Has living more than six months in space changed your life?
I would say that it has completely transformed me.
What do you think has changed you the most?
Look at this photo. I did it from the International Space Station with my cell phone.
Pride! What are those lights?
What they are not. They are not a democracy. That strip of darkness that you see in my photo is North Korea. And the bright area below is South Korea: where do you want to live: in the light or the dark?
What else have you seen?
The red lights of the Russian missiles when they began the first invasion of Ukraine: we saw death from space. And how absurd it is, in the immensity, to see humans killing each other... I am a Christian.
Did space change that for you?
I do not change it. I am still a Christian, but more open and moderate than before and it disgusts me even more that there are humans killing themselves for a religion or for the vanity of those who command them in it: the destructive ego can be seen very well from above.
Isn't the universe deserted?
Up there you can see the ego of Elon Musk and his satellites... So much ego!
Not only Musk: Bezos also played with his rockets: would he privatize space?
It's outrageous, but it's exactly what's happening. The ego of some billionaires fills everyone's space with garbage and that is a danger to humanity.
Who should regulate it?
We need planetary agreements to stop this danger and other very serious ones. Because the Rockefellers and Rothschilds controlled trains, steel, ships, automobiles... but Zuckerberg and the other techno-potentates are going to control our brain: they already control it with cell phones.
Did you see climate change in your orbits?
What I see is that climate change has losers and winners. Look at this other photo I took yesterday in Gdansk...
They look like vineyards... Polish?
They are beautiful vines that already produce excellent wine. Climate change is not a catastrophe for all of humanity: it has winners and losers, and in Poland they showed me graphs of deaths from freezing... And they almost don't have any anymore.
On the other hand, in Spain we see deaths from heat stroke increasing.
I have already told you that climate change has winners...and losers.
Doesn't it ruin everyone's planet?
But climate hysteria and alarmism makes us all losers and is counterproductive. The other day a kid told me that he didn't want to be an astronaut so as not to damage the ozone layer.
You are a colonel in the US Air Force: will we see another Star Wars?
I am against Musk privatizing space, but also against cooperating in space exploration with Putin's Russia or dictatorial China. But what worries me most is artificial intelligence...
Robot soldiers? Killer drones?
In Vietnam we already had robot soldiers. Missiles are robots that kill while the guide sits watching a screen... But it's up to him to decide! A human decides where that missile goes and when!
What worries you, then?
That industry and the military are now considering the possibility that the robot will decide.
I don't know if I understand you.
My God! I have heard generals say that artificial intelligence, that a robot can decide with more judgment and without being overwhelmed by emotions when it is tactically convenient to use a weapon against humans...
I hope I don't see it.
We urgently need a treaty that universally prohibits a weapon from deciding to shoot itself at humans!
Does space give the US an advantage?
We saw Putin from space prepare the invasion of Ukraine and he knows that we would see if one day he prepares nuclear war.
What did you learn about your body in your 200 days in weightlessness and in orbit?
He was fat! It's hard for me to lose a few pounds.
How does an astronaut lose weight in orbit? Doesn't the onboard diet help you?
There is only one way to lose weight: eat less. So I tempted the cosmonaut and colleague on the station, Samantha Cristoforetti, to eat part of my rations, because I could only fit into the XL suit and they forced me to go down to L.
You are very naughty.
It wasn't easy: Samantha has an iron will.
