If you’re curious about what Jim Clash chatted with Owen and Richard Garriott about when he interviewed them at an Explorer’s Club dinner in New York recently, there’s a fine summary and transcript posted at AskMen.

Because, yes, they talked about more than just how to poo in space.

By the way, Clash himself has had a pretty storied life:

Clash, a fellow and director at The Explorers Club, is a seasoned adventurer himself. In reporting for Forbes and other publications over the last two decades, he has skied to the South Pole; driven the Bugatti Veyron at its top speed of 253 mph; flown in a MiG-25 at Mach 2.6 to the edge of space; visited the North Pole twice; and climbed the Matterhorn, 23,000-foot Aconcagua and virgin peaks in Antarctica and Greenland. He has also purchased a ticket from Virgin Galactic Airways to fly into suborbital space.

Anyhow, here’s a sampler of his interview with the Garriotts:

JC: When you flew in the Cold War, in your wildest imagination did you think your son would follow you to space, let alone via the Russians? Isn’t that the ultimate irony — going with the enemy?

OG: At the time he flew [2008], I wasn’t thinking enemies at all. But, no, it never occurred to me that space for him was a realistic probability. First, he wasn’t going to be accepted by NASA because he had poor eyesight. Second, no one in our family had the kind of money to do that, so I thought there was no point in him trying.

JC: You went on to be instrumental in every aspect of Richard’s flight, helping him train in Russia for a year, then being at launch and recovery. You also acted as Cap Com for his entire 12-day flight. Richard, was it reassuring having your father as point man on the ground?

RG: Long ago I did the child rejection of “Don’t tell me what to do, Dad,” but in this case, it was the opposite. Things are moving quickly when you’re in space, with a limited amount of time. I took on a very heavy load of experiments up there — I’d argue as heavy as, if not heavier than, most professional astronauts. All that added up to a complex mission. So it was essential to have him help me plan it out, then roll with the inevitable changes. Say I missed being at the window during the overfly of a ground target. That’s now gone, you can’t just say, “Wait, let’s go back.” So instead I would report down that I missed that shot, and he’d go find when the [orbital] track would repeat, adjust my schedule and email me overnight a new one for the next few days to try to pick up the piece I had missed.

Click on through to read the whole thing!