Unscripted with Terry Virts

"I've been to space. I've seen Earth from the outside.

And I'm more worried about what's happening down here than anything I saw up there."

Colonel Terry Virts has flown 40 combat missions, piloted the Space Shuttle, commanded the International Space Station, directed a documentary, and earlier this year ran for Congress in Texas.

He came on Unscripted to talk about AI. We ended up talking about all of it.

The thing that stayed with me: he teaches a case study at Harvard Business School about the Challenger and Columbia disasters. Engineers were warning NASA. Managers had schedule pressure. Warning signs were normalized. Seven people died.

His TED Talk argument: the AI moment looks exactly the same.

Except this time, the carrot isn't a launch date. It's a trillion-dollar IPO. And the consequences of getting it wrong aren't seven lives.

A few things from this conversation I can't stop thinking about:

"Don't normalize deviance. If something bad's happening and it's not killing you, don't assume it's fine. Maybe you're just getting lucky."

The night he and a Russian cosmonaut watched bombs explode over Ukraine from the ISS window — and didn't say a word

He sold his Russian space suit and donated the money to Ukraine

His $5-a-day government per diem after 200 days in space

Why bioweapons, not chatbots, are what actually keep him up at night

One of the most wide-ranging conversations I've had on this show. Space, AI, democracy, corruption, civic duty — and why the founding fathers anticipated Trump but never anticipated Mike Johnson.

Full episode is live now. Link in the comments.

#AI #Leadership #Space #Democracy #Unscripted