0:00:00.221,0:00:03.317
[This talk contains mature content]

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And there's this moment

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where I get [transported][br]back to my mother's kitchen.

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You can smell the beef[br]and barley heating up,

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you can smell the food, the colors,

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and there are people there[br]from all around the world.

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It's like a Benetton commercial,

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you know, you have African American,[br]Asian American, French, German, Russian,

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the first female commander,

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breaking bread at 17,500 miles per hour,

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going around the planet every 90 minutes,

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seeing a sunrise and a sunset every 45.

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And Peggy would say,[br]"Hey, Leland, try some of this,"

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and she'd float it over to my mouth,

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and I'd catch it[br]and we'd go back and forth.

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And we're doing all of this while[br]listening to Sade's "Smooth Operator."

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(Laughter)

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And I float over to the window,[br]and I look down at the planet,

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and I see all of humanity.

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And my perspective changes at that moment,

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because, I'm flying over Lynchburg,[br]Virginia, my home town,

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and my family's probably breaking bread.

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And five minutes later,[br]we're flying over Paris,

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where Leo Eyharts[br]is looking down at his parents,

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probably having some wine and cheese,

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and Yuri's looking off to Moscow,

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and they're probably eating[br]borscht or something else.

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But we're all having this moment[br]where we see our respective families

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working together as one civilization,

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at 17,500 miles per hour.

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My perspective shifted cognitively,

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it changed me.

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And when I think about being[br]that little skinny boy,

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from sometimes racist Lynchburg, Virginia,

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I would never have had that perspective

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to think about myself[br]of being an astronaut,

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if my father hadn't taken us on a journey

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in this radical craft that we built[br]with our own two hands.

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In 1969, I was standing behind

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a Sylvania black-and-white television set.

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Hearing about these things happening[br]on the set in the front,

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I was the guy, you know,

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moving the rabbit ears[br]for my dad, and my sister and my mom.

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"Move over here, turn over here,[br]move this way, we can't see the screen."

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And what they were watching

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was: "One small step for a man,[br]one giant leap for mankind."

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Neil [Armstrong] and Buzz Aldrin[br]were walking on the Moon.

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And I was five years old[br]in Lynchburg, Virginia,

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a skinny black kid[br]in a kind of somewhat racist town.

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And I was trying to figure out[br]what I was going to do with my life.

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And my parents, you know,[br]they were educators,

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they'd said that you can do anything.

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But after that moon landing,[br]all the kids in the neighborhood

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were like, "You're going to be[br]an astronaut?"

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I'm like, "No."

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I don't want a buzz cut,[br]and I don't see someone who looks like me.

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Because representation does matter.

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And I knew that there was a guy

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five blocks down the street[br]on Pierce Street

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who was training to play tennis.

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And it was Arthur Ashe.

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And my dad talked[br]about his character, his discipline,

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his intelligence, his athleticism.

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I wanted to be Arthur Ashe,

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I didn't want to be[br]one of those moon guys.

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And as I went on through this journey,

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my dad, who was a school teacher,[br]he played in a band,

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he did all these things to make money[br]for my sister and I

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to take piano lessons

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and do these different things[br]with education.

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And he one day decides to drive up[br]into the driveway with this bread truck.

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And I'm thinking, "OK, bread truck,

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me delivering bread[br]while my dad's driving the truck."

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I'm like, "OK, I'm going to be[br]a bread guy now."

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But he says, "This is our camper."

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I'm like, "Dude, come one, I can read:[br]'Merita Bread and Rolls'

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on the side of this truck.

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And he says, "No, we're going[br]to build this into our camper."

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And over that summer, we rewired[br]the entire electrical system.

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We plumbed a propane tank[br]to a Coleman stove,

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we built bunk beds that flip down.

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We were turning this into our summer[br]vacation launch pad, escape pod,

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this thing that could[br]take us out of Lynchburg.

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And before that,

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I was actually raped at five[br]by some neighbors.

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And I didn't tell anyone,

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because I had friends[br]that didn't have fathers.

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And I knew that my father

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would have killed the people[br]that did that to his son.

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And I didn't want my father to be gone.

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So as we got in this bread truck[br]and escaped from Lynchburg,

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it was my time with my dad.

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And we went to the Smoky Mountains

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and looked at the purple[br]mountains' majesty.

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And we walked along the beach[br]in Myrtle Beach,

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and this thing was transformative.

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It showed me what it meant[br]to be an explorer, at a very early age.

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And I suppressed all that negativity,

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all that trauma,

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because I was learning to be an explorer.

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And a little bit later, my mother gave me[br]an age-inappropriate,

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non-OSHA-certified chemistry set,

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(Laughter)

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where I created the most incredible[br]explosion in her living room.

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(Laughter)

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And so I knew I could be a chemist.

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So as I went on this journey[br]through a high school,

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and I went to college,

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and I got a football scholarship[br]to play football in college.

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And I knew that I could be a chemist,[br]because I'd already blown stuff up.

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(Laughter)

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And when I graduated,

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I got drafted to the Detroit Lions.

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But I pulled a hamstring in training camp,

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and so what every former NFL player does,[br]they go work for NASA, right?

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So I went to work for NASA.

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(Laughter)

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And this friend of mine said,[br]"Leland, you'd be great astronaut."

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I just laughed at him,[br]I was like, "Yeah, me, an astronaut?"

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You know that Neil and Buzz[br]thing from back in '69?

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And he handed me an application,[br]and I looked at it,

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and I didn't fill it out.

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And that same year, another friend of mine[br]filled out the application

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and he got in.

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And I said to myself,

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"If NASA's letting knuckleheads[br]like that be astronauts,"

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(Laughter)

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"maybe I can be one, too."

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So the next selection, I filled out[br]the application, and I got in.

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And I didn't know[br]what it meant to be an astronaut:

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the training, the simulations,

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all these things to get you ready[br]for this countdown:

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three, two, one, liftoff.

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And in 2007, I was in Space Shuttle[br]"Atlantis," careening off the planet,

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traveling at 17,500 miles per hour.

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And eight and a half minutes later,

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the main engines cut off,[br]and we're now floating in space.

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And I push off[br]and float over to the window,

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and I can see the Caribbean.

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And I need new definitions of blue[br]to describe the colors that I see.

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Azure, indigo, navy blue,[br]medium navy blue, turquoise

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don't do any justice[br]to what I see with my eyes.

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And my job on this mission was to install

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this two-billion dollar[br]Columbus laboratory.

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It was a research laboratory

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for materials research,[br]for human research.

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And I reached into the payload bay[br]of the space shuttle,

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grabbed out this big module,

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and I used the robotic arm[br]and I attached it to the space station.

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And the European team have been waiting[br]10 years for this thing to get installed,

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so I'm sure everyone in Europe was like,[br]"Leland! Leland! Leland!"

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(Laughter)

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And so this moment happened,[br]this was our primary mission objective,

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it was done.

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And I had this big sigh of relief.

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But then, Peggy Whitson,[br]the first female commander,

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she invited us over[br]to the Russian segment.

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And the space station's[br]about the size of a football field,

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with solar panel and trusses[br]and all of these modules.

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And she says, "Leland, you go get[br]the rehydrated vegetables,

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we have the meat."

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So we float over with the bag[br]of vegetables, all rehydrated,

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and we get there.

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(Laughter)

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I mean, this is like[br]blowing my mind, you know.

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When I came home,

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I realized that perspective is something

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that we all get and we all have.

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It's just how far[br]do we open up our blinders

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to see that shift and that change.

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And going back to the space station,

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I think of, you know, Germans[br]and Russians fighting Americans.

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We have these people[br]living and working together.

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White folks, black folks, Russian folks,[br]French folks, you know.

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All these different people coexisting[br]in harmony as one race.

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And I think about the colors that I saw,[br]the design of the modules,

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the way that things fit together,

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the way that it made us[br]a community, our home.

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And so when I look up to space now,

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and I have this newfound perspective

0:09:05.498,0:09:08.685
on the space station going overhead[br]and looking there,

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and then looking back at my community

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and seeing the people[br]that I'm living and working with,

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and coexisting with,

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I think it's something that we all[br]can do now, especially in these times,

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to make sure that we have[br]the right perspective.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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Chee Pearlman: If you don't mind,[br]could I just chat with you for a minute,

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because they're going to set up[br]some things here.

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And I get to have you all to myself, OK.

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Leland Melvin: Alright.

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CP: You guys don't get to hear this.

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So I have to tell you

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that in my family,[br]we watch a lot of space movies

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about astronauts and stuff like that.

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I can't tell you why, but we do.

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(Laughter)

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The thing that I wanted[br]to ask you, though,

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is that we were seeing[br]this movie the other day,

0:10:03.329,0:10:07.221
and it was about one of the astronauts,[br]one of your colleagues,

0:10:07.245,0:10:10.213
and before he went up into space,

0:10:10.237,0:10:14.396
they actually wrote an obituary,[br]NASA wrote an obituary for him.

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And I was like, is that normal?

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And is that part of the job?

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Do you think about that peril[br]that you're putting yourself in

0:10:24.184,0:10:25.478
as you go into space?

0:10:25.502,0:10:26.800
LM: Yeah.

0:10:26.824,0:10:29.078
So, I don't remember anyone[br]writing my obituary,

0:10:29.102,0:10:31.713
maybe that was an Apollo-day thing.

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But I do know that in the 135[br]shuttle flights that we've had,

0:10:36.292,0:10:38.943
the shuttle that I flew on,

0:10:38.967,0:10:42.737
we had two accidents[br]that killed everyone on that mission.

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And we all know the perils[br]and the risks that go along with this,

0:10:46.596,0:10:49.435
but we're doing something[br]that's much bigger than ourselves,

0:10:49.459,0:10:51.061
and helping advance civilization,

0:10:51.085,0:10:54.181
so the risk is worth the reward.

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And we all feel that way[br]when we get into that vehicle

0:10:57.251,0:11:01.967
ans strap into those million pounds[br]of rocket fuel and go up to space.

0:11:01.991,0:11:04.332
CP: Yeah, I've only seen[br]the Hollywood version --

0:11:04.356,0:11:06.715
it looks pretty terrifying,[br]I have to tell you.

0:11:06.739,0:11:07.943
LM: You should go.

0:11:07.967,0:11:09.118
(Laughter)

0:11:09.142,0:11:11.879
CP: Yeah, my husband's[br]told me that a few times.

0:11:11.903,0:11:13.895
(Laughter)

0:11:13.919,0:11:15.879
LM: One-way trip or two-way?

0:11:15.903,0:11:17.054
(Laughter)

0:11:17.078,0:11:19.530
CP: That’s a bit of a debate in our house.

0:11:19.554,0:11:21.018
(Laughter)

0:11:21.411,0:11:24.884
I wanted to, if I may ...

0:11:25.554,0:11:30.787
You did touch on something[br]that was very powerful and difficult,

0:11:30.811,0:11:34.472
which is, you spoke about this incident

0:11:34.496,0:11:37.020
that had happened to you[br]when you were five years old,

0:11:37.044,0:11:38.225
and that you were raped.

0:11:38.249,0:11:41.451
And I just think that[br]for you to be able to say those things,

0:11:41.475,0:11:43.602
you know, on the TED stage,

0:11:43.626,0:11:46.308
to be able to talk about that at all,

0:11:46.332,0:11:48.268
is pretty fearless.

0:11:48.292,0:11:51.157
And I wanted to get a sense from you,

0:11:51.181,0:11:55.428
is that something that you think[br]is important for you to share that now,

0:11:55.452,0:11:56.895
to speak about it?

0:11:56.919,0:12:01.047
LM: It's so important, especially for men,[br]to talk about things that have happened,

0:12:01.071,0:12:02.550
because we've been trained

0:12:02.574,0:12:06.760
and told by our society[br]that we have to be so tough and so hard

0:12:06.784,0:12:09.609
and we can't tell of things[br]that are happening to us.

0:12:09.633,0:12:13.187
But I've had so many men[br]contact me and tell me that,

0:12:13.211,0:12:15.260
"You came through that, you got over that,

0:12:15.284,0:12:17.107
I'm going to get over my alcoholism,"

0:12:17.131,0:12:19.149
and these things[br]that are going on in them,

0:12:19.173,0:12:20.776
because of what happened to them.

0:12:20.800,0:12:24.046
And so we must share these stories,[br]this is part of storytelling,

0:12:24.070,0:12:27.300
to heal us and to make us[br]whole as a community.

0:12:27.324,0:12:29.223
CP: That's wonderful.

0:12:29.247,0:12:34.670
(Applause)

0:12:34.694,0:12:38.853
And you know, quite honestly,[br]you spoke about perspective shift,

0:12:38.877,0:12:43.173
and that is a shift that I think[br]we've been very slow to accept

0:12:43.197,0:12:47.062
and to be able to speak about that,[br]so we thank you for that.

0:12:47.086,0:12:50.231
We thank you for being[br]the amazing astronaut that you are,

0:12:50.255,0:12:52.666
and thank you for coming[br]to the TED stage, Leland.

0:12:52.690,0:12:54.065
LM: Thank you so much, Chee.

0:12:54.089,0:12:55.405
(Applause)