Retired NASA astronaut shows readers the power of ‘Embracing Infinite Possibilities’

When Neil Armstrong said those famous words on the moon, “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind,” countless young people took it to heart – inspired by the accomplishment of what was once thought unimaginable.

One of those watching that historic afternoon in 1969 was 13-year-old Bernard Harris Jr. He would eventually grow up to join Buzz Aldrin and Armstrong by making his own history in space.

In 1994, Dr. Bernard Harris Jr. became the first African American to walk in space. His many accomplishments will be celebrated in May when he is being inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame at the Kennedy Space Center. He also recently published his latest book, “Embracing Infinite Possibilities: Letting Go of Fear to Find Your Highest Potential.”

The physician, NASA veteran, philanthropist, scuba diver and author joined Texas Standard to talk about the history he made, the journey to get there and what came after. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

Bernard Harris Jr.

Read the transcript below or listen to an extended interview in the player above:

Texas Standard: Would it be possible to perhaps read that very first paragraph? Because I think that sort of tees us up really well.

Bernard Harris Jr.: On February the 9th, 1995, I stepped out of the comfort of the space shuttle Discovery’s airlock into the history book as the first African-American to walk in space. Looking back on that experience, it was a tremendous honor for me to represent a group of people who had once been slaves in the United States, the same country whose name was embossed on Discovery’s hull and whose flag that was on my shoulder on the patch of my spacesuit.

That brings back a lot of memories, you know, just just reading that.

What was that like? Do you recall that moment of stepping out into space?

Yeah. Before we go outside, we actually do get into our space suit. And the space suit is the white suit that many people have seen and weighs about 350 pounds.

Of course, they don’t weigh anything in space. But we get in that suit and we get buttoned up, but we don’t go outside. So we sit for four hours breathing 100% oxygen to remove the nitrogen out of our system so that we won’t develop the bends… You’ve probably heard of decompression.

And so all of that in preparation. So you can imagine that we’re in the airlock, me and my EVA buddy – extravehicular activity. That’s what we call the spacewalk. And we have a lot of time to take each other in before stepping out and also contemplating what we were both about to do, both of us being neophytes in spacewalking.

And when you open up the hatch, it is incredible. Even though you’ve been in the space ship for days now, for some reason, opening up that hatch and exposing that porthole to Earth makes it feel like gravity is going to suck you down, that you’re going to fall. So you have to get over that sensation of falling.

And then the other is the movement as we are skirting across the atmosphere – you know, higher parts of the atmosphere at 17,500mph. So at that point you have to get your bearings.

And stepping out is incredible because now you’re outside the vehicle. Your fellow crew members are inside the vehicle. You have this unobstructed view of not only the space ship, but the planet beneath it.

I want to go back to your upbringing. I saw you were born in Temple, lived for a bit on the Navajo reservation in Arizona and in New Mexico, and then came back to Texas – San Antonio, I believe it was.

And I know you go into this somewhat in your first book, the autobiography “Dream Walker,” but could you tell us a little bit more about your childhood growing up and where that tenacity to follow your dream into space comes from?

Even though I was born in Temple, we actually started off for six years of my life in Houston. We lived in an area of Houston called the West Side, which now it’s famously known as The Heights if you’re familiar with the Houston area.

My parents divorced when I was six years old, and we had about a year of transition where my mother had to get her bearings. She was a recent graduate of Prairie View A&M University in education, and was a teacher. And she was lucky enough to get a job working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the Navajo Nation.

And so she packed up her three kids. Can you imagine? You know, late 20s, three kids, packing up, going. Probably the first time she’s really been out of Texas.

So many of us can’t. That’s the thing, right? I mean, so many people can’t. And yet this is a real experience for a lot of folks.

And that was probably the first lesson that I had – was from my mother on resilience.

You know, the fact that she could find that courage within herself to get out of a situation that was not tenable for her or her kids and make a change that would literally change our lives.

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Courtesy of Simon & Schuster

And I guess this, in a sense, ties to the subject of your new book, “Embracing Infinite Possibilities.” How did you embrace a possibility that seemed to be an improbable outcome, especially having experienced what you had experienced in your life up to that point?

Yeah. And let me remind your listeners of the environment.

This is in the early ’60s during the civil rights movement. So on that black and white television that we had, I could see us accomplishing some of our major human accomplishments – going into space and then eventually landing on the moon. But I could flip the channel and see the struggles that we had as Black people in America.

And so for this little boy to look at that television, not seeing anyone who looked like him – or even from that standpoint – involved in the program… To say, “I’m going to do this, despite.”

And I would have to say that part of that courage came from – or “enabling” is probably a better word – came from my mother, who said that I could be and do anything that I wanted to be in life, no matter what.

And you know, if she said that, I could do that. Listen, who’s going to stop me?

Well, I mean, it sounds to me like you put your finger on something that you believe stops a lot of people –fear.

Yeah. You know, and I touch on this a little bit in the book – that sometimes we allow fear to prevent us from becoming our true selves and how important it is for you to spend time with yourself. I mean, that’s the first lesson – to figure out who you are.

So again, I go back to spending time as I did as a kid. And in the book I describe me sitting out on the reservation, looking out into the distance, asking those soul questions: “Who am I? What am I supposed to do? What are my dreams? What are my goals?” Which, you know, at that time, probably 12 years old, was probably pretty deep for you to be talking about.

But just realizing how important was it for me to figure out that. Because that became the foundation that I would use to do all the things that I’ve done in my life thus far.

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