S6 Special Episode: Commander Reid Wiseman on Transitioning from Training to Action (Recast)

To celebrate NASA’s Artemis II test flight, scheduled for launch on Wednesday, April 1st, we're re-casting Preston's conversation with NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman from May 2023. The Artemis II test flight will be crewed by Commander Reid, Pilot Victor Glover, Astronaut Christina Koch, and Canadian Astronaut Jeremy Hansen for the 10-day lunar flyby mission, which will test the Orion spacecraft's life-support systems for the first time with humans aboard.

In this Teamcast episode, originally aired on May 24, 2023, Preston and Reid discuss the transition from extensive training to real operations and why it is inevitably chaotic in mission critical work. Wiseman describes arriving on the ISS after four years of training and initially feeling “useless,” emphasizing mastery and learning rapidly rather than expecting perfection. They explore selection for “rate of learning,” humility, mentorship, shared situational awareness across small crews, and mission control. They also address human-machine automation, the need for human override, the integration of new team members, and curriculum elements such as small-team work in unpredictable natural environments, repeated rehearsals with failures, and getting comfortable being uncomfortable.

Commander Reid Wiseman is an American astronaut, engineer, and naval aviator. He served as Chief of the Astronaut Office until November 14, 2022. He was a member of the Expedition 40/41 crew, which launched to the International Space Station on May 28, 2014, and returned on November 10, 2014.

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