Christina Sabo and co-host Fr. John Johnson welcome veteran astronaut and planetary scientist Dr. Tom Jones, who flew four space shuttle missions and made three spacewalks helping build the International Space Station. Tom traces the yeses that carried a fourth grader's dream all the way to the launch pad, and tells the story of the Sunday in April 1994 when three Catholic astronauts received the Eucharist aboard Endeavour. He also describes the sunrise that broke into the cockpit moments after communion, and the five minutes on a spacewalk he calls the best he has spent in space.

What We Talk About:

• Growing up during the space race, and the parents, teachers, and nuns who kept telling a fourth grader he could be part of it someday
• A failed Air Force Academy medical exam, a bomber assignment instead of fighters, and the five years of graduate school that followed
• Three hours strapped in on the launch pad, the prayers said during the wait, and the eight and a half minutes to orbit
• The Sunday aboard Endeavour when three Catholic astronauts shared the Eucharist, and the sunrise over the Pacific that followed
• Wonder, beauty, and what Tom and Fr. John offer anyone who believes faith has no place in science

Resources Mentioned:

• Sky Walking: An Astronaut's Memoir by Tom Jones: Tom's Website | Smithsonian
• Jesus in Space: A True Story That's Out Of This World 
• Turn Left at Orion by Guy Consolmagno and Dan M. Davis
• Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? by Guy Consolmagno, SJ and Paul Mueller, SJ
• Vatican Observatory

Chapters:

• 00:00: Welcome and introducing Dr. Tom Jones
• 02:31: Mary's fiat and the yeses that led to space
• 05:33: Asthma, a bomber assignment, and the long road to the astronaut corps
• 09:32: What a shuttle launch feels like from the inside
• 16:51: Fear, prayer, and an engine shutdown on the pad
• 20:03: Explorers or active participants in creation?
• 24:04: How the Eucharist came aboard Endeavour
• 27:07: Sunrise over the Pacific and the blue of the Virgin's veil
• 30:14: Beauty as a language for God that science cannot give
• 34:13: The view from orbit and the best five minutes of a spacewalk
• 40:10: Faith and science: Georges Lemaître and Brother Guy Consolmagno
• 47:29: What brings Tom the most joy now

Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios

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