0:12

Hey, it's Lance here. For the

0:14

last few episodes, we've been hearing all about

0:16

Sergei Krekilev, the Soviet space

0:19

program, the space race, Russia's

0:21

messy transition to capitalism.

0:23

You know, heavy stuff. But now

0:26

we're going to take a slight detour from all

0:28

of that and talk about me,

0:30

Lance Vass. Are you ready

0:33

all right? Y'all

0:36

already know how I became obsessed with space

0:38

as a kid after I saw a rocket launch at Cape

0:40

Carnaval, and how from that moment

0:42

I dreamt that one day I'd put on a space suit,

0:44

squeeze into a teeny tiny shuttle piano

0:47

funnel, and blast off into the unknown.

0:49

But what you don't know is some of

0:51

the crazy things that happened on my trip, like

0:54

meeting buzz freaking Aldron and a bar in Moscow.

0:57

Yeah. So on this episode

0:59

of The Last Soviet I sit down with one

1:01

of my producers, Asia Folks, to

1:04

talk about how my dream of going to space came

1:06

true. Well almost

1:09

from Kaleidoscope, iHeart and Exile

1:11

content. This is the Last Soviet.

1:18

We start in the spring of two thousand and

1:20

two. N SYNC was about to go on

1:22

a six month hiatus. I

1:25

needed that break, but also it was like

1:27

six months, what the hell am I going to do relax

1:29

poolside with a Margarita.

1:32

Well, an American TV network had

1:34

other plans for me. They were putting

1:36

together a reality TV show where

1:40

contestants would compete for a spot on a Russian

1:42

Soyer's space rocket to the International

1:44

Space Station and they

1:47

were looking for a host, but

1:49

they wanted that host to go to Space two. And

1:52

then one day, the producer was sitting at home

1:55

with a friend discussing where the hell they could find

1:57

a celebrity interested in space, when

1:59

suddenly his friends nine year old says,

2:02

Lance Mass wants to go to space. Turns

2:04

out she was a huge InSync fan, followed

2:06

all the interviews we used to do on AOL chat

2:09

rooms. Remember those? Yeah,

2:11

I'm that old. Anyway,

2:13

it was because of that nine year old that one

2:16

sunny day in Florida, I get that

2:18

faithful phone call from my manager.

2:26

And then that's when the phone call happened.

2:28

And I remember I was in my house

2:30

in Orlando. Cindy calls

2:32

and says, Hey, I have a question,

2:34

would you like to go to space? I'm

2:37

like, what, okay? And as

2:39

I know, seriously we got a call and they

2:41

want you to be the youngest person to go to space.

2:44

And my first thought was, all right, Cindy,

2:46

this is a joke because Punked was

2:48

such a huge show at the time with Ashton Kutcher.

2:52

Okay, here's what's gonna happen. We're

2:54

gonna do something. Celebrity's gonna get

2:56

pissed, and then we're gonna laugh at them.

2:59

I'm like, Ashton is

3:01

punking me. This is a total punk, but I'm not gonna

3:03

I'm not gonna bite and so yeah,

3:06

that was the end of the conversation for a few days

3:09

until Cindy called back again and she's like, so

3:11

this is legit. This is definitely not an Ashton

3:13

Kutcher. This is definitely not a prank. And

3:16

that's when it just hit me that, Wow, am

3:19

I really going to have this opportunity,

3:21

an opportunity that I dreamt of my

3:23

whole entire life, my first love,

3:26

my first passion. And it just took

3:28

off from there. I mean, once you realize

3:30

this is the real deal, You're not being

3:32

punked, Ashton Kutcher is not involved, Like

3:35

what's going through your head when you realize

3:37

you might actually get to live out this

3:39

thing that you'd been dreaming of since you were a little

3:41

kid. I mean, the thing that was going

3:44

through my head was, you know,

3:46

it's just it didn't seem real. It was definitely

3:48

surreal. I called my parents first, because

3:51

I just had to tell them. They knew my passion,

3:53

and I also knew that my mom was going to be so against

3:55

it, because you know, sending your

3:57

son into space is not the best thing or

4:00

a parent. I think it's very dangerous and

4:02

scary. So I think her first reaction

4:04

was like, no, you're not doing this, but

4:07

just kind of like when I joined in sync, there was no

4:09

stop in it. And the other thought going

4:11

through my head was, wow, am I really

4:13

going to be able to live out two of my dreams?

4:16

My two biggest dreams in the world, music and

4:18

space? And how am I lucky

4:21

enough to be able to do both of those weird,

4:23

very opposite things. There was

4:25

no thought that I was going to turn this

4:27

down at all, and I was just so excited.

4:30

And I remember, you know, going

4:32

back on tour just a couple of days later and telling

4:35

the guys, and I mean I was, like, you

4:37

know, a kid on Christmas morning, just

4:40

so excited, and they were so confused,

4:42

like what, Like they couldn't even

4:44

be happy for me because they were just so

4:46

confused on what was going on. Everything

4:49

starts slowly coming together. The

4:52

plans for your great space adventure. You've

4:54

now told your family, you've told in Sync

4:57

boys, it's time to get into gear. Yeah,

4:59

and the plan is this, You're

5:02

going to spend six months of intensive

5:04

cosmonaut training in Russia and then shut

5:06

off to space in October two thousand and

5:08

two. But before all

5:10

that, you need to pass these very stringent

5:13

medical tests in Russia. Right, and

5:15

it turns out there's something wrong with

5:18

your heart. Yeah. Before

5:20

you go into training, everyone has

5:22

to go through medical and it's

5:24

where they study you for a good week. So

5:27

I had my dad with me and a

5:29

bodyguard with me the whole time I was

5:31

there. But they research everything about

5:33

you. Every little inch of your body is studied,

5:36

I mean everything. So I

5:38

mean you're sitting there completely naked in front of like

5:40

eight doctors standing on a table as they're like poking

5:43

you and putting fingers where they shouldn't

5:45

be putting fingers, and they just wanted

5:47

to make sure that you're as healthy as possible because

5:49

going to space is, you know, quite dangerous

5:52

and it's a different way of living. So

5:54

one of the criteria for a cosmonaut

5:56

is you have to have a regular heartbeat,

5:59

and for some reason, I had an irregular

6:01

heartbeat. I knew I had an irregular heartbeat. I'd

6:03

been diagnosed without a few years earlier, but was

6:05

completely benign. But that was the one thing

6:08

that I did not pass. So I failed my first

6:10

medical and it was because of the irregular

6:12

heartbeat. And I was disappointed because

6:14

I'm like, really, this is what's going to stop my dream

6:16

of going to space is an irregular, benign

6:19

heartbeat. And so we found this doctor

6:21

in Boston that wanted it to

6:23

do an ablation surgery and said he thinks that he

6:25

could fix this and see where it's misfiring. And

6:27

ablation surgery what what is that? It's

6:30

where they send basically these

6:32

rods up your arteries, about five

6:34

of them through your groin and it goes up to

6:36

your heart. You're awake during the whole

6:38

thing, so there's all these television screens around

6:41

your head and you're seeing the little cameras

6:43

inside you and seeing where everything

6:45

is, kind of trying to misfire. They're

6:48

studying in it for I felt like hours. I'm

6:50

listening to Harry Potter's book on tape,

6:53

but I guess it was on CD then because

6:55

it was two. Yes, it was

6:57

the first time I had listened to a book before

6:59

and it was Harry Potter. So I was listening to that for

7:01

quite a few hours. And then when they find

7:04

the spot where it is misfiring, they

7:06

will burn it. It feels like a match, like being

7:08

put out on your heart. It hurt

7:10

like hell, but you know, in the end

7:13

it worked, and now to this day,

7:15

I have a regular heartbeat. So going

7:17

to space or not, I'm kind of glad I did it. You

7:20

go through the surgery, it's you know, it's quite

7:22

an ordeal. In Sync finally

7:24

goes on its six month hiatus and

7:27

you fly into Rush or you fly into Moscow

7:30

and you get to Star City. What

7:32

are your first impressions of the place. Well,

7:35

when I fly on to Moscow, it was just

7:37

an overwhelming feeling because you see

7:39

all the things that you've studied in history

7:41

books and all these gorgeous pictures of Moscow.

7:43

It was it was beautiful, So

7:46

you know, I was a good tourist for good twelve hours

7:48

when I first landed there. Of course,

7:50

the first thing I tried doing was going to McDonald's

7:52

because I heard that McDonald's was like the crazy thing

7:54

in Moscow, and of course

7:57

it's stupid America. It's like, I want

7:59

to see this McDonald which I did. So

8:01

that was a fun sight seeing experience.

8:04

I mean it was exactly what they said, completely

8:06

packed, huge. I mean, people were

8:09

fighting over McDonald's. It was a it's a big

8:11

thing. And then of course seeing the Kremlin

8:13

and all that. I mean, it's just, you know, just history

8:15

right in front of you. I did do Saint Petersburg

8:18

for a weekend and it's gorgeous. But the

8:20

places that I did see outside of those

8:22

cities could not be more opposite of what

8:24

those main cities were. Like, it's a

8:26

completely different country. The wealth

8:29

distribution is just insane.

8:32

And then you go to Star City and first

8:34

time I pulled up to is

8:37

very intimidating. The gates,

8:40

the walls, in the middle of a forest.

8:42

You've been driving for it felt

8:45

like hours to this just middle of nowhere

8:47

place that looks like it is literally

8:50

from the sixties. And the first thing I noticed

8:52

is how many guns, I mean so

8:54

many military They always just you

8:56

know, have their guns out, feeling like they're

8:59

going to just pointing out you at any second.

9:01

And then you get into the first gates and

9:04

you just see this amazing

9:06

city that you feel like, this

9:08

is exactly what Gagarin saw, right, I mean, this

9:10

is exactly the buildings he saw, This is exactly

9:12

where he walked. If you just took pictures,

9:15

you would never know what decade it

9:17

was. So just stepping

9:19

back in time was really interesting

9:22

and I just loved it. I thought it was just

9:24

a beautiful feeling. So

9:27

this all sounds really impressive.

9:30

But what about you? Where

9:32

did you fit into all of this? Tell me

9:34

about where you were living. Oh? So,

9:37

yes, I was living in one of the cosmonaut

9:39

profies. This apartment complex

9:41

again had been there since the sixties, chipped

9:44

pain everywhere, definitely wasn't kept up that

9:46

great. There was no air conditioning, and

9:48

when I got there, it was just the beginning

9:50

of summer. You know, I'd always thought, oh, Russia's

9:53

very cold, so I bet the summers are really nice.

9:55

Oh no, it is hot as

9:57

hell and there was no air condition

10:00

and so you'd have to sleep with the windows

10:02

open. But if you slept with the windows open,

10:04

the mosquitos would eat you alive. I

10:06

mean so many mosquitos. So

10:09

the first few nights I have to sleep

10:11

with a little sheet over me, sweating my butt

10:13

off and just hearing like little thumps

10:15

and mosquitos trying to get to me. And then

10:17

I'd wake up in the morning and I would just see my

10:20

whole wall was covered in blood because of all

10:22

the little splats that I would you try to kill

10:24

all the mosquitos, And it

10:26

was miserable, absolutely miserable. It

10:28

sounds like you weren't really given the star

10:30

celebrity treatment, you know, right, So

10:33

you were training with the Russians, you were living with

10:35

the Russians, and you were getting ready to fly

10:37

on a Russian Soyuz capsule. Yeah,

10:40

but as an American, NASA actually

10:43

also had to approve your flight, and

10:45

there were NASA reps you had to meet and impress.

10:48

How did that go well? I mean, especially at

10:50

the beginning, you know, NASA didn't want me there, you know,

10:52

it was it was ridiculous. Oh my gosh,

10:54

you're gonna get a pop star to come train

10:56

and go to space, you know, that's a slap

10:58

in so many astronaut's faces

11:00

that have not flown or will never fly. So

11:03

you know, a lot of you know, NASA definitely didn't want

11:05

me there. They thought it was a bad look. And

11:08

I remember the first time that I met with NASA

11:10

officials right before I went into training. They

11:12

wanted to meet with me, need to make sure that I had the goods

11:15

right to do this, and

11:18

so met with them. I thought it was a great meeting, and then I

11:20

find out later that, you know, they thought I was like

11:22

Dama's Rocks, And they also thought that I was

11:24

an alcoholic and drug addict

11:27

because I was a quote unquote rock star,

11:30

right, yeah, like have you seen our

11:32

group? We're pop stars? Ed? Yeah,

11:35

far from it. Because do you think

11:37

there are any aspects of being

11:39

a pop star, being a part of in Sync that prepared

11:42

you in any way for being an astronaut?

11:45

I do. It's odd to say that being

11:48

within Sync and what I did and trained

11:50

within Sync, it really did help

11:52

me with this space training, and I think that was

11:55

started off with work ethic. You know, within Sync,

11:57

we spent hours and hours learning

11:59

how to dance and singing at

12:01

the same time, which took us months to figure

12:04

that out, running on treadmills and trying to sing. So

12:06

conditioning was a huge part of

12:09

just being an end sync. It was almost

12:11

like a sport just because of the way

12:13

that we performed. So when I went to

12:15

Russia, I was already ready to work

12:17

hard. You weren't going to see me not paying

12:19

attention and being exactly what they thought.

12:21

I was going to be, this stupid little

12:23

pop star that is an alcoholic.

12:26

It's just too dumb to learn anything, you

12:28

know. I was there to work and work

12:30

hard, and then it wasn't until the very first

12:33

week of training and all your tests or

12:35

verbal tests and they rate you one to five and

12:38

I forget even what the first classes were. I know there

12:40

was a lot of math involved, and I

12:42

think it was the makeup of the soya is. I took it very

12:44

seriously. It's amazing what you can get yourself to

12:46

do when you're putting these situations, and especially

12:49

if you're passionate about it. Yeah, And I feel like, especially

12:51

if you have this sort of motivation

12:53

of someone saying you can't do it, you know,

12:55

you want to prove them wrong. Oh yeah, exactly.

12:58

So I mean I was doing rocket sign. It's my first

13:00

week there, and I'm like, I'm going to prove you.

13:15

I want to get to the training in just a minute.

13:17

But before that, what was your sort of

13:19

what was your impression of the Russians that you

13:21

met at Star City? What did you make of them?

13:24

The Russians that I met in Star City? The first

13:26

thing that I thought of is they're just proud,

13:29

very proud people. They're so

13:31

happy about what they have there

13:33

and what they've developed since

13:36

the sixties and all their accomplishments.

13:38

I mean, they still talk about Gagarin in almost

13:41

every sentence. That is their man.

13:43

And I had heard of Gagarin obviously the

13:45

first man in space, but as an American

13:48

you don't really get two in depth with a

13:50

Russian space agency and the whole Gagaran

13:52

story because you know, it's a little embarrassing

13:54

that they bear our country, so we have

13:57

a little revised history sometimes when we

13:59

study. I got to learn so

14:01

much about Gagarin those first couple of weeks,

14:04

and I was super impressed and became a

14:06

huge fan. And I felt that I

14:08

felt just as proud as they did. But

14:10

I loved it because they you know, I

14:13

would say probably half the

14:15

Russian Space Agency didn't want me there either.

14:17

I don't know if they thought it might be a bad look. It could

14:20

be something you can make fun of and make it the

14:22

space program look a little less than that.

14:24

They're allowing me to do this, but they never

14:26

really showed that to me. They

14:28

treated me like a cosmonaut. You know, once

14:30

you're in cosmaut training, you're a cosmaut,

14:33

and they respect cosmonauts so

14:36

much, and you felt special.

14:38

You felt very very special. I mean, the guy

14:40

who made my space suit made gagarin

14:43

space suit. I mean, it was just amazing

14:45

that the same exact people that worked

14:47

with Gagaron or working with me this many

14:50

decades later. What was a typical

14:52

day in Star City? Like sort of talk

14:54

me through your day from the moment you wake up. I

14:57

mean every day in Star City, it

14:59

wasn't typical. The only thing typical was you

15:02

knew you were up at five in the morning and you

15:04

would get back to your apartment by ten

15:06

pm. So the days were super

15:08

long, and you would have at the beginning of the week

15:10

you would get your schedule and it always

15:12

changed, and of course it was all in Russian, so I'd

15:14

have to like figure out what exactly

15:17

this it says because my

15:19

Russian teacher only spoke French and Russian,

15:22

zero English, and they thought just immersing

15:24

myself in that would make me learn

15:26

Russian a lot easier, But it's

15:28

not. With zero reference, I had

15:31

no idea what was going on. So I

15:33

knew how to conjugate everything in Russian,

15:35

but I didn't even know what the word meant. So

15:38

I had to start learning Russian on my own by

15:40

watching you know, the local Sesame

15:42

Street cartoons and that type of stuff. So

15:44

yeah, so you know, I could conjugate and I could

15:47

read it, but I didn't know what I'm saying. But thanks

15:49

to Sesame Street, I knew the certain words,

15:51

and mainly the things I needed to learn were

15:53

just emergency words like there's a fire,

15:55

you know, things like that. I mean, it was tough.

15:57

The language was definitely tough. Did

16:00

you eat a lot of Russian food while you were

16:02

over there? I was forced to eat a Russian

16:04

food. I have a very stupid

16:07

palette, I would say, especially twenty years

16:09

ago. There's many things I wouldn't eat, even

16:11

cucumbers, like that's how bland

16:14

my taste buds were. That was the first

16:16

time, I had cucumbers, and they love cucumbers

16:18

over in Russian they do, yeah,

16:20

and so there's the only thing I could eat and actually enjoy

16:23

and know what it was. They liked their shishka

16:25

babs for sure, so that was nice. But

16:27

they always made me eat this soup and it

16:29

was horrible. I don't know what kind of soup it was, but

16:32

that was the one thing at lunch they were always

16:34

like forcing me to finish,

16:36

So that was always strange to me. Yea, we

16:40

get into this a bit in some of the other episodes,

16:42

but I would love to hear more about

16:45

some of the actual training that you went through.

16:48

So tell me about survival

16:50

training. What is that. I feel like

16:52

most of my training was about

16:55

emergency and survival. So

16:57

you know, when you come down on the soyas, sometimes

17:00

you miss your mark and you don't know if you're going to land in

17:02

the ocean or you're in a land in the middle

17:04

of Siberia. You have no idea, one

17:06

little mistake and you're halfway across

17:09

the world. So you have to learn

17:11

how to survive for at

17:13

least a day in case they can't find you.

17:16

So one of those if you land in the forest is

17:18

learning how to build shelter, make a fire,

17:20

find food, what things are edible

17:23

and not edible. That was a good

17:25

I would say two week training Right there. I felt

17:27

like I was back in the boy Scouts, which

17:30

was fun. And then the other survival

17:32

training was they drop you in your Soya's

17:34

capsule into a huge Olympic

17:36

sized pool and you have to in

17:39

a certain amount of time as you're sinking,

17:41

get out of your skafand er your flight suit,

17:44

which is very hard because you have all

17:46

these bundles and your clothes and everything

17:48

just kind of pressed up against you. Your

17:50

whole body is numb because you're kneesier

17:52

in your chest. So then they drop you

17:54

in this water and you have to get out in a certain amount of time,

17:57

and it takes a while to

17:59

get out of that space suit. And the

18:01

first time they did it, I did it in a good amount

18:03

of time, so I was very happy. They were happy

18:05

I got out safe and I was able

18:07

to move on to the next emergency train.

18:11

You also flew a fighter plane.

18:13

Yeah, that was flying

18:15

the Russian MiG was like that

18:18

was one of the first days in Russia,

18:20

and this was kind of my first I don't know, look

18:22

at what it was like to be a Russian

18:24

cosmonaut. They took me to this

18:27

field where they had these fighter jets, and

18:29

I didn't know what we were doing, but every cosmonaut

18:32

has kind of a mentor cosmonaut,

18:34

and so my mentor cosmonaut took me there.

18:37

And we first go to this airfield

18:39

and we have a nice little lunch with

18:41

some sandwiches and lots of vodka.

18:44

And I did come to find out that the

18:46

vodka thing is real in Russia. They drink it

18:48

all day long, and they do it to celebrate. They do it

18:50

too, oh we finished a class, great? Oh

18:53

yeah, and they do it straight. So I'm having a

18:55

couple of vodka shots and I'm feeling really

18:57

good and he's like, okay, let's go fly. I'm

18:59

like what You're like, I thought we were having a picnic.

19:01

Oh no, So you know, we're pretty drunk,

19:04

and a commander's drunk, and he's

19:06

like all right. So we take out a little

19:08

flight plan and we're kind of drawing what

19:10

we're gonna do, and I'm like, okay, this

19:12

is great. Like I've never flown in anything like this,

19:14

and obviously I have an amazing pilot. So let's

19:17

do this. So we get in, we you know, take

19:19

off, and then I realized that, no,

19:21

he wants me to do the flight path. I've

19:24

never I've never flown a plane before.

19:27

You know, he does it first, and we're doing

19:29

circles and flips. It's everything you see

19:31

in Top Gun. And now I realize, he's probably

19:33

seeing how I can handle this, to see

19:36

how I would freak out if I was calm

19:38

enough to do this, and I was. I

19:40

was not worried at all. Never dawned

19:42

on me that this could be dangerous at all because I thought

19:45

I was in great hands, which

19:47

I was. But then when I took over, it

19:49

was amazing. I mean, I was doing all these

19:51

flips and you know, you see in the movie where they go

19:53

all the way up, then they cut the engine and then you fall

19:56

down, and then they cut it back on and then just pull it up

19:58

right above the tree line. We were doing all

20:00

of that and it was amazing,

20:03

absolutely amazing. But then you realize,

20:05

wait a minute, he's drunk. This

20:08

guy is drunk, So you know, I

20:10

definitely you know, I knew the lever that

20:13

I needed to pull in case I needed to eject out of

20:15

that thing. Let's just say that. So you're getting

20:17

closer and closer to that October launch

20:19

date. It's going to be you and two other cosmonauts

20:22

packed into this tiny soy Use capsule

20:24

and you were set to spend ten days in space

20:27

at the International Space Station. Yeah,

20:30

what was your role on the mission going to

20:32

be? Although I was a quote

20:34

unquote space tourist, it wasn't tourism

20:36

like we think today. You know, when you go up, you float

20:38

around, you come back. Every cosmonaut

20:41

on the soy is has a job because

20:43

there's no room for anything else. So

20:46

me, being in the left seat, I could

20:48

reach buttons that they couldn't reach.

20:51

So I was in charge of a lot of things

20:53

that could easily ruin the mission or kill

20:55

my crew members. So you had to take it very

20:57

very seriously. And I could understand, coming

21:00

from their view if you thought

21:02

that, oh my god, a freaking pop

21:04

star that's dumb as hell like is now

21:06

in charge of my oxygen like that,

21:08

that can't feel very safe. It was your

21:10

job to be the oxygen guy. Yeah,

21:13

yeah, So part of my job was making sure

21:15

that the oxygen was working right. You know. That

21:17

was a lot to put on your shoulders, because that's

21:20

very very important. Oxygen is very

21:22

important for a mission like that. But I

21:24

think once we had trained together, they saw

21:26

how serious I was about all of this, and

21:28

I learned very quickly. What was that like

21:31

for you? Kind of knowing that

21:33

all these people underestimated

21:35

you, you know they were they were kind of going

21:37

like, ah, this guy, we gotta go with the Like how

21:40

did that feel? It didn't feel much

21:42

different from my real life. I've always been underestimated

21:45

my entire life. I was always

21:47

the shortest kid. I was always like the low,

21:49

total pole person. So I always

21:51

loved proving people wrong and I

21:53

got that a lot within sync. When we came out.

21:56

We were so underestimated and made fun

21:58

of and no one took a seriously and

22:00

we just had to prove ourselves by being who we

22:02

were. I want to shift

22:04

gears a little bit. At this point

22:06

two thousand and two, you

22:09

were not out of the closet yet you

22:11

were hiding your sexuality even in the States.

22:14

Yeah, and now you're you were in

22:16

Russia, where attitudes are

22:18

you know, a lot more conservative and

22:21

where being gay could be potentially

22:23

quite dangerous, and

22:25

to dial back a little bit. I want to talk about

22:28

an experience that you had before the training began

22:30

as part of the medical tests. Yeah,

22:33

you flew to Russia and you had

22:35

to have a colonoscopy. What

22:37

happened? How did that go? Yeah? That was an

22:40

eye opening moment. You know, I'd been used

22:42

to hide myself my whole life, right, I mean, being

22:45

gay in the States still was not accepted

22:48

very well, even in two thousand and two. So

22:50

my whole life, since I was five, I knew I was

22:52

gay, and I knew I had to hide it, and very

22:54

conflicted because I grew up very religious, so

22:57

I always thought there was something wrong with me, and you

22:59

know, I would never act on it. But when I went

23:01

to Russia, it didn't even I didn't even

23:03

think about that because I'd already been living such a

23:06

hidden life that I was an expert at

23:08

it, so there was no way they were going to figure it out.

23:10

But when I get there and it's medical

23:12

training towards the end, you have to do a

23:15

colonoscophy, and I didn't

23:17

even know I was going in for this procedure because

23:19

they didn't tell you anything. So they

23:22

did the colonoscophy in front of many people.

23:24

My dad was there. Zero sedation. You just

23:26

kind of laid down, went to your side,

23:28

and they did it, and it hurt

23:31

so much. You know, they were pumping the air

23:33

into your stomach and it felt like there

23:35

was someone like with a knife trying to stab

23:37

outside, you know, to get out of your stomach. And

23:40

I had some tears going down my face because it

23:42

was just it hurts so badly. And they were just

23:44

laughing, like the doctors were laughing,

23:47

My translator was laughing, and

23:49

I'm looking at my dad. I'm like, so, what's

23:51

funny? And then finally someone's like, oh, They're

23:53

like, well, we now know that you're not gay, and

23:56

I was like, oh, okay.

23:59

And it was just such a joke, right, And

24:01

and I'd heard several things throughout

24:03

my training about gay people, right and making

24:06

fun of gay people because it was such

24:08

a macho atmosphere in this Cosmaut

24:10

training, and you just kind of had to laugh along

24:13

with them. But I knew then, like, WHOA,

24:15

I need to really watch

24:17

what I say. So I was very quiet

24:19

the rest of that training that

24:23

that sounds awful, and it gives you kind

24:25

of some insight into how pervasive and casual

24:28

homophobia was in Russia, I mean is

24:30

even more so probably today. But

24:32

did that experience with the kolonoscopy

24:34

did that put you off going? Did

24:37

it make you reconsider? No, it

24:39

never made me reconsider. I just thought, I mean,

24:41

that's that's just part of it, and that's just what

24:43

you had to do. You had to sacrifice a

24:45

lot, and I was I was ready for that sacrifice.

24:48

And so this this obviously happened before

24:51

before the training, before you moved

24:53

to Russia, right you once

24:55

you'd arrived, once you were living in Russia.

24:58

How much was the kind of homophobia

25:00

and hiding your sexuality, how much was that part

25:03

of your day to day? How much were you thinking about

25:05

that? You know, it definitely

25:07

ran through my mind every day I was there. I

25:10

in fact had been you know, it was the

25:12

first time that I had met someone,

25:15

so I had already kind of started

25:17

talking to someone and having a little relationship. So

25:19

this is the first time I'd ever acted

25:21

on something like this, and I knew that couldn't

25:24

be found out. And I thought, Okay, can't

25:26

call this guy, can't email this guy nothing.

25:28

As long as I'm there, there's no way I can communicate

25:31

because they're going to be watching what I write

25:33

and listening to every phone call that I have. But

25:35

other than that, I didn't feel in danger

25:38

at all because one I was stuck on a military

25:40

base, so there's no way they were going to find

25:42

out that I was gay. I didn't have

25:45

any information out there that you could

25:47

find to confirm that. And

25:49

throughout the training, you know, it's just it's a boys

25:51

club, it really is. At the end of certain

25:53

classes and you have like an hour you would go sit

25:56

in the big sauna where they kind

25:58

of take branches and kind of beat each other. They're

26:00

with and you're drinking vodka, and it's just kind

26:02

of this it's a it's a bonding time

26:04

with your crew, with your professors. It's just the time

26:07

that the boys bond. And in those

26:09

bonding times, people are telling

26:11

jokes and stories and laughing,

26:13

and a lot of the times the butt of the joke

26:15

would be being gay, you

26:18

know, and I haven't just have to laugh

26:20

along with it. So

26:35

Lance, you're in the middle of this

26:38

very hectic training schedule, You're you're

26:40

hyper focused, you're eating

26:42

too many cucumbers than you'd like to be eating.

26:44

But kind of in the background, of all of this, there

26:46

are some financial issues

26:48

with the project. What was going on behind

26:51

the scenes. What was going on behind

26:53

the scenes is still somewhat a mystery

26:55

to me because I don't know how much truth

26:57

I was being told. But what I from

27:00

my view, this is what happened. So I went

27:02

there with this company that wanted to, you

27:04

know, send the youngest person to space. And it was going to be

27:06

a part of this television show called

27:09

Mission Space. And they wanted their host,

27:11

which I was going to host the show, to have

27:14

gone through the training and gone to space

27:16

because the winner of the show does

27:18

the exact same thing, goes into Russian training

27:20

and gets sent off to the ISS. And it was going

27:22

to be a CBS show in America. And

27:24

then that's when they shipped me to Russia. And

27:26

I just started training and again cut

27:29

off from the world. So I was,

27:31

you know, I was doing the cosmonaut thing, but entertainment

27:33

they were doing their own thing. And I guess

27:36

Russia and Hollywood don't really get along

27:38

because Russia is all about the contract. You know, It's

27:40

like this is how it is and this is how it's

27:42

going to go. And you know, Hollywood can

27:44

be just very wishy, washy and shady, and

27:47

I think that's what went down because Alexander

27:50

Duretchen, who was the head of Anergia, which

27:52

is you know, their Boeing and basically

27:54

runs the Russian Space Agency, brought me into

27:56

his office and he said, look, your

27:59

name is not in this track at all with CBS

28:01

or anything. And that was the first Time'm

28:04

like, well, well then why am

28:06

I here then? And I just I

28:08

still couldn't figure out why they would send me

28:10

there, knowing that they were going to sandbag

28:12

my flight anyway. But it

28:14

pissed off a Nargia so much that

28:17

they ripped the contract up and said, we're not

28:19

working with y'all. And that's

28:21

when they kicked me out of my first time. They kicked

28:23

me out of the training facility and I had to go to Moscow.

28:25

So you got kicked out and you just went

28:28

to Moscow? Yeah, I

28:30

had to sit in Moscow for a weekend until

28:32

they figured something out because they ripped the

28:34

contract out and there was no reason I

28:36

should be there because without that contract,

28:39

no one was paying for me to be there. I mean, I was pissed.

28:41

I was pissed at my agents. I was pissed

28:43

at CBS. I mean, I'm here in

28:45

good faith doing this and putting

28:48

my ass on the line, being tortured every

28:50

day, and here you are kind of like

28:52

playing with my life. And again, I don't

28:54

know exactly what went down,

28:56

but all I know is that part of the mission

28:58

was canceled. It was done, and there was no

29:01

TV show that I was hosting and all that.

29:03

But immediately MTV popped on board

29:06

and they knew it. We had already been shooting some stuff,

29:08

so they're like, well, we'll just do an MTV doc on

29:10

this because it's still the youngest person to go to space as

29:12

a musician. So they kind of picked

29:14

it up immediately and we just continued

29:17

that next week and they were on the line

29:19

to pay for this. But then I went

29:21

in for a few more months, finishing the

29:23

training, and then it was I

29:25

guess September, right before my launch

29:27

or maybe early October, and apparently

29:30

they couldn't get the funding they needed right

29:32

before the mission because no one would

29:35

cover a cosmonaut with insurance. That's

29:37

crazy that that wasn't sorted out before

29:41

ying. Yeah,

29:43

yeah, so you know, no one

29:45

would fund a mission that can't be insured. No

29:47

production can go ahead without it being

29:49

insured. So that was the reasoning

29:52

they said, we can't go further because

29:54

we can't ensure you. And that

29:56

was two or three weeks before my launch,

29:59

and that's when I found out that my mission

30:01

was canceled because of insurance.

30:04

And it broke my heart. You

30:06

know, I couldn't believe that I was two weeks short

30:08

of getting my certification. I had gone this

30:10

far, and I'm like, are you kidding me? Like

30:13

I did all this for nothing? Yeah,

30:15

but how did it feel for you? Like the

30:18

moment you found out it definitely wasn't happening.

30:21

It was a dark moment in my life.

30:23

You know, it was very depressing, and I

30:25

feel like I feel like I still

30:27

have a lot of depression over it because you worked

30:29

so hard on something and just

30:31

because of, you know, a couple of stupid people, it's

30:33

just kind of pulled away from you and they don't even care.

30:35

They're like, oh, well, that's not my problem anymore.

30:38

Next you just kind of felt thrown away.

30:41

But then Russia said, well, if you want to

30:43

finish the course, which is two more weeks,

30:45

we'll let you finish it so you can get certified. So that

30:47

you can go in case you can work this out

30:49

in the future. You know, you can finish out this training,

30:52

but you'd have to pay a million dollars.

30:54

A million dollars. Yeah, so

30:57

I had to decide if I was going to pay a

30:59

million dollars out of my own pocket to

31:01

finish the damn two weeks training just

31:03

so I can be certified, just in case I

31:05

want to use it to fly to space in the future. And

31:07

I did, and I'm glad I did. I

31:09

mean, it sucked, but I needed

31:12

that certification. You know, I had

31:14

to leave there with something positive.

31:17

But yeah, a million dollars to finish two weeks

31:19

was a lot, but you know, I cherished that

31:22

certificate and maybe I will go one

31:24

day. What was it like for you to

31:26

go back to the US after all that training.

31:29

I had so many emotions about it. One, I

31:31

couldn't wait to get back to my home,

31:33

my own bed, my family,

31:36

you know, my friends. You know. That excited

31:38

me. I needed that normalcy again. But

31:41

then the other side of me was

31:43

embarrassed, embarrassed that I wasn't able

31:45

to finish this mission

31:48

that I was so excited about that I

31:50

had completely stopped my life

31:52

for that, I felt I stopped my

31:55

whole business for once I got

31:57

back to America, That's when I saw all

31:59

the press about it. As long

32:01

as I was in Russia, I didn't

32:04

see the news. I didn't have a TV, I didn't read

32:06

the papers, so I didn't know it was such a big

32:08

deal me being over there in such

32:10

a news story. So I started seeing

32:12

all the news stories about like how it

32:15

was a PR stunt, and then I wasn't really over

32:17

there, and then I get kicked out of Star City

32:19

and I mean, just really making me

32:21

look like an idiot. So you know, going

32:24

back to that kind of darkness, and

32:26

it was very confusing time, but it was life changing.

32:29

How had you changed

32:31

kind of physically and emotionally after

32:33

the training? How had it changed you?

32:36

I think it changed me a lot. I had

32:39

the best time. I would do it all over again,

32:41

but I definitely came

32:43

back a little I don't know, just scared. I

32:45

guess. I don't know what it was, but I definitely

32:48

had changed. I got quieter, and

32:50

I was already a quiet guy, but I felt like I

32:52

really kind of stood back and I'm like, okay,

32:54

everyone's really kind of judging me at all times

32:56

watching me at all times, like I just felt like the Russians

32:59

were always watching. How

33:01

do you feel now when you look back at those

33:04

crazy six months in Russia?

33:06

I think it is one

33:08

of the best times I've ever had in my life. Also

33:10

one of the most devastating

33:12

times of my life. Every emotion comes

33:14

out. It was just no one will understand

33:16

it, no one unless you went through it.

33:19

You just don't get it. You don't get the pressure

33:21

that was on you. You're raised thinking

33:23

about a country a certain way, with all the

33:25

relations between both countries. Your team

33:27

America, right, and the Russians were the bad

33:29

guys for so long. But when you're

33:31

there and you work with these guys, it

33:33

was amazing to see all these countries

33:36

working together, and all the

33:38

bullshit that I had always heard

33:41

just kind of washed away, you know, And I started

33:43

understanding the Russians much

33:45

better, and how they looked at everything in their

33:48

beliefs, and to see how everyone really worked

33:50

together and was such a team was

33:52

a beautiful thing. Space really brought

33:54

so many people together. So

33:57

Putin invaded Ukraine last February.

34:00

Relations between the West and Russia

34:02

are at their lowest since the Cold War.

34:06

At this point. Do you think you'll ever go back?

34:08

What would you like to I would

34:10

love to go back to Russia. I would love

34:12

to finally get on a mission, Soyer's

34:15

mission, so I could go and train a little

34:17

bit more for that see a lot of I'm

34:19

sure there's so many of the same people still

34:21

working there. It was a special place

34:23

for me and I was so young, so I feel

34:25

very connected to Star City and everyone

34:28

I worked with. I hope relations

34:30

get better. A lot of people that know

34:32

that I'm doing the last Soviet or like, are

34:34

you sure this is the right time to, you

34:37

know, do a Russian story. I'm like, well,

34:39

this is the best time to do it. It shows

34:41

you a slice of life from Russia

34:43

and especially a time period where

34:45

communism was falling. It's the perfect

34:47

time to relive that and study that

34:49

and educate yourself because what's going on now

34:52

is not too different from what is going on back

34:54

then. And do you think

34:56

you'll still go to space someday? I

34:59

don't know if I'll ever end up in space, but

35:01

I pray that I do. I really

35:03

do. I just think it's one of those

35:05

things that, you know, if I could cross

35:08

that off the list, I would feel very

35:10

accomplished. You know. I

35:12

spent a lot of time training

35:14

and putting myself through a lot of misery to

35:17

you know, to get to the point where I could actually

35:20

go, and I am coming so close you just taste

35:22

it. I won't be fulfilled unless

35:24

I'm able to make it. It would be nice

35:26

to just make it to Space. Fine,

35:29

but my goal I want to live

35:31

on the ISS. I want my ten

35:33

days up there. I want to do my studies.

35:36

You know. I don't want to just go up there and play around

35:38

and float around and oh this was fun. Yeah,

35:41

yeah, yeah, I just I want to do something

35:44

important and I want to, you know,

35:46

take it seriously. And so my hopes are

35:48

still there that one day this

35:50

will happen. I

35:58

can't believe it's been over twenty years

36:00

since those crazy six months and I

36:02

still can't get them out of my head. I

36:05

mean, Space just got under my skin and stayed

36:07

there. No matter what

36:09

I get up to in life or where I go, I

36:12

can't shake its siren call. I

36:14

mean, here, I am hosting a whole podcast

36:17

about it, and

36:19

on that. We're gonna leave my story for

36:21

a bit now, and we're back next

36:23

week with Sarah Gays, So I'll

36:26

talk to you then. The

36:45

Last Soviet is a Kaleidoscope production

36:48

in partnership with iHeart Podcast and

36:50

Exile Media. Produced

36:52

by Sama's Dad Audio and

36:54

hosted by Me Lance Bass

36:57

Executive produced by Kate Osborne

36:59

and Mangesh Hada Kador with

37:02

Oz Wallisham and Kostas Linos

37:05

from iHeart Executive Produced by

37:07

Katrina Norville and Nikki Ettore

37:10

from Sama's Dad Audio our executive

37:12

producers or Joe Sykes and Dasha Lisitzina.

37:15

Produced by Asia Fuchs, Dasha

37:18

Litzitzina and Joe Sykes. Writing

37:21

by Lydia Marchant, Research by

37:23

Mika Golubovski and Molly

37:25

Schwartz, Music by Will

37:27

Epstein, Themed by Martin or String

37:30

mixing and sound design by Richard Ward

37:33

and special thanks to Nando via Well,

37:35

Lissa Pollock, Will Pearson, Connel

37:37

Byrne, Bob Pittman, and Isaac Lee.

37:41

If you want to hear more shows like this, nothing

37:43

is more important to the creators here at Kaleidoscope

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