Speaker 1: Hey, it's Lance here. For the last few episodes, we've
Speaker 1: been hearing all about Sergei Krekilev, the Soviet space program,
Speaker 1: the space race, Russia's messy transition to capitalism. You know,
Speaker 1: heavy stuff. But now we're going to take a slight
Speaker 1: detour from all of that and talk about me, Lance Vass.
Speaker 1: Are you ready all right? Y'all already know how I
Speaker 1: became obsessed with space as a kid after I saw
Speaker 1: a rocket launch at Cape Carnaval, and how from that
Speaker 1: moment I dreamt that one day I'd put on a
Speaker 1: space suit, squeeze into a teeny tiny shuttle piano funnel,
Speaker 1: and blast off into the unknown. But what you don't
Speaker 1: know is some of the crazy things that happened on
Speaker 1: my trip, like meeting buzz freaking Aldron and a bar
Speaker 1: in Moscow. Yeah. So on this episode of The Last
Speaker 1: Soviet I sit down with one of my producers, Asia Folks,
Speaker 1: to talk about how my dream of going to space
Speaker 1: came true. Well almost from Kaleidoscope, iHeart and Exile content.
Speaker 1: This is the Last Soviet. We start in the spring
Speaker 1: of two thousand and two. N SYNC was about to
Speaker 1: go on a six month hiatus. I needed that break,
Speaker 1: but also it was like six months, what the hell
Speaker 1: am I going to do relax poolside with a Margarita. Well,
Speaker 1: an American TV network had other plans for me. They
Speaker 1: were putting together a reality TV show where contestants would
Speaker 1: compete for a spot on a Russian Soyer's space rocket
Speaker 1: to the International Space Station and they were looking for
Speaker 1: a host, but they wanted that host to go to
Speaker 1: Space two. And then one day, the producer was sitting
Speaker 1: at home with a friend discussing where the hell they
Speaker 1: could find a celebrity interested in space, when suddenly his
Speaker 1: friends nine year old says, Lance Mass wants to go
Speaker 1: to space. Turns out she was a huge InSync fan,
Speaker 1: followed all the interviews we used to do on AOL
Speaker 1: chat rooms. Remember those? Yeah, I'm that old. Anyway, it
Speaker 1: was because of that nine year old that one sunny
Speaker 1: day in Florida, I get that faithful phone call from
Speaker 1: my manager. And then that's when the phone call happened.
Speaker 1: And I remember I was in my house in Orlando.
Speaker 1: Cindy calls and says, Hey, I have a question, would
Speaker 1: you like to go to space? I'm like, what, okay?
Speaker 1: And as I know, seriously we got a call and
Speaker 1: they want you to be the youngest person to go
Speaker 1: to space. And my first thought was, all right, Cindy,
Speaker 1: this is a joke because Punked was such a huge
Speaker 1: show at the time with Ashton Kutcher. Okay, here's what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen. We're gonna do something. Celebrity's gonna get pissed,
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna laugh at them. I'm like, Ashton
Speaker 1: is punking me. This is a total punk, but I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna I'm not gonna bite and so yeah, that
Speaker 1: was the end of the conversation for a few days
Speaker 1: until Cindy called back again and she's like, so this
Speaker 1: is legit. This is definitely not an Ashton Kutcher. This
Speaker 1: is definitely not a prank. And that's when it just
Speaker 1: hit me that, Wow, am I really going to have
Speaker 1: this opportunity, an opportunity that I dreamt of my whole
Speaker 1: entire life, my first love, my first passion. And it
Speaker 1: just took off from there. I mean, once you realize
Speaker 1: this is the real deal, You're not being punked, Ashton
Speaker 1: Kutcher is not involved, Like what's going through your head
Speaker 1: when you realize you might actually get to live out
Speaker 1: this thing that you'd been dreaming of since you were
Speaker 1: a little kid. I mean, the thing that was going
Speaker 1: through my head was, you know, it's just it didn't
Speaker 1: seem real. It was definitely surreal. I called my parents first,
Speaker 1: because I just had to tell them. They knew my passion,
Speaker 1: and I also knew that my mom was going to
Speaker 1: be so against it, because you know, sending your son
Speaker 1: into space is not the best thing or a parent.
Speaker 1: I think it's very dangerous and scary. So I think
Speaker 1: her first reaction was like, no, you're not doing this,
Speaker 1: but just kind of like when I joined in sync,
Speaker 1: there was no stop in it. And the other thought
Speaker 1: going through my head was, wow, am I really going
Speaker 1: to be able to live out two of my dreams?
Speaker 1: My two biggest dreams in the world, music and space?
Speaker 1: And how am I lucky enough to be able to
Speaker 1: do both of those weird, very opposite things. There was
Speaker 1: no thought that I was going to turn this down
Speaker 1: at all, and I was just so excited. And I remember,
Speaker 1: you know, going back on tour just a couple of
Speaker 1: days later and telling the guys, and I mean I was, like,
Speaker 1: you know, a kid on Christmas morning, just so excited,
Speaker 1: and they were so confused, like what, Like they couldn't
Speaker 1: even be happy for me because they were just so
Speaker 1: confused on what was going on. Everything starts slowly coming together.
Speaker 1: The plans for your great space adventure. You've now told
Speaker 1: your family, you've told in Sync boys, it's time to
Speaker 1: get into gear. Yeah, and the plan is this, You're
Speaker 1: going to spend six months of intensive cosmonaut training in
Speaker 1: Russia and then shut off to space in October two
Speaker 1: thousand and two. But before all that, you need to
Speaker 1: pass these very stringent medical tests in Russia. Right, and
Speaker 1: it turns out there's something wrong with your heart. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Before you go into training, everyone has to go through
Speaker 1: medical and it's where they study you for a good week.
Speaker 1: So I had my dad with me and a bodyguard
Speaker 1: with me the whole time I was there. But they
Speaker 1: research everything about you. Every little inch of your body
Speaker 1: is studied, I mean everything. So I mean you're sitting
Speaker 1: there completely naked in front of like eight doctors standing
Speaker 1: on a table as they're like poking you and putting
Speaker 1: fingers where they shouldn't be putting fingers, and they just
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure that you're as healthy as possible
Speaker 1: because going to space is, you know, quite dangerous and
Speaker 1: it's a different way of living. So one of the
Speaker 1: criteria for a cosmonaut is you have to have a
Speaker 1: regular heartbeat, and for some reason, I had an irregular heartbeat.
Speaker 1: I knew I had an irregular heartbeat. I'd been diagnosed
Speaker 1: without a few years earlier, but was completely benign. But
Speaker 1: that was the one thing that I did not pass.
Speaker 1: So I failed my first medical and it was because
Speaker 1: of the irregular heartbeat. And I was disappointed because I'm like, really,
Speaker 1: this is what's going to stop my dream of going
Speaker 1: to space is an irregular, benign heartbeat. And so we
Speaker 1: found this doctor in Boston that wanted it to do
Speaker 1: an ablation surgery and said he thinks that he could
Speaker 1: fix this and see where it's misfiring. And ablation surgery
Speaker 1: what what is that? It's where they send basically these
Speaker 1: rods up your arteries, about five of them through your
Speaker 1: groin and it goes up to your heart. You're awake
Speaker 1: during the whole thing, so there's all these television screens
Speaker 1: around your head and you're seeing the little cameras inside
Speaker 1: you and seeing where everything is, kind of trying to misfire.
Speaker 1: They're studying in it for I felt like hours. I'm
Speaker 1: listening to Harry Potter's book on tape, but I guess
Speaker 1: it was on CD then because it was two. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was the first time I had listened to a
Speaker 1: book before and it was Harry Potter. So I was
Speaker 1: listening to that for quite a few hours. And then
Speaker 1: when they find the spot where it is misfiring, they
Speaker 1: will burn it. It feels like a match, like being
Speaker 1: put out on your heart. It hurt like hell, but
Speaker 1: you know, in the end it worked, and now to
Speaker 1: this day, I have a regular heartbeat. So going to
Speaker 1: space or not, I'm kind of glad I did it.
Speaker 1: You go through the surgery, it's you know, it's quite
Speaker 1: an ordeal. In Sync finally goes on its six month
Speaker 1: hiatus and you fly into Rush or you fly into
Speaker 1: Moscow and you get to Star City. What are your
Speaker 1: first impressions of the place. Well, when I fly on
Speaker 1: to Moscow, it was just an overwhelming feeling because you
Speaker 1: see all the things that you've studied in history books
Speaker 1: and all these gorgeous pictures of Moscow. It was it
Speaker 1: was beautiful, So you know, I was a good tourist
Speaker 1: for good twelve hours when I first landed there. Of course,
Speaker 1: the first thing I tried doing was going to McDonald's
Speaker 1: because I heard that McDonald's was like the crazy thing
Speaker 1: in Moscow, and of course it's stupid America. It's like,
Speaker 1: I want to see this McDonald which I did. So
Speaker 1: that was a fun sight seeing experience. I mean it
Speaker 1: was exactly what they said, completely packed, huge. I mean,
Speaker 1: people were fighting over McDonald's. It was a it's a
Speaker 1: big thing. And then of course seeing the Kremlin and
Speaker 1: all that. I mean, it's just, you know, just history
Speaker 1: right in front of you. I did do Saint Petersburg
Speaker 1: for a weekend and it's gorgeous. But the places that
Speaker 1: I did see outside of those cities could not be
Speaker 1: more opposite of what those main cities were. Like, it's
Speaker 1: a completely different country. The wealth distribution is just insane.
Speaker 1: And then you go to Star City and first time
Speaker 1: I pulled up to is very intimidating. The gates, the walls,
Speaker 1: in the middle of a forest. You've been driving for
Speaker 1: it felt like hours to this just middle of nowhere
Speaker 1: place that looks like it is literally from the sixties.
Speaker 1: And the first thing I noticed is how many guns,
Speaker 1: I mean so many military They always just you know,
Speaker 1: have their guns out, feeling like they're going to just
Speaker 1: pointing out you at any second. And then you get
Speaker 1: into the first gates and you just see this amazing
Speaker 1: city that you feel like, this is exactly what Gagarin saw, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is exactly the buildings he saw, This
Speaker 1: is exactly where he walked. If you just took pictures,
Speaker 1: you would never know what decade it was. So just
Speaker 1: stepping back in time was really interesting and I just
Speaker 1: loved it. I thought it was just a beautiful feeling.
Speaker 1: So this all sounds really impressive. But what about you?
Speaker 1: Where did you fit into all of this? Tell me
Speaker 1: about where you were living. Oh? So, yes, I was
Speaker 1: living in one of the cosmonaut profies. This apartment complex
Speaker 1: again had been there since the sixties, chipped pain everywhere,
Speaker 1: definitely wasn't kept up that great. There was no air conditioning,
Speaker 1: and when I got there, it was just the beginning
Speaker 1: of summer. You know, I'd always thought, oh, Russia's very cold,
Speaker 1: so I bet the summers are really nice. Oh no,
Speaker 1: it is hot as hell and there was no air
Speaker 1: condition and so you'd have to sleep with the windows open.
Speaker 1: But if you slept with the windows open, the mosquitos
Speaker 1: would eat you alive. I mean so many mosquitos. So
Speaker 1: the first few nights I have to sleep with a
Speaker 1: little sheet over me, sweating my butt off and just
Speaker 1: hearing like little thumps and mosquitos trying to get to me.
Speaker 1: And then I'd wake up in the morning and I
Speaker 1: would just see my whole wall was covered in blood
Speaker 1: because of all the little splats that I would you
Speaker 1: try to kill all the mosquitos, And it was miserable,
Speaker 1: absolutely miserable. It sounds like you weren't really given the
Speaker 1: star celebrity treatment, you know, right, So you were training
Speaker 1: with the Russians, you were living with the Russians, and
Speaker 1: you were getting ready to fly on a Russian Soyuz capsule. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but as an American, NASA actually also had to approve
Speaker 1: your flight, and there were NASA reps you had to
Speaker 1: meet and impress. How did that go well? I mean,
Speaker 1: especially at the beginning, you know, NASA didn't want me there,
Speaker 1: you know, it was it was ridiculous. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get a pop star to come train and
Speaker 1: go to space, you know, that's a slap in so
Speaker 1: many astronaut's faces that have not flown or will never fly.
Speaker 1: So you know, a lot of you know, NASA definitely
Speaker 1: didn't want me there. They thought it was a bad look.
Speaker 1: And I remember the first time that I met with
Speaker 1: NASA officials right before I went into training. They wanted
Speaker 1: to meet with me, need to make sure that I
Speaker 1: had the goods right to do this, and so met
Speaker 1: with them. I thought it was a great meeting, and
Speaker 1: then I find out later that, you know, they thought
Speaker 1: I was like Dama's Rocks, And they also thought that
Speaker 1: I was an alcoholic and drug addict because I was
Speaker 1: a quote unquote rock star, right, yeah, like have you
Speaker 1: seen our group? We're pop stars? Ed? Yeah, far from it.
Speaker 1: Because do you think there are any aspects of being
Speaker 1: a pop star, being a part of in Sync that
Speaker 1: prepared you in any way for being an astronaut? I do.
Speaker 1: It's odd to say that being within Sync and what
Speaker 1: I did and trained within Sync, it really did help
Speaker 1: me with this space training, and I think that was
Speaker 1: started off with work ethic. You know, within Sync, we
Speaker 1: spent hours and hours learning how to dance and singing
Speaker 1: at the same time, which took us months to figure
Speaker 1: that out, running on treadmills and trying to sing. So
Speaker 1: conditioning was a huge part of just being an end sync.
Speaker 1: It was almost like a sport just because of the
Speaker 1: way that we performed. So when I went to Russia,
Speaker 1: I was already ready to work hard. You weren't going
Speaker 1: to see me not paying attention and being exactly what
Speaker 1: they thought. I was going to be, this stupid little
Speaker 1: pop star that is an alcoholic. It's just too dumb
Speaker 1: to learn anything, you know. I was there to work
Speaker 1: and work hard, and then it wasn't until the very
Speaker 1: first week of training and all your tests or verbal
Speaker 1: tests and they rate you one to five and I
Speaker 1: forget even what the first classes were. I know there
Speaker 1: was a lot of math involved, and I think it
Speaker 1: was the makeup of the soya is. I took it
Speaker 1: very seriously. It's amazing what you can get yourself to
Speaker 1: do when you're putting these situations, and especially if you're
Speaker 1: passionate about it. Yeah, And I feel like, especially if
Speaker 1: you have this sort of motivation of someone saying you
Speaker 1: can't do it, you know, you want to prove them wrong.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, exactly. So I mean I was doing rocket sign.
Speaker 1: It's my first week there, and I'm like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to prove you. I want to get to the training
Speaker 1: in just a minute. But before that, what was your
Speaker 1: sort of what was your impression of the Russians that
Speaker 1: you met at Star City? What did you make of them?
Speaker 1: The Russians that I met in Star City? The first
Speaker 1: thing that I thought of is they're just proud, very
Speaker 1: proud people. They're so happy about what they have there
Speaker 1: and what they've developed since the sixties and all their accomplishments.
Speaker 1: I mean, they still talk about Gagarin in almost every sentence.
Speaker 1: That is their man. And I had heard of Gagarin
Speaker 1: obviously the first man in space, but as an American
Speaker 1: you don't really get two in depth with a Russian
Speaker 1: space agency and the whole Gagaran story because you know,
Speaker 1: it's a little embarrassing that they bear our country, so
Speaker 1: we have a little revised history sometimes when we study.
Speaker 1: I got to learn so much about Gagarin those first
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, and I was super impressed and became
Speaker 1: a huge fan. And I felt that I felt just
Speaker 1: as proud as they did. But I loved it because
Speaker 1: they you know, I would say probably half the Russian
Speaker 1: Space Agency didn't want me there either. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they thought it might be a bad look. It
Speaker 1: could be something you can make fun of and make
Speaker 1: it the space program look a little less than that.
Speaker 1: They're allowing me to do this, but they never really
Speaker 1: showed that to me. They treated me like a cosmonaut.
Speaker 1: You know, once you're in cosmaut training, you're a cosmaut,
Speaker 1: and they respect cosmonauts so much, and you felt special.
Speaker 1: You felt very very special. I mean, the guy who
Speaker 1: made my space suit made gagarin space suit. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just amazing that the same exact people that
Speaker 1: worked with Gagaron or working with me this many decades later.
Speaker 1: What was a typical day in Star City? Like sort
Speaker 1: of talk me through your day from the moment you
Speaker 1: wake up. I mean every day in Star City, it
Speaker 1: wasn't typical. The only thing typical was you knew you
Speaker 1: were up at five in the morning and you would
Speaker 1: get back to your apartment by ten pm. So the
Speaker 1: days were super long, and you would have at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the week you would get your schedule and
Speaker 1: it always changed, and of course it was all in Russian,
Speaker 1: so I'd have to like figure out what exactly this
Speaker 1: it says because my Russian teacher only spoke French and Russian,
Speaker 1: zero English, and they thought just immersing myself in that
Speaker 1: would make me learn Russian a lot easier, But it's not.
Speaker 1: With zero reference, I had no idea what was going on.
Speaker 1: So I knew how to conjugate everything in Russian, but
Speaker 1: I didn't even know what the word meant. So I
Speaker 1: had to start learning Russian on my own by watching
Speaker 1: you know, the local Sesame Street cartoons and that type
Speaker 1: of stuff. So yeah, so you know, I could conjugate
Speaker 1: and I could read it, but I didn't know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. But thanks to Sesame Street, I knew the
Speaker 1: certain words, and mainly the things I needed to learn
Speaker 1: were just emergency words like there's a fire, you know,
Speaker 1: things like that. I mean, it was tough. The language
Speaker 1: was definitely tough. Did you eat a lot of Russian
Speaker 1: food while you were over there? I was forced to
Speaker 1: eat a Russian food. I have a very stupid palette,
Speaker 1: I would say, especially twenty years ago. There's many things
Speaker 1: I wouldn't eat, even cucumbers, like that's how bland my
Speaker 1: taste buds were. That was the first time, I had cucumbers,
Speaker 1: and they love cucumbers over in Russian they do, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so there's the only thing I could eat and
Speaker 1: actually enjoy and know what it was. They liked their
Speaker 1: shishka babs for sure, so that was nice. But they
Speaker 1: always made me eat this soup and it was horrible.
Speaker 1: I don't know what kind of soup it was, but
Speaker 1: that was the one thing at lunch they were always
Speaker 1: like forcing me to finish, So that was always strange
Speaker 1: to me. Yea, we get into this a bit in
Speaker 1: some of the other episodes, but I would love to
Speaker 1: hear more about some of the actual training that you
Speaker 1: went through. So tell me about survival training. What is that.
Speaker 1: I feel like most of my training was about emergency
Speaker 1: and survival. So you know, when you come down on
Speaker 1: the soyas, sometimes you miss your mark and you don't
Speaker 1: know if you're going to land in the ocean or
Speaker 1: you're in a land in the middle of Siberia. You
Speaker 1: have no idea, one little mistake and you're halfway across
Speaker 1: the world. So you have to learn how to survive
Speaker 1: for at least a day in case they can't find you.
Speaker 1: So one of those if you land in the forest
Speaker 1: is learning how to build shelter, make a fire, find food,
Speaker 1: what things are edible and not edible. That was a
Speaker 1: good I would say two week training Right there. I
Speaker 1: felt like I was back in the boy Scouts, which
Speaker 1: was fun. And then the other survival training was they
Speaker 1: drop you in your Soya's capsule into a huge Olympic
Speaker 1: sized pool and you have to in a certain amount
Speaker 1: of time as you're sinking, get out of your skafand
Speaker 1: er your flight suit, which is very hard because you
Speaker 1: have all these bundles and your clothes and everything just
Speaker 1: kind of pressed up against you. Your whole body is
Speaker 1: numb because you're kneesier in your chest. So then they
Speaker 1: drop you in this water and you have to get
Speaker 1: out in a certain amount of time, and it takes
Speaker 1: a while to get out of that space suit. And
Speaker 1: the first time they did it, I did it in
Speaker 1: a good amount of time, so I was very happy.
Speaker 1: They were happy I got out safe and I was
Speaker 1: able to move on to the next emergency train. You
Speaker 1: also flew a fighter plane. Yeah, that was flying the
Speaker 1: Russian MiG was like that was one of the first
Speaker 1: days in Russia, and this was kind of my first
Speaker 1: I don't know, look at what it was like to
Speaker 1: be a Russian cosmonaut. They took me to this field
Speaker 1: where they had these fighter jets, and I didn't know
Speaker 1: what we were doing, but every cosmonaut has kind of
Speaker 1: a mentor cosmonaut, and so my mentor cosmonaut took me there.
Speaker 1: And we first go to this airfield and we have
Speaker 1: a nice little lunch with some sandwiches and lots of vodka.
Speaker 1: And I did come to find out that the vodka
Speaker 1: thing is real in Russia. They drink it all day long,
Speaker 1: and they do it to celebrate. They do it too,
Speaker 1: oh we finished a class, great? Oh yeah, and they
Speaker 1: do it straight. So I'm having a couple of vodka
Speaker 1: shots and I'm feeling really good and he's like, okay,
Speaker 1: let's go fly. I'm like what You're like, I thought
Speaker 1: we were having a picnic. Oh no, So you know,
Speaker 1: we're pretty drunk, and a commander's drunk, and he's like
Speaker 1: all right. So we take out a little flight plan
Speaker 1: and we're kind of drawing what we're gonna do, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, this is great. Like I've never flown
Speaker 1: in anything like this, and obviously I have an amazing pilot.
Speaker 1: So let's do this. So we get in, we you know,
Speaker 1: take off, and then I realized that, no, he wants
Speaker 1: me to do the flight path. I've never I've never
Speaker 1: flown a plane before. You know, he does it first,
Speaker 1: and we're doing circles and flips. It's everything you see
Speaker 1: in Top Gun. And now I realize, he's probably seeing
Speaker 1: how I can handle this, to see how I would
Speaker 1: freak out if I was calm enough to do this,
Speaker 1: and I was. I was not worried at all. Never
Speaker 1: dawned on me that this could be dangerous at all
Speaker 1: because I thought I was in great hands, which I was.
Speaker 1: But then when I took over, it was amazing. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was doing all these flips and you know, you
Speaker 1: see in the movie where they go all the way up,
Speaker 1: then they cut the engine and then you fall down,
Speaker 1: and then they cut it back on and then just
Speaker 1: pull it up right above the tree line. We were
Speaker 1: doing all of that and it was amazing, absolutely amazing.
Speaker 1: But then you realize, wait a minute, he's drunk. This
Speaker 1: guy is drunk, So you know, I definitely you know,
Speaker 1: I knew the lever that I needed to pull in
Speaker 1: case I needed to eject out of that thing. Let's
Speaker 1: just say that. So you're getting closer and closer to
Speaker 1: that October launch date. It's going to be you and
Speaker 1: two other cosmonauts packed into this tiny soy Use capsule
Speaker 1: and you were set to spend ten days in space
Speaker 1: at the International Space Station. Yeah, what was your role
Speaker 1: on the mission going to be? Although I was a
Speaker 1: quote unquote space tourist, it wasn't tourism like we think today.
Speaker 1: You know, when you go up, you float around, you
Speaker 1: come back. Every cosmonaut on the soy is has a
Speaker 1: job because there's no room for anything else. So me,
Speaker 1: being in the left seat, I could reach buttons that
Speaker 1: they couldn't reach. So I was in charge of a
Speaker 1: lot of things that could easily ruin the mission or
Speaker 1: kill my crew members. So you had to take it
Speaker 1: very very seriously. And I could understand, coming from their
Speaker 1: view if you thought that, oh my god, a freaking
Speaker 1: pop star that's dumb as hell like is now in
Speaker 1: charge of my oxygen like that, that can't feel very safe.
Speaker 1: It was your job to be the oxygen guy. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So part of my job was making sure that the
Speaker 1: oxygen was working right. You know. That was a lot
Speaker 1: to put on your shoulders, because that's very very important.
Speaker 1: Oxygen is very important for a mission like that. But
Speaker 1: I think once we had trained together, they saw how
Speaker 1: serious I was about all of this, and I learned
Speaker 1: very quickly. What was that like for you? Kind of
Speaker 1: knowing that all these people underestimated you, you know they
Speaker 1: were they were kind of going like, ah, this guy,
Speaker 1: we gotta go with the Like how did that feel?
Speaker 1: It didn't feel much different from my real life. I've
Speaker 1: always been underestimated my entire life. I was always the
Speaker 1: shortest kid. I was always like the low, total pole person.
Speaker 1: So I always loved proving people wrong and I got
Speaker 1: that a lot within sync. When we came out. We
Speaker 1: were so underestimated and made fun of and no one
Speaker 1: took a seriously and we just had to prove ourselves
Speaker 1: by being who we were. I want to shift gears
Speaker 1: a little bit. At this point two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: you were not out of the closet yet you were
Speaker 1: hiding your sexuality even in the States. Yeah, and now
Speaker 1: you're you were in Russia, where attitudes are you know,
Speaker 1: a lot more conservative and where being gay could be
Speaker 1: potentially quite dangerous, and to dial back a little bit.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about an experience that you had
Speaker 1: before the training began as part of the medical tests. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you flew to Russia and you had to have a colonoscopy.
Speaker 1: What happened? How did that go? Yeah? That was an
Speaker 1: eye opening moment. You know, I'd been used to hide
Speaker 1: myself my whole life, right, I mean, being gay in
Speaker 1: the States still was not accepted very well, even in
Speaker 1: two thousand and two. So my whole life, since I
Speaker 1: was five, I knew I was gay, and I knew
Speaker 1: I had to hide it, and very conflicted because I
Speaker 1: grew up very religious, so I always thought there was
Speaker 1: something wrong with me, and you know, I would never
Speaker 1: act on it. But when I went to Russia, it
Speaker 1: didn't even I didn't even think about that because I'd
Speaker 1: already been living such a hidden life that I was
Speaker 1: an expert at it, so there was no way they
Speaker 1: were going to figure it out. But when I get
Speaker 1: there and it's medical training towards the end, you have
Speaker 1: to do a colonoscophy, and I didn't even know I
Speaker 1: was going in for this procedure because they didn't tell
Speaker 1: you anything. So they did the colonoscophy in front of
Speaker 1: many people. My dad was there. Zero sedation. You just
Speaker 1: kind of laid down, went to your side, and they
Speaker 1: did it, and it hurt so much. You know, they
Speaker 1: were pumping the air into your stomach and it felt
Speaker 1: like there was someone like with a knife trying to
Speaker 1: stab outside, you know, to get out of your stomach.
Speaker 1: And I had some tears going down my face because
Speaker 1: it was just it hurts so badly. And they were
Speaker 1: just laughing, like the doctors were laughing, My translator was laughing,
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at my dad. I'm like, so, what's funny?
Speaker 1: And then finally someone's like, oh, They're like, well, we
Speaker 1: now know that you're not gay, and I was like, oh, okay.
Speaker 1: And it was just such a joke, right, And and
Speaker 1: I'd heard several things throughout my training about gay people,
Speaker 1: right and making fun of gay people because it was
Speaker 1: such a macho atmosphere in this Cosmaut training, and you
Speaker 1: just kind of had to laugh along with them. But
Speaker 1: I knew then, like, WHOA, I need to really watch
Speaker 1: what I say. So I was very quiet the rest
Speaker 1: of that training that that sounds awful, and it gives
Speaker 1: you kind of some insight into how pervasive and casual
Speaker 1: homophobia was in Russia, I mean is even more so
Speaker 1: probably today. But did that experience with the kolonoscopy did
Speaker 1: that put you off going? Did it make you reconsider? No,
Speaker 1: it never made me reconsider. I just thought, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's just part of it, and that's just what
Speaker 1: you had to do. You had to sacrifice a lot,
Speaker 1: and I was I was ready for that sacrifice. And
Speaker 1: so this this obviously happened before before the training, before
Speaker 1: you moved to Russia, right you once you'd arrived, once
Speaker 1: you were living in Russia. How much was the kind
Speaker 1: of homophobia and hiding your sexuality, how much was that
Speaker 1: part of your day to day? How much were you
Speaker 1: thinking about that? You know, it definitely ran through my
Speaker 1: mind every day I was there. I in fact had
Speaker 1: been you know, it was the first time that I
Speaker 1: had met someone, so I had already kind of started
Speaker 1: talking to someone and having a little relationship. So this
Speaker 1: is the first time I'd ever acted on something like this,
Speaker 1: and I knew that couldn't be found out. And I thought, Okay,
Speaker 1: can't call this guy, can't email this guy nothing. As
Speaker 1: long as I'm there, there's no way I can communicate
Speaker 1: because they're going to be watching what I write and
Speaker 1: listening to every phone call that I have. But other
Speaker 1: than that, I didn't feel in danger at all because
Speaker 1: one I was stuck on a military base, so there's
Speaker 1: no way they were going to find out that I
Speaker 1: was gay. I didn't have any information out there that
Speaker 1: you could find to confirm that. And throughout the training,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just it's a boys club, it really is.
Speaker 1: At the end of certain classes and you have like
Speaker 1: an hour you would go sit in the big sauna
Speaker 1: where they kind of take branches and kind of beat
Speaker 1: each other. They're with and you're drinking vodka, and it's
Speaker 1: just kind of this it's a it's a bonding time
Speaker 1: with your crew, with your professors. It's just the time
Speaker 1: that the boys bond. And in those bonding times, people
Speaker 1: are telling jokes and stories and laughing, and a lot
Speaker 1: of the times the butt of the joke would be
Speaker 1: being gay, you know, and I haven't just have to
Speaker 1: laugh along with it. So Lance, you're in the middle
Speaker 1: of this very hectic training schedule, You're you're hyper focused,
Speaker 1: you're eating too many cucumbers than you'd like to be eating.
Speaker 1: But kind of in the background, of all of this,
Speaker 1: there are some financial issues with the project. What was
Speaker 1: going on behind the scenes. What was going on behind
Speaker 1: the scenes is still somewhat a mystery to me because
Speaker 1: I don't know how much truth I was being told.
Speaker 1: But what I from my view, this is what happened.
Speaker 1: So I went there with this company that wanted to,
Speaker 1: you know, send the youngest person to space. And it
Speaker 1: was going to be a part of this television show
Speaker 1: called Mission Space. And they wanted their host, which I
Speaker 1: was going to host the show, to have gone through
Speaker 1: the training and gone to space because the winner of
Speaker 1: the show does the exact same thing, goes into Russian
Speaker 1: training and gets sent off to the ISS. And it
Speaker 1: was going to be a CBS show in America. And
Speaker 1: then that's when they shipped me to Russia. And I
Speaker 1: just started training and again cut off from the world.
Speaker 1: So I was, you know, I was doing the cosmonaut thing,
Speaker 1: but entertainment they were doing their own thing. And I
Speaker 1: guess Russia and Hollywood don't really get along because Russia
Speaker 1: is all about the contract. You know, It's like this
Speaker 1: is how it is and this is how it's going
Speaker 1: to go. And you know, Hollywood can be just very wishy,
Speaker 1: washy and shady, and I think that's what went down
Speaker 1: because Alexander Duretchen, who was the head of Anergia, which
Speaker 1: is you know, their Boeing and basically runs the Russian
Speaker 1: Space Agency, brought me into his office and he said, look,
Speaker 1: your name is not in this track at all with
Speaker 1: CBS or anything. And that was the first Time'm like, well,
Speaker 1: well then why am I here then? And I just
Speaker 1: I still couldn't figure out why they would send me there,
Speaker 1: knowing that they were going to sandbag my flight anyway.
Speaker 1: But it pissed off a Nargia so much that they
Speaker 1: ripped the contract up and said, we're not working with y'all.
Speaker 1: And that's when they kicked me out of my first time.
Speaker 1: They kicked me out of the training facility and I
Speaker 1: had to go to Moscow. So you got kicked out
Speaker 1: and you just went to Moscow? Yeah, I had to
Speaker 1: sit in Moscow for a weekend until they figured something
Speaker 1: out because they ripped the contract out and there was
Speaker 1: no reason I should be there because without that contract,
Speaker 1: no one was paying for me to be there. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was pissed. I was pissed at my agents. I
Speaker 1: was pissed at CBS. I mean, I'm here in good
Speaker 1: faith doing this and putting my ass on the line,
Speaker 1: being tortured every day, and here you are kind of
Speaker 1: like playing with my life. And again, I don't know
Speaker 1: exactly what went down, but all I know is that
Speaker 1: part of the mission was canceled. It was done, and
Speaker 1: there was no TV show that I was hosting and
Speaker 1: all that. But immediately MTV popped on board and they
Speaker 1: knew it. We had already been shooting some stuff, so
Speaker 1: they're like, well, we'll just do an MTV doc on
Speaker 1: this because it's still the youngest person to go to
Speaker 1: space as a musician. So they kind of picked it
Speaker 1: up immediately and we just continued that next week and
Speaker 1: they were on the line to pay for this. But
Speaker 1: then I went in for a few more months, finishing
Speaker 1: the training, and then it was I guess September, right
Speaker 1: before my launch or maybe early October, and apparently they
Speaker 1: couldn't get the funding they needed right before the mission
Speaker 1: because no one would cover a cosmonaut with insurance. That's
Speaker 1: crazy that that wasn't sorted out before ying. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, no one would fund a mission that
Speaker 1: can't be insured. No production can go ahead without it
Speaker 1: being insured. So that was the reasoning they said, we
Speaker 1: can't go further because we can't ensure you. And that
Speaker 1: was two or three weeks before my launch, and that's
Speaker 1: when I found out that my mission was canceled because
Speaker 1: of insurance. And it broke my heart. You know, I
Speaker 1: couldn't believe that I was two weeks short of getting
Speaker 1: my certification. I had gone this far, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: are you kidding me? Like I did all this for nothing? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but how did it feel for you? Like the moment
Speaker 1: you found out it definitely wasn't happening. It was a
Speaker 1: dark moment in my life. You know, it was very depressing,
Speaker 1: and I feel like I feel like I still have
Speaker 1: a lot of depression over it because you worked so
Speaker 1: hard on something and just because of, you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of stupid people, it's just kind of pulled away
Speaker 1: from you and they don't even care. They're like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: that's not my problem anymore. Next you just kind of
Speaker 1: felt thrown away. But then Russia said, well, if you
Speaker 1: want to finish the course, which is two more weeks,
Speaker 1: we'll let you finish it so you can get certified.
Speaker 1: So that you can go in case you can work
Speaker 1: this out in the future. You know, you can finish
Speaker 1: out this training, but you'd have to pay a million dollars.
Speaker 1: A million dollars. Yeah, so I had to decide if
Speaker 1: I was going to pay a million dollars out of
Speaker 1: my own pocket to finish the damn two weeks training
Speaker 1: just so I can be certified, just in case I
Speaker 1: want to use it to fly to space in the future.
Speaker 1: And I did, and I'm glad I did. I mean,
Speaker 1: it sucked, but I needed that certification. You know, I
Speaker 1: had to leave there with something positive. But yeah, a
Speaker 1: million dollars to finish two weeks was a lot, but
Speaker 1: you know, I cherished that certificate and maybe I will
Speaker 1: go one day. What was it like for you to
Speaker 1: go back to the US after all that training. I
Speaker 1: had so many emotions about it. One, I couldn't wait
Speaker 1: to get back to my home, my own bed, my family,
Speaker 1: you know, my friends. You know. That excited me. I
Speaker 1: needed that normalcy again. But then the other side of
Speaker 1: me was embarrassed, embarrassed that I wasn't able to finish
Speaker 1: this mission that I was so excited about that I
Speaker 1: had completely stopped my life for that, I felt I
Speaker 1: stopped my whole business for once I got back to America,
Speaker 1: That's when I saw all the press about it. As
Speaker 1: long as I was in Russia, I didn't see the news.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a TV, I didn't read the papers,
Speaker 1: so I didn't know it was such a big deal
Speaker 1: me being over there in such a news story. So
Speaker 1: I started seeing all the news stories about like how
Speaker 1: it was a PR stunt, and then I wasn't really
Speaker 1: over there, and then I get kicked out of Star
Speaker 1: City and I mean, just really making me look like
Speaker 1: an idiot. So you know, going back to that kind
Speaker 1: of darkness, and it was very confusing time, but it
Speaker 1: was life changing. How had you changed kind of physically
Speaker 1: and emotionally after the training? How had it changed you?
Speaker 1: I think it changed me a lot. I had the
Speaker 1: best time. I would do it all over again, but
Speaker 1: I definitely came back a little I don't know, just scared.
Speaker 1: I guess. I don't know what it was, but I
Speaker 1: definitely had changed. I got quieter, and I was already
Speaker 1: a quiet guy, but I felt like I really kind
Speaker 1: of stood back and I'm like, okay, everyone's really kind
Speaker 1: of judging me at all times watching me at all times,
Speaker 1: like I just felt like the Russians were always watching.
Speaker 1: How do you feel now when you look back at
Speaker 1: those crazy six months in Russia? I think it is
Speaker 1: one of the best times I've ever had in my life.
Speaker 1: Also one of the most devastating times of my life.
Speaker 1: Every emotion comes out. It was just no one will
Speaker 1: understand it, no one unless you went through it. You
Speaker 1: just don't get it. You don't get the pressure that
Speaker 1: was on you. You're raised thinking about a country a
Speaker 1: certain way, with all the relations between both countries. Your
Speaker 1: team America, right, and the Russians were the bad guys
Speaker 1: for so long. But when you're there and you work
Speaker 1: with these guys, it was amazing to see all these
Speaker 1: countries working together, and all the bullshit that I had
Speaker 1: always heard just kind of washed away, you know, And
Speaker 1: I started understanding the Russians much better, and how they
Speaker 1: looked at everything in their beliefs, and to see how
Speaker 1: everyone really worked together and was such a team was
Speaker 1: a beautiful thing. Space really brought so many people together.
Speaker 1: So Putin invaded Ukraine last February. Relations between the West
Speaker 1: and Russia are at their lowest since the Cold War.
Speaker 1: At this point. Do you think you'll ever go back?
Speaker 1: What would you like to I would love to go
Speaker 1: back to Russia. I would love to finally get on
Speaker 1: a mission, Soyer's mission, so I could go and train
Speaker 1: a little bit more for that see a lot of
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's so many of the same people still
Speaker 1: working there. It was a special place for me and
Speaker 1: I was so young, so I feel very connected to
Speaker 1: Star City and everyone I worked with. I hope relations
Speaker 1: get better. A lot of people that know that I'm
Speaker 1: doing the last Soviet or like, are you sure this
Speaker 1: is the right time to, you know, do a Russian story.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, this is the best time to do it.
Speaker 1: It shows you a slice of life from Russia and
Speaker 1: especially a time period where communism was falling. It's the
Speaker 1: perfect time to relive that and study that and educate
Speaker 1: yourself because what's going on now is not too different
Speaker 1: from what is going on back then. And do you
Speaker 1: think you'll still go to space someday? I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'll ever end up in space, but I pray
Speaker 1: that I do. I really do. I just think it's
Speaker 1: one of those things that, you know, if I could
Speaker 1: cross that off the list, I would feel very accomplished.
Speaker 1: You know. I spent a lot of time training and
Speaker 1: putting myself through a lot of misery to you know,
Speaker 1: to get to the point where I could actually go,
Speaker 1: and I am coming so close you just taste it.
Speaker 1: I won't be fulfilled unless I'm able to make it.
Speaker 1: It would be nice to just make it to Space. Fine,
Speaker 1: but my goal I want to live on the ISS.
Speaker 1: I want my ten days up there. I want to
Speaker 1: do my studies. You know. I don't want to just
Speaker 1: go up there and play around and float around and
Speaker 1: oh this was fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just I
Speaker 1: want to do something important and I want to, you know,
Speaker 1: take it seriously. And so my hopes are still there
Speaker 1: that one day this will happen. I can't believe it's
Speaker 1: been over twenty years since those crazy six months and
Speaker 1: I still can't get them out of my head. I mean,
Speaker 1: Space just got under my skin and stayed there. No
Speaker 1: matter what I get up to in life or where
Speaker 1: I go, I can't shake its siren call. I mean, here,
Speaker 1: I am hosting a whole podcast about it, and on that.
Speaker 1: We're gonna leave my story for a bit now, and
Speaker 1: we're back next week with Sarah Gays, So I'll talk
Speaker 1: to you then. The Last Soviet is a Kaleidoscope production
Speaker 1: in partnership with iHeart Podcast and Exile Media. Produced by
Speaker 1: Sama's Dad Audio and hosted by Me Lance Bass Executive
Speaker 1: produced by Kate Osborne and Mangesh Hada Kador with Oz
Speaker 1: Wallisham and Kostas Linos from iHeart Executive Produced by Katrina
Speaker 1: Norville and Nikki Ettore from Sama's Dad Audio our executive
Speaker 1: producers or Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitzina. Produced by Asia Fuchs,
Speaker 1: Dasha Litzitzina and Joe Sykes. Writing by Lydia Marchant, Research
Speaker 1: by Mika Golubovski and Molly Schwartz, Music by Will Epstein,
Speaker 1: Themed by Martin or String mixing and sound design by
Speaker 1: Richard Ward and special thanks to Nando via Well, Lissa Pollock,
Speaker 1: Will Pearson, Connel Byrne, Bob Pittman, and Isaac Lee. If
Speaker 1: you want to hear more shows like this, nothing is
Speaker 1: more important to the creators here at Kaleidoscope than subscribers, ratings,
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