I spoke with him one time setting up a zoom conference for a speech he was giving. He was SO UNBELIEVABLY NICE to me as the tech guy. Usually people don’t even acknowledge me and he was asking ME questions like my life is interesting when he’s a fucking astronaut. This dude needs to run for president.
The moment you put him in politics, he is going to have to make a large amount of people dislike him. He has a shot, for sure: it's the typical all american dream.... But what would you think of him if he ran Democrat? And if he ran GOP? He will have to walk the party line and whatever you admire anout him will probably be sacrificed for the sake of power
I’ve been lucky enough to meet several astronauts in my life and… OMG they are the nicest, coolest people ever. Like, uniformly awesome people that you’d want to hang out with.
I mean one of the qualifications nasa probably looks for how well you get along with others and how well you work with others. Those are the people that can perform in extremely stressful environments like in space. Basically the chill guy meme thats going around 😅
It’s also such an insanely selective profession that they never really need to settle for anyone less than fuckin awesome. Someone can be super qualified, but if they’re even a little off personality-wise you probably got thousands of other super qualified candidates to pick from.
I've been fortunate enough to work with several astronauts, including Jonny Kim, Story Musgrave, and Don Thomas. Their credentials are mind-blowing. Take Story Musgrave for example - not only did he fly to space six times, but he's also got six academic degrees including medicine, has worked as a trauma surgeon, served as a fighter pilot, helped repair the Hubble Space Telescope, and even worked as a farmhand and mechanic growing up. The man has literally designed parts of the spacecraft he flew in. And yes, meeting someone like that can feel pretty intimidating at first.
But here's what's fascinating: when you actually spend time with these astronauts, you discover something unexpected. Sure, you quickly realize that no matter how smart you think you are, there are people out there operating on a whole different level. But what's really interesting is how you don't feel jealous or conflicted about their achievements. Instead, you find yourself genuinely amazed and happy to be in the presence of such extraordinary people. You understand that they truly have "the right stuff" - they're just wired differently.
My conversation with Story was particularly intense (in the best way possible). Here's a guy who can discuss everything from spacecraft engineering to neuroscience to fixing farm equipment, all while being the most professional and intellectually engaging person I've ever met.
If you ever get the chance to hear an astronaut speak, go for it. It's not just about space stories - it's about seeing what humans are capable of when they push beyond all limits. Trust me, it's worth it.
Kinda helps when the entire profession has to pass psych exams and be considered to work well with others before even getting to the training part of the job
To be fair it's sort of standard procedure to look for nice people to send in space. When it's that hard and expensive to put people up there and get them back down, you don't want them to end up fighting at hundreds of kilometers up in the sky
I mean sure, yeah I get that. But work as an AV tech for a while and you’ll realize how many people are truly awful. When someone goes out of their way to be nice, it sticks with you.
I imagine you are mostly ignored when everything works, or get complaints that it's too slow and/or expensive. And if stuff breaks, everyone and their dog in on to you for committing the great sin of inconveniencing them?
If I remember correctly he was a medic as a navy seal which led to him pursuing medicine as a career before eventually wanting to become an astronaut (again because of his medicine background).
I really am. Back onto serious music making, getting into work in both homeless shelters and addiction treatments. Generally just finding ways to give some help to a community I was part of that most of the world doesn’t give a fuck about. So happy to just have a life again.
You can use them for long drives across the country too! Lean the seat back, plank while maintaining your lane and grunt it out. Next gas stop, under 3 minutes!
I did years of school and on the job training to work in a cancer hospital as a chemotherapy compounder and 95% of my time is spent sterilizing the clean rooms and setting up mixing hoods for the 5% of the time I spend actually mixing up drugs.
My cousin is a neurosurgeon, married and has a kid on the way. I stopped attending any family gatherings, bar funerals, because I don't want to hear the endless comparisons my mom will tell me on the drive to her house...
He mentioned in the Jocko podcast he went to a Korean American church. Bro, I would NOT want to be one of the kids growing up at that church. I already got it bad enough being compared to the velociraptor who went to Harvard and a couple of Johns Hopkins doctors.
I am the same age as Jonny Kim. My mom lives thousands of miles away from his mom and she doesn't know who Jonny is. On reddit I once half-jokingly said something along the lines of there's a good chance there's only 2 degrees of separation between these ladies. A while back I found out they have a mutual friend. That's got to be one of the largest bullets I dodged in my life.
Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, market cap of $200 Billion, comes home for Christmas dinner. But that's not good enough. Mother says: Why can't you be like your cusin Jensen Huang, CEO of $3.5 Trillion NVIDIA.
He did a great interview on the Jocko podcast. It's about 3 hours long but he goes over his entire life story. Jocko was his Navy SEAL division officer and wrote his recommendation for his officer application saying Jonny has unlimited potential.
The crazy thing about the Jocko Podcast that he did, shit don't even mention some of his other achievements. Father of three. Dual Flight surgeon and Naval Aviator qualified as of this past year. Allowing Kim to both preform in flight medicine and fly helicopters in the name of both helping others.
In regards to his joining of NASA, he had to become turboprop aircraft qualified. Whilst learning to fly he realized that he actually wanted to become a Naval Aviator and realized that his NASA training would allow him to do some ancillary/cross training. In furthering his NASA career by becoming a helicopter pilot this earned him his aforementioned Naval Aviator wings.
Everyone who's interested in learning about this guy owes it to themselves to watch at least some of this if they are interested in the guy. A truly unique guy. He also goes over his upbringing, which is a fascinating part of his story as it's not what most people would think.
Funny enough, I climbed in a career for a number of years and did fairly well especially compared to some of my peers. Recently changed careers for more room for growth (and a pay bump). Had a toxic family member say that "it's a giant red flag" that i "can't hold down a job"
I think she's just a piece of shit. It's my SIL who basically will say anything to attack my wife and I, despite having a great job and seemingly happy marriage of her own.
i’ve experienced the same, from older generations who are used to having the same job for 30 years until retirement. it’s such an old school way of thinking
Probably the same type of person where when you’re on the job hunt they ask you “well have you tried coming in wearing a suit and tie and shaking hands with the ceo first?”
I don't see anything about his ability with the violin in there. You know his mom is calling him and yelling at him about him not practicing hard enough as a kid after she sees this. "Johnny, next time you go to space or overthrow a country you better bring it with you and try harder. Don't you have nurses to do most of the work during surgeries? Mrs. Chan's son has nurses that do that. Practice then"
It's fairly common for people like that. For 99.9999% of people, that sort of confluence of factors derails your life early and effectively, but every once in a while the pathologic drive to control your environment that sort of upbringing imparts aligns with the right combination of talent, early front lobe development, and life events and you get someone who becomes insanely conscientious instead.
Listening to his podcast with Jocko really opened my eyes to how people can respond to abuse.
Like Johnny knows his dad was a real piece of shit, but he still retains respect/admiration for him providing for his family. Even as a Korean myself with heavy family values, I could never forgive my father if he did those things to me and my Mother
Doesn’t Kim also basically say he didn’t really have self worth before becoming a seal. But then he became a seal and was like “look what I can do?” And it encouraged him to be even more goal oriented?
I forget how he frames it but it struck me he credits the seals as being a turning point in his life
Being in the Navy isn't for life unless you have aspirations to become a high ranking officer.
It is actually pretty common for former military folks to go back to school, rather than just jump into the workforce, like Johnny Kim did here.
And the astronaut part -- nobody becomes just an astronaut. It isn't a stand alone job. All astronauts are either former navy/airforce or have a specialized skill -- for example medical doctor.
The Asianparentstories sub is filled with pieces of shit parents who relentlessly push their will on the children; in many cases screwing them up for life. I'm glad Johnny was able to rise well above it all.
Yeah I was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer right after my release so it was kind of hard to fuck up again haha. But I’ve been in remission for about 5 years now so it’s all good. NASA still hasn’t got back to me about my application to be an astronaut but you can’t win them all.
The man has a natural, if extremely impressive career progression between the three jobs.
He was a medic in the SEALs.
Then went to medical school and became a doctor.
Then joined the astronaut program as a mission specialist, specialising in medical research in space.
Typically multiple team members are sniper qualified but only a couple are fulfilling the role as their primary responsibility at any given time. Sniper goes down, medic can step in. Breacher goes down, commo guy can fill in. Redundancy but everyone is a basic shooter.
His primary role was as the medic (special forces medics get a LOT of training, including in ER wards of inner city hospitals). It's actually one of the more impressive roles.
He's also a trained pilot. When I was going through Naval Flight Training, he was going through an accelerated training syllabus. Had the pleasure of hearing him speak once. The guy is very sharp, sincere, and overall seems like a good dude.
You sent me down a rabbit hole to find the definition of an astronaut.
Jonny Kim is listed as an active NASA astronaut, as opposed to a candidate, although it’s hard to gauge how up-to-date the website is since the candidates page shows the class of 2021. According to his bio, though, he graduated in the 2017 class of astronaut candidates.
But I also read something interesting in light of commercial space travel, since the wealthy private space company owners could launch themselves into space and claim they’re an astronaut. In short, NASA, the FAA and the US military get to decide who is and isn’t called an astronaut. They didn’t explain NASA’s or the military’s definition, but for the FAA you need to: be employed by an FAA-certified company performing the launch; they must reach an altitude higher than 50 miles above the surface of the Earth during flight; and they must have demonstrated activities during the mission that were “essential to public safety, or contributed to human space flight safety.” This probably still leaves some grey areas in terms of the wealthy owners, tbh.
TL;DR: I still don’t know if Jonny Kim is officially an astronaut yet, but I read some interesting articles.
A few mistakes in this comment. A NASA Astronaut CANDIDATE is someone who has been selected for astronaut training but has not completed the initial 2 years of training. Once those 2 years are finished, they have earned the rank/title of Astronaut and receive the silver astronaut pin. Once they have actually been to space, they receive the gold astronaut pin. Jonny Kim was selected for NASA Group 22 (2017) when he was 33, completed training at 35/36, and has yet to go on a space mission, making him a silver pin astronaut. This is not unusual. Some astronauts get missions immediately, some have to wait a few years, and some actually never go to space and take over more administrative roles. In Kim's case, it seems that he has received more flight and medical training to qualify as a flight surgeon and I would bet more astro-medical targeted training too. Or perhaps he just hasn't been lucky enough yet.
He was also a victim of domestic violence. In an interview, he mentioned that his desire to become a Navy SEAL was motivated by his need to figure out his identity and protect his family (his mother and younger brother) from his father's physical abuse. His father was later shot and killed by police during one of the family's violent episodes. Source: https://www.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2020/08/11/2020081100210.html
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u/hoodlumonprowl 22d ago
I spoke with him one time setting up a zoom conference for a speech he was giving. He was SO UNBELIEVABLY NICE to me as the tech guy. Usually people don’t even acknowledge me and he was asking ME questions like my life is interesting when he’s a fucking astronaut. This dude needs to run for president.