In short
Space Muffins episode from the UK Space Conference (Manchester) and the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center, plus a Space Forge update.
Guests
Rosemary Coogan (ESA astronaut selected in 2022; PhD astrophysics; trained in Houston for ISS systems and EVA; also did geological training “Pangaea”; served in Royal Naval Reserves; class name “Hoppers”); and ESA Director General Joseph Ashbacher (head of ESA; discusses budgets and human spaceflight strategy).
Key claims
human spaceflight independence for Europe requires a political decision by heads of state; ESA’s ~7.7B€ budget is mostly not dependent on NASA (about 95%); only ~5% is heavily impacted (ISS, Gateway, Artemis, Mars Sample Return).
Notable examples
Coogan explains EVA challenges (heavy suit, fatigue, clipping tools) and EVA underwater training via “POGO”; she compares Earth perspective to “dot within a dot”; Space Forge’s “Forge Awakens” (launched ~3 weeks prior) aims to demonstrate in-space high-purity semiconductor manufacturing, with a deployable shield “Pridwin” for safe controlled reentry; Smithsonian segment covers the Smithsonian MMU display and the 1984 Bruce McCandless untethered spacewalk photo.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOInterviews from the UK Space Conference
0:12 to 0:43
Sue shares insights and interviews from the recent UK Space Conference.
“Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends.”
Interviews from the UK Space Conference
1:48 to 2:44
Sue shares insights and interviews from the recent UK Space Conference.
“And we also have her boss, the Director General of ESA, Joseph Ashbacher.”
Interview with Astronaut Rosemary Coogan
2:44 to 4:53
Rosemary discusses her journey as an ESA astronaut and training experiences.
“and recently has been training at Houston for life in microgravity.”
Challenges of EVA Training
4:53 to 7:21
Rosemary describes the physical challenges and experiences during her EVA training.
“So POGO is a sort of kind of complement to the spacewalk training that we do underwater.”
The Hoppers Class and Astronaut Dynamics
7:21 to 11:01
Rosemary explains the significance of her class name and teamwork in the astronaut program.
“thing that I think I've done as part of the training so far and perhaps the furthest from my previous experiences.”
The Role of Astronauts Today
11:01 to 14:01
A discussion on the evolving role of astronauts in science and communication.
“understand and you know that's the spice of life isn't it that everyone everyone likes different things.”
Enthusiasm for Space Exploration
14:01 to 16:28
Explore the passion and excitement of astronauts about space missions.
“the communication side of it I think is a massive part.”
Interview Insights with ESA Astronaut
16:28 to 17:05
Insightful discussions regarding the future missions and training of astronauts.
“ESA astronaut Rosemary Coogan and later we'll hear from the ESA Director General about when Rosemary is likely to get into space or at least I ask him when is Rosemary likely to get into space.”
New Appointments in Astronomy
17:05 to 18:24
Discussion about the new UK Astronomer Royal and past podcast guests.
“Although I did snigger when I heard that interview because you'd automatically associated her job with doom and gloom and, you know, the end of the world.”
Space Forge and Satellite Launch
18:24 to 19:04
Update on the successful launch of a satellite by Space Forge.
“But there were actually some before the podcast went onto the Naked Scientist website.”
Show all 27 chapters
Manufacturing Semiconductors in Space
19:04 to 23:06
Exploration of Space Forge's mission to create semiconductors in space.
“So to listeners of a certain age will remember going to LAN parties as teenagers.”
Challenges of Space Manufacturing
23:06 to 24:11
Discussion on the challenges and ideas for sustainable satellite operations.
“It exposes us to far less risks in terms of space debris, in terms of what might happen on descent if we can return the whole platform.”
Future of Space Entrepreneurs
24:11 to 26:01
Insights on the new generation of enthusiastic space entrepreneurs.
“Are you already getting interest from the big sort of chip manufacturers, the tech industry for the potential of this?”
Future of Space Entrepreneurs
26:15 to 27:09
Insights on the new generation of enthusiastic space entrepreneurs.
“Well, as someone who's old and perky, this is Space Muffins.”
Nostalgia for Space Exploration
27:21 to 28:00
A reflective discussion on space stamps and famous images from history.
“I'm supposed to be working and he came to my desk and saw what's going on.”
Space Stamps Discussion
28:00 to 28:32
The hosts reminisce about space stamps and their beauty, suggesting more social media engagement.
“I mean, I went down a rabbit hole, though.”
Bruce McCandless II and Untethered Spacewalk
28:32 to 29:34
Discussion about the iconic image of Bruce McCandless II during his untethered spacewalk in 1984.
“Last month on the podcast, we talked to author Bruce McCandless III, and we chatted a little about the picture of his father that's become one of the most famous in the history of space exploration.”
The Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU)
29:34 to 31:27
Exploration of the MMU technology and its history in space exploration, including its design and challenges.
“what looks to be an astronaut with a very large backpack on.”
Limitations and Legacy of MMU
31:27 to 35:45
Discussion on the limitations of the MMU technology, its eventual decline, and safety considerations in space.
“You say maneuverability, but looking at it above us right by the space shuttle Discovery, it looks like the astronaut is sitting in a giant recliner armchair.”
Impact of Iconic Space Photographs
35:45 to 38:46
Analysis of the significance of famous space photographs, especially in the context of human experience in space.
“It was used where an astronaut could go out and retrieve a satellite that was malfunctioning and basically pull it back into the payload bay.”
Apollo-Soyuz Mission and Podcast Challenges
38:46 to 41:21
Discussion on the Apollo-Soyuz mission's anniversary and the challenges of creating timely podcast content.
“Like the famous Earthrise picture, it's that perspective.”
Introduction to ESA's Joseph Ashbacher
42:00 to 43:12
Learn about Joseph Ashbacher's role and insights at the UK Space Conference.
“But I was trying to do it for this podcast.”
Future of the European Space Agency
43:12 to 46:38
Discover Joseph Ashbacher's vision for the future of ESA and its independence from NASA.
“Do you feel at the moment you're too reliant on NASA and they're becoming an unreliable partner?”
Impact of Space Technology on Daily Life
46:38 to 50:26
Understand how European citizens benefit from space technology in their daily routines.
“including the UK as a very strong member of ESA.”
Funding Priorities for European Space
50:26 to 52:34
Learn about the funding challenges and proposals for the ESA's budget at the ministerial meeting.
“What's your ask then at the ministerial?”
UK Astronauts and Future Missions
52:34 to 54:48
Hear about the prospects for UK astronauts and their missions in space.
“There are four actual UK astronauts right now, four potential astronauts, three and Tim Peake.”
Satirical Tribute to Werner von Braun
56:01 to 58:00
Explore a playful song about the complexities of Werner von Braun's legacy.
“But he's also recorded many other satirical tunes.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Summer's supposed to be the easy season. So why are so many people quietly googling a therapist between summer Fridays? Because more daylight doesn't fix the hard stuff. Sometimes it just turns the volume up. Grow does therapy differently. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. The therapist you want takes your insurance on Grow. Grow accepts over 125 insurance plans.
0:37Sessions average$21 with insurance and some pay as little as$0 depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com slash ACAST today to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
1:01Attention all personnel, please clear the launching area. Fire, fire. Oh baby, I'll give it to you. That looks really good. Yes it does, it's dead on. Okay, keep the chatter down in the throat. Are you ready to begin? Yes, I'm all set here.
1:21Sue Nelson:Hello, welcome to Space Muffins. We're in partnership with the Naked Scientists and supported by the UK Space Agency. I'm Sue Nelson. And I'm Richard Hollingham. And I've just come back from the UK Space Conference in Manchester. So this is a packed podcast with some of the interviews I recorded there. I worked so hard. In a moment, you'll hear my conversation with British European Space Agency astronaut Rosemary Coogan. And we also have her boss, the Director General of ESA, Joseph Ashbacher. We have the technical expertise that we could develop a future human spaceflight capability with all the elements that are required.
2:02In order to do it, it needs a political decision. And this is really something that heads of government or heads of states need to decide. And this is in their court, if I may call it this way, to really make a decision whether Europe wants this independence on human spaceflight, yes or no.
2:19Sue Nelson:Later, we return to the Smithsonian near Washington-Dulles Airport for the final time to hear about the futuristic jetpack known as the manned manoeuvring unit. And we've an update on Cardiff Company Space Forge's mission, The Forge Awakens. So our first guest is Rosemary Coogan, who was selected as an ESA astronaut back in 2022. She's due to fly to the International Space Station by 2030 and recently has been training at Houston for life in microgravity. with a PhD in astrophysics Rosemary also served in the Royal Naval Reserves and at 34 already has a long list of achievements to her name I'm Rosemary Coogan and I'm an astronaut for the European Space Agency How cool does it feel to say that?
3:12Very very cool yeah it's still always very much a pleasure to say it hasn't really fully sunk in yet but yeah really enjoying the first couple of years of this journey I can't believe it's already been two and a half years almost since we started training. And it really seems to have ramped up in recent months. I've seen a lot of pictures of you recently diving in these enormous tanks at Houston, practicing spacewalking EVAs. Yeah, I mean, I would say that the first 13 months or so were actually very intense. I think the phases of the training is shifting now. So the first year or so was what we call basic training.
3:50and it's this kind of syllabus that astronauts from all different agencies come up to so that everyone has the same kind of basic training as the name suggests and that really covered a lot of classroom activities all of the backgrounds and the different types of science experiments we might be interacting with on the station so we have a better understanding of them and then the goals of the ISS as well as some practical trainings like going in the centrifuge for for launch and landing simulations, parabolic flights and microgravity. And now the more recent training has become quite more specific, you could say.
4:24So since then, I spent a few weeks on, it's called Pangaea. It's a geological training. So it's learning all about the Earth, but also other planetary bodies, how to essentially read their history by looking at the rocks, the landscape. And most recently, I was in Houston for seven months, and that was really focused on the International Space Station systems and how to perform spacewalks outside the International Space Station. So it's been a, yeah, definitely an intense few months. One of them was called POGO. What was POGO? Oh, yes. So POGO is a sort of kind of complement to the spacewalk training that we do underwater.
5:02So the underwater environment is fantastic because you float underwater very similarly to how you might float in space. There's a fantastic team of divers who are actually constantly adjusting your buoyancy and putting weights here and there and everywhere in your spacesuit. So you have that sensation of floating. But there are some limitations to what you can do underwater. We use a lot of quite specific tools on a spacewalk, on an EVA. And some of those in the pool are lower fidelity and doing pogo, where you're essentially in a harness, you're offset from the ground. So in that sense, you are floating.
5:37It's not the same as being in water. Of course, you're kind of heavy. still very much in in the harness um but it allowed us to really get hands-on with some of the the higher fidelity tools that we'd be using really experimenting with high talks how to stabilize ourselves when we're not grounded um by gravity and having our feet on the ground what's been the the most challenging for you i remember when i spoke to tim peak about this i mean it's a long time ago when he was he was training he had to because he's working with the Russians he had to learn Russian that was his big challenge what's been the one that's you found the well maybe the most challenging the most interesting I mean I very much I can I can see Tim's experience we also have been learning Russian perhaps to a lesser extent than Tim he flew in the Soyuz so there was a really big emphasis on the importance of Russian for him of course it's something that we're very much still doing with our with our international partners so I can definitely see his point of view on that but I think I would say the most challenging part for me has been the EVA training because it was challenging physically in the sense of being in the real space suit which is it's heavy it's it's not easy to move around in it's pressurized so you're actually fighting against the suit every time you make a motion you have to use your hands constantly to clip and unclip these hooks for the safety of yourself or the safety of your tools and it's huge chunky gloves and that that fatigue sets in quite quickly it's not the sorts of actions we're used to doing and then of course you know this has to be done efficiently on time and so a huge amount of preparation goes into that so I would say that is probably the most challenging thing that I think I've done as part of the training so far and perhaps the furthest from my previous experiences.
7:26Now you're called the Hoppers in fact you've got the badge on on your sleeve there what are the Hoppers why the Hoppers I mean it's an extraordinary badge and we all have to share a picture on social media because I would struggle to describe it. Well we were indeed given quite a lot of free reign with choosing our class name and the Hoppers is the class of the six astronauts who graduated after basic training in April last year, so 2024. We were asked to come up with a class name. There's a bit of a tradition actually that the class before you should name you. So there was a lot of interactions between us and the 2009 class about what we should call ourselves.
8:09And essentially, as you'll see from the shape, it's actually the shape of a space hopper. These are the ears of a space hopper. Oh, I get it now. So like an old-fashioned 1970s sort of space hopper that you're sitting astride yeah but yours is a union jack one yeah got it so the small astronauts on the the badge shaped like a space hopper are also riding their own individual space hoppers and of course it represents a lot of different things it is you know in some senses we were just hopping all over the place during basic training it was a very busy time for us but it also you know we're hopping with excitement at what is to come and on the moon with the lower gravity is very much a physical hopping motion.
8:49And of course, the space hoppers, like you say, retro. It really, yeah, it was, I think, a great choice for us. Very good. Has there been an advantage of you being a scientist and coming from a scientific background? I mean, specifically an astrophysicist. I actually wouldn't say particularly, no. And a big part of the basic training, I mentioned kind of having all of these classroom sessions about the different backgrounds, the different sciences done in the ISS. And the idea of the basic training is to really take everybody coming from different backgrounds and bring us all to the same level in what we need to know to do this job.
9:26So I think as a scientist, I perhaps bring a different point of view than somebody coming from a very different background. And my colleagues have a really wide range of backgrounds. We have some scientists, some doctors, some people coming from military backgrounds, just to name a few, engineers. So I think we all bring a different perspective and perhaps as a scientist I lean more towards some of the problem-solving aspects of things and perhaps less operationally focused on people coming from those operational backgrounds. So what we really get by working in these teams and learning together is sharing those experiences and all coming to that place where we work really nicely together and it's a fantastic dynamic.
10:08I wonder whether every astrophysicist secretly wants to be actually in space in the thing you're studying you know I wonder that and I have to say I have a fair few astrophysicist friends who did apply also for the selection but I have some astrophysicist friends who just went no I don't fancy that you know and it actually is a very different job I have a very much a deep fascination for space and I think both being an astrophysicist and an astronaut really fills that box but it's it's not just looking out there anymore it's actually very much looking back at earth kind of both in terms of the fact we are physically looking at the earth when we're on the international space station but also thinking about how science in space in all different topics nothing to do with astronomy actually benefits our lives on earth so I actually feel as though they're they're two halves of the same thing but actually not necessarily that overlapping so I completely understand and you know that's the spice of life isn't it that everyone everyone likes different things.
11:12Does it give you a sense of perspective I wonder already because astronauts always talk about the overview effect of being out in space I wonder whether you've already kind of got that because you've studied things like black holes and distant galaxies. It's a really great question And I'm really fascinated to see how the overview effect will feel. I've heard really powerful kind of anecdotes from colleagues about that. And I think you're absolutely right. I think already taking a step back and looking at the Earth must be, you know, wow. OK, this is where we are. Look how tiny we are compared to this amazing planet.
11:45But I indeed like to zoom out from that even further. I mean, my background is studying galaxies billions and billions of light years away. and to think that the Earth is a dot within a dot within a dot within a galaxy, within a universe, yeah, it gives perhaps even further perspective. It's, yeah, fascinating. And ultimately, you know from studying the evolution of galaxies that ultimately we're all doomed. Oh, I'm not sure that is the conclusion I came to in my thesis. But I wouldn't say we are doomed at all. I think studying the history of the universe is utterly fascinating. You know, there are certainly extremely physical, dynamic processes that are going on in galaxies, between galaxies.
12:30There are galaxies that are brought to life and galaxies that do evolve and die quickly, as we'd call them, when they're no longer forming stars. But no, I think we have a very bright future ahead of us. It's coming back to astronauts. I mean, how do you see the role of being an astronaut? compared to even 10 years ago or 20, 30 years ago? It's certainly evolving. Perhaps, you know, 30 or so years ago, we were nearer the beginnings of really kind of those first steps of exploration, especially since the ISS has finished being assembled. We have now that very, very large laboratory for doing that science.
13:10Being really scientists in space as well as explorers is something which is becoming more and more prominent. Of course, now we're talking about going back to the moon and going back to Mars. It's also there's going to be really both explorers and scientists, you know, we're kind of both as astronauts and very much facilitating the science from the ground. But I also think perhaps the communication side of things is becoming more and more prominent, probably just because of the world we live in today, where there are more ways to communicate. You know, there's podcasts, for example, all sorts of news outlets.
13:43and I think it really offers an opportunity and a platform to talk about you know why why I think these things interesting what we can learn from space and really encouraging people to find what what they feel passionately about and perhaps in STEM perhaps in space so those two sides of it the communication side of it I think is a massive part. So I wanted to ask about that that aspiration side of it you know I've been just I mean I've only met you today but having met McGann before and John McFall before and Tim Peake before that enthusiasm you're something it's the end of the day it's getting towards the end of the day you've been interviewed all day but you're so enthusiastic and passionate about this stuff oh it's nice for you to say but it is you know it's easy to be enthusiastic and passionate about something that that you really believe in I love being just a small part of this huge picture that is just bringing so much knowledge so much excitement especially to small children you know we had a session with some kids early today and it was just fantastic to see how excited they were I mean that is so energizing in itself this is this is absolutely the the job I've jumped about for a long time combining the fascination for for space with everything useful we can do there and bringing it back to earth so it's it's hard not to be excited about that.
15:04You've been training for the International Space Station but you could end up on the moon couldn't you and there's some uncertainty over the space station I mean will you end up sort of training for both or having to be prepared for both? Yeah and it's definitely the the role of a astronaut is to be training and preparing for all possible missions so of course you might have an idea of what our trajectory is going to be but that is always going to evolve the the space sector what we're going to be doing in space is really quickly evolving, you know, who's doing it and how. So we really do need to be prepared for all the different types of possible missions.
15:42I am, my classmates are now training more specifically for the ISS. But, you know, the geology training, for example, is very much focused on exploration. So linking much more with the moon and with Mars. And it's certainly something that, yeah, we're looking ahead to the big picture already. you must be pretty excited for for the months the years ahead yeah i mean like i said that the last two or so years has absolutely flown by i can't believe how the training has developed how how we're growing as a team how much i've been welcomed into this community and yeah i am incredibly excited to see what the future holds we've got some amazing training coming this year and next year and uh yeah i hope we'll have the opportunity to talk again about it and we'll hold her to that ESA astronaut Rosemary Coogan and later we'll hear from the ESA Director General about when Rosemary is likely to get into space or at least I ask him when is Rosemary likely to get into space.
16:40I think it's fair to say with the interview with the ESA GDRI I ask a lot of good questions I get very diplomatic answers back.
16:50Sue Nelson:Oh yeah well that's par for the course. It is par for the That is his job. If he wasn't doing that, he wouldn't be doing his job. It's good to get the head of the European Space Agency. That's really good. Well, I hope she does go with that because she sounded so enthusiastic. There's a lot of giggling going on between you there. She was lovely. She sounded lovely. She sounded really nice. Although I did snigger when I heard that interview because you'd automatically associated her job with doom and gloom and, you know, the end of the world. Well, it's the end of the universe, ultimately, isn't it?
17:21Sue Nelson:Yeah, that's great. We all drift apart into nothingness. Wonderful, wonderful. I mean, it's great to have all these British astronauts sort of in the wings, so to speak. And we had some other sort of good news in terms of the appointment of the UK Astronomer Royal, which for the first time in 350 odd years, I think it is. Yeah, it's pretty much exactly 350 years. 350 years, 357, or I don't know, 350. A woman, and it's someone who's been on the podcast. It's Professor Michelle Doherty. So that's rather wonderful. And you can hear, we've interviewed quite a few times about the Cassini mission and Enceladus and those jets that came off.
18:02Sue Nelson:Which episode of the podcast? Because all our podcasts, you can get these amazing resources. They're all there on the Naked Scientist website. Yeah, so the last interview we did with Michelle was episode 130, which was about the JUICE mission to Jupiter, currently on its way to Jupiter. That was from March 2023. And this is episode 153. Oh, we missed that. That is so on brand, isn't it? But there were actually some before the podcast went onto the Naked Scientist website. I don't know what happened to them. So we could actually be on like 164 or something. Yeah, we could be on 160 or more. Oh my goodness.
18:43They were very helpfully named Podcast One, Podcast Two. I didn't really get better data at that point. So anyway, let's carry on. In our May episode, we heard from a Cardiff-based company, Space Forge, who are about to launch their TASS satellite to manufacture the seeds of silicon chips in orbit. Well, the launch was a success. and at the space conference i caught up with their ceo josh weston to see how the mission was going three weeks and two days ago we launched ford star one the forge awakens which we're now operating out of the sack cave in cardiff what's the sack cave like it's a very dark room as the name might give it away with a tongue-in-cheek reference to a dc comic albeit a satellite image and it is loaded with computer banks.
19:33So to listeners of a certain age will remember going to LAN parties as teenagers. So it looks a bit like a gaming setup. You have these amazing puns around the sci-fi and all the rest of it, but you've launched a satellite and so far it's operational. Yes, that's absolutely right. So we launched a satellite, as I say, three weeks, two days ago. Then about sort of 24 hours later, established comms with the satellite and are now slowly but surely bringing all of the different operational systems online. So we're in a commissioning process for the next few weeks before we get on with the prime directive of the mission.
20:07And just talk us through what you'll be able to do now, because this was quite, I mean, you know, we would talk about what you were about to do. Now it's almost certainly going to happen. This mission is all about demonstrating that we can create the right manufacturing environment to produce high-purity semiconductors in space. Now, I appreciate how science fiction that sounds. in many ways it also sounds quite trivial but effectively what we're looking at doing is creating a factory-like environment in something about the size of an oven that's traveling at about 15 ,000 miles an hour so there's a lot involved in in making that happen and we will be looking to soon ignite the forge as we're calling it and that will look to basically create the plasma required to produce semiconductors in space the other aspect of this test mission is to test the return component of this but you're not actually going to manufacture and return what you're manufacturing so this mission has the very strange objective of having to fail on purpose so we need to do that to prove to the and demonstrate to the regulators here in the UK and across Europe that we are safe and responsible actors in space and so we're flying what we're calling a mechanically but not thermally representative shield that shield is called Pridwin.
21:21It's named after the mythical shield of King Arthur and it is best described as Mary Poppins from space. It is a space-grade deployable umbrella that unfurls and allows us to effectively float back from orbit all the way down to the ground. This mission is to test that we can safely deploy and safely reach around 100 kilometers altitude. That's roughly where Earth's atmosphere begins. But in this case we're only looking we're looking to basically have the satellite burn up and we have to do that in a way that demonstrates that if the shield did not properly deploy or something was wrong with it that that is the only outcome so that we wouldn't cause any damage back here on the ground what's the ultimate ambition is the idea to keep your manufacturing facility in space take things up to it and then bring things back down from it or do you have to kind of launch your factory every time and then you end up with a dead factory in orbit how what's your the ultimate sort of goal of all this it's sort of somewhere in the middle so the problem you have is that if you have a permanent structure on orbit it's naturally going to be quite big having a big structure on orbit then introduces other problems because it has to keep itself at a certain altitude so it uses boosters to keep itself there it's a large structure so there's vibrations happening there's disturbances to the microgravity so the way in which we approach it is it's a bit like a hub and a spoke so what we want to do is launch forward return repeat with our platform so we want to operate a sizable platform but a high cadence so moving up to about three missions a year and then eventually one a month and that will basically mean that we'll have a fleet type operational system so some satellites will always be on the launch pad some will be being built some will be in space making product some will be being returned but at the end of that return cycle instead of throwing the satellite away what we want to start moving into is a position where we can refurbish the satellite and use it again so in the same way that SpaceX have done it for stages of the rocket we want to be able to do that with satellites like it doesn't make sense that something as expensive as a satellite is single use but you will return your entire satellite at the moment the the idea is to return the whole thing from orbit so we want to return the whole platform one because that's much easier than trying to cope with all of the mechanisms you'd need to interact with it and refuel it and everything else in space Second, it's actually a far more sustainable operation as well.
23:36It exposes us to far less risks in terms of space debris, in terms of what might happen on descent if we can return the whole platform. Also allows us to inspect very closely how those systems have performed over multiple months and then as we start refurbishing and relaunching, multiple years. I just noticed your badge here, the Space Forge badge. So it's Launch, Forge, Return, Repeat. Yeah, very much so. And I like the S as well. It's very, you know, Space Force, Space Force. Very good. Thank you. Yeah. So, yeah, I came up with that slogan as well. That came to me when I heard a dance track come on in the gym.
24:14Are you already getting interest from the big sort of chip manufacturers, the tech industry for the potential of this? Or have you already got rivals saying, well, hang on, if they can do it, we could do this as well? Yeah, so I mean, when we started Spaceforge, there was only one other company in the world that was making things in space. And they were acquired by a much bigger company, just as we went out to do our first fundraise. Since that point, we're tracking now more than about 40 companies that are doing some aspect of what we're aiming to do. I don't really worry about them so much. I know how hard it is to make semiconductors.
24:46Some will succeed, some won't. The main thing is, so as a company, we already make semiconductors. We do that on the ground, our pilot facility in Swansea. So we're already shipping out substrates to customers. So we're already working with the likes of BT. So we're helping BT to develop a new 5G and future 6G chip that can be dedicated to improving basically the energy use in something like a 5G mobile tower. There's a huge ambition here. And you're essentially running a space company, satellite manufacturing company, and a chip manufacturing company, and putting the two together. Yeah, it's never boring.
25:22Josh Weston of SpaceForge.
25:25Sue Nelson:It's good to hear some of those lovely names again, because that was what made us laugh the last interview, wasn't it? With those ludicrous names. But the Sack Cave. The Sack Cave sounds great. I'd love to go visit the Sack Cave. Next time we're in South Wales. But doesn't he, I mean, it's a bit like Rosemary, really. Doesn't he sound like he's having the best time? He really sounds like he's enjoying it. Yeah, there's a whole new generation. There were some very perky people. We'll hear other interviews over the coming months that I recorded at the space conference. There's some very perky people, young entrepreneurs predominantly, and young people who are just really enthusiastic about this stuff.
26:01Sue Nelson:Anybody over the age of 40 is just sounding a little bit bored with it all. They were the old and jaded crowd. But actually, the young and perky people at the space conference, yes. There was a real enthusiasm there. Oh, good. Well, as someone who's old and perky, this is Space Muffins. We're in partnership with the Naked Scientists and supported by the UK Space Agency. Summer's supposed to be the easy season. So why are so many people quietly Googling a therapist between summer Fridays? Because more daylight doesn't fix the hard stuff. Sometimes it just turns the volume up. Grow does therapy differently.
26:39Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. The therapist you want takes your insurance on Grow. Grow accepts over 125 insurance plans. Sessions average$21 with insurance and some pay as little as$0 depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com slash ACAST today to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
27:51Sue Nelson:I'm supposed to be working and he came to my desk and saw what's going on. And I was basically face down with stamps, with my Christmas gift stamps and just sorting them all out. And I think I put a couple on X. You did on the Facebook page. Maybe Facebook as well. Definitely on the Facebook page. Yeah, because I love, I just love them. I mean, I went down a rabbit hole, though. I didn't work for about half an hour because I was just sort of sorting through them. But if you've got any space stamps, we'd love, love to see them because they are gorgeous. Yeah, we should do more on Instagram with that, really, shouldn't we?
28:29Yes. We should do more on Instagram, full stop, really, shouldn't we? We should just do more. We should do more. Last month on the podcast, we talked to author Bruce McCandless III, and we chatted a little about the picture of his father that's become one of the most famous in the history of space exploration.
Read the full transcript
28:45Sue Nelson:Well, that image of Bruce McCandless II, seemingly alone, surrounded by the blackness of space with the Earth below, was taken more than 40 years ago, 1984, from Space Shuttle Challenger. He was using basically a jetpack, really. It's the MMU, the Manned Maneuvering Unit. And it was the first untethered spacewalk. Well, that MMU is preserved. It's suspended with a dummy astronaut above space shuttle Discovery at the Smithsonian Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center. I still find it hard to say that name. Near Washington, D.C. And we talk about it in the final part of our lovely series of conversations with curator Jennifer Lavassa.
29:33So what you can see from here is an astronaut, what looks to be an astronaut with a very large backpack on. This is our representation of the experience of Bruce McCandless when he flew the manned maneuvering unit in 1984. And we can say with certainty this is the exact unit that he flew. It is number three. You can see a really large black number three on the side. But the spacesuit is not real. The spacesuit is a little bit of a mock-up, a little bit pretend, but we want to be able to show you sort of what it would have looked like. And we've even tried to rotate it to make it really look like he's floating in space.
30:07It strikes me, this astronaut maneuvering unit, it's just the future. But it's 41 years ago now. It's just extraordinary technology and that incredible picture of Bruce McAndlas just in the darkness of space as its own satellite around the Earth. Yeah. So in the 1980s, I think in the early 1980s, especially, I think we were still thinking of spaceflight in some sort of fantastical terms, which is, you know, there's a story here about the development of the idea of a maneuvering unit of some kind that goes back certainly to the 1960s. But the idea of being able to kind of jet around with a backpack where you could kind of move around like Buck Rogers is really sort of still in people's minds.
30:52In this sort of, even in the engineers' minds, the people who are actually developing the technologies are still thinking that this is something that could be really useful and really important to be able to move yourself around in space independently of the vehicle itself. Kind of like having a mini spacecraft of your own. And we think of the spacesuit as a spacecraft in a way, but this really allows that maneuverability. And so the MMU comes at a sort of somewhat at the end, close to the end of a line of different developments through about a 20-year period to be able to allow astronauts to do their own maneuvering on a spacewalk.
31:27Sue Nelson:You say maneuverability, but looking at it above us right by the space shuttle Discovery, it looks like the astronaut is sitting in a giant recliner armchair. the sort you'd see in a cinema somewhere it doesn't look maneuverable does it it doesn't at all and that's one of the miss uh sort of misleading or sort of easily misunderstood things about most space equipment is that it looks huge and bulky but in in microgravity it really doesn't make a difference how big or bulky it is and certainly in the time period we're talking about they really hadn't gotten to the point of being able to refine the design down to something more simplistic.
32:06And so it is... How did this one work then? So basically it would have been stowed in the payload bay of the orbiter in a configuration that basically allowed a spacewalking astronaut to go through the airlock and then maneuver over to it and strap into it. And basically kind of almost, like you said, sitting in an armchair, it's kind of a similar situation. They kind of strap themselves in and they'd really be kind of belted in to be able to utilize this. And then they have these sort of arm rests that come down and are adjustable to each individual so that they can then use it. And you can think of it like a simulator you might see on television or in a movie where then you're using hand controllers to rotate around.
32:46And there are 24 small jet thrusters, basically, nitrogen jets that allow you to move in different directions. So it's really big and bulky. It turns out we don't need anything nearly as big and bulky to actually do this in space. I wanted to say that because that didn't Ed White when he did his first spacewalk just use a little gun to zap himself around because a little bit of gas will get you a long way. Absolutely. And that's the thing about physics in space that is really misunderstood is that a very small push from something like a little nitrogen rocket will get you moving in a direction.
33:21And so Ed White's the first one to be able to even experiment with this idea back on Gemini 4. And then the idea by Gemini 9, just a few short months later, essentially, is that Gene Cernan would have tested as something similar to the MMU, very much more of a backpack style. The hand unit that Ed White used is very, very simple. It's sort of just a small little handheld unit with two little rods sticking out the side. Photos of him usually depict it when he's on his spacewalk, and it's very simple. So then everything kind of, the volume gets turned up on the next version, which is a big bulky backpack.
33:58That never actually got tested by Cernan because he had a lot of trouble even getting to it on his spacewalk. And so there's lots of challenges with just spacewalking we hadn't even learned at this point. And then the iterative process continued even on Skylab. So Skylab had a much bigger version, something that's very much closer to the design of the MMU. In fact, Bruce McCandless was involved in the design of that Skylab unit and then obviously carried it forward to the use on the space shuttle, the MMU. So there is this sort of trajectory of maneuvering units. The idea that we needed them is even, you know, today kind of strange to me and foreign in a sense because it's really feels like a bit of a dead end.
34:41I spoke to Gene Cernan about this, and he did a very vivid description of just how awful it was. And I mean, he makes it quite funny, but actually he almost died attempting to put that on. So you're essentially saying this is a dead end technology. A bit, yeah. I mean, as a safety backup, and that's really where it's ended up in what we call the Safer, which is a much, much smaller version of the backpack than this, is that to have something as a backup, The redundancy is always part of the space program. You've got to have a backup plan. And so if your tether were to break, if you were to lose a grip on something, you absolutely want to have a way of getting yourself back.
35:20Because if you accidentally get pushed in the wrong direction, you need to go back. And really now we've just kind of left it to the fantasy world, the movie Gravity. You can see George Clooney jetting around in his backpack. That's totally inspired by the MMU experience. But it really isn't the kind of tool that was needed because the work going on inside the space shuttle and even outside the International Space Station, which is the ultimate goal of what the space shuttle was meant to sort of accomplish, it's not important to be that far away from things. Its last use was really valuable. It was used where an astronaut could go out and retrieve a satellite that was malfunctioning and basically pull it back into the payload bay.
36:03But that's the extent of it. And once the space shuttle Challenger was lost and there was sort of a change in the programming basically of what was going into space, the utility of the MMU just disappeared.
36:15Sue Nelson:Now, the most famous image of this MMU is the one where Bruce McCandless is untethered. looks like he's all alone with the background of space behind him. You've actually written a book called Astronaut Eyes, Photography from Early Human Space Flight. And that photograph must be one of the most incredible parts of it. Why do you think it made such an impact at the time? I think there's a long trajectory of thinking about what it means to be in space that, you know, we have these imaginings back in the 30s, 40s and 50s and onward, we're still thinking about what it's like to be in space. Fewer than 600 people have actually been there.
36:55So there's always this desire, I think, on the part of people to understand the experiences of others. And the experiences of astronauts are so extraordinary that one of the best ways for an astronaut to then share that with us is through a photograph. And so one of the photographs I talk about quite a bit in my book is the one of Ed White, because it's really on Gemini 4, it's really the first time we see people with the backdrop of Earth. I mean, this is a huge moment to be able to see people in that environment. It is absolutely insane in thinking that someone could be out there. We'd seen Earth from a camera, but we hadn't seen a person depicted in that photograph.
37:36And so similarly with the Bruce McCandless photo, the one taken by Hoot Gibson on their mission of Bruce floating 300 meters or so away from the orbiter, really provides a sort of next level experience to that Ed White photo. It's kind of the next version of that, which is the astronaut completely isolated in the vacuum of space with, you know, sort of this just incredible nothingness around them. And so it really gives a sense of sort of not only what's possible, but also that vastness and sort of the danger, I think, that exists in space. And it kind of sets a new precedent for how we think about the use of space and for people being there.
38:18And I don't want to say that it necessarily could have scared people, but I think it gave us pause to think about what is it we're doing out there, how is it we're doing it, and what are those risks. And that's particularly poignant in the moment it was taken in 1984, when just shortly after, of course, things changed with the loss of Challenger. And so the risks really become, in my mind, a little bit more poignant when you think about the context of that particular photograph. It kind of puts everything into perspective, doesn't it? It's one of those pictures. Like the famous Earthrise picture, it's that perspective.
38:55It very much falls into that same category. I talk mostly in my book about things that happened up through the end of the Apollo program, but you can carry that narrative to today even, where you've got astronauts photographing different activities, things that are happening on Earth. Astronauts can see so much of what's happening on Earth, similar to something like the Bruce McCandless photo. You might want to think of something like the photographs taken on 9-11 of New York City from the space station. We're witnessing something that hasn't happened before. It is a sublime, terrifying moment, but the capability of us to be able to see that is really transformed.
39:34And you can see that happening in the Bruce McCandless photo as well. is that we're at a pivot point, essentially, for how we understand this process and how we can understand different things. And Earthrise is always the best example of seeing things in a new way. And this, like that, was seeing things in a new way.
39:53Sue Nelson:Jennifer Lavassa at the Smithsonian. A little sidebar note on that. The commander of that mission was Vance Brand, who was also the command module pilot of Apollo-Soyuz, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this month. Wow, just even things like that, you know, 40th anniversary for the MMU, 50th anniversary of Apollo-Soyuz. Doesn't time fly? It's hard to believe it, really. I know, it's extraordinary. I wrote a piece on that on BBC Future. You've always writing it up. Yeah, so I wrote about Apollo-Soyuz for BBC Future. I think it's done pretty well. I keep seeing it sort of crop up on Facebook.
40:33Sue Nelson:It's just because you keep searching for it and pumping up the algorithm. You've really got to start that. That's part of my job. But I mentioned it. When I talked to people, I said, well, they asked me what I was doing. I said, I was just writing this piece for BBC Future on Apollo Soyuz. So many people had not heard of the mission. Really, including some quite senior space press officers who had not heard of it. Wow. Is it too late for us to do something on that for the next podcast? I think I'm going to put it in. We have got so much content sort of backed up. But we've gone from sometimes, some months.
41:06Sue Nelson:We have a board. We have a white board. Sometimes, you know, we're being in full awe of people who've managed to do weekly podcasts because we were just like, what? Because we know how much work it takes just to do it monthly. And some months, it's just the way it is. Because let's face it, Rich and I are pretty full-time, full-on full-time jobs as well. Sometimes it can be a real stretch to get. luckily not very often but it does happen where you're like oh my goodness um they're not available then or we can't talk then and then other times you've got interviews just like it's like i can't oh my stop it stop it we've got so many and we're in a stop it we've got too many period right now already got all our content for the august podcast but i think it might be nice if i've got time to dig out some of the amazing audio we've got of the apollo soyuz mission oh okay that's a great idea So I'll see what I can do.
42:03But I was trying to do it for this podcast. I thought we've got too much already. Yeah. So let's try and do it in the August podcast. It'd be nice to have a bit of archive, a bit of history. So on to our final conversation. And that's with the head of the European Space Agency, Joseph Ashbacher. Now, I spoke to him at the end of a very long day at the UK Space Conference. It has started with a briefing to journalists at nine with the ESA DG and the three new British ESA astronauts. And this was my last and his last interview of the day. Remarkably, he kept in good humour throughout. And it was a pretty good humour when I arrived, actually, although I think he had a pretty tough interview, the one before, because there was an atmosphere as I walked into the room.
42:51So anyway, the important stuff is that the ESA Ministerial Council meeting comes up later this year. And that's when the member states set their priorities and pledge money to the various ESA programmes. Now I had questions about NASA funding cuts and future priorities and I began by asking Joseph what his vision was for the future of the agency. What we in maybe one sentence want to achieve is to make sure that space is used for the benefit of our people, the citizens across the ESA member states but also that Europe is lifting up one step in space because space is such an important future domain, both for investment and for security, and therefore it's extremely important that we are well engaged in space.
43:35Do you feel at the moment you're too reliant on NASA and they're becoming an unreliable partner? Of course, you are referring to the budget decisions of the White House, which are impacting the NASA budget or not. The decisions are not yet finalized. We have a proposal on the table from the White House, and there may or may not be huge implications on NASA. So therefore, it's too important to say what would happen if. But stepping back from that, we have about 95 percent of our activities that are not depending on the budget decisions of NASA. There are some 5 percent that are heavily impacted if NASA is changing some of its contribution to projects which we have agreed together.
44:20We have signed agreements on the U.S. side approved by the Department of State, on the European side approved by my member states. So that means these are really government agreements that we have in place. But if anything changes to that, yes, for about 5 % of our activities there will be an impact, in particular on the space station, on the gateway, on the Artemis program, on Mars sample return and some other activities. but this is at the moment of course subject of internal reflections as I say today there's no decision made we have to wait for this decision to be made and then of course we will be very quick in coming with our options or our response or our way forward which we think is best for Europe they are though gateway Artemis Mars sample return having astronauts they are perhaps the best known they are the highest profile activities.
45:11You said to step up. Could Europe fill that gap? Certainly astronauts are very high profile, there's no question. But I really would like to put it in context. Out of the budget which we have in ESA, which is about 7.7 billion euros, about 95 % is not depending on activities provided by NASA to fly our astronauts because we have about 30 % of our budget focused on Earth observation. That means we are using our satellites to monitor our planet Earth for climate, for sustainability, for agriculture, for forestry, for ship routing, for disaster management, and many other applications that we are supporting.
45:52So a large majority of our budget is really for our people on planet Earth. There's another important program we have on telecommunication to ensure secure communication and use space technology for communication. We have a very strong navigation program called Galileo, which provides the most accurate navigation signal in the world. We have, of course, the exploration program. We have planetary defense. We have launcher programs. And we have a science program to explore our universe, which, again, is largely independent from the contributions of NASA. So we have a large variety of activities and programs which are world standard and which are really among the best, sometimes among the first of space activities that is being done.
46:35And we are very proud of that. And this is something that Europe has built up with its member states, including the UK as a very strong member of ESA. And this is what we have. Yes, you're absolutely right. Some of the activities, especially in exploration on astronaut flights or ISS activities, yes, of course, there we depend on the cooperation with the US. And we shall see what the decision is there. and when we see it, then we will decide what we do in Europe. You sort of hinted at this, I thought, this morning in the briefing about this idea of, you said, you know, Europe can step up in some areas.
47:09Would that mean when it comes to human spaceflight filling that gap of maybe having the capability to launch astronauts into space or maybe having some sort of space station? I don't know. I mean, is that a possibility? Let me give you a technical answer and a political answer. The technical answer is Europe could do it. We have the technical expertise that we could develop future human spaceflight capability with all the elements that are required. In order to do it, it needs a political decision. And this is really something that heads of government, heads of states need to decide. And this is in their court, if I may call it this way, to really make a decision whether Europe wants this independence on human spaceflight, yes or no.
47:54And I would hope that when this decision is made, I would stand next to those people making these decisions and yes, ESA will be able to implement it and to realise it, but as I said, this is a political decision to be made by politicians. You mentioned some of the things that Europe excels in space, like Galileo satellite navigation, like the Copernicus Earth Observation Programme. Do you think that people in Europe appreciate that and the politicians that represent them appreciate that? I hope they do because every citizen in Europe will use space technology every single day without knowing it.
48:31You wake up in the morning and you look at your mobile phone to look at the weather forecast because you are planning a trip to somewhere. The weather forecast is depending on information from satellites. 70 % to 80 % of the data used for numerical weather prediction are coming from satellites that we provide as ESA and also in cooperation with others. Then you decide to go to some place, maybe not your usual routine, where you don't need a navigation system, but you go to some place in the city or another city. That means you need a navigation system. Again, navigation needs satellites in order to provide the accuracy and the navigation signals in order for you to find your way there.
49:15Then you go to a restaurant and you eat something. with friends and colleagues, when you pay with your credit card or your ATM card, a connection is established to connect with your bank, which is sitting somewhere else, making sure that you have money in the account in order for you to pay your meal and so on. So there's many occasions where telecommunication, navigation, earth observation is used on a routine basis. Sometimes you may get in the morning a warning that the air quality may be particularly bad in a certain area and you should avoid this area because we know from satellites that there is a higher concentration of certain gases, certain greenhouse gases or pollutions that you should avoid.
50:00So there's a lot of services that are provided on a daily level, but it doesn't always say made by space or made coming from satellites, but it's simply provided in the daily weather forecast or in your ATM or in your navigation system. So yes, space infrastructure is used every single day by almost everyone. So yes, people are depending on this. And yes, this is a challenge for us all, decision makers, myself and yourself, to communicate this to the people. What's your ask then at the ministerial? I guess essentially more money. But what are you sort of saying? What are you saying this is going to do for European space?
50:39It's not necessarily the money that is the point that I'm asking. I'm proposing a set of very attractive projects and programs that are in response to the priorities expressed by the member states. What we are spending on average today in European space is about 0.06 % of the GDP of the economies of Europe. That's a very small amount of money, or you can translate this into euros per year. The ESA budget, which is 7.7 billion, may sound a large number, but if you divide it by the number of people in the ESA member states, it's 15 euros per person per year or 12 pounds per person per year. 12 pounds is not a lot for all the output you get through the ESA projects and programs.
51:29We develop rockets. We develop satellites. We develop communication systems. We develop Copernicus, Galileo. We fly astronauts. out. So all this we do for 12 euros per person per year, which is the price of a ticket, of a cinema ticket. But we deliver very good cinema for this 12 pounds per year. So what I'm saying is that it's really not a huge investment. It's relatively small in the wider economic context. And that's where the ministers have to make decisions. Do they put 12 pounds or 15 pounds or 17 pounds into ESA, or they leave it at 12 pounds, which, of course, is not what I'm recommending because Europe needs to step up.
52:10Europe needs to increase its activity. Also, internationally, the economy is growing very fast. The space economy grows by about 10 % per year. Not participating in this would be a huge mistake strategically for any politician. So I really count on the wisdom and the courage of politicians to recognize the importance of space for their country and for their people and therefore provide the investments that are needed. It's amazing. There are four actual UK astronauts right now, four potential astronauts, three and Tim Peake. Can they all get into space? Can Tim Peake get into space again? Can they all get into space?
52:47We have a career astronaut, as you know, Rosemary. And when she was selected in 2022, assuming that the agreements with NASA remain in place as they have been in place in 2022. Our plan is to fly her before the end of the decade. That means before the end of the ISS is being deorbited, and that plan has not changed. If something changes, that means the U.S. as a partner is changing its deliverable. That means it's part of the deal. Then, of course, we have to reconsider and see how we proceed. Exploration is very important for me personally and for our member states. We will certainly explore ways and means in order to make this possible.
53:26I don't want to speculate now what this could be, because this depends on a lot of discussions and elaboration of options, but certainly something that I consider extremely important. That is why ESA is investing in exploration, is selecting astronauts, is training astronauts, because they are, for us, extremely important to conduct experiments in the space station or in outer space, from which we learn, from which we learn for ourselves, for medicine, for pharmaceutical industry, for material sciences and many other experiments that are conducted there. And this is the very purpose of doing it.
53:57And yes, we will find ways and means in order to keep doing it in the future and under whatever circumstances we see. And John McFall and McGann, Christian, do you see them flying as well? Well, I'm not making any promises here. This is not the way to do it. But the same argument applies to all the astronauts. Of course, they have different conditions, reserve astronaut, astronaut with a particular handicap. They fall into different categories, if I may call it this way. But certainly it is our ambition together, always with the countries involved, to find opportunities to make them fly. ECDG, Joseph Ashbacher, speaking to me at the UK Space Conference.
54:39And thanks very much to the UK Space Agency for supporting us and enabling us to attend the conference and generate so much content. Yeah.
54:51Sue Nelson:Who, by the way, was laughing at that final question about, you know, whether the British astronauts will go into space? And he gave a very tactful answer. And then I could hear a few people in the back going, was it Rosemary? Was she in the room? No, there were two, I think two at that point, ESA press officers at that point. Who haven't learned how to stifle your laughter when there's a live mic. They were great. They were very, very helpful. if it wasn't for them I wouldn't have had that interview it did make me chortle when I heard that I could have made it a more inclusive interview and brought everyone else in the room into it but I think everyone must have had a very long day at that point well that's almost it for this month's Space Boffins next month we'll be talking to the author of an incredible new book on the Mercury and Gemini missions and you may have an inkling about who that is because he's been on the podcast before.
55:48Sue Nelson:And trust me, he's fantastic. He gives such good interviews. But we thought we'd finish with some music. Tom Lehrer died this week, and he's best known for writing and performing the Elements song. But he's also recorded many other satirical tunes. And what a nice guy, made them freely available for anyone, anywhere to use. So we're going to play the song he performed in 1967 about America's most famous rocket scientist, who, whenever we speak about him on the podcast, still divides opinion. We'll be back next month. Thanks for listening.
56:44He won't even frown. Nazi schmatze, says Werner von Braun.
56:53Don't say that he's hypocritical. Say rather that he's apolitical. Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department, says Werner von Braun.
57:13Some have harsh words for this man of renown But some think our attitude should be one of gratitude Like the widows and cripples in old London town Who owe their large pensions to Werner von Braun You too may be a big hero Once you've learned to count backwards to zero In German or English, I know how to count down.
57:42Sue Nelson:And I'm learning Chinese, says Werner von Braun.
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