Astronaut Moments: Tracy Dyson

A veteran of two spaceflights, NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson is prepared for her third mission to the International Space Station aboard the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft, launching from Kazakhstan on March 21. This mission as an Expedition 70 and 71 flight engineer is a testament to the California native’s lifetime dedication to exploration and to her deep admiration for her dad, who taught her some of the electrician skills she’s used in space. Over the next six months, Dyson will study how fire spreads and behaves in space with the Combustion Integrated Rack and will contribute to the Crew Earth Observations study. Get the latest updates from Dyson and other NASA astronauts aboard the orbiting laboratory by following @Space_Station on X. jsc2024m000085

What is said in the film

I think I first got interested in working with tools when I started going on job sites with my dad. When I was really young, my dad was an electrician, turned master electrician and then electrical contractor, and finally being a business owner, owning his own electrical contracting company. I started off just going to jobs with them and hanging out to actually getting tools put in my hands and working alongside of my dad. And I grew up that way all the way until I was about 25 years old, but started out when I was about seven, when I started off with my dad actually, you know, putting my hands on tools and tools on materials. I was getting paid in Winchell's donuts because those were the stores that we were remodeling back in Southern California.

That was such a critical part of my whole life. I can't tell you how how meaningful it was to get paid with donuts. I mean, I had seven on a table and it was like I didn't even know which one to eat first. As I started to go work for my father, more and more I got older and older. Donuts quite weren't quite cutting it.

Plus I was, you know, an athlete and realizing that diet was a little bit more important to me. So the donuts turned into dough and though I was the last to get paid, which I didn't mind, Dad started to give me a little bit more of a of a wage. And when I was in high school and I was a little bit more coordinated and had a number of years of following my dad on the job, he would then send me out on service calls so he could send me out and I would go take care of it. So by the time I was in college, I was pretty well independent in that I could troubleshoot problems that most commercial buildings encountered from J boxes to receptacles to panels, subpanels, etc. That's kind of wiring that I did.

I was one of his most reliable employees. And so because when I came home, I came home to Dad. But I also I love my dad. I love my my dad's company and what it stood for. And he was my best teacher.

Watching my dad go on a job site... And I knew we had the blueprints and we'd look at these and we'd look at the walls and there'd be a barrier in the way that like a like a beam that we weren't expecting. And my dad would look at it and I'd be like, "How're you going to fix it, Dad? " and he's, " let me think about it. " And it wasn't long before he came up with a solution.

So I learned a lot of courage watching my dad and I watched him. I watched him work through it, and I helped him. I held the tool. I climbed up in the attic. I did whatever he needed to to get the job done.

So just a it's endless. The things that I learned, A lot of what I did working for my father, I utilized on board the space station because you're at a place that things break all the time and you don't always have what you need. And sometimes you have to get pretty clever with what you have to fix things. And one of the times when I really used the the the training that I received from my father is when we had a pump fail on board the space station and I had to go do an EVA to fix it. One of two ammonia pumps external to the space station failed.

So we were down a single cooling channel and there's only two cooling channels. It's like a radiator in your car. And when the radiator goes down, there's nothing to cool your engine. It it's just a miraculous event onboard that required the efforts of everybody who's got a hand in the space station. So from work in the tools to work in the teamwork, it was one of the most gratifying things.

And there was an electrical connector that I had to remove on the failed pump that was really stiff and I had to use an alternate method of getting the connector off. And once I did, I got kudos from my crewmate, Doug Wheelock, his way to go TC And I said, "my dad would be proud! " Tracy: Got it! Wheelock: Good job TC! Tracy: My dad would be proud!

and asked my dad later, Did you hear Dad? I gave you a shout out. He acted all cool. He was like, Yeah, you know, It's like it was from space Dad! (laughs) There's so much I could talk about with that spacewalk.

But I did feel like I had taken all my skills as a construction worker and really put them to work during that series. I got this when I was seven. I only had one pouch with a few electrician hand tools, but as I got older and more responsible and a little better, my tool belt grew and I needed suspenders, just like my dad's. Here it is. Instant electrician.

You want to know what's in it? I got my assortment of screwdriver, so we would have slotted. I got my standard. Philips, This is really super important and I've got my long slot. It's got electrical tape around it so that I don't zap myself.

In case , you know, I get into a box that I didn't create, somebody else did and I get shocked. So I got my a quarter inch driver I know because its got a yellow dot I got my needle nose, that's super important. And then I got my channel locks and then I got my awl. I really need that because combination with my hammer, that's how I make holes in the wall or Love this stuff. Then I got my Klein's, or on the job...

They're known as the "Lineman's" because you, you can pull wire with them and you can twist wire with them, You can cut wire with them. But we call them Kleins because it was the first Klein tool that I ever had. No electrician is caught without their wire strippers. You've got grooves for different sized wires. When I was a little girl learning how to do this, I had just one size and I had to make it work.

And then I got older and a little bit more savvy. And so I graduated to this one. Love it! Oh! Super important.

This is not called a level. This is called a torpedo. All right? This is my oldest tool and it's maybe to you called a voltmeter, but to an electrician, a sparky, they call this... It's called the "Wiggy".

Once you apply the ends to live wires, Bzzzzzt! It acts wiggy. So I also have electrical tape. Walls are made out of aluminum studs. We got our tin snips here and then I got my keyhole saw, that's about it.

This tool belt, every time I pull it out and I, I use it either when I'm working at the house or I'm working at the church, or I'm working on somebody else's house fixing a problem that they have. I think I think about my dad. I think about my mom and what the two of them allowed me to do. And a skill that would seem to be just part of my upbringing has been a part of my life and my career every step of the way. And it's just become a lot more than just a belt that holds tools.

I'm Tracy Dyson and I'm a NASA astronaut.

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