Photo credit: NASA
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Is growing up to be an astronaut
cooler than, say, growing up to be a ballerina?
You know, my wife is a commercial pilot with Air Canada,
she's the captain of A320s right now. She likes to say
she has the best job in this world and I have the best
job out of this world. I definitely agree with her.
Your fellow MDs in Canada are
going through some tough times, particularly coping
with physician shortages. Do you think it's inspiring
for them to see you going into space, exploring this
other frontier? I think it's inspiring, but I think
it also helps challenge us to think about the way we
look at earth medicine.
How so? Let's say I were
to go to the moon as a physician. Do I have all the
skills that I'd need to deliver healthcare as the only
physician? And the answer is, I don't. The way we can
do that is through telehealth. I think it's really exciting
to look at how we can take these technologies we're
working on in space and incorporate them into clinical
practice on earth.
I hear a lot of astronauts develop
kidney stones. How are your kidneys doing? Mine
are great, as far as I know. One of the challenges when
you're in space is the mobilization of calcium with
the bone loss that we experience, which increases the
risk of kidney stones.
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5 things you didn't know about...
Dave Williams
Where he was when Neil Armstrong
landed on the moon At home in Montreal watching
it on TV. In those days they used to have space
trading cards. For two cents you'd get five cards
and a couple of sticks of bubble gum. I remember
collecting those and watching totally enthralled
as the original astronauts explored space.
His thoughts on space sex
One of the challenges we face going down the road,
particularly with these three year missions, is
looking at how crews interact with one another.
His zero-G sweet dreams
I actually prefer sleeping in space to sleeping
on earth. In space, you don't have any pressure
points and you don't need to worry about a pillow
or anything because there's no gravity to resist
against. You can close your eyes and literally
fall asleep and just float around. It's really
quite remarkable.
His extraterrestrial cuisine
philosophy There's a cookbook called A
Man, A Can, A Plan. That's pretty well what
cooking's like in the shuttle or the station.
You reach into your meal drawer and you pull out
something and you warm it up.
Is there life out there?
Biologically I think it's probable. One of the
things that happens when you're on the space station
and you look out into the heavens and you see
the stars and galaxies that are out there, you
can't help but reflect on the fact that we're
just one very, very small planet in the midst
of something that's absolutely infinite.
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Would you like to be the first
Canadian on the moon? Love to — any chance
of you funding the flight? [laughs] That's a dream of
mine, actually. Not so much for me as for the next generation
of Canadian astronauts. Right now NASA has a plan to
send humans back to the moon. I think we can look forward
to that happening before the 50th anniversary of Apollo,
which is coming up in 2019.
One of your contributions to
the space station potluck was caribou jerky. How did
that go over with your fellow astronauts? They liked
it. Jerky's a great thing to eat in space because there's
not a lot of preparation required and the protein yield
is very high. The Canasnacks [specially designed space
cookies] were quite popular as well.
What's the first earthly pleasure
you like to indulge when you get back on terra firma?
For me, it's just being with my family and sharing the
experience with them.
Your name is the Welsh form
of David, Dafydd [pronounced Dahvith]. Are you a celeb
in Wales? I don't know if I'd say I'm a celeb there,
but they're certainly very proud of the fact that I've
flown the Welsh flag in space. When I flew in space
the first time, I had a chance to speak some Welsh from
space with the BBC.
One of the astronauts in 2001:
A Space Odyssey was also named Dave. Do your fellow
astronauts ever rib you, saying stuff like "Good morning,
Dave" in the voice of the movie's computer, HAL?
[Laughs] Haven't had that happen yet. But I remember
distinctly as a kid watching that movie and I think
what's really fantastic is that a lot of the things
we watched in movies and on TV as science fiction have
become reality.
If NASA would let you do any
zero-G medical research you wanted, what would you pick?
Right now I'm very much involved in zero-G surgery and
we've been doing a fair amount of work with laparascopic
surgical procedures. The techniques you use are quite
different than what you do on the ground with terrestrial
surgery but it's the kind of thing we really need to
start looking at if we're going to start sending people
to Mars.
Any advice for fellow docs who
might want to follow in your space steps? Right
now, space medicine is a new, evolving discipline —
I wouldn't say it's a speciality yet. People who want
to get involved in that certainly have all kinds of
opportunities, whether it's working in collaboration
with the Canadian Space Agency or NASA.
What would you like your legacy
to be? When I was sharing the idea of being an astronaut
with folks I didn't get a whole lot of support. Most
people told me it was impossible. I try to encourage
kids to follow their dreams wherever that may take them
and work hard with passion and persistence. That's the
legacy I'd pick.
When are you going up again?
Hard to know. I'm still quite young — I'm only
53. Right now I go to the back of the line, and it's
a fairly long line, but I would certainly love to be
able to fly in space again.
Interview conducted
by Gillian Woodford
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