When he was little, Jamey Simpson thought everyone’s mom had the same celestial job.
“When I grew up in Houston, everyone that I grew up with was a kid of an astronaut, so I genuinely believed that everybody’s mom was an astronaut,” explains Simpson.
Simpson’s mother is Cady Coleman, who is a chemist, engineer, former Air Force colonel, retired astronaut and soon to be published author. She’s a veteran of two Space Shuttle missions, and departed the International Space Station in May of 2011 after logging 159 days in space.
Now 23 years old, Simpson was just ten when his mom went to space.
The two are now featured in a film that’s part of PBS
Invesco Dynamic Media ETF
’ Independent Lens series entitled Space: The Longest Goodbye.
It’s part of a project highlighting how NASA is working with astronauts to prepare them for long absences. For example, the three years that are required to travel to Mars.
Simpson says that from a very young age he realized the importance of what his mother was doing in space, and that, “for me to get frustrated about her missing my band recital, or baseball practice, or whatever, it was completely out of the question, because the work that she’s doing up there is benefiting so many people down on Earth. There was no room for me to be upset with my mom.”
But, he admits, “On the other hand, that sort of anger of being frustrated about my mom was gone for so long, it manifested itself in the people around me, and unfortunately, I took it out on my grandma at the time.”
Mother and son did share nightly communication as Simpson explains, “She would call just after our dinnertime on the East Coast, and as she would call from her satellite phone, we would run out to the porch, and we could see her arcing across the sky. It’s incredible to think that that little pinpoint of light going across the sky is somebody that you love, no less, your mother, right? And, so, that’s how I said goodnight to my mom every night.”
In addition to this, the pair had weekly video chats on Sundays, some up to an hour and half long, says the director of the film Ido Mizrahy.
“Cady was very, very, very open and generous and allowed me to watch all 50 hours [of the video calls] — every single conversation that they had,” says Mizrahy.
The journey, while thrilling because of the work she was doing, was also peppered with extreme emotions as well, says Coleman, “Jamey’s dad sent me a picture of him and I cried when I saw that picture. But, everybody on the crew, leaves somebody different down there, and that’s actually what brings these six really different from each other people together and helps us focus on the mission.”
While Coleman did have to have some stern conversations with Simpson during those video chats about his acting out, Simpson, now, looking back, feels that the mission was successful because, ‘there was constant communication’ between the two.
“You know, every night [my mom] would call, and every Sunday we’d also be able to see her on a video feed and having that connection to be able to talk and see her face was incredibly important so that even though she was super far away I was still able to keep in touch and update her about my life every day.”
At the time, there was talk that Coleman might stay in space longer than the originally planned six months, which at that time, she said she would do in a ‘heartbeat.’
Reflecting about this presently, Simpson says, “As we talk about it now, it makes complete sense. I mean, space is the final frontier. It is so amazing to be out there. And a lot of people ask me, ‘Well, if you’ had kids or you had a family, would you go to space, too,’ and the truth is that I absolutely would, in a heartbeat. Because what you’re doing, what my mom is doing is solving the world’s greatest challenges up in space.”
He adds, “ If I were to do that, I would make sure that my family was raised in a very similar way to know that this is what normal families do, and that it’s really important work.”
In agreement with this thought, Coleman simply says, “I think this is a really important film. I think it puts the human into human space flight.”
‘Independent Lens — Space: The Longest Goodbye’ airs Monday, May 6th on PBS. Check your local listings for the exact time. The film will also be available for streaming via the PBS app.
