The Hardest Landing

What a Space Shuttle Pilot Taught Me About Letting Go

There are moments in life where everything you've trained for, everything you've built your identity around, suddenly ends.

And no one hands you a roadmap for what comes next.

I remember a specific moment while frying eggs in the kitchen. I’d just come off a big project—one of those that consumes your thoughts, your energy, your very sense of purpose. And as the eggs crackled and the sun poured through the window, I felt… hollow. Not exhausted. Not burnt out. Just disoriented. Like someone had switched off the gravity.

When I asked Susan Kilrain what the hardest part of her journey was, I expected her to say something about the dangers of flying the F-14 or navigating a Space Shuttle re-entry. Instead, she said this:

“Honestly, being a parent was way harder than piloting the shuttle.”

It stopped me in my tracks. This is someone who’s landed on aircraft carriers, survived malfunctioning jet engines, and flown a space mission that had to abort mid-orbit. And yet… the part that shook her the most wasn’t the danger. It was the identity shift. The surrender. The transition.

She told me that when she left NASA—when she walked away from one of the most elite roles imaginable—it wasn’t launch math or high-risk missions that haunted her. It was waking up the next day with a different title… or no title at all.

And I thought:

What happens when you’ve lived the dream… and then it’s over?

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