ever heard. How do you know if you don't ask? And I don't think I had to tell Victor that the first time we met and talked about the space program. But I think I did encourage him to, no matter what, apply because you know, that's the only way you get into, into things.

Nobody's going to walk down the street and tap you on the shoulder and say, hey, I'm looking for a young man like you to become an astronaut. So Ron embarrassed me into applying, and fortunately for me, I was able to get selected to interview and then selected. So representation, I have learned through the years is critically important. And I think that's one of the other things that makes me so proud every time I see Victor, because he was superb in performing on his six months on the International Space Station. We had never had a black astronaut spend that much time in space, first of all, so to it. I'm not sure the rest of us knew what that would be like, but he did it, so. So representation is mean, means an awful lot. And, and every time I see him, particularly now as he's.

He and his crew are preparing be the, the first in more than 50 years to go to even get close to the moon. That's a big deal. And he wears that responsibility incredibly well.

And Victor, just to throw the same question to you. What about your early memories of the idea of space and space travel? Where was that coming from?

Wow. You know, it's interesting to be training for the moon. I think about the moon a lot, and so I'll start there. I think my earliest memories, I did not have a parent who graduated from college. They encouraged me and supported me in doing that, but I didn't have a parent who graduated from college. I didn't have friends, parents who were engineers and doctors and scientists. And so the term astronaut was not in my lexicon. I didn't have that to say I want to be one.

But at 10 years old, some really interesting things happened. I was an adventurer. I took my tent and there was a piece of my tent that I would put up in my grandfather's backyard. It was the rainfly I know now, but back then it looked like a parachute. And I would take that, tie it to my belt and jump off the roof and try to fly. And so I had this fascination with flight and the sky and stars and, and I, I think exploration, I wouldn't have used that term back then, but I'd go off into the woods and collect bugs and draw pictures of what I saw. And when I read about explorers on the ocean or in, on, on, on land doing those kinds of things, I think I was an early explorer and a little bit reckless, but I survived. But one of the most vivid icons from my childhood is the moon looking up at the moon and seeing that, there's something about that.

It has texture. And then over years going, hey, it's that same texture. And I actually, you know, some people see a face, some people see a rabbit. And I don't know why the rabbit is what stuck with me. I think that's a popular Chinese culture tradition that the rabbit and the rocking. A rabbit in the moon. And I saw a rabbit, but a rabbit in a rocking chair, it looked like a rabbit rocking forward really fast and the ears were flying back. And so that image has stuck with me to this day.

I still, I still see that. And it's really interesting to me. All those years, that's the same image. I look up Now, I'm almost 50 years old, and I still see the same thing. And now your child. My knees, my knees and my back don't always feel my shoulder actually these days. But that spacesuit is hard on your shoulders. But that's, you know, it's in.

It came from a lot of places, and I think the moon is maybe the one icon that has persisted through it all. And so it is just such to say, you know, I don't want to overuse that word, but a blessing, serendipity, providence, to now be training for a mission where we're going to get to see the moon up close. And equally interesting to see the Earth from afar. Wow. Wow, what a thought. And so, but. But it was not because I wanted to be an astronaut. I was just fascinated.

And around 10 years old, two other interesting things happened. I saw a space shuttle launch on TV and just thought, I want to drive that machine. I want to. I want to be in one of those. Humans are leaving the planet. What a concept.

And.

And then also I lived in Southern California, but we moved to Texas. And I lived near Dallas when the Challenger tragedy happened. And I remember thinking, that's sad. You know, I'm from Pomona. I don't know if you know much about Pomona, but not far from Los Angeles. Drive by, shootings, gangs. That was my background every day. And so, to be completely honest with you, when that tragedy was announced on the news, I thought, that's sad.

But there's a lot of sad things. And then they called us into the cafeteria and everybody in the school is there. And I look over and I see the young lady and the young man sitting next to them in tears. And then on the other side of me, my teacher and more students, they're in tears. And it hit me when my principal walked in to make the Announcement and turn on the TV on the cart. When the principal of my school walked in in tears, I probably had my first deep thought that none of these people know those astronauts we lost. They're sad because we lost something important to everybody. I had my first impression of what it meant to be a hero, a real hero.

And that stuck with me. And so even though that was a tragic moment, it created a perspective of this is important and it's profound. And these people were doing this for us. And so that, that has stuck with me from that time, about 10 years old. That's how it began for me.

Were you seeing, you know, as your kind of awareness of space exploration began, were you seeing any signs of diversity in, in that space exploration, in that public facing part of space exploration?

You know, it's really interesting because I don't remember the numbers, but I'm something like 20 or 21st black astronaut that NASA selected. We've got 21 classes. At the time we were the 21st class. And so I just feel like we benefited from some things. Leadership and tough decisions that had been made generations before our class showed up.

One thing that Victor talked about, Shuttle and what, what it did. I always like to tell people that most people who don't pay attention to things like we do, people of color, will remember the shuttle as being one of the most phenomenal technological marvels of all time. And, and that is true. But, but my belief is Shuttle's greatest legacy, Shuttle's greatest contribution to humanity, mankind, humankind, is the fact that it had the capacity to car people to space and only needed two pilots, only needed two of the classic astronaut. And so, you know, there was no longer an excuse to eliminate really smart people who could contribute to the success of missions, but weren't test pilots or weren't those very few fortunate scientists who got selected in the latter part of the Apollo program. We didn't fly a non test pilot to, to space until I want to say, Apollo 17. Harrison Schmidt was a geologist and it was not until then. So, you know, without Shuttle, we would not have seen the, the opportunity for people to go to space open up the way that it has.

The other thing that, that I always did when I, whenever I got a call or a letter from somebody that said, expressed an interest in the astronaut office, I would tell them, I said, hey, I don't know how you do it, but if there's any way you could get to Houston, you know, come on down and let me know and I'll bring you into the astronaut office. I did it particularly for military folk because two things I wanted them to do. I wanted them to have an opportunity to see what it was like, how much fun it was, for one thing. But I wanted them to be seen by people in the astronaut office and for people to have an opportunity to talk to them. Because like everything in the world, there is nothing that. That will get you qualified as quickly as personal interaction with people who are going to be on the group of people selecting. Victor and I have both talked about representation. I wanted them in spite of the fact that we already had a few blacks in the office.

But I wanted people in the office to see that there are incredibly talented young black men and women who also want to join us here so that, you know, they couldn't give you the standard line that, well, but, you know, there's nobody out there in the pool. As a. As a. As a recruiter for the Marine Corps for two years, that was always the excuse. You know, there's nobody out there, and you go, where are you looking? You're just not looking at the right places. So I thought it was really important to encourage people to come down, do a swing through the astronaut office for half a day or a day or whatever it was. It also helps to put them at ease.

Yes, Charlie, I agree. It does take a little bit of the stigma away from it to see there are people on the other side of that uniform, and to meet them for the first time in the selection board interview would be really daunting. And so I think that your influence on generations of astronauts, that was still popular, and I try to do the same thing.

That's amazing. Could I ask you, Charlie, if I could take you back to the moment you knew you'd been selected as an astronaut for space exploration. Can you remember when you got the call, what happened?

I remember it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I've never been asked that before, believe it or not. I forget how many years it is now, but no one's ever asked me that question. I. Every once in a while, I think about it and I tell people I was at Patuxent river and I was a test pilot back then. We dropped bombs and shot rockets and towed targets. We did all the.

All the dirty, gritty stuff. But I remember I had done my interview and months had passed. I think I interviewed in February of 1980. And so I had that on my mind and other kinds of things. I was. I had gone through the ready room, which is the place where you go to get. Sit down and Brief the flight. You're getting ready to go fly.

And so I had been in the ready room because I was going to go fly a solo flight, just me and the airplane. And I was going to fly at a 7, a single engine airplane. And the flight test that day was what we called an accelerated service test on the engine of the A7. A7 was noted for having all kinds of problems with its engines, engine stalls, and all other kinds of stuff. And so the manufacturer was trying to understand what could be done to make it better. So I had an accelerated service test to fly where I was supposed to go out. Fly out over the Chesapeake Bay and just jam the throttle back and forth trying to get the engine to quit. So the phone rang and I went to walk out of the ready room, you know, with my gear on my back.

And the, the. The duty officer said, hey, Charlie, phone call for you. And I thought for a second, I said, well, I started to tell him, just tell him I'll call when I get back from my flight. And for some reason, I said, okay, I'll take it. And I went over to the desk and I, I answered. And it was a gentleman that we just lost this week by the name of George Abbey. George Abbey is a legend, but George ran everything at the Johnson Space Center. He was the, at the time, was the director of flight crew operations.

And everybody knew because they told you when you did your interview, if you're selected, George will call you. If you're not selected, George may call. But if you get a call from anybody other than George, you are not selected. So he said, this is George. He mumbled, because George talked in mumbling, in a mumbling manner. He said, this George Abbey, you still want to be an astronaut? I mean, I was stunned. And I just stopped for a moment and I said, yes, sir, I do. When do I need to be there? Do I need to pack up and start heading down now? He said, no, no, no, no.

He said, calm down. He said, we still have to finish calling everybody in your class. We have to notify the media. In fact, don't say anything to anybody about this call. We'll let you know when you can. When you can make it public. You can go home and tell Jackie, you can tell your wife, but don't tell the kids. Don't tell anybody else.

And so I hung up. And I was. I mean, I was walking on cloud nine. And then I recalled I was on my way to a flight, so I couldn't do anything, you know, unusual that would call attention to the fact that I was on my way to the airplane and all of a sudden I got this phone call and now I'm not going to go fly. So I went out, man, I got in my airplane, started up, got out over the, over the Chesapeake and started jamming the throttle backwards and forwards. And all of a sudden it hit me and I said, how stupid can I be? I just got a call saying that I had been selected to be in the second group of United States astronauts. And I'm out here trying to get the engine, the only engine on my airplane to quit in hopes that I can restart it if it does. And if not, I'm going to have to bail out of this airplane.

And so I finished the flight real quick and got back in and excused myself, went home, told my wife, but that was how I got the call. And the deluge of calls started after that. But that was the way I found out.

Hi, Kathy Sullivan here. I hope you're enjoying this episode of astronotes. When it comes to the business of space, we astronauts would be nowhere without the vast network of space and space adjacent professionals supporting us. If you'd like to learn more about who these people are and maybe even how to join them, give a listen to our sister podcast from Inter Astra. It's called you'd Business in Space, where we showcase the entrepreneurs, the leaders and the workforce who make the business of space real for all of us, including you. So tune in, you can find your business in space. Along with my podcast, Kathy Sullivan explores wherever you get your podcasts or in the podcast section of interastra Space. And so back to the show.

And Victor, if I could ask you about, what's your memory of getting that call?

First of all, thank you for asking that question to Charlie. I've never heard that story. That's, that was great to hear. It's a very special day. And so I was actually at work, sitting in my, at my desk in the Russell Senate Office Building. I had the privilege of working for John McCain's personal staff for, for nine months on Capitol Hill. And it was a great opportunity for a young naval officer. And so my phone rings.

It's a Houston phone number. And I don't remember why, but I answered it fairly late after quite a few rings. And so by the time I pick up, there's, there's no one on the other end. And so I just called the number back and I'm out in the hallway now. And the person that answers, I tell them who I am and they okay, just A second they transfer me. Another person picks up the phone, and I tell them who I am, and they transfer me again. And so I'm waiting what seems to be forever. And a similar.

They. They gave us a similar announcement that the. The word on the street was if you were selected, you would hear from the chair of the board, and if you weren't selected, it would be one of the other members of the board. And the chair of our board was former astronaut Janet Kavandi, who was the Director of Flight Control Operations. And so after what seems like forever, Janet Kavandi gets on the phone and she says, how would you like to move to Houston and start astronaut candidate training? And I'm pretty sure that I said yes, but I don't remember a whole lot about the rest of this conversation. And I was again, also on cloud nine. And she gave us some logistics details, the same thing. The press release isn't out.

You know, you can talk to your immediate family, but don't let anybody know. We'll let you know when you can tell everybody. And I was like, yes, yes, yes. And so we hang up the phone, and I called my wife and told my wife, and I called my father and told my mother and father as well. I wasn't supposed to, but I did. And then I hang up the phone, and I'm standing in the rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building. If you've seen that on the interviews, when they're in the round room, not the capital, the big rotunda, but the smaller rotundas in each building, they're still beautiful, brass and marble and all the statues. And I looked down and I.

I was wearing a gray suit. And I'm normally in a flight suit in my military job. And so I look down, I see this gray suit. I look around and see this beautiful architecture in the statues. And I think to myself, I. I am dreaming. I must be dreaming. And I was.

I was actually a little bit disappointed. I'm 37 years old. I reached up and I pinched myself and I felt it. So I went home that day and woke up the next morning, and I had an email from Janet Kavandi to the entire class, all eight of us. And the subject line was, it was not a dream. I just love that. That made my day. That was a great day.

Amazing. Just a general question to you both, really, and maybe first, Charlie, in your route to being selected, I wonder if you might be able to talk about any times where you've had to overcome prejudice in your career, particularly on that route. To getting selected.

I think, you know, I think we all experience some type of discrimination or prejudice throughout our careers. We do it now. I mean, that hasn't changed. The good thing for me is I am the eternal optimist. And again, my mom and dad taught me at the dinner table that there was nobody who could tell me what I could and could not do that if I was willing to study and work. And most importantly, never be afraid of failure. You know, don't. Don't let the fear of failure cause you to make decisions that you may later regret.

Don't let anybody tell you what you can't do. Failure is okay and all that. So I. That was in my DNA from my mom and dad. So every time I experienced any form of discrimination, I think the. The biggest time that almost stopped me was as a plebe at the Naval Academy. Freshman. My very first summer there.

Plebe, summer. Toward the end of the summer, two of the juniors in my company, and that's, you know, a group of about 150 midshipmen across the 4.4grades at the academy.

And.

And I remember them vividly. One was from home, my home state of South Carolina. The other one was from Alabama. And they walked in, my roommates, two of them were sitting there, and we were studying. And they closed the door and they said, Mr. Bolden, you're not going to make it through here this first year. And I said, I beg your pardon? They said, you're not going to make it through here this first year. And I said, with all due respect, sir, what makes you think that? And the two of them looked at me and they said, because we're not going to let you get through here.

And my back got bowed, and I said, well, we'll just have to see about that. And at the time, I had been calling home every weekend crying, literally crying to my mom and dad, saying I wanted to come home. I fought for years to get into the Naval Academy and had overcome a congressional delegation that refused to give me an appointment and still got into the Naval Academy. And I got there and hated it. I mean, it was hard. You know, Annapolis was still a little island in the segregated state of Maryland, and anytime I left the Naval Academy grounds, I was back in the South. And so it was not a pleasant place to be my first year. So little did they know that they had taken this little snotty nose kid who was crying to his mom and dad every weekend to go home.

You know, I didn't want to be there, but when they came in and told me that they weren't going to let me get through. That was enough motivation for me to say, screw you, we'll see about that. And I didn't like it any better, but I had a reason to stay just so they would not get the satisfaction of knowing that they had run me out.

Wow.

Victor, any, any thoughts on that?

Oh, a lot of. I mean one, just again, I'm really grateful because not letting that stop him. Charlie was a trailblazer for me because I actually feel that I've had some, some incidents. I'm really hard on myself to not blame something on my race. And I think a part of it is growing up being an athlete. I played T ball and then football and wrestling in high school. I went to college on a wrestling scholarship. And so being a part of a team, you know, there's little hazing incidents and there's this sarcasm and.

But, but you. I lump it all into that experience. And so in the military, I feel by and large that the military has been the most merit based organization that I've ever worked for. And the civil rights era in the country at large that took place in the 60s and the 70s was preceded by the desegregation of the military in the 50s. And that I think set us on a vector. And I'm not saying that the military has been perfect. That's not what I mean. I just mean my experience has been.

I feel like I've had a fair shake and I owe that to the folks who came before me. And that's a big part of it. But I also, you know, that idea of I'm very hard on myself about assigning something to my race. I will make sure I'm very hard on myself. I will critique me before I critique the system to say that the system has wronged me in this regard. And I bring that up because I want young people to, to, to know, to be. Have a growth mindset and to think I don't care if it's bad feedback. All feedback is feedback that you can do something with.

And so, you know, I listened to Charlie tell his story and how grateful I am because of the example he set for me and my colleagues, my generation that it. That negative turned into a massive positive for him. And so, and I can relate to that. You know, my strongest motivation, to go to college and to graduate. I didn't have my mom and dad as examples to follow. Their motivation and support were there. But I can vividly recall I grew up in Southern California. We lived in Los Angeles.

And we used to ride the rtd. I will never forget. I will never forget that acronym R, Rapid Transit District. It was the bus system. And let me tell you, for all of the great things, I wanted to be a policeman like my father, a stuntman and eventually an explorer, a pilot. But I was an adrenaline junkie, if you know, if you will. But for all of the positives that were pulling me, the push of not wanting to go back to where I grew up, the poverty, and that was more powerful of a force than any discrimination that any individual has ever bestowed on me. Was sitting at the bus stop in the cold, and the wind is piercing my jacket, and I'm holding my mom's hand, and I'm holding a bag of groceries, and I'm shivering, and I'm just thinking to myself, when I can do something about this and listen.

And my mom did all that she could to provide what she could for me when she did, and she did, and she got me to this point alive. But I just remember feeling that when I had a chance, I was going to do everything I could to avoid coming back here. And so. And listen, I know there are people today that still have to ride public transportation, but that experience for me was motivation as well. And, you know, connecting that to where I went from there, being able to turn some of those negatives into a positive is the. Is the point of that. And I will also tell you one other thing. When I think about discrimination, just an awkward experience that I had, that's.

It's a little bit sad for me, but I will never forget this feeling I took away. I was 19 years old, a freshman in college. I came home from college to back to my parents and my best friend. And I walk across the street to a department store. We go inside, we kind of do some laps because we don't have money to buy nothing, but that was our thing. We walk around and. And so we walk out the front, and we walk out the front, there's a line of police cars. One of the officers is standing in the doorway with a flashlight pointed at me.

And what I couldn't see right away was that his weapon was drawn. And so they tell us to get on the ground, get on the ground. One of the officers comes up to us, asks us for id. And in the moment, I thought to myself, I'm going to hand him my college id. I hand him my college ID card, by the way, I'm wearing a Cal Poly, my university sweatshirt. I've got on khaki pants and I think I'm actually wearing like, Doc Martens. I've got oxfords. I look as preppy as you can look.

And my, my buddy went to San Diego State. He was dressed the same. So we're sitting there on the ground. They had us lie face down on the ground on the street, the blacktop. And the officer starts to yell at me that he wanted an ID with my address. I give him my driver's license and he asked me my address, and I said, it's on the license. Tell me your address. And it started to get heated.

And at that moment, my stepmother walks up. She parked in the parking lot and saw this, walked around the side, saw me and my buddy Major lying on the ground. She ran back to her car, and a few minutes later, my father shows up. I mentioned earlier I wanted to be a police officer like my father. My father walks up and shows his retired badge and the whole situation de escalated. And we found out that an employee at the store had been beat up by two young black men in the days prior. But the only common thing we had to the description was that we were black. And, and I just left that thinking to myself, what if my father was not a retired police officer? How many people have that happen to them? But they don't have the calvary coming, they don't have a dad who can de.

Escalate that situation like my father did. And that night, a police officer had been hit by a car and killed. And I know from growing up with a dad who was a police officer that affects all officers. And so that day could have ended very differently for me. It could have been very tragic and it could have changed the course of my life. And so I just think about how many folks don't have the mom and the dad whom can, you know, be there to shield us from some of these experiences. And, and I just, I never forget that. But I think overall, you know, an interesting sort of conundrum in, in my 26 year journey in the Navy, my race has often been a benefit where I may be the only black pilot in a squadron or an air wing, but when I go downstairs, and yes, in Navy squadrons, the pilots and officers are generally upstairs and the maintainers are downstairs.

And where I would go down to the enlisted ranks and, and go to the shops, a lot of the maintainers look like me. They're the black and Latino and Filipino. And when they say, I've never met a black pilot, that connection has often been a benefit to my career, specifically as a naval officer. Not as an aviator. But it's been a benefit to my career in connecting with the folks that serve and that I serve. And I've been really grateful for that connection.

And I will chime in here because, Victoria, you know, as I said, discrimination will probably never end. We will always be exposed to something. But just to have the opportunity to go in and just say hello to a group of young Marines, young enlisted people or sailors or airmen or guardsmen or anything, and just take a few minutes to speak to them, you really feel good. Because one, these are incredible young men and women, absolutely incredible. And they don't get anywhere close to the credit that they should for serving the nation, particularly when they're people of color or sometimes when they're women. And so it just gives you a certain sense of pride to be able to go in and just mix and me go with the troops every once in a while. And I think many of us find out that that's our favorite place to be is in the, you know, back in the kitchen, in the mess hall or in the engine shop or something like that, because, you know, there's going to be a lot of us there. And the other thing that we worry about is the lack of representation for them at the, in the officer ranks, particularly the.

The higher levels of officers, because they're having a hard time as it is. And to look and see that there's nobody who looks like them that's wearing stars, you know, that's an admiral or a general or something like that, that can get discouraging at times. So every chance I had, we would always go around to, to try to pat them on the back and make them know that there's somebody who understands what you're going through and we're here to help. Just let us know.

Wow, that's fantastic. And actually leads on to my next question. Charlie. When you meet young future astronauts or people who have that dream of being future astronauts, I should say potential future astronauts, particularly black future astronauts, what's your kind of first piece of advice to them?

Depends on the age. If they're elementary, if they're in high school, or if they're an undergraduate college student early on in their career, I tell them, forget it. And then I pause and I said, okay, I'm not, I'm not kidding. But what I mean is put that in the back of your mind right now and really focus on your studies. I said, because we don't. NASA doesn't hire people out of school to become astronauts. We hire people who have demonstrated their ability to be successful in a profession, whether it's in the military or as an engineer or scientist or whatever. So really focus on your studies and do the best you can do.

You, you don't have to be number one, but at least satisfy yourself that you're doing the absolute best that you can do. You know, a hard earned C to me is much better than an A that, that you didn't even work for. So that's, that's one of the things I tell them. I tell them try to do anything that they can to make themselves well rounded, because that's the other thing we're looking for. We're not looking for, we're not looking for nerds, we're not looking for bookworms, you know, all those other terms that we have for people who frown upon athletes or frown upon athletics or physical work. We're looking for people who have been varsity athletes, who, who are active in their community, who are active in their church or their synagogue or their mosque or whatever it happens to be. And then the other thing I tell them is whatever comes, don't be afraid of failure. Don't let anybody tell you what you cannot do.

And then once you've gotten your degree, I mean, from the moment you get your degree, start applying, whether you're, whether you meet the requisite qualifications or not, start applying. So they get sick of seeing your day. You know, eventually you'll accumulate all the stuff that they say you have to have. You have to, have to have a master's degree, have to have three years of operational experience, have to be in the STEM fields, really focus on, on your studies and becoming academically good or excellent, and then come back and start applying and apply to till you get accepted.

And Victor, what's your advice when you meet young, particularly black potential future astronauts?

You know, one, I share what I'm trying to live in my life. So this doesn't change whether I'm talking to young men or young women or young people of color or young folks whose parents have gone to college and who, you know, look like a majority of the science and technology workforce. I think a healthy definition of success is just as important as you're working hard to achieve it. And so these are the things that I've deduced from, you know, looking at the people that I look up to and from the things I see is what helped me get where I'm, where I'm at and where I'm going. And number one is resilience. I think that word I used to Say, be gritty, but resilience, you know, growing through challenges, it's easy to share all the successes, but having the confidence and self awareness to share the challenges you face, but what you've learned from them is indicative of growth, mindset. And Charlie talked about that, how important we want people that we know can deal with things, adversity and success alike. And so resilience is key to be a lifelong learner.

Very similar. You know, he used exact examples that I use. What you learn on the track and in the mosque or at church or at the temple, what you learn at the Boys and Girls Club, the YMCA or in Scouts, in addition to what you learn in the classroom and in the laboratory, those are all important. But you know, as an aviator, I talk about how one of my primary classrooms, wrong shoulder, has been the airplane. The cockpit has been one of my favorite classrooms and laboratories. And your ability to bring those things together and use them in appropriate times is I think, lifelong learning, committing to just growing in all the dimensions, mentally, physically and spiritually, to be the best you, you can be. And the last one. And when I usually say this, I'm maybe giving a big talk to a room full of high school kids or college students or NASA interns, but if there were parents that brought them there, I asked the parents to pay attention to this one too.

Because we all need to be reminding you this. And it's to be a good teammate, to think about what the person next to you needs, whether that's shoulder to shoulder, whether that's your next door neighbor, whether it's the next county or the next nation. You know, as a NASA astronaut, you're going to your public servant U.S. government service. Astronauts serve the people and we wear our country's flag on our shoulder. But also when we leave the planet, we represent humanity. And so my last encouragement is, in addition, being resilient, be a lifelong learner, be a good teammate, is to do things that remind you of your humanity because that helps you to see the humanity in other people. It gives you a healthy measuring stick.

And no matter where you come from, what nation you come from, when you leave the planet, you represent all of us. And that's a hefty bar to try and live up to.

Is there anything else you'd like us to ask before we wrap up?

This was amazing. Thank you for the idea. I think this is amazing and a new way for us to contribute, connect to the next generation and, but also in a personal sense, to just connect with this legacy of human space flight. But in the in the vein of being able to talk to one of my heroes and mentors and again, someone I still continue to aspire to be like. Thank you for this opportunity, man. This was great.

Thanks very much.

I have to say. So you so you see why I can just keep saying I just want to be like Charlie when I grow up. At every stage, you know, he is the mark of success.

That was Victor Glover talking to Charlie Bolden and the Artemis 2 mission to the moon with Victor as crew is due to take off in September 2025. If you've enjoyed this episode, do please like subscribe and review online wherever you get your podcasts. You can also discover more about Inter Astra's mission and find great content over at InterAstra.Space.

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