(high energy drum music)

Hey guys, I'm Brent Rose,

writer and star man waiting in the sky.

Raise your hand if when you were a kid,

you really wanted to be an astronaut.

Keep you hands up if there's a part of you

that still kinda does.

We're here at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas,

to find out if I have the right stuff.

Off to a good start so far.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Dr. Kjell Lindgren.

Kjell just got back from 141 days on the ISS.

Here we have all the exercise equipment

that we use on the International Space Station.

First we're gonna start with the treadmill.

Now of course if you were in space

and you're floating above this,

it's not gonna do you a whole lot of good.

What we do, is we strap in,

to pull you down onto the treadmill.

[Brent] About how much extra on by body

do I have right now?

Probably another 50 pounds.

A little more.

[Dr. Kjell] The treadmill will go

12.4 miles miles per hour.

Nice work.

Did I pass?

Yeah, I'll give you a pass there.

(game show winning bell)

This is the advanced resistive exercise device.

With this device you are pulling against a vacuum

in order to generate resistance.

That's a good starting place.

Yeah, that's heavy.

Nice work, pass.

(game show winning bell)

This is the cycle ergometer.

This is essential an exercise bike.

The one major difference is that in space

there's actually no seat.

When you're at home with the wife and stuff,

and you want to relax, are you like,

hey baby do you want to Netflix and Kjell?

(Laughs) No, I don't use my name as a verb too much.

That's probably good.

He passed that test.

(game show winning bell)

[Brent] Let's run through it.

What do I need to be an astronaut?

You need a four year degree in a math, science,

or engineering discipline.

I do have an MFA in acting.

That doesn't meet the basic cut.

(game show losing buzzer)

What are the next things you guys are looking for?

When we pull in our docs from the psych medicine clinic,

and they do a pretty thorough physical.

Candidates are here for roughly a week.

That's a serious physical.

That's a lot of turning to the lefts,

and a lot of coughing.

Yes.

I assume there would be some form of drug testing.

The astronaut physician

is a drug testing physician, yes.

Okay.

(game show losing buzzer)

Will they be screening for like injuries

or anything like that?

Like say joint injuries.

That's probably included in the physical.

(game show losing buzzer)

We'll see how I do on that.

Here's my space suit test.

Tell me what we're looking at.

Right here he have a glove box

fitted with two EMU spacesuit gloves.

What we're gonna do here is depressurize the glove box

so that the pressure is the same pressure

that you would see in outer space.

It should be considerably more resistance, right?

Yeah, you really feel just the overall force

required to move your finger joints.

All right, one handed.

The fingers are so rigid now,

where I'm failing the getting of my hand

in the glove test.

There we go.

Not off to a good start, but I think we can save it.

Okay, so the first thing we can have you do

is mess with the tether hooks.

There we go, all right.

This is your life line.

If you can't use it, you can't even move around.

This is like a docking point on the ship,

so open, click in,

close.

I'm safe.

That was a pass.

Good job, first try too.

Yeah.

(game show winning bell)

This is the space vehicle mock-up facility.

All of a sudden you hear the CAPCOM call up and say

hey you need to respond to to a toxic atmosphere emergency.

I come up here.

I warn the crew.

You hit the ATM, that's the atmosphere.

Then I'm gonna rush down to the Russian segment.

Okay.

Gather--

But you're dead.

(game show losing buzzer)

Ammonia has been coming in this whole time,

and you're not breathing any more.

Damn, different protocol than the fire.

Let's rewind.

Now you see the atmosphere alarm.

I'm gonna come over here

in the portable breathing apparatus, bust out this mask,

flip the switch, throw it on my face,

and I'm breathing.

Okay.

We can move through here.

(high energy suspense music)

The initial response was really good.

Except for the first time.

Except for failing, and dying.

Well, we'll call that a C.

(game show winning bell)

What is this beautiful beast?

This is the space exploration vehicle,

or the SEV.

It was a prototype for the moon,

or an asteroid mission.

Would you be down to give me a driving test?

Absolutely, let's go.

You are driving.

Take your stick, push it sideways.

It's a simulated lunarscape.

Over here and over there we've got a simulated Marscape.

The biggest feature of our lunar yard is the craters.

[Brent] Oh wow, craters.

[Jodi] Now remember we've got active suspension,

so it's keeping all the wheels on the ground

all the time.

The wheels go 360 degrees around,

and actually have an infinite number of turns.

[Brent] Donuts.

[Jodi] We tried to make the Rover

so that you didn't need a lot of skills to drive it.

Clearly, you've got the hydraulics.

This is like really slow low rider style.

♫ And if I hit the switch I can make the ass drop

So I passed with the driving test, yeah.

You passed the driving test.

Fantastic, can I go for extra credit.

You can.

Can I ghost ride the whip?

Go what?

♫ Hey hey hey

♫ hey hey hey hey

♫ Hey hey hey

(game show winning bell)

Welcome to the space food systems laboratory.

[Brent] What do you got for me today?

I'll start with a beverage.

Okay.

[Vickie] Just so you know, it's Tang.

It's Tang.

It's Tang. It's Tang.

We'll start off with our beef stew.

All right, here we go.

It tastes just like Dinty Moore canned beef stew.

[Vickie] We have broccoli au gratin.

That was good.

[Vickie] This one is the Chipotle snack bread.

That was nice.

It's got a little kick to it.

We will finish off with our chocolate pudding cake.

Oh, that's really good.

I could totally eat that for a year.

Pass.

Pass, definitely.

Yeah, pass.

(game show winning bell)

What did we learn here today?

Obviously there's a ton involved in being an astronaut.

We were really only able to scratch the surface

on our one day here at the Johnson Space Center.

With the right education and training,

a lot of this seems really obtainable.

Moreover, we learned that I absolutely,

positively, without question, could definitely

be an astronaut.

I just need to go back to college for four, or five,

or six years.

What do you think?

Do have what it takes?

Let us know in the comments below.

Subscribe to Wired if you haven't already.

With all that being said,

there's only one thing left to do.

(high intensity music)

♫ Hey hey hey

♫ hey hey hey

♫ Hey hey hey

Brent when I was heading outside of the building,

the guys at control desk stopped me,

and just wanted to let me know

they have you on tape dancing.

♫ Hey hey hey

♫ hey hey hey

With those dance moves, it's gonna be a big thumbs down.

Sorry about that.

Man, failed right at the very end, darn it.

I mean, come on, look at all these monitors here.

How could you not know that we were watching.

(game show losing buzzer)