Extreme Exploration - Anneka Rice, Mike Massimino, Britney Schmidt and Jess Phoenix

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Speaker 9 Hello, I'm Brian Cox.

Speaker 1 I'm Robin Inks, and this is Agaiola Infinato.macaco.

Speaker 9 Very good, because that's Robin's Portuguese, because we are in Porto, Portugal for a gathering of the Explorers Club.

Speaker 1 That does mean Infinite Monkey Cage, by the way.

Speaker 1 We checked with a waiter earlier and we made sure he had a good tip, so I think I trust him.

Speaker 1 Anyway, this is a very exciting thing because we are celebrating the Explorers Club, something which Brian is a member of, which is ridiculous as well, because any regular listeners at home will know Brian frequently gets lost going from the dressing room to the stage.

Speaker 1 So the idea that you're an explorer mixing with people who have travelled across the globe and indeed into space and you find 100 meters difficult.

Speaker 9 My claim is I'm an explorer of the subatomic world, where you inevitably get lost.

Speaker 4 What a cast-iron alibi!

Speaker 9 The Explorers Club in New York is housed in a remarkable building celebrating exploration. The coffee tables are made from a ship that survived Pearl Harbor.

Speaker 9 The chair of the last Emperor of China is in the sitting room, and there are flags carried into space by Apollo 8 and Apollo 15.

Speaker 1 And if you've never been there as well, on the walls, the most beautiful paintings of intrepid journeys, which more often than not, have had to turn to cannibalism. It really is true.

Speaker 1 When we were first taken around, it's like that was an amazing journey. Unfortunately, they got caught there and three of them were eaten.

Speaker 9 Today, we are asking: what are the new frontiers in the 21st century? What are the engineering challenges of exploring in extremes, and indeed, why do we need to explore at all?

Speaker 1 We are joined by a volcanologist, an astronaut, an astrobiologist, slash oceanographer, slash space mission designer, and a treasure hunter. And they are?

Speaker 6 I am Jess Phoenix. I do volcanology, and I'm the science ambassador for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
I also do concerns, clearly.

Speaker 6 And I would most like to explore volcanoes on Venus, but that is going to require some of y'all to figure out how we get there and live.

Speaker 4 Mike Massimino, former NASA astronaut. Currently, I am a professor of engineering at Columbia University.
If I was given any place I could could go explore, I'd like to go to the moon.

Speaker 4 That's what inspired me as a little kid watching, as a six-year-old watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin there.

Speaker 4 And now we have, I think, a very good chance of getting people back there, hopefully in the near future. I would love to be a part of that.
But I'll be watching, I think, this time again.

Speaker 4 But that's where I would love to go.

Speaker 10 I'm Brittany Schmidt, Cornell University, and I study ice anywhere we can find it, which brings me to where I would most like to explore, with all due respect to Europa, which I'm sure I'll talk about quite a lot.

Speaker 10 I'd like to go to Triton. That's my actual favorite place in the solar system.

Speaker 11 I'm Annika Rice. I'm a broadcaster and an adventurer.
And I think most of all, I'd like to have all my career again flying around the world in a helicopter without doors.

Speaker 11 That bit is fine, but I don't want Kenneth Kendall shouting at me, hurry up! I just want to do it in my own time and enjoy. And also, Jess, I want to go bareback with you across Mongolia.

Speaker 4 Because I know you've done that.

Speaker 11 Oh, yes.

Speaker 11 Can I come with you next time?

Speaker 6 Yes, we can plan a date.

Speaker 1 So rare you hear about a date in Mongolia. So well done for organising that.

Speaker 11 So soon into the programme.

Speaker 1 And this is our panel.

Speaker 1 Brittany, I just have to ask you quickly before we get to question number one, which is always what happens. Triton, you didn't.
So why Triton?

Speaker 10 Because it's Europa, but with Titan frozen out on top and it came from the Kuiper Belt and now it's stuck somewhere it didn't want to be in the first place. Seems like we should check it out.

Speaker 1 That's a very strong answer. Annika, last night, I had never known this before until we had a meal last night and found out how much you loved exploring and indeed idolised explorers.

Speaker 1 Can you tell me a little bit about in childhood when you realised that this was your passion?

Speaker 11 It started at a very young age when I was little. I had an explorer suit.
It was actually a red snow suit with fur around the collar. But I would stomp off for hours on end.

Speaker 11 And my parents never knew where I was. They weren't very interested in me anyway, to be honest.
So it actually fitted in very well with the family dynamic.

Speaker 11 And I'd go off stomping around huge adventures, six-year-old me, off I went.

Speaker 11 And then, when I was a teenager, and all my fellow schoolmates, you either went David Cassidy or you went Donnie Osmond, that was just the choice of the poster on your bedroom wall.

Speaker 11 I went Sir Ernest Shackleton because I was so enamoured with him and that sense of exploring and going off into the unknown that I've really followed that through my complete adult life.

Speaker 11 And I love being frightened, I love being fearful. So I live my life by the importance of being earnest, basically.

Speaker 1 What I love is that any Freudians listening to this, you've given so many clues. The bareback riding in Mongolia, the my parents have no interest in me, and I do love butch ware.

Speaker 1 And that's kind of building up to a very interesting picture.

Speaker 11 Just giving you something to think about for the rest of the day.

Speaker 9 Now you've set the bar for everyone. In your introduction, you must have a literary reference.

Speaker 4 Oh, yes, sorry about that.

Speaker 9 Jess, volcanoes. What brought you to volcanoes?

Speaker 6 I'm going to blame my parents a little bit because they were both FBI agents.

Speaker 6 And when they scared off my first boyfriend by putting their guns on the table and then shaking his hand after work, that was sort of like anything less than that would be boring.

Speaker 6 And so volcanoes was actually a really fortunate twist of fate. Thanks to a horrible ex who brought me to Los Angeles.

Speaker 6 I studied geology and I applied for a researcher position at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and to their, I'm sure, unending sorrow, they said yes.

Speaker 6 And lo and behold, I set foot at the summit of Mauna Loa, the world's largest volcano, and that was it. It was done.
I was walking on Earth younger than I was.

Speaker 6 And there is nothing cooler than seeing the Earth both simultaneously create and destroy itself.

Speaker 1 Can I just say that was a great hold my beer moment. You all need a literary reference.
And you went, I think I can up that.

Speaker 1 My parents were fbi agents whoa yeah and i thought you were gonna but jess has got whole literary references down her arms you have ts elliott on your arms can you explain

Speaker 6 yes i actually thought i was going to become an english professor when i went to college what's the quote it's we we will not cease from exploration this is an elliott quote isn't it yes yes the elliot everything elliott does is great and it's all he's very into we shall not cease to be explorers and you know i mean it's funny because he was somebody whose work showed me that we can explore our relationship to the universe while sitting down and thinking.

Speaker 6 And to me, that's just as valid a form of exploration as going to the moon, going to Triton, or going to the bottom of the ocean. And

Speaker 6 we don't know ourselves fully, even though we have a whole lifetime to figure it out.

Speaker 9 So Mike, we have Shackleton, FBI agents. Top that.

Speaker 4 I don't know if I can. I got interested in the space program, as I said earlier.
When I was about eight years old, I figured I could never become an astronaut.

Speaker 4 It's about that time, I discovered I was afraid of heights. And I wasn't much of a thrill seeker in this group, especially, so

Speaker 4 I didn't really see that working out. How do you grow up to be one of these superhero astronauts like my heroes when I was a little boy?

Speaker 4 When I was a senior in college, I went to the movies and saw this movie, The Right Stuff, based on the book, Literary Reference by Tom Wool.

Speaker 7 Very good.

Speaker 11 Well done. Thank you.

Speaker 4 There you go.

Speaker 4 But I saw the movie, read the book, and it had me thinking again at that time I was graduating college, what do I want to do? And decided, I didn't know if I could ever become an astronaut.

Speaker 4 I was rejected three times and got in on my fourth try.

Speaker 9 And when do you learn how to fly?

Speaker 4 Once you get to NASA, then they teach you all kinds of stuff, how to spacewalk, how to work on the space shuttle, space station.

Speaker 4 I was a co-pilot in a T-38, got to fly with that guy right there a few times, Michael Pezzalegria, one of my colleagues. So they train you.

Speaker 4 They look for a vast variety of backgrounds, and then they get you ready to do the job to fly in space.

Speaker 1 I've often found with American and Canadian astronauts that the answer to that question about why is like Chris Hadfield in his book talks about again seeing them for the first moon landing and then every day going to school going, what can I do to maximise the chance that I might be an astronaut?

Speaker 1 And the two UK astronauts, Helen Sharman and Tim Peake, if you ask them, they both say, I saw an advert and I thought I'll have a go at that. And I think, you know, exactly that big difference.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I knew I had an interest, but since I thought it was impossible, I really didn't pay much attention to it.

Speaker 4 But some of these other folks, where they did all, I don't know what would have happened. I think it's better to follow what you're interested in.

Speaker 4 And especially with the astronaut job, at least the NASA program and the other government agencies, they're pretty much looking for a variety of people. So there's no one path.

Speaker 6 And are you still afraid of heights?

Speaker 4 I don't like them. No, I do not like heights.
I try to avoid them. But really, I've had a conversation with Reed Wiseman, one of our colleagues.
We were talking about this.

Speaker 4 And a lot of people don't like heights. Really, what it is is we're afraid of gravity.
So I'm okay as long as I'm in an aircraft or a spaceship or I'm spacewalking or whatever it might be.

Speaker 4 I know no problem there. It's gravity.

Speaker 4 That's what I'm afraid of. So if I've got something to protect me from that, then I'm all right.

Speaker 9 And Brittany, you had the longest job description of the panel. How did that come about?

Speaker 10 Well, because I pretty much have always just followed what I found interesting, which, as it turns out, is everything.

Speaker 10 I started off in English and broadcasting, and I was really interested in music and journalism and that kind of stuff. I really like heavy metal, so musicians were kind of like the modern poets to me.

Speaker 10 And so that's what I thought I I was going to do. And then I had an identity crisis in college and went, I have no idea what I'm doing here and why am I here and what am I going to do?

Speaker 10 And so I took a class in everything

Speaker 10 to see maybe what else would be out there. And if not, I was just going to move to Chicago and write about bands.

Speaker 10 So I had this amazing experience of taking a class which taught me really what Europa was, which became the thing I wanted to do. I had an amazing professor who really knew how to explain things.

Speaker 10 And when he talked about Europa, about this alien ocean, you know, far from us, but like very much like our own planet, I was like, what are we doing with our lives, people in the audience?

Speaker 10 Like, what are we doing? Let's all change our majors and do this. And I was the one that did that.
But it was really fun. And so that's kind of it.

Speaker 10 It's like been piecing the whole bit together and all the pieces you need to understand in order to think about it. So it's just kind of a natural evolution.

Speaker 9 So in a way, your life has been focused on getting to Europa. That was the inspiration.

Speaker 4 Your career choice.

Speaker 9 Just for people listening that don't know, maybe you could just give us the one-minute description of Europa.

Speaker 10 Yeah, so Europa is the innermost icy moon of Jupiter. It's kind of being pulled apart by tides, and because of that, it has about a hundred-kilometer ice-plus ocean layer on the outside.

Speaker 10 So it's the most Earth-like place in a lot of ways.

Speaker 10 So four billion years of evolution of the solar system has led to this ocean and contact with the rock, and it just makes it a place that I can't imagine not going to at some point.

Speaker 1 See, See, whereas I wanted to know, Metallica or Judas Priest?

Speaker 4 Ah,

Speaker 4 Cardinal Las Dos.

Speaker 1 I was thinking, I've always loved the different pieces of music that different astronauts have taken up when they've gone to ISS and other places. So

Speaker 1 what's your number one song then that you're taking? Ooh.

Speaker 10 Honestly, it'd probably be Cashmere. Good choice.
But

Speaker 10 the Metallica thing is real. That was like a band that changed my life.
And Harvester of Sorrow, you know, a really light piece would probably be actually the.

Speaker 4 Cashmere.

Speaker 1 We've still not seen, we've seen making burritos in space, we've seen crying in space, we've seen brushing teeth in space, we haven't seen headbanging in space.

Speaker 4 And I feel you should be elevated to the meeting

Speaker 1 to the next mission.

Speaker 10 This is the perfect place for headbanging. I mean the hair's going everywhere anyway.

Speaker 4 So just imagine the sight for you mike. There's no way.

Speaker 1 Even if you're mushing, no one's going to drop you. You're going to still float.
It's going to be okay.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you can have a lot. Actually, dancing and moving around is kind of fun.
You could really enjoy that, I would think.

Speaker 4 What I found was that, like, the scene out of the window looking at the planet, you would, and I listened to a lot of music while doing that, and there was certain music that went with the scene.

Speaker 4 You know, like nighttime music or being over the ocean.

Speaker 4 So, for me, it was like trying to match music that would allow you to enjoy, kind of like building your own soundtrack for what you were experiencing looking out the window.

Speaker 9 How different is it being inside the spacecraft and being outside? Because you've got a varied lot, was it 35 hours spacewalk or something like that?

Speaker 9 A huge number of hours outside.

Speaker 4 Yeah. I'm looking at Mike Olpes, I'll agree who I think has, how much much do you have, Mike? He's got 67, so he's got more than anybody, I think.
American, yeah.

Speaker 1 Isn't there any other room you would have won that competition?

Speaker 4 But you've got the time.

Speaker 4 He's sitting right there. Anyone going to trade seats with him? Mike, get up here.
I'll go back.

Speaker 11 Can I just ask how you all get into the Explorers Club? You know, now we've had a fellow explorer in the audience sort of cutting in there with it.

Speaker 4 You apply. You apply.

Speaker 4 Is it a waiting list?

Speaker 11 Is it like the Garrett Club or the Golf Club or how does it work?

Speaker 4 We need a couple recommendations, but we can take care of that.

Speaker 11 So you're not waiting for one to go before.

Speaker 4 Good. No, I just want to treat you.
I mean, inside the spaceship is kind of cool. The first thing you want to do is take a look at the planet and what else you can see when you get to space.

Speaker 4 So you unstrap, float up to a window, and look, and it's extraordinary. And it's the most beautiful thing you've seen.

Speaker 4 But to me, it was like, oh, look at the pretty fish through the window of an aquarium. But when you go outside, the whole universe opens up to you.
And now you're more like a scuba diver.

Speaker 4 I feel like a real spaceman.

Speaker 4 I'm interacting with that environment and I can look wherever I want and the whole sky opens up to you and the earth, you can see the curve of the earth from where we were up at Hubble and you realize that you and your buddy are the only two people we know that are outside in the universe.

Speaker 4 So maybe someone somewhere else, we don't know. But at least from what we know around our planet, we're the only two people out there, which is kind of cool.
It's the coolest thing I've done.

Speaker 4 I think it's the most extraordinary thing that astronauts can do. I know other people have done some pretty cool things in this room too.

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Speaker 9 Yeah, I wanted to talk about planning expeditions and we'll come back to planning a space for it. But I thought, Jess, if you can give us a sense.
So you've visited a lot of volcanoes.

Speaker 9 They're dangerous and difficult places in any way.

Speaker 1 So you know someone's at the bat's going to go, actually, I've visited seven more.

Speaker 4 So could you

Speaker 9 could you take us through very briefly how you set up an expedition, what you do to keep safe?

Speaker 6 Well I can tell you what not to do off the bat, which is do not do your PhD research in Sinaloa, Mexico, when the cartels are like at an all-time high of violence.

Speaker 9 And it's always the humans, it's not the volcanoes.

Speaker 4 It's not the volcanoes, no.

Speaker 6 And also, don't take your newlywed husband with you and tell him that that's your honeymoon.

Speaker 6 Because that's what I did. And I ended up actually having to chase narco-traffickers in our rented Jeep because they stole my rock hammer.

Speaker 6 And, you know, my Spanish is serviceable, but I never thought that I would be literally driving after Carlos was driving, I was passenger, and going, we have to get this rock hammer or I can't do my research.

Speaker 6 So you have to have the fundamental ingredients that you need. And it would take weeks to get a rock hammer

Speaker 6 to this location. So part of planning is thinking, okay, what are the things I absolutely need to accomplish? What are the things that would be nice to accomplish?

Speaker 6 What are the things that the people who are funding this would really like me to accomplish, but probably won't get? And then you try to keep everybody safe.

Speaker 6 And with volcanoes in particular, you can joke. Like I joke all the time.
Like I'm the most irreverent person, especially when we're in the field.

Speaker 6 But as I tell my students and people I lead on expeditions, you have to be 100% focused on safety because none of it matters if you don't come home alive. And hopefully in one piece.

Speaker 6 But no, the volcanoes to me are, yeah, they're dangerous, but it's an acceptable risk because you know from what is written in the rock record what the volcano is capable of.

Speaker 6 If you have that part of the rock record, still.

Speaker 4 I think that movie's gonna...

Speaker 1 I see Angelina Jolie and Liam Neeson, and I see the tagline, they took her rock hammer, she's gonna take their lives. Something like that.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 And we actually have The Rock playing the rock hammer as well.

Speaker 6 You know, The Rock actually retweeted me because I made a geology reference and he liked it. And so now I'm like, oh, I'm friends with The Rock.
Yeah, no, I'm not.

Speaker 4 What was it you were chasing though? You were chasing them? Narco-traffickers. Like bad guys.

Speaker 6 Like actual bad guys with guns, like for a hammer.

Speaker 4 So what happened was, yes, for a hammer.

Speaker 6 It's a special hammer, okay? It came with me on this trip. It's in my hotel room.

Speaker 9 It's an insight into the character of all geologists, isn't it? We're insane.

Speaker 4 It's the rock hammer.

Speaker 1 So, Annika, on the evidence so far, the idea that insanity is quite important to be an explorer. Yeah.
Where do you stand on that at the moment?

Speaker 11 I think insanity is really important. And I'm learning a lot about the panel.

Speaker 11 I was talking earlier about fearlessness and you know, just absolutely embracing life, being more earnest, just going on a journey across the Antarctic where there's no need for him to go.

Speaker 11 You know, he could have stayed at home, but he made that journey and it went a bit wrong. But then he didn't just leave his crew to perish.

Speaker 11 He got in a boat with four crew members and they went on an 800-mile odyssey to get help. So all the crew came back home again.

Speaker 11 I divert, I'm sorry, I'm a bit obsessed with Ernest, but what I think I'm saying is that there has to be a degree of I will try anything to be a successful explorer.

Speaker 11 And it's the sheer terror that makes it so enjoyable.

Speaker 1 When you said you love terror, you said you need it in your life. So, you know, for years you were doing TV shows where you were challenged to.

Speaker 1 Have there been points where you went, you know what, this one looking back, the answer should have been no.

Speaker 11 Yes, caving.

Speaker 11 Now, we all have sat in this room because we're at an explorers' convention, which in itself I find thrilling just to be in a room full of explorers.

Speaker 11 But we've just seen this talk by Lee Berger, who was talking about exploring in South Africa and finding

Speaker 11 in most inaccessible places underground, they squeezed through rock, they couldn't get both arms down, so one arm went and then the other one went, their head got stuck, squeezing through presses and wedges to find bones of a species of man that they discovered.

Speaker 11 Now, I don't understand that, I don't know how anyone can do that, and I did it at one point in my career, and I literally cried every single day.

Speaker 11 And the crew that were in me thought they were having the time of their life, because they were straight out of Vietnam war photographers and a crew, and they just thought this was great, daring do, heroics.

Speaker 11 And I just was utterly traumatized. But it has always given me perspective doing all these big projects I've done as well, that you are just a little cog.

Speaker 11 And I think it's my Angelou said, didn't she? If you want to live, leave a legacy, make a mark on the world that can't be erased. And that's basically what everyone in this room is doing.

Speaker 11 It's awesome.

Speaker 9 Brittany, for you, so the expeditions that you meant, you said ice is your professional fascination at least.

Speaker 9 So could you talk us through some of the expeditions you've done and why you go to the Antarctic?

Speaker 10 The first time you go there, you're overwhelmed by the place, but very soon after, you find out that it's the people you're with that are maybe even more amazing.

Speaker 10 And so seeing them have an opportunity to be exceptional, I think, is my favorite part. But we go to Antarctica for a couple of reasons.

Speaker 10 I started going because this bizarre obsession that I have with Europa and the search for life and where do we go for that.

Speaker 10 And it took me from Tucson, where there's, as you know, lots and lots of ice,

Speaker 10 to Tucson, Arizona, by the way. So very, very hot, the exact opposite of Antarctica, down to doing this.
And I was working with Earth scientists who are doing ice-penetrating radar.

Speaker 10 So it's kind of like taking an x-ray of the ice.

Speaker 10 It does for glaciers, for Antarctica, for the Arctic, and hopefully soon for Europa, what seismology does for the inside of the Earth or what X-rays do for our body or MRIs.

Speaker 10 And so you can kind of see through the ice and see what's going on. But we got really interested, or I got really interested in what's happening underneath it and its interactions with the ocean.

Speaker 10 So we bring underwater vehicles and try to get them into terrible places where they like to get tangled and where it's difficult to get them. We try to kill robots for a living, basically.

Speaker 10 So we look at the bottom side of Antarctica with these technologies. It's really fun.

Speaker 1 Jess, I wanted to know a little bit more about you you've mapped volcanoes. So we're going to remove the the drug cartel element and the problems there.

Speaker 1 But in terms of just say you are you're you're mapping an active volcano.

Speaker 1 What is the plan for that?

Speaker 1 What is the starting point and how do you then put together that whole picture?

Speaker 6 It sort of depends on the purpose of the map, right?

Speaker 6 If it's a hazard map, that's because there are active lava flows or active projectiles or an ash cloud that's threatening somebody or something of human-termed value.

Speaker 6 However, we use very basic technology for a lot of what we do.

Speaker 6 Nothing really beats boots on the ground when it comes to mapping lava flows, particularly ones that are changing hour to hour, day to day.

Speaker 6 So you find yourself sometimes hacking through bits of vegetation while there's a river of flowing lava next to you.

Speaker 6 And you're sitting there trying to get a GPS to take its waypoint every three seconds so that you can then go back and brief the team, which then talks to the media and says, okay, these seven houses are in danger.

Speaker 6 So we did a lot of that in Hawaii,

Speaker 6 particularly whenever there is an active flow eruption. But also, you can do it on volcanoes that aren't erupting.

Speaker 6 So I was part of the Mauna Loa Mapping Project, and that was an effort to try to understand this behemoth of a volcano that has built up over about a million years, is what was exposed on the surface.

Speaker 6 And my boss there, Frank Truesdell at the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, that man can look at a lava flow from 50 meters and go, oh yeah, that was the 1838.

Speaker 6 And then look at another one, oh yeah, that was 1722. And you're just like, how do you know this? But it's low tech.
It's remarkably low tech.

Speaker 6 And the hazard maps are more complex when you get the more potentially explosive style of eruptive volcanoes. So if you're looking at a Mount Etna, a Mount St.

Speaker 6 Helens, or Mount Rainier, which is quite a big hazard in the U.S., those are the volcanoes that don't just do the sticky, oozy, runny lava flows.

Speaker 6 that are nice to walk up and sample when they're flowing. Those are the ones that have the potential to be pretty cataclysmic cataclysmic for people nearby.
So then we use satellites.

Speaker 6 We use these really neat things called tilt meters, which were originally designed for the military, but you can put them in the ground and they tell you on a millimeter to centimeter scale how much the ground is rising or sinking, which in volcano terms is, is the magma chamber inflating or deflating?

Speaker 6 Is magma entering the system and pressurizing it along with gas? Or is it getting safer? So we use a lot of different instruments.

Speaker 6 We even use satellites these days that can actually give us really cool diagrams that look great for the public and you don't have to explain too much.

Speaker 6 You just say, oh, look, that area that's magenta, that's bad.

Speaker 6 And so, you know, we've got good graphics now, too, not just, oh, look, I drew a map here. Don't go here.

Speaker 9 Mike, we talked about planning. So both your missions were Hubble servicing missions, the Hubble Space Telescope, keeping that magnificent instrument working.
So could you talk us through?

Speaker 9 Because I imagine that every single second of a spacewalk is planned.

Speaker 4 It is. We plan, and then you also plan for things to change.

Speaker 4 Because you know what, once you get out the door, every spacewalk, whether you're inside helping with the choreography and going through the checklist to help your friends outside, or if you're outside or if you're in the control, no matter every spacewalk, something is not exactly as you would have expected, or you might make a mistake that wasn't planned.

Speaker 4 But they are planned to the second, and we would always look for ways to improve. We would train both with virtual reality and in the simulator, but it would all come together in the pool underwater.

Speaker 4 We would do underwater training in our big pool and we would always look for ways to improve. Even if we could save even one minute of spacewalking time, that was significant.

Speaker 4 And then we would try to see what could go wrong. And sometimes we would discover that in our training.
Oh, I don't know, I could break that, or I don't know, this could happen, or maybe I need this.

Speaker 4 And then you would try to imagine what could go wrong, and you'd have a plan to answer those problems.

Speaker 4 But I remember every spacewalk, getting ready to go out and thinking, what's going to happen today that we didn't think about?

Speaker 4 Something's begun in your imagination, or something is not the way it's supposed to be, because you can't really practice on the actual location. You have to simulate everything and then go out there.

Speaker 4 I felt that was like training to play in the World Cup or the Super Bowl or World Series without ever being on a field.

Speaker 9 What was your most interesting moment?

Speaker 4 It was all during the spacewalks, especially on Hubble and

Speaker 4 the space station spacewalks as well. You have a plan, you have to execute.
You're given a great responsibility. You don't want to mess this up.
You feel like you have to do your job.

Speaker 4 Of course, that's number one.

Speaker 4 But at the same time, you're in this extraordinary location, and especially from the vantage point of a spacewalk, and you can't help but take these little looks whenever you can.

Speaker 4 And the thought that went through my mind was, this is a view from heaven. It's a heavenly view.
And I dwelled on it, just staring at the planet, and said, ah, it's more beautiful than that.

Speaker 4 This is what heaven must look like. And from that moment forward, I have a different opinion of where we are.
I think we're in an absolute paradise. And it's very fragile as well.

Speaker 4 You look in the other direction, and I'm wearing life support. I couldn't be up there for very long.

Speaker 4 The other direction, you look out there, it's kind of cool looking out there, but we've checked out the neighborhood. We've got nowhere to go.

Speaker 4 So I have an appreciation, I think, different than what I had previously of how beautiful this place is that we live on, that we live in, and how fragile it is.

Speaker 9 It's so interesting you say that, because I thought it would be a good idea to everyone who is elected to run a country should be sent into space. And I said most of of them should come back.

Speaker 4 But because

Speaker 4 I got a good crewmate, so I got to be able to get along.

Speaker 9 But it's what you say.

Speaker 9 It's that experience. Every astronaut I've had the pleasure to speak to has said the same thing, which is you come back with a changed view of our place in the universe.

Speaker 4 And the other thing is my concept of home, of where I'm from. I remember as a little kid, I grew up just outside of New York City, and my home was Franklin Square, and that's where I grew up.

Speaker 4 That was my home. And then as I got older, I identified New York more as my home.
And then as an astronaut, you know, I had the American flag on my arm going to work, and I was an American.

Speaker 4 But after going around the planet and looking at it, I started thinking differently. This happened more in my second flight, where I started thinking of home as Earth.
And it's a place we all share.

Speaker 4 That's right.

Speaker 11 Home is Earth.

Speaker 1 We should mention the quote that was up earlier because a few days before we started recording this, William Anders or Bill Anders died, and he was one of the first three people to leave the atmosphere and took that incredible image of Earthrise, you know, which is such, and again, I think even before we start sending the politicians into space, the idea that every, you know, every politician should have on their wall Earthrise, that incredible image.

Speaker 1 And I just wonder for you, Brittany, you know, the certain images, you know, how much of your work do you feel the importance of communicating, as Mike was saying, the rarity of this experience that we have of being on a living planet, surrounded by such variety, and you're looking also further out and thinking, well, where else might we find these things?

Speaker 10 I really resonated with what Mike said, actually, about where you start thinking of home, because I have since going to Antarctica. So I just passed in the last field season over two years

Speaker 10 out in the field in the ice. And that's where I think of, I kind of am grounded there.

Speaker 10 We were having a conversation last night about whether you leave parts of yourself really back in places that you've been. And I feel like that.

Speaker 10 I can like center myself in that place even though I'm not there. And so, I think that that for me is a big part of it.
And it wasn't why I went down the first time, right?

Speaker 10 I went down the first time because I've got to understand Europa and I'm obsessed with this thing. And the first time I stood on the ice and looked out, it was just overwhelming.

Speaker 10 And the way I've always described it to someone is: imagine the remember the first time that you stood under like the most impressive sky, right?

Speaker 10 And you felt small but significant at the same time, like lucky to be feeling that way. And that's how you feel, at least I do, every time you walk out.

Speaker 10 And so when you get to talk about what your experience is, I think hopefully it becomes more accessible, more human, and more kind of grounded.

Speaker 10 Because just like Mike was also saying, it's incredibly powerful. People want to ask you about the weather, they want to ask you about penguins.

Speaker 10 And really all I want to talk about is how much power it has, but how it's falling apart and like our role in how to do that. And so if we can bring importance and intent to that, then it makes it

Speaker 10 much more important because most people will not go spend a whole bunch of time sitting on ice, you know, trying to kill robots and trying to figure that out.

Speaker 10 But it's still a huge part of who we are, is to feel a part of the planet.

Speaker 10 And so seeing it that way, when I describe Antarctica as, or and Europa as Earth-like because we've been there, that's actually part of it, right? It is actually very relative, I think, in that way.

Speaker 9 It's very important what you say, isn't it, That exploration is not a selfish act.

Speaker 4 It doesn't have to be.

Speaker 10 Yeah, I mean, I think sometimes people think it is, but there are going to be people who will go out and do something because it's a first. But it's not necessarily the first that matters.

Speaker 10 I think it's the seconds and the thirds, and it opens the door to, I think, these really transformative experiences and then stewardship and things like that.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I want to talk about the future, actually.

Speaker 9 And actually, Jess, you said in your introduction that one of the volcanoes you would like to visit, the volcanoes, are the volcanoes of Venus, which we now know are active

Speaker 9 within the last few months, I think. So, what are those other volcanoes? Olympus Mons on Mars are the volcanoes of Io.
Would you go?

Speaker 9 If you could, I mean, you can't go to Venus. I definitely guarantee you're not going to Venus, but maybe Olympus Mons.

Speaker 6 It's killing my dreams, Brian.

Speaker 9 Olympus Mons, though, the largest volcano in the sun.

Speaker 6 On Mars, yes, it is, yeah. And I'm sure there's probably a bigger one somewhere else.
But for what we know,

Speaker 6 it is the grand champion of size in the volcano world. It is not active, though, currently.
So I'm really drawn to the ones that are active. And active doesn't mean erupting.

Speaker 6 It just means that it will erupt again. So for me, I've worked on six continents.
I've had that privilege and honor.

Speaker 6 I actually have one volcano that I have my eye on, and it is actually in your neck of the woods, Brittany. I need to go visit Mount Erebus because it has a lava lake.

Speaker 6 And my very favorite volcanoes are ones with lava lakes. And at any given moment, there's anywhere between like seven to eight that are active around the planet.

Speaker 6 And I believe that we're going to learn a lot about our future as a species, as a planet, as a place in the solar system, by looking at the primordial processes that formed the planet.

Speaker 6 And the fact that our planet is not a cold dead rock. I mean, when you see it from space, it's not just a blue marble.

Speaker 6 It is an active, changing, vibrant place where there isn't just biology running around on the surface, but the very rocks themselves are constantly changing. It is dynamic.

Speaker 6 So, for me, I'm super excited to see the discoveries we're going to have that integrate geology and biology and atmospheric sciences, chemistry.

Speaker 6 I mean, all of this is what links us as humans because we all share that curiosity.

Speaker 6 And I think if we just keep stoking that curiosity and we recognize that we have these places here on Earth that we can go to, right, We can go to Mount Erebus. You know,

Speaker 6 it's possible. And we can see the real complexity that we still have yet to truly fathom.

Speaker 1 Mike, I was just going to pick up on really what you were just saying there, Justin, previously about boots on the ground as well, which is, of course, one of the debates around space exploration.

Speaker 1 Some people do say, look, why do we keep needing to send humans up? Can't we just all do this with

Speaker 1 whatever robots survive? What is your answer to those who do go, surely we can just do this with technology and without humans?

Speaker 4 I think there's always going to be a place for human exploration. I think it's just how do we use it? Do we use it wisely?

Speaker 4 And the more that the technology can cover, the more that we can learn about a place without sending people, I think that's going to make the time when we do send people to these places much more efficient and safer.

Speaker 9 We talked about Mars earlier, actually, the session here at this conference about going potentially to Mars in the next 20 or 30 years. That must also be an important component.

Speaker 4 That's harder to justify, though. But I think that that's probably, in my mind, the most important reason to send people is that.

Speaker 4 But you can't, oh, the robot can do this and it's safer and all this stuff. But it also captures our imaginations.
There's something about people doing things.

Speaker 4 You know, you mentioned Shackleton and how he's inspired you. And that's when people do things, we can relate to it and it enriches our life.

Speaker 11 Also, we see something utterly extraordinary amongst explorers when something goes wrong, like the group of boys trapped in the cave in Thailand, where those cavers, who I was sort of slightly

Speaker 11 laughing at earlier, you know, what's the point?

Speaker 11 You know, the shared expertise and knowledge of cavers around the world. You know, I was in tears watching that documentary because they were just truly extraordinary.

Speaker 11 The way they went in and found a way to bring those boys out of the cave. And that's exploration.
That's humans doing it, isn't it? There's no machine that's going to go in and do that.

Speaker 11 So I'm really bigger it up to cavers now. I've decided I love them and I want to go caving again.
Again, just.

Speaker 4 There'll be offers here, I'm sure, if you want to go on.

Speaker 9 Brittany, in terms of the future, so Europa, as you said, this ice, moon, ocean world around Jupiter.

Speaker 9 Could you give us the vision of what we are going to do there in the next, what is it, 20 years maybe?

Speaker 10 Yeah, well, I mean, I think it starts hopefully on October 10th. So we're launching Europa Clipper.
So it's the first mission to focus on Europa.

Speaker 10 And it's going to be joined in the Jupiter system by an ESA mission called Juice.

Speaker 10 So October 10th, we launched Europa. And the idea is to figure out how this place works, to map the surface in detail for the first time.

Speaker 10 So when we look at Mars, you know, you could see this table or this microphone in most pictures of Mars, but on Europa, we call high-resolution anything better than 300 meters per pixel.

Speaker 10 We would miss this building in most pictures, right? So how do we get there? So that's, I think, the first step.

Speaker 10 And we're going with a bunch of tools to be able to sample materials coming off of the surface and we'll get really close and understand how deep the ice is, things like that.

Speaker 10 But eventually we've got to get in the ocean. We've got to get into the ice shell.
We've got to melt through it. And so those are the steps that kind of start now.

Speaker 10 We're working on how does the spacecraft need to think, right? Because it's a long time delay and then you have to go down through 30 kilometers of ice to get there.

Speaker 10 What are the science that we have to do along the way? And so as we're thinking about that, we have to teach teach ourselves how to explore there.

Speaker 10 And so there's that connection and why our backyard becomes so important for bending and breaking the way we think about exploration.

Speaker 10 And so our hope is that we end up sending a lander and it sits on the surface and it melts into the interior and we get to actually sample an alien ocean in that way for the first time.

Speaker 9 And just to emphasize, 30 kilometers of ice you've got to get through.

Speaker 10 We've got five on this planet. So that's also a goal, right? Is actually we haven't been to the bottom of the deepest ice.
We haven't been to the deepest subglacial lakes.

Speaker 10 We haven't been to the largest subglacial lakes. So that is on our agenda, right? Is getting into these places and because it tells us something crazy about our own planet.

Speaker 10 What's been going on down there and how does life work at its most fundamental level? And then

Speaker 10 you're prepared to go and ask those questions when you get to a new place because you need the right tools and you have to ask the right questions, right?

Speaker 10 It's not just, you know, bring a microscope or bring a camera and look for fish. It's much more than that.
But the journey is part of the joy, right?

Speaker 10 So building the thing, becoming weirdly, emotionally attached to the technology, and then fielding it and sending it out into space.

Speaker 9 I thought it would be cool to find fish. Oh, certainly.

Speaker 10 Oh, we're still going to send one just in case, right? Because then it's nice, because that picture comes back and we can all just go out for brunch and have a really relaxing day afterwards, right?

Speaker 1 Jess, I imagine that quite often one of the problems is actually getting the money to do these things and get finance.

Speaker 1 Are there any buzzwords or particular anecdotes that you find effective for going, excellent, finally I can go to another volcano?

Speaker 6 When you say relation to origins of life, so you either get people excited and interested, you know, and intrigued, or you say, if you don't help us study this, you're going to die.

Speaker 6 So you can go for wonder and joy or you could go for terror. Carrots and stick.
Yes, exactly. And as we've all learned, you know, terror sells.

Speaker 6 So that is, if we can say, if we can tie it to a pressing threat, that tends to get science funded a lot more quickly.

Speaker 6 I wish we could all just do it for wonder and joy and light and butterflies and unicorns, but we have to do it because lava bombs could kill your town.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's a great threat.

Speaker 4 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Mike, what about, I mean, you know, NASA often has battled to get finance for.

Speaker 1 Did you feel that when you were working there, that kind of like, oh man, if only we could do this experiment or this particular thing, but we're still restricted, despite the enormity of the imagination involved?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, NASA's a government agency, so it's dealing with the taxpayers' dollars, right? And I always felt like NASA was given a good amount of money. You know, it's an investment in the future.

Speaker 4 It does great things at NASA, but so do a lot of other things. You know, you have to keep people fed and housed and all these other things.

Speaker 4 So, you always, you can't really do everything you want to do. It's a bit inefficient the way the government does business because the taxpayer's dollar is spread around the country and so on.

Speaker 4 But one of the things that has gone well in the last few years is the burgeoning commercial companies now are seeing some success.

Speaker 4 And what NASA has been about for a long time is also trying to offload the space program from just being a government-only taxpayer dollar agency to fostering some commercial development.

Speaker 4 So companies like SpaceX and now Boeing has also launched a Starliner to the space station a couple weeks ago. So now we're starting to, I think, see the benefits of it.

Speaker 4 That's why I have hope moving forward that we're not going to be totally dependent on taxpayer money to do these things.

Speaker 9 Wonderful. Well, we always ask an audience question and I'm hoping, I think the audience answer should be the most informed we've had in 30 seasons of this show.
So let's see, shall we?

Speaker 1 So the question we asked, and what was it, Brian?

Speaker 9 The audience question was, what is the most peculiar thing you've found whilst out exploring? Paolo here says, myself.

Speaker 1 On a multi-day hike, I felt so tired that it brought me to find that I am pregnant. That was from Kim.

Speaker 10 All right. So we've got Carlos who said a naked man in the middle of the Mojave desert using magnets on rocks to prove it was a government conspiracy.

Speaker 4 Fair enough. I think I'm an animal.

Speaker 6 That's my husband. I was there.
The naked man was legit.

Speaker 1 Right, well, that's the main quote we're going to take out after all that. The naked man was legit.

Speaker 4 I'm here all week, folks.

Speaker 9 There's all sorts of things for conspiracies here. Dozens of pigeon wings in brackets, just the wings, in an abandoned building.
Just the wings.

Speaker 1 As a nature recordist, one day on an expedition, I went to collect my equipment five kilometers away from the base. We went by walk.
Suddenly, when we were back, we heard a roar.

Speaker 1 It was a female jaguar less than 50 meters distance from us. Amazing.
It was at Columbian Eastern Plains. That's a good one.
I like that. And Protoceratops in the Gobi.

Speaker 11 Oh, well.

Speaker 9 Glamour. There we are, Daddy.
All we have time for. Thank you to our panel.
Jess Phoenix, Mike Massimino, Britney Schmidt, and Annika Rice.

Speaker 9 Thank you. In our next show, we are asking, what is gas?

Speaker 4 What is gas?

Speaker 1 What is gas and do we need it? I think the answer is going to be yes, but tune in to find out. I do indeed.
Thanks very much for listening.

Speaker 9 Thank you.

Speaker 1 Hello, Robin again.

Speaker 1 I just wanted to let you know about another podcast that I've been involved with recently, and it was fantastic, an absolute joy to join Greg Jenner at the Hay Festival for an episode of You're Dead to Me.

Speaker 4 Why didn't you tell me about that? I would have done that.

Speaker 1 Oh, I think you were busy or something.

Speaker 1 It was lovely being free from him for once. Anyway, shush Brian.
We talked about the history of printing. We had a great chat, and I hope you find it interesting.

Speaker 9 I play the history of printing.

Speaker 11 I could have.

Speaker 1 That's exactly why I didn't have you on, because I knew you'd be interrupting all the time. Anyway, you can listen on BBC Sounds.
Just search for You're Dead to Me.

Speaker 14 Hello, I'm Sean Keeveny, and I'm back with a brand new series of Your Place or Mind from BBC Radio 4.

Speaker 14 It's the show where a litany of wonderful guests try to tempt this recalcitrant traveller onto the runway to experience their favourite place on earth.

Speaker 8 Custard-filled pastries. Everywhere, as standard.
I stayed in a place where that was their...

Speaker 6 They didn't put mints on the pillows.

Speaker 13 They put custard tarts.

Speaker 14 They'll try to tempt me with all the wonders and delicacies from their favourite place in the the world.

Speaker 3 But will they succeed?

Speaker 15 There's an amazing lighthouse, and there's a brilliant tour there by the guy who, his family, were the lighthouse keepers. The lighthouse family, if you weren't.

Speaker 14 Listen to all new episodes of Your Place or Mine on BBC Signs.

Speaker 4 Be our guest at Disney's enchanting musical, Beauty and the Beast. Fill your heart with joy and Disney magic, brought to life like never before.

Speaker 4 Coming to the Orpheum Theater July 14th through August 9th. Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.