Speaker 1: Catherine benel Peg. Welcome to straight Talk. How are you going?
Speaker 2: I'm great, Thank you.
Speaker 1: You've got Australia's Space Agency. Are you there now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm at work here in Adelaide at Lot fourteen
Speaker 2: where the Space Agency headquarters is. This is where I
Speaker 2: spend most of my days here when I'm in the office.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. What that jacket you got on? It looks
Speaker 1: very cool. I want one of those. Wow, can you
Speaker 1: explain what you got on there?
Speaker 2: What is that? So this is my flight jacket, we
Speaker 2: call it. So basically on the left you wear your
Speaker 2: country that you represent, obviously Australia. You get where your
Speaker 2: astronaut wings, which you received when you pass basic training
Speaker 2: and eligible for a flight assignment. Your Space agency, Australian
Speaker 2: Space Agency. And this is my class patch. It's the Hoppers.
Speaker 2: So I'm in a class with five others and we
Speaker 2: name the Hoppers in part because well, Australia is represented
Speaker 2: on astronaut training for the first time and we liked
Speaker 2: how you know, kangaroos go forwards and not backwards. And
Speaker 2: when you get missions, you get patches down your arms
Speaker 2: and across your chest as well, so you can kind
Speaker 2: of get a sense of what astronauts have done by
Speaker 2: looking at their jackets and their flight suits. But I'm
Speaker 2: a ricky astronaut by comparison to many.
Speaker 1: Do you choose that name? The hoppers orders to zech
Speaker 1: get allocated to you.
Speaker 2: It's allocated by the class that's ahead of you. So
Speaker 2: the class was ahead of us at the European Space
Speaker 2: Agency or ISA is called the Shenanigans, and they gave
Speaker 2: us the name.
Speaker 1: What are they Irish or something? Were they?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well they've played a lot of tricks on each
Speaker 2: other apparently, so that's why they got that name.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool, Like I don't know, like being in
Speaker 1: a space agency and being an astronaut, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: Like it's sort of what everybody they don't even dream about,
Speaker 1: they fantasize about, like especially young boys or young girls
Speaker 1: who sort of sitting around looking at all the stuff
Speaker 1: that's recently happened, of course with Artemis. But we'll come
Speaker 1: back to itemis in a moment. But like, do you
Speaker 1: ever have to pinch yourself?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely a pinch stuff to be a qualified astronaut,
Speaker 2: you know, ready for missions to the International Space Station
Speaker 2: or even the Moon. It's been a long time coming,
Speaker 2: but it's still really kind of a new beginning of
Speaker 2: what the future could hold. So yeah, I'm excited for myself, yes,
Speaker 2: but also I hope what this can enable more broadly
Speaker 2: for the country, and I'm really grateful to be in
Speaker 2: this position too.
Speaker 1: To qualify as an astronaut, it's not like going to
Speaker 1: university and becoming a lawyer or something. What's the process
Speaker 1: of becoming an astronaut is like to get a science
Speaker 1: degree or something? I mean, what does it mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so when you finish school, there's no kind of
Speaker 2: graduate job or apprentice to be an astronaut. You have
Speaker 2: to have a first career in advance of even being
Speaker 2: able to apply, and that first career has to be
Speaker 2: something that's in a technical field. You can be a
Speaker 2: scientist of any kind. You can be an engineer of
Speaker 2: any kind. You can be a pilot, you can be
Speaker 2: a medical doctor. And on top of that, you need
Speaker 2: to be fit and healthy, not like an Olympic athlete,
Speaker 2: but kind of like you're in the military, fit enough
Speaker 2: and healthy enough to do your job. You need to
Speaker 2: have expeditionary experience, meaning things like being in the military
Speaker 2: or in Antarctica or on like scientific field ships. You
Speaker 2: should have operational skills, which means things like having been
Speaker 2: in the emergency service or flying or scuba diving situations
Speaker 2: where you have to make decisions in real time where
Speaker 2: someone could die if you screw up. And on top
Speaker 2: of that, you should have kind of international experience or
Speaker 2: speak other languages. So it's really broad and building out
Speaker 2: a CV hopefully one day. Being an astronaut is an
Speaker 2: awesome journey in its own right. So I tell people
Speaker 2: with this dream, you know, pick something in that huge
Speaker 2: breadth of fields that you love anyway, and becoming an
Speaker 2: astronaut's just the cherry on the top of a path
Speaker 2: that you're enjoying.
Speaker 1: Would you be able to sort of open up sort
Speaker 1: of what did you do? Like go in your case,
Speaker 1: I mean, did you do an engineering degree university? And
Speaker 1: did you go to a university in South Australia or
Speaker 1: whereabouts in Australia? What did you do?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I originally wanted to be a pilot, right.
Speaker 2: I did aerobatic flying and loved science as well as
Speaker 2: a teenager, but I got medically postponed in the selection
Speaker 2: to be an Air Force pilot. So I had to
Speaker 2: go do something else, and I picked being an engineer
Speaker 2: and scientist. So I went to Sydney UNI. I grew
Speaker 2: up in Sydney and did a double degree in physics
Speaker 2: and aeronautical space engineering. And I picked up the engineering
Speaker 2: half of the degree just because it had the word
Speaker 2: space in the title. I didn't actually know what engineering was.
Speaker 2: I'd never used a drill or written a line of code,
Speaker 2: but I thought it would be a way to kind
Speaker 2: of broaden my knowledge base. And I'm so glad I did.
Speaker 2: It took me on the most wonderful journey around the world,
Speaker 2: working on some of the best space missions I could
Speaker 2: have imagined. So I ultimately became a space engineer. So
Speaker 2: someone that designs and develops satellites, space stations, robots for
Speaker 2: other planets. And I've done that for about fifteen years now.
Speaker 1: Wow. So being involved in a team that designs a
Speaker 1: space station that sounds pretty hectic. I'm sure the team's
Speaker 1: pretty big. And if the errors, well, you can't afford
Speaker 1: to make one eraror I mean, I can imagine there
Speaker 1: would be definitely you know, you know the effect of
Speaker 1: making one era in a million is catastrophic, So you
Speaker 1: probably have to be you know, ten standard deviations away
Speaker 1: from the mean in terms of error rates, I mean, like,
Speaker 1: how does that work? Like I can't even get my
Speaker 1: head around that, Like, in terms of error rates, you
Speaker 1: can't afford to make one slightest opportunity for something not
Speaker 1: to work.
Speaker 2: In a space station, Yeah, there's an acceptable error risk,
Speaker 2: and you have all these different sigmas and things like
Speaker 2: you say. Overall for an International Space Station mission, which
Speaker 2: is about six months on a tested vehicle, it's been
Speaker 2: up there for twenty six years, you're designed in fatality
Speaker 2: risk is one in two hundred, so that been some
Speaker 2: time in that mission. Your designed risk of death is
Speaker 2: one in two hundred, which is something I wouldn't get
Speaker 2: in the car for right, We're an airline of four,
Speaker 2: so astronauts do that because we believe in the discoveries
Speaker 2: you can make up there and the importance of that work.
Speaker 2: But as an engineer doing that before, you're very aware
Speaker 2: how important it is, and you only take risks you
Speaker 2: need to take risks. I worked for Airbus, so like Boeing,
Speaker 2: the developed aircraft and another part of the business, so
Speaker 2: that safety culture comes across from designing aircraft. But when
Speaker 2: we design satellites, we should be not over perfecting and
Speaker 2: gold plating everything because we want to be low cost
Speaker 2: there as far as we can when we're looking at
Speaker 2: things like weather and disasters and communications, so that you know,
Speaker 2: we make it as economical as possible.
Speaker 1: So what are your ambitions in terms of maybe one
Speaker 1: day going to the Moon or maybe even Mars. How
Speaker 1: do you control that ambition instead of because the day
Speaker 1: to day you do something different, but you've always got
Speaker 1: this burning ambition or desire to be chosen to go
Speaker 1: on the next moon expedition, whether it be landing on
Speaker 1: the Moon or just going around there, going to the
Speaker 1: dark side of the Moon or the other side of
Speaker 1: the moon like recently. I mean, how do you control
Speaker 1: that ambition? Excitement?
Speaker 2: It's a great positive thing, it's a wonderful motivator. But
Speaker 2: the reality is most of an astronaut's career is spent
Speaker 2: here on the ground. I've only been a qualified astronaut
Speaker 2: for two years since April twenty twenty four was when
Speaker 2: I graduated, so it's relatively early days. You know, being
Speaker 2: a qualified astronaut from a country without a human space
Speaker 2: flight program is unusual. So it's just another layer on
Speaker 2: the uncertainty youngion, and the way I handle that uncertainty
Speaker 2: is by knowing that I can contribute from what I've
Speaker 2: learned so far as well as continue to learn into
Speaker 2: the future. So I've been able to get out and
Speaker 2: about across the country through the Australian Space Agency to
Speaker 2: speak to people, especially young people, about opportunities in space
Speaker 2: and technical careers and open doors also for our researchers
Speaker 2: and companies to be more involved in space opportunities and
Speaker 2: to support with what the Space Agency is doing for
Speaker 2: Artemis as well. I think for most people that have
Speaker 2: become astronauts or people that have big dreams for themselves
Speaker 2: for their careers, the easiest way to manage it, I
Speaker 2: think is to make it not about what you want
Speaker 2: to be like yourself, but what you want to contribute.
Speaker 2: So be purpose driven and that helps to remove your
Speaker 2: ego from it. It helps you to stop being narcissistic,
Speaker 2: but also to stop worrying if you're good enough and
Speaker 2: just focus on getting the job done the best you can.
Speaker 2: And also knowing that you're not alone in space. You're
Speaker 2: part of a crew, not just up there, but one
Speaker 2: hundreds of people on the ground supporting you and here
Speaker 2: on Earth. You know, space is part it's not a bubble.
Speaker 2: It's part of a broader ecosystem that underpins all our
Speaker 2: utilities here in Australia.
Speaker 1: What is the broad objective generally for space exploration and
Speaker 1: in particular the Moon. What is the broader purpose of
Speaker 1: it as opposed to just to be a say, look
Speaker 1: we went there, we went on the other side and
Speaker 1: we were able to land. What's the fundamental reason why
Speaker 1: we need to land on the moon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's a number of reasons why you do it.
Speaker 2: The real focus for Artemis, which is the new Apollo,
Speaker 2: is about going back to the Moon, not to plant
Speaker 2: a flag and have footprints to be the first, but
Speaker 2: to go back there to set up a long term
Speaker 2: presence what's called a sustainable presence, in order to do
Speaker 2: long term science and also to have a presence in
Speaker 2: the same way you know as a nation, as countries
Speaker 2: we do in Antarctica to ensure all nations are using
Speaker 2: it responsibly. So by going up to the Moon long term,
Speaker 2: we can understand Earth better. It's thought the Earth and
Speaker 2: the Moon formed from a collision Apollo Tortoise that because
Speaker 2: the Moon's moving slowly further away from us. We can
Speaker 2: tell from the reflectives we put on there, so we've
Speaker 2: formed of the same stuffs, but we can't see the
Speaker 2: early Earth. On Earth, we've got weathering and volcanic activity.
Speaker 2: The Moon is frozen in time, so by understanding the moon,
Speaker 2: we know more about the inputs into our climate models
Speaker 2: and things like that to support early Earth. We can
Speaker 2: also look up there for sources like water, which can
Speaker 2: help us to live off the land up there and
Speaker 2: to go further afield. There's a lot of things we
Speaker 2: can research up there using the space environment. Radiation is
Speaker 2: one of them. We've already learned a lot about radiation's
Speaker 2: effects on the human bodies through artamus I, which was
Speaker 2: flu crash test dummies called phantoms for women's bodies.
Speaker 1: And actual bodies.
Speaker 2: Well, it was like crash test dummies of women's bodies
Speaker 2: to look at how radiation from out there moves through them,
Speaker 2: which is something we didn't know before, and that data
Speaker 2: is already been used to improve like radiotherapy treatments for
Speaker 2: women on Earth. So ultimately we got there for science.
Speaker 2: We got there for international cooperation to set the stage
Speaker 2: to work together in big challenges that we have around
Speaker 2: the world. If we look at the International Space Station,
Speaker 2: which is underpinned Artemis. So the International Space Station is
Speaker 2: a soccer field sized space station in the lower orbit,
Speaker 2: only four hundred kilometers up. It's been there for twenty
Speaker 2: six years and that has helped us work together with
Speaker 2: countries from around the world in ways that we would
Speaker 2: never have otherwise. It's been nominated for the Nobel Peace
Speaker 2: Prize twice because of what it's done to help integrate
Speaker 2: different nations. Basically, it's also an economic opportunity exploration in Australia.
Speaker 2: Our exploration programs through the Australian Space Agency are returning
Speaker 2: seven dollars for every one dollar we've invested in them
Speaker 2: into programs like a small lunar ROVERA for the South
Speaker 2: Pole to take up our field robotics and our automation.
Speaker 2: We've invested in senses that will be helping land as
Speaker 2: land on the Moon more safely. In senses that go
Speaker 2: on the surface that tell us what's under the surface,
Speaker 2: which is helping us to do that more sustainably on Earth,
Speaker 2: for mining, how to grow plants on the Moon that
Speaker 2: helps us with drought tolerant crops on Earth. That's all
Speaker 2: returning seven to one at least per project.
Speaker 1: These are things that Australia is.
Speaker 2: Doing relatively specifically.
Speaker 1: So we're innovating around sensing programs, the engineering of it,
Speaker 1: the software around it, the feedback from it, and the
Speaker 1: learning from it. I guess what we can learn from that.
Speaker 1: So that's so we are actually making money of what
Speaker 1: we spend. And is the Space Agency allocated money from
Speaker 1: the government, Like, where's that money coming from? Was the
Speaker 1: Space Agency have some private element?
Speaker 2: So no, the money that the Space Agency administers is
Speaker 2: government funds. So we've had a program called Moon to
Speaker 2: Mars which is developing the rover for the Moon and
Speaker 2: a number of technologies for space that is returning at
Speaker 2: least seven to one on investment. The Space Agency is
Speaker 2: administered over one hundred and seventy million dollars in grants.
Speaker 2: Over the eight years, we've had a Space Agency across
Speaker 2: more than ninety different organizations, ninety different projects across Australia,
Speaker 2: hundreds of organizations. So we're smaller than most space agencies,
Speaker 2: we're smaller than most space economies, but we're really emerging
Speaker 2: in this more commercial space era, which means that we're
Speaker 2: able to target our programs to ones that do bring
Speaker 2: Australia an economic return. Globally, the space economy is set
Speaker 2: to triple over the next decade, so if Australian businesses
Speaker 2: can access those markets, we stand to benefit economically as
Speaker 2: well as from having our own capability. Because Australia really
Speaker 2: relies on space, and most of the space we rely
Speaker 2: on almost all of it is supplied by international companies
Speaker 2: or international or other countries, and so by being able
Speaker 2: to do more ourselves, we can become more resilient with
Speaker 2: our own needs.
Speaker 1: Well, how do you mean Australia relies on space? I
Speaker 1: didn't know that. How do we rely on space? Whatfull?
Speaker 2: So ninety nine percent of data about climate and where
Speaker 2: the globally comes from satellites in space. It's how we
Speaker 2: communicate across our land. We're shortly to have triple zero
Speaker 2: coverage across all of Australia direct to our mobile phones
Speaker 2: through satellites in space. If we look at the UK,
Speaker 2: I know eighteen percent of their GDP relies on space.
Speaker 2: For Australia it's even more. I don't have the number,
Speaker 2: but it's even more. Just inspection of how big and
Speaker 2: vast and remote. We are across lands and seas. So
Speaker 2: one way to think of space isn't as a niche industry,
Speaker 2: but as a place. Space is like the ocean, and
Speaker 2: it's a place that is the ultimate high point from
Speaker 2: which we can see things. And from that high point,
Speaker 2: like a super high mobile phone tower, we can connect
Speaker 2: what we can see and what we can connect. We
Speaker 2: can send information through things like you know the GPS
Speaker 2: that guides us on our Google maps. The timing data
Speaker 2: from GPS actually is what our banking system relies on.
Speaker 2: Every time you tap your phone to buy a coffee,
Speaker 2: the data in real time is being synchronized through clock
Speaker 2: measurements from space. It's the same behind our energy and
Speaker 2: transport system. And all of these things that we rely
Speaker 2: on are really international provided satellites. So we rely in
Speaker 2: many cases on the good will of other nations to
Speaker 2: provide that.
Speaker 1: When we hear about the amount of money that's getting
Speaker 1: allocated to the Space Agency in Australia, most of us
Speaker 1: don'tuts actually sort of go to the next step and say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, what's the return and if we're getting a
Speaker 1: seven multiple of seven, In other words, every dollar we spend,
Speaker 1: we get seven dollars back or seven dollars contributed. That's
Speaker 1: not back, but we get seven dollars contributed to the
Speaker 1: strained economy. Why wouldn't the government contribute more? I mean,
Speaker 1: instead of one hundred and seventy million, why wouldn't we
Speaker 1: make it a billion?
Speaker 2: I mean, that's a question for government, But I'd say
Speaker 2: that what's really exciting is that our space sector, over
Speaker 2: the investments in the last few years, is moving from
Speaker 2: being auted to demonstrate capability to being able to deliver
Speaker 2: operational capability. So we're poised to scale, you know, right
Speaker 2: as the global space sector is shifting geopolitically, it's shifting programmatically,
Speaker 2: it's shifting industrially to be more commercial and that is
Speaker 2: a really rare alignment and it's really powerful for us
Speaker 2: in terms of we've got the capability if we can
Speaker 2: bridge that gap to serving these international markets. But most
Speaker 2: space markets are quite closed, and that's the role of
Speaker 2: government and the role of the Space Agency to unlock access.
Speaker 2: For example, we've recently signed an agreement called the TSA
Speaker 2: or Technology Safeguards Agreement with the US which allows US
Speaker 2: rocket companies to launch from Australia, and that business that
Speaker 2: could bring to Australia is thought to be over one
Speaker 2: billion dollars over the next decade because we're a fantastic
Speaker 2: place to launch from just where we are where we
Speaker 2: are in the world. We've got the ability to launch
Speaker 2: near the equator, which lets lets you launch further afield,
Speaker 2: you know, to what's called geostationary orbit, which is a
Speaker 2: really important one for communications, or further out to the Moon.
Speaker 2: We can also launch orbits to go around the polls,
Speaker 2: which are really good for looking at the Earth because
Speaker 2: the whole Earth rotates underneath you. We are the only
Speaker 2: place in the world that has commercial capsules returning to
Speaker 2: commercial spaceports. It's Australian businesses running a spaceport thoughts that
Speaker 2: are getting the economic benefit. And what those catsules contain
Speaker 2: are pharmaceuticals. So in space, because everything is really stable
Speaker 2: because it floats, you can make new medicines that you
Speaker 2: can't make on Earth and they're returning those to Australia
Speaker 2: and we've only just started that in the last few years,
Speaker 2: and there's been a deal just signed for twenty more
Speaker 2: until twenty twenty eight. So Australia is really critical to
Speaker 2: the global space economy and everyone wants to work with us.
Speaker 2: I can tell you that when I went to train
Speaker 2: as an astronaut that all the other space agencies were
Speaker 2: so excited that Australia was stepping up in its space ambition.
Speaker 1: In the Artemis, the most recent Artemis voyage. What's the
Speaker 1: role of Australia in something like that. It's more importantly
Speaker 1: the space agency, your space agency. What's the role that
Speaker 1: we play.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is just the beginning for Artemis. We've
Speaker 2: just had the first man mission of many to follow,
Speaker 2: and it's also the beginning of Australia's role in it.
Speaker 2: For Artemis two, which just went around the Moon, just
Speaker 2: like an Apollo, Australia was critical for communications and tracking.
Speaker 2: So when the astronauts went around the far side of
Speaker 2: the Moon and then re emerged, they were actually above Australia, right.
Speaker 2: It was Australian operators that were waiting to reconnect out
Speaker 2: and recommunicate.
Speaker 1: With them during that blackout period you took, yeah.
Speaker 2: So when they came around out of the blackout, yep,
Speaker 2: it was Australia that found them and connected them back
Speaker 2: up because it was above us. So we have one
Speaker 2: of three big dishes in the world called the Deep
Speaker 2: Space Network DSN, just outside Canberra, and we were critical
Speaker 2: doing that, just like we did a similar function in Apollo.
Speaker 2: We also had a space laser the Australian Space Agency
Speaker 2: co funded with four hundred four point five million dollars,
Speaker 2: a new kind of space laser through a and U
Speaker 2: that is able to get lots more data down. It's
Speaker 2: kind of like going from dial up Internet to broadband
Speaker 2: Internet to get the data down. So when we got
Speaker 2: those beautiful images back from the Moon, they were sent
Speaker 2: through optical communications, which we did not have in Apollo.
Speaker 2: But for future missions for Artemis, we're sending up hardware,
Speaker 2: a small rover to the Moon which is going to
Speaker 2: showcase the best of Australia's robotics up there and set
Speaker 2: us up if we wish to to be able to
Speaker 2: provide a lot of scientific and industrial services on the Moon.
Speaker 2: Were the best in the world at operating complex mind
Speaker 2: sights here on Earth, lots of robots and automatic trucks
Speaker 2: and trains around each other and safely around humans, and
Speaker 2: that's something that NASA is interested in having on the Moon,
Speaker 2: not to MiNet but to help set up you know,
Speaker 2: a man base and do expirations safely. And by being involved,
Speaker 2: Australia gets to show in a really visible way how
Speaker 2: good we are at building things and our science, and
Speaker 2: gets to integrate with other global ecosystems and supply chains
Speaker 2: in ways that permeates across the full economy. You know,
Speaker 2: Apollo was the engine room for innovation of its era,
Speaker 2: the whole space economy that we rely on now, Earth
Speaker 2: observation looking at the Earth, the communications, starlink and so on.
Speaker 2: All of that came from what was created in Apollo,
Speaker 2: as well as advances on Earth. Artemis is going to
Speaker 2: be the engine room for the next wave of innovation
Speaker 2: in space and how it will support us as well
Speaker 2: as here on Earth. So from Apollo, we can thank
Speaker 2: Apolo for the Silicon Valley, right. We needed to have
Speaker 2: you know, transistor silicon chicks in order to stabilize the
Speaker 2: big rockets of Apollo. And when Apollo you know, wound
Speaker 2: down the Silicon Valley spun up, Artemis will have similar
Speaker 2: follow on effects we can't even imagine yet. Now, I
Speaker 2: don't think we can justify space investment on spin out alone.
Speaker 2: You have to justify it on planned return. But we're
Speaker 2: getting those plan returns to So if.
Speaker 1: I could just talk about Artemis for a moment, you
Speaker 1: obviously would have been following that with a great deal
Speaker 1: of excitement. I mean I was every morning when I
Speaker 1: was turning the radio on. I mean, it sounds ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I'm listening to radio relative to what you just explained
Speaker 1: some of the the most technologically advanced and engineered systems
Speaker 1: on the planet, either monitoring or assisting or within the
Speaker 1: Artomiss vessel itself. Here I am listening to radio in
Speaker 1: a car. What was some of the moments that really
Speaker 1: captured your excitement. I mean, one of the things I remember,
Speaker 1: I'll start is when the toilet broke down and one
Speaker 1: of the astronauts, the female astroids, she had to go
Speaker 1: and try and fix it. And engineering. What are some
Speaker 1: of the things that you remember from Artemist too.
Speaker 2: Oh, the whole mission for me was absolutely incredible and surreal.
Speaker 2: About ten years ago I worked on the vehicle, the
Speaker 2: European Service Module, which was a cylinder at the back
Speaker 2: of the vehicle that went around the Moon, and my
Speaker 2: husband too sort of special to see at launch and
Speaker 2: to be able to cheer on those that have been
Speaker 2: working on it to see you know, astronauts that you
Speaker 2: know I'd met in Houston when I was training go
Speaker 2: up there. It's very different when you move from satellites
Speaker 2: to humans on top of a rocket. To see a
Speaker 2: launch and then to move to humans who you know
Speaker 2: on the top of a launch is quite something. And
Speaker 2: to have seen all the people, the thousands of people
Speaker 2: around the world that had spent their careers developing these
Speaker 2: vehicle and these systems to get to the combination of
Speaker 2: a launch was really special. Then you know, when to
Speaker 2: see the systems proceed and check out as an engineer
Speaker 2: was exciting. The toilet's always a good topic of conversation.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm qualified to use some of the space toilets,
Speaker 2: so we have to do lessons, you know, and get
Speaker 2: the certificate. But that's actually an incredibly complex piece of
Speaker 2: kit and they had to go back to using you know,
Speaker 2: bags and stuff, which is what was used in Apollo
Speaker 2: or poly didn't have a toilet. But this vehicle is
Speaker 2: meant to be something that gets you know, used again
Speaker 2: and again as Artamus goes on this design, so we
Speaker 2: need to get it right. I found it incredible and
Speaker 2: moving the human moments like when you know, Commander Reid,
Speaker 2: he had you know, part of the moon named after
Speaker 2: his late wife. That was really special and I think
Speaker 2: showed the spirit amongst the crew. Seeing how the crew
Speaker 2: trained together and interacted up there, we can see how
Speaker 2: much human performance and understanding his advanced in APOLO. Now,
Speaker 2: as astronauts, we train very much on crew cohesion as
Speaker 2: underpinning the mission, and that came through very strongly. For me.
Speaker 2: I loved how, you know, when the astronauts were behind
Speaker 2: the Moon and had the eclipse, that they saw flashes
Speaker 2: of impacts on the Moon's surface in a way the
Speaker 2: cameras couldn't pick up. It showed me, you know, what
Speaker 2: science can be done with humans on board in addition
Speaker 2: to in addition to the senses that are up there,
Speaker 2: the images that came back, and particular again as an engineer,
Speaker 2: the re entry was something that was pretty special to watch.
Speaker 2: I knew what was going to happen in terms of sequence,
Speaker 2: but still watching it in real time, watching it with
Speaker 2: my kids, I was still holding my breath with the
Speaker 2: millions of others around the world that waited, and for me,
Speaker 2: it was really seeing you know, them come out of
Speaker 2: the communications blackout the paws until the parachutes opened, and
Speaker 2: when they said, you know, four green, they're all healthy
Speaker 2: on return, that was that was quite something. And in fact,
Speaker 2: that's recently learned that more than half the Australian population
Speaker 2: watched that re entry, which is incredible.
Speaker 1: I was one of them. When I see what they
Speaker 1: re enter in and as it lands, hardly four people
Speaker 1: fit in it, if you know, I mean, there's nothing.
Speaker 1: And then I think about how the speed at which
Speaker 1: it re enters and the temperature on the outside of
Speaker 1: the capsule, those things are sort of mind boggling to me.
Speaker 1: They're not things that I can even really understand or
Speaker 1: definitely can't imagine. The engineer hearing that must go into
Speaker 1: those things must be quite extraordinary, and particularly the temperature
Speaker 1: of the outside of the capsule, like I can't remember
Speaker 1: thousands of temper degrees it is, but it's something really
Speaker 1: bloody hot, you know. And do they feel it inside?
Speaker 2: I mean not if everything's working, If everything's working right,
Speaker 2: you'll continue to have your twenty one degrees inside and really, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're inside your suit as well. So they wear suits
Speaker 2: now for re entry, they have for the last few decades.
Speaker 2: Since there was an accident where a lot of astronauts
Speaker 2: died many decades ago. When above broken, it depressurized inside.
Speaker 2: But basically, yeah, you're in those suits, you're sitting in
Speaker 2: the vehicle. You're scrapped in so your back is actually
Speaker 2: on the floor and kind of your knees up if
Speaker 2: you think of your tilt a chair backwards, so your
Speaker 2: head's on the floor, your butts on the floor, and
Speaker 2: your knees are in the air. That's their orientation, so
Speaker 2: that you feel the g forces on your chest. It's
Speaker 2: like having they hit about four gs, so it's like
Speaker 2: having three people your weight effectively lying on top of you.
Speaker 2: It's hard to breathe. You have to take SIPs of air.
Speaker 2: They'd feel the shock is the parachute's open and as
Speaker 2: they impact, the outside of the vehicle was reaching half
Speaker 2: the temperature of the surface of the sun, and the
Speaker 2: plant you were in front of the vehicle was multiple
Speaker 2: times hotter than that as well.
Speaker 1: Wow, they went.
Speaker 2: The fastest humans that ever traveled ever because they were
Speaker 2: falling from higher right, they were the furthest humans that
Speaker 2: ever traveled as well. And yeah, the engineering was quite remarkable.
Speaker 2: That vehicle had never flied that profile before with that
Speaker 2: heat shield. So the first mission Artamus one, which just
Speaker 2: had those phantom crashed test dummies in it, the heat
Speaker 2: shield didn't work properly, so they changed the trajectory to
Speaker 2: come in hotter and faster rather than skimming off to
Speaker 2: bleed off speed. So this was all done by teams
Speaker 2: of engineers, you know, in test facilities. But you can't
Speaker 2: fully replicate re entry in a test facility, can't get
Speaker 2: the airflow and the heat and all the kind of
Speaker 2: the plasma at once and through computers. And yeah, it
Speaker 2: really hats off to the team of engineers. I believe
Speaker 2: the crew went and hugged the lead heat shield engineer
Speaker 2: when they landed for what a good job that they did,
Speaker 2: which is enabling humans to go back to the Moon again.
Speaker 2: You know, we can step out and look at the
Speaker 2: Moon and know that humans are back in the business
Speaker 2: of sending people out there and returning them safely to
Speaker 2: do good science.
Speaker 1: Is it a natural space race?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Are we not us? But as the Western world let's
Speaker 1: call it America along with their assistance, which are us
Speaker 1: than others? Are we in a race against say China
Speaker 1: or Russia or what it was many many years ago,
Speaker 1: was a race against Russia. Are we in a race
Speaker 1: or is it? Or is it collaborative?
Speaker 2: So for most of the world it's collaborative. There's a
Speaker 2: team of what's called Artemis nations. Australia is one of them,
Speaker 2: working together as a team of nations to go to
Speaker 2: the Moon and have this sustainable presence. You know, there's
Speaker 2: a saying that if you want to go fast, you know,
Speaker 2: go alone. If you want to go further, go together,
Speaker 2: because you can have a more cohesive program with a
Speaker 2: lot of people's interests looked after. China does have its
Speaker 2: own ambitions to go back to the Moon, which is
Speaker 2: putting some pressure on the timeline. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: consideration around, you know, resources on the Moon for the
Speaker 2: long term, being able to use the water. Once you
Speaker 2: create you know, a base, how do you properly ensure
Speaker 2: safe operations on that base. We can't land particularly precisely
Speaker 2: yet on the Moon and things like that, and that's
Speaker 2: dealt with through a series of international agreements called the
Speaker 2: Artemis of Courts, which sets out behaviors that we want
Speaker 2: to see on the Moon between all the nations that's
Speaker 2: signed up to it.
Speaker 1: As everybody signed up to that, including say China for example.
Speaker 2: The people right, they're not one of the Artemis nations.
Speaker 2: There are other big international treat is that underpin how
Speaker 2: we operate in space. There's five major ones, things like
Speaker 2: the Moon Treaty, the Outer Space Treaty, and so on.
Speaker 2: They say things like, you know, space is for all mankind,
Speaker 2: Moon is for all mankind. You can't have commercial exploitation.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of debate that goes on in
Speaker 2: places like the UN where Australia is represented through the
Speaker 2: Australian Space Agency, to make sure that when we go
Speaker 2: out there we do it in a way that is
Speaker 2: responsible and that Australia's voice is heard in those discussions.
Speaker 2: So the closest analogue I would consider is Antarctica. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a place with a surface, there is the ocean,
Speaker 2: like the high seas. That's the basis for most space law.
Speaker 2: But Antarctica is the closest analog for the Moon because
Speaker 2: it's actually a territory and the way that we work
Speaker 2: together with international nations, international partners there helps us to
Speaker 2: think how we might like to see things happen on
Speaker 2: the Moon.
Speaker 1: So you're is trained for this sort of stuff. Are
Speaker 1: there scary thoughts? I mean, I know I'd be terrified.
Speaker 1: Is it the more you know about it, the less
Speaker 1: scared it is, or the less you know about it,
Speaker 1: the less scared it is. Which one is it?
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm someone that's comforted when I know more facts.
Speaker 2: Everybody's a bit different. I know that in the astronaut selection,
Speaker 2: they certainly wanted to make sure that we knew what
Speaker 2: we were in for from a risk perspective and the
Speaker 2: challenges that it's not all you know that it's not easy,
Speaker 2: that it's not about going to space to take a selfie,
Speaker 2: going up there to work and take risks for good reason,
Speaker 2: not for the sake of taking risks, But there are risks.
Speaker 2: The riskiest part of a mission is launch and reentry,
Speaker 2: followed by a spacewalk. They're the three riskiest. And there's
Speaker 2: still so much we're learning about human body and space.
Speaker 2: Right We just had the first medical evacuation ever from
Speaker 2: space from the International Space Station and we still don't
Speaker 2: know the exact cause. The astronaut who had happened to
Speaker 2: recently when public about it and said there were minutes
Speaker 2: where he couldn't talk and they haven't figured out why yet,
Speaker 2: so there's a lot going on. The way I rationalize
Speaker 2: it is by knowing that the teams that are working
Speaker 2: on it are doing their they really believe in what
Speaker 2: they're doing, They're very well trained, and that we've taken
Speaker 2: into account all the lessons learned from the past. That's
Speaker 2: been really a critical way to have trust and move forward.
Speaker 2: As astronauts. You are very well informed of all the
Speaker 2: risks that are happening during a mission if something goes wrong,
Speaker 2: as well as in advance. But it's knowing that you
Speaker 2: go up there for a purpose, not for prestige, and
Speaker 2: truly believing in that purpose. So on the International Space Station,
Speaker 2: that soccer field sized lab basically is infrastructure for science,
Speaker 2: and a huge part of what you do is research
Speaker 2: into new medicines and pharmaceuticals. In dishes, you can grow
Speaker 2: cancer timbers, in three D you can grow Alzheimer's proteins.
Speaker 2: You can't do that here on Earth. As astronaut, we
Speaker 2: are ourselves medical guinea pigs, like our bones would degrade
Speaker 2: at two percent massive months if we don't do two
Speaker 2: hours a day in the gym up there, and that
Speaker 2: means we can be test subjects for things like osteoporosis
Speaker 2: on a same for muscle wasting, same for every system
Speaker 2: in the body. And I think that's really important. It's
Speaker 2: also an important way to uplift the aspiration in your country, yes,
Speaker 2: for technical fields, but also more broadly when people have
Speaker 2: astronauts from their nation as well.
Speaker 1: That's interesting that the study of an astronaut, like just
Speaker 1: pick out austeo porosis for example, and you could probably
Speaker 1: even test the difference between men and women. But I
Speaker 1: guess that's got something to do with being zero gravity,
Speaker 1: so there's no pressure on your bones, so your bones
Speaker 1: don't Your body says, I don't need bones anymore, and
Speaker 1: I'll give that, give that away in favor of something else,
Speaker 1: which is sort of how we've evolved, I guess. But
Speaker 1: it's does somebody back here back on Earth are they
Speaker 1: measuring that from you? Would they actually measure what happened
Speaker 1: to her? They do like a baseline before you go,
Speaker 1: and they'd give you something when you come back. Is
Speaker 1: that how it works?
Speaker 2: Spot on? So right from astronauts selection, we had to
Speaker 2: live in a hospital for a week undergoing every test
Speaker 2: you can imagine without a scalpel, and throughout your career
Speaker 2: you provide a medical baseline of data as well as
Speaker 2: towards the end of your career and post retirement you
Speaker 2: keep having regular medicals that collect a lot of this data. So,
Speaker 2: particularly for women, there's been so few women in space,
Speaker 2: only just over ten percent professional astronauts to date have
Speaker 2: been women. It means that that data is particularly important
Speaker 2: for medical science because men and women's bodies respond sometimes
Speaker 2: in different ways in space and certainly to conditions on
Speaker 2: Earth too. But there's five main hazards of space flight,
Speaker 2: and each creates an opportunity for research and discovery. Right,
Speaker 2: So the acronym is rich Ridge. R is radiation, so
Speaker 2: looking at how our body responds to radiation. I is
Speaker 2: isolation and confinements. You're stuck in a tin can or
Speaker 2: an aluminium can far from Earth with a few other people,
Speaker 2: and that does weird things to your immune system and
Speaker 2: just psychology, so there's a lot of psychological research done
Speaker 2: on US. Two D is distanced from Earth, so that
Speaker 2: can mean it's hard to get back in an emergency,
Speaker 2: even the International Space Station. We're only four hundred kilometers
Speaker 2: up right, but it can date days to get back
Speaker 2: the Moon is further afield. Again, it can take weeks
Speaker 2: to get back, and it will have communications delays. G
Speaker 2: is altered gravity, so zog floating around, hypergravity like high
Speaker 2: G forces and launching reentry or sort of low gravity
Speaker 2: on the Moon or Mars, and there's a lot we
Speaker 2: don't know about that right now. And E is extreme
Speaker 2: environments like extreme temperatures, or moondust is basically like tiny
Speaker 2: bits of glass shards. If you think, you know, we
Speaker 2: have hazards with things on Earth like silicronas bestos, moondust
Speaker 2: will be like that too, and we have to figure
Speaker 2: out how to handle it.
Speaker 1: You just said something really interesting. Well, something going to
Speaker 1: pick my interest anyway, is the radioactivity? Is it when
Speaker 1: you're going to the Moon, or at least even if
Speaker 1: you're in the space station, are you being exposed to
Speaker 1: a lot of this? I mean, is it like out
Speaker 1: of control type of stuff because you're closer to the Sun.
Speaker 1: I guess yeah, you're.
Speaker 2: It depends what vehicle you're on. So if you're on
Speaker 2: the space station, you're under the Van Allen Belts, which
Speaker 2: protect us from a lot of the radiation on Earth,
Speaker 2: so you get more up there. Certainly but it's not
Speaker 2: as bad, and different space agencies have a lifetime limit
Speaker 2: on astronauts, after which they shouldn't fly anymore. So NASA's
Speaker 2: is one severt for any radiation experts are a little
Speaker 2: listening in when you get above the van Allen belts.
Speaker 2: So when you go out to the Moon, for example,
Speaker 2: your subject to a lot worse radiation. So our sun
Speaker 2: has a solar cycle when it basically when it shoots
Speaker 2: out more radio more radiation, and that radiation can be
Speaker 2: like raised it can be particles, but when it's more active,
Speaker 2: it protects us from the worst stuff. The worst stuff
Speaker 2: is from our galaxy in intergalactic radiation called galactic cosmic rays.
Speaker 2: So you have a time where when the Sun produces
Speaker 2: less radiation, you're more exposed to the really bad stuff.
Speaker 2: So it's a bit of a trade off. So going
Speaker 2: back to the Moon is a lot worse of a
Speaker 2: radiation environment. It's one of the huge challenges we'll have
Speaker 2: to deal with when humans one day go out to Mars.
Speaker 2: Ways to deal with it, I don't have things perhaps
Speaker 2: like water shielding sea store your water in the lining
Speaker 2: of the vieric, but it's pretty heavy. If you're on
Speaker 2: the surface. About one meter thickness of Martian regulis, I know,
Speaker 2: can block almost all the radiations. So maybe the astronauts
Speaker 2: there will be piling rocks on top of their habitat
Speaker 2: or living in lava tubes is another concept. But what
Speaker 2: we learn about those environments teaches us about, you know,
Speaker 2: how to deal with radio active environments on Earth, light
Speaker 2: power plants and things like that, and how to better
Speaker 2: understand the effects of that in the body. We cannot
Speaker 2: replicate the radiation environment in space here on Earth at all.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool stuff because I think I read once
Speaker 1: that a human shouldn't be exposed of more than fifty
Speaker 1: sieve it's in a lifetime. So if you're doing one
Speaker 1: in one trip, if you're getting one seven one trip,
Speaker 1: and assume you live to seventy five years of age,
Speaker 1: just received one year's worth of radiation exposure in one outing.
Speaker 1: And of course you know these things are to associated
Speaker 1: with cancer. Is a bit of a personal question, but
Speaker 1: you know, the financial reward is it worth the risk?
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know is there a financial reward
Speaker 1: in this? Is it significant or is it more what
Speaker 1: you do because you're a scientist, you know, what you
Speaker 1: can contribute to, you know, humanity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really about that contribution. There's no financial award
Speaker 2: for being an astronaut, you know, you get paid similarly
Speaker 2: to being in a military or being an engineer or
Speaker 2: a scientist. But it's really about that's the best way
Speaker 2: we feel we can contribute to this discovery. And of
Speaker 2: course it's a wonderful journey and adventure, just like a
Speaker 2: lot of things that are hard work are. But yeah,
Speaker 2: there are risks. The risks aren't always known, right, there's
Speaker 2: known risks. It's probabilistic if you have radiation, it doesn't
Speaker 2: mean you'll always get cancer. It's a higher risk of cancer.
Speaker 2: If one ray hits the wrong cell, something might happen. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and there's still so much we're learning. Even if your
Speaker 2: mission goes right, you have those outcomes. If you look
Speaker 2: at the Apollo astronaut, most of them that live long
Speaker 2: and healthy lives, but a lot more of them suffered
Speaker 2: from problems with their heart. Oh really, which is also
Speaker 2: associated with spaceflight than from radiation effects. So it's going
Speaker 2: to be different when humans are back around them, back
Speaker 2: out on the moon for longer periods of time, more
Speaker 2: than you know days to a week, but for months
Speaker 2: we're going to see different impacts and that will hopefully
Speaker 2: help with medicine on Earth.
Speaker 1: Let's just talk as SpaceX for a moment. Musk escape
Speaker 1: very rarely escapes a conversation. Most needs to be honest
Speaker 1: with you. What are your thoughts on SpaceX and it
Speaker 1: a musk? I mean, in the competition between let's call
Speaker 1: it private exploration and public funded exploration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the two go hand in hand. Actually, So the
Speaker 2: real philosophy is as commercial as possible as government as necessary,
Speaker 2: because that's how you know, you get the best use
Speaker 2: of the tax dollars when private industry is able to
Speaker 2: deliver a service and they can do it more efficiently,
Speaker 2: the same as the industries on Earth. That tends to
Speaker 2: make sense in a lot of cases. So what we're
Speaker 2: seeing is in orbits closer to Earth, which are a
Speaker 2: little bit easy to handle because it's lower radiation. We're
Speaker 2: seeing a lot more commercial activity, particularly from elon Musk.
Speaker 2: When we're going further afield out to the Moon. It's
Speaker 2: still very much a government domain because it's so new.
Speaker 2: The commercial benefits are going to come, but in time,
Speaker 2: once a lot of the technology risks have worked out.
Speaker 2: Government no is still the primary customer of most things
Speaker 2: in space, even if things like starlink because they used
Speaker 2: to support countries and militaries as well versions of them.
Speaker 2: Government is still the market maker around the moon, even
Speaker 2: though private companies are being funded to develop capability. So
Speaker 2: when we look at Artemis, right, this is looked at
Speaker 2: as a government program, but it was prime contractors that
Speaker 2: developed the vehicles. When we look at more commercial activities
Speaker 2: like SpaceX and SpaceX will be involved in namous, they
Speaker 2: are involved, and they are involved in the space station
Speaker 2: as soon as they're able to deliver a service, and
Speaker 2: government would prefer to pay for that service. But at
Speaker 2: the moment this is the US government, right, So it's
Speaker 2: not really a private all public. It's private and public
Speaker 2: and I see it more as the industrialization of space
Speaker 2: rather than the commercialization of space. What I find particularly
Speaker 2: interesting though, is that here in Australia we have startups
Speaker 2: that have found purely commercial markets from space. Now that's
Speaker 2: quite rare globally, and I think it's because our space
Speaker 2: sector has really emerged over the last decade or so
Speaker 2: in a way that we've had to draw in talent
Speaker 2: from other industries, so we have a good product market fit.
Speaker 2: One example is Fleet Space Technology here in Adelaide. They
Speaker 2: produce Internet of things, the ground based sensors connected through
Speaker 2: satellites which can help us find lithium and copper and
Speaker 2: gold deposits far better than we could have with traditional methods.
Speaker 2: And that is a space company which is finding the
Speaker 2: resources sector as the commercial customer. We also have other
Speaker 2: examples as well. So that's something that yeah, you just
Speaker 2: don't usually see very often around the world and one
Speaker 2: of the things that we are good at.
Speaker 1: God ask you for a fearless prediction about Mars. Do
Speaker 1: you think we'll say in the next twenty five years
Speaker 1: land in Mars?
Speaker 2: Well, I think if we want to, it's a matter
Speaker 2: of will. It's not going to happen on its own
Speaker 2: right to get to Mars. We have significant technological hurdles
Speaker 2: to overcome right now to get their land and stay
Speaker 2: till the next orbital lineman and come back. You're looking
Speaker 2: at a mission of almost three years. We don't even
Speaker 2: have enough kinds of food that could sustain humans for
Speaker 2: that long if it were to pack the food for
Speaker 2: them to go with all the right dreational profiles let
Speaker 2: alone being able to we can land rockets now, but
Speaker 2: then refuel it from what exists their takeoff again radiation protects.
Speaker 2: We're still discovering challenges with humans. A lot of astronauts
Speaker 2: have their eyes degraded in space significantly to a point
Speaker 2: where if they were to take admission to Mars, they
Speaker 2: might not be able to do their job when they
Speaker 2: landed because they couldn't see enough. Wow, so we have
Speaker 2: a lot to overcome. But in overcoming that, we'll solve
Speaker 2: a lot of challenges here on Earth. So I think
Speaker 2: it could definitely happen in twenty five years, but only
Speaker 2: if we focus on on that as a goal and
Speaker 2: making sure that as we do that, we focus on
Speaker 2: solving them in ways that solve problems here on Earth too.
Speaker 1: Do you think that we need an alignment more of
Speaker 1: an alignment then with say quantum computing, to be able
Speaker 1: to help us solve these problems, because you know, some
Speaker 1: of these problems are going to take years and years
Speaker 1: and years to solve. But if we had quantum computing
Speaker 1: the next ten years. Is that something that someone like
Speaker 1: you thinks about and something about that the Space Agency
Speaker 1: talks about?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, certainly it's interesting to think about how
Speaker 2: space is impacted by these other huge disruptive changes in technologies.
Speaker 2: We're seeing a lot of changes in space through AI.
Speaker 2: We're affected just like every industry, for example, in how
Speaker 2: we design in how we manage data on robots in
Speaker 2: real time as say they navigate. Space is also helping
Speaker 2: these industries, for example, the huge masses of data generated
Speaker 2: from satellites in space. Ninety nine percent of climate data
Speaker 2: by volume comes from satellites in space. That's feeding the
Speaker 2: AI models too. When we're looking at data centers of
Speaker 2: the future, there's a whole series of businesses that are
Speaker 2: looking at data centers in space to get more power
Speaker 2: to manage them in a way that you don't have
Speaker 2: to manage it here on Earth. Yeah. I think that
Speaker 2: the disruption feed off each other. And quantum is something
Speaker 2: that is important for Australia because if we can get
Speaker 2: to quantum encryption, which is not quantum computing, but a
Speaker 2: different part of it that goes hand in hand with
Speaker 2: our laser communications, which could let in time Australia have
Speaker 2: encrypted intercontinental communication via satellite. We can't do that through
Speaker 2: optical fibers. We can't make them pure enough for the
Speaker 2: long distances between Australia and other continents to have that encryption.
Speaker 1: When you think about all the milestones over let's say,
Speaker 1: the last fifty odd years we've made with space exploration,
Speaker 1: which one has really meant something to you? Which milestone
Speaker 1: has meant something to you? It doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: the most recent ones. And what separates that particular one
Speaker 1: from all the others, Which is the one that stands
Speaker 1: out the most few in terms of let's call it
Speaker 1: personal value. There are things in life that just keep delivering.
Speaker 1: The more time goes on, the more you appreciate them.
Speaker 1: Seventy five years of penfoiles range, once tasted, never forgotten,
Speaker 1: let's good going.
Speaker 2: Which milestone stands out the most of me? There are
Speaker 2: so many, but one that I found particularly poignant was
Speaker 2: when we had twenty five years of continuous human presence
Speaker 2: in space. So the International Space Station that has had
Speaker 2: people living on it now for about twenty six years,
Speaker 2: continuously without break. So anyone younger than twenty six has
Speaker 2: never been alive at a time where humans haven't been
Speaker 2: on that huge station doing a work up there. And
Speaker 2: it passes over Australia, right, So you can see it
Speaker 2: occasionally in the evening is a bright star that takes
Speaker 2: six minutes to go across. I think the milestone of
Speaker 2: you know, the Voyagers spacecraft leaving our Solar system, now,
Speaker 2: that's absolutely miraculous. To know that we've sent something so
Speaker 2: far and can still figure out ways to communicate with
Speaker 2: it lafter that long.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's quite remarkable, and there's more to come.
Speaker 2: You know, with the increasing developments of space capability. What
Speaker 2: we're soon going to be able to see is in
Speaker 2: times of disaster, we'll be able to get, you know,
Speaker 2: actionable insights, not just to our first responders, but to
Speaker 2: people on the ground. Right now, a lot of that
Speaker 2: data is more predictive or post the disaster rather than
Speaker 2: during it to the people on the ground, and that's
Speaker 2: going to be really important for bushfires and slides in Australia.
Speaker 1: Knowing last night, knowing that I was going to be
Speaker 1: talking to you today, I was actually looking up in
Speaker 1: the sky where I live, and I'm fortunate enough to
Speaker 1: be live in a place where there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of street lights and stuff like that, and I was
Speaker 1: looking at the brightness of the stars and I started
Speaker 1: to think a little bit more like you guys think.
Speaker 1: I guess probably think like this all the time. But
Speaker 1: I started to think about the time it's taken for
Speaker 1: the brightness of one star to reach me, given the
Speaker 1: since it is in the speed light, and some of
Speaker 1: these things are so expansive, given that that star is
Speaker 1: probably moving away from us, and we're moving away from
Speaker 1: it as well in a galaxy sense. So the whole
Speaker 1: concept of space exploration is so is so infinite and
Speaker 1: has so many possibilities, and is so out there relative
Speaker 1: to what I do. For example, I think about in
Speaker 1: finite terms, like you know, I think about in my
Speaker 1: main businessing about interest rates and you know one basis
Speaker 1: points and what can change your basis point. Yet your
Speaker 1: world is like completely undefined in that it's infinite. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so many possibilities. Does that ever sort of blow
Speaker 1: you away? Because it does to me thinking about it
Speaker 1: last night.
Speaker 2: At least, it absolutely blows me away. But it is
Speaker 2: also what initially inspired me into space, you know, looking
Speaker 2: up at the sky and realizing how infinite the universe is.
Speaker 2: You know, there are more stars in the universe, we think,
Speaker 2: than all the grains of sand and all the beaches
Speaker 2: and the deserts and the oceans in the world. We're
Speaker 2: recently seeing through new in space telescopes exoplanets, planets around
Speaker 2: other stars, and almost all the stars closest to us.
Speaker 2: So there's probably far more planets than that. You know,
Speaker 2: so much out there remains to be explored, and the
Speaker 2: knowledge and discoveries we can gain from that exploration, I
Speaker 2: think are also infinite. But ultimately, yes, we explore for
Speaker 2: those discoveries, both pure science and almost the philosophical to
Speaker 2: practical applications, but we ultimately explore space to benefit us
Speaker 2: here on Earth. Right when astronauts went around the Moon
Speaker 2: for the first time on Apollo eight, so the equivalent
Speaker 2: mission to Artemis tu but on Apollo way back in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight, they took that really famous earth rise image,
Speaker 2: the first ever color image of the Earth, and they
Speaker 2: were amazed with you know, ro oasis in the black
Speaker 2: nothingness of space, and felt, you know, that we are
Speaker 2: really not on Earth, but of Earth. And there was
Speaker 2: a famous quote that they said when they returned, which was,
Speaker 2: we came all this way to explore the Moon, but
Speaker 2: instead we discovered the Earth. And that made NASA realize
Speaker 2: that Earth itself is a destination for space exploration, so
Speaker 2: we turned our satellites inwards, and that's an important reminder
Speaker 2: for all of us. We go up there, yes to
Speaker 2: explore further and discover new knowledge we couldn't have even imagined,
Speaker 2: and in solving it we find new mysteries and invent
Speaker 2: new technologies. But ultimately it's about improving life here in
Speaker 2: real time on Earth.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's an amazing response. S blew me away, Catherine
Speaker 1: banel Peg, thank you very much, as as seriously like
Speaker 1: as having opportunities to be able to talk to austral
Speaker 1: as first female astronaut is amazing, but getting your insights
Speaker 1: has been even more amazing. And to be honestly like,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate the level of intellect and knowledge that
Speaker 1: someone like you has to absorb and keep up with
Speaker 1: and probably more importantly be able to express to me
Speaker 1: in a sort of simple way. So I appreciate every
Speaker 1: moment is. I loved it.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed it. Thanks very much, Mark, thank you for
Speaker 2: having me on.
Speaker 1: You're most welcome. Thank you