Casual Space

Adam is an evangelist of science. From everything sci-fi to just thinking, looking and observing the world, science has always provided a sense of oneness with the universe for Adam. Adam is a theoretical/computational astrophysicist and he heads a research group that is developing new tools for simulating the cosmos.

SO many great things discussed on this episode!

*Beth asks Adam: Which is harder? Trying to communicate the need for a long-term investment in space exploration, or trying to change the mind of a climate denialist?

*What are techno signatures, and why should we be looking for them? And why would science fiction writers help us in the search?

*AI, propulsion systems to get us to Mars, exploring the universe in the next 200 years, understanding consciousness and more….

Quotes from the show:

"Science is a mechanism for being exposed to the wonder." – Adam Frank on Casual Space

"The universe is more creative and more imaginative than we are." – Adam

"Machines can be intelligent, but can they be self-aware? My intuition is that we miss understand consciousness so profoundly. The philosophical tradition in which this question is asked (the western tradition) never had an empirical way of asking questions about the nature of consciousness. It took reason as the only way to explore questions about consciousness. Whereas in the classical Indian and Asian school of philosophy, (who also thought about consciousness for thousands of years and had contemplative practice), had a VERY different way of looking of things. I think that the west has sort of fooled itself, it thinks it can reduce consciousness to neural activity. The view that everything is made of atoms, and you can build your way up into something like consciousness….in fact, at least from my experiences, consciousness is where you start. Then you do this weird thing called science where you tell stories about the world, and then with experiments you can extend your reach of awareness. We can become sort of trapped thinking you can reduce consciousness to a bunch of wires."

Where to find Adam and his work: https://www.adamfrankscience.com/about

Twitter: @AdamFrank4

Adam recommends!

Books:

• Kim Stanley Robinson (sci-fi writer)
• The Mandalorian
• Passengers

Writers:

• Alastair Reynolds
• William Gibson

TV Shows:

• Alter Carbon on Nextflix,
• Westworld
• The Expanse

About Adam Frank: Adam Frank fell in love with astronomy when he was 5 years old and the affair has never cooled.

Late one night in the family library, Adam found the keys to the universe sketched out on the covers of his dad's pulp-science-fiction magazines—astronauts bounding across the jagged frontiers of alien worlds, starships rising to discovery on pillars of fire. The boundless world of possibilities on those covers became the one he was determined to inhabit.

Later, the love for astronomy transformed into a passion for the practice of science itself when his father's simple explanation of electric currents and sound waves turned the terror of a booming thunderstorm into an opportunity to marvel at the world's beauty. Now a professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester, he studies the processes that shape the formation and death of stars and has become a leading expert on the final stages of evolution for stars like the sun. Adam is a theoretical/computational astrophysicist and he heads a research group that is developing new tools for simulating the cosmos.

Adam also describes himself as an "evangelist of science." His commitment to showing others the beauty and power of science has led him to a second career as a popular writer and speaker on the subject.

He is the co-founder of National Public Radio's 13.7: Cosmos and Culture blog as well as a regular on-air commentator for All Things Considered. He also contributes occasionally to The New York Times. Adam is the author of three books. The most recent, Light of the Stars: Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth, explores a new vision for climate change and the human future by placing them both in their proper "astrobiological" context. Climate change may likely be an expected consequence of any civilization on any planet developing an advanced industrial civilization. Adam's first book, The Constant Fire: Beyond the Religion and Science Debate, focuses on perspectives on science and human spirituality that went beyond the usual creationism vs. Richard Dawkins debate. About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang explores the links between changing conceptions of cosmology and the human experience of time. He is also the author of a textbook Astronomy: At Play in the Cosmos. You can also sign up for his free Coursera course "Confronting The Big Questions: Highlights of Modern Astronomy".

Gary Gattis spent his entire career making video games, AI/Space was a late life industry transition. Why? When Gary decided it was time to move into the next adventure in his professional career, he asked everyone (yes, everyone) two important questions that led him to Hypergiant, where Gary and the team believes that AI is essential to secure our place in the universe via space exploration.

"We started looking at ground control, and saw there was a lot of room for disruption."- Gary Gattis on Casual Space Podcast

When it was time to move into the next chapter of Gary's professional journey, he went to friends and colleagues and asked everyone two questions: "1. What's the coolest stuff going on in the world, and 2. If you weren't doing what you were doing, what WOULD you be doing? That was a fascinating time in my life! I was doing 10+ coffee/ lunches a week! It was full time!"

"I call it my journey of discernment. Really, three things came out of it. The first was a deeper connection to myself. I was talking to people I've known 20-30 years ago- old friends. Second, I got to see myself through other people's eyes. Third, it really helped me hone my personal brand. It took a lot of external conversations for me to validate [what my personal brand was] through other people. It was a great experience for me, and I highly recommend this experience." -Gary

Oh by the way, He's been to Space Force HQ.

About Gary Gattis: Gary is an Interdisciplinary leader guiding people and process to improve our world. Specialties include growth, operations, and management. Founded several companies at the intersection of technology and design, led extremely diverse teams to success.Currently CEO for Hypergiant Galactic Systems, focussed on integrating Artificial Intelligence with the commercialization of Space.

More about Gary and his work and career at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garygattis/

Interesting stuff about Hypergiant from Texas Monthly: Hypergiant aims to help its clients gather and analyze vast amounts of data. You're working on improving the sensory perception of machines. You're aiming to launch a network of small satellites gathering data from above. And you're looking to empower "smart cities," stitching together data from cameras that are increasingly everywhere

Hypergiant does sell—artificial intelligence-enabled software and hardware—and you'll appreciate Lamm's problem. Even many people lacking in technological savvy have heard of AI as a force with the potential to shape much of humanity's future—for better or worse. Some of those people look to get into business with Hypergiant without any real idea of what it is they're buying. They just know they want some. "It's like the most addictive drug that no one's ever had," says Lamm, who serves as the company's CEO.

Brian is the CEO of Solstar Space Company where they are working to create a 'Space Wide Web' to connect everything in space, to everyone on Earth. Solstar's mission is to build and create the tools necessary to enable 24/7 secure, economical, convenient, two-way, internet-based communications with every "thing" in space, to be the ISP of choice in Earth Orbit and beyond.

"We are able to provide a Wi-Fi connection for payloads, and payload specialists, as well as future astronauts, during take off, landing and throughout their spaceflight.

In 2018 we sent the first commercial Tweet from Space. Imagine the first phone call during a commercial flight, the first selfie sent from the Kármán line, and the first instant results from payloads on-board a commercial spacecraft. Solstar Space Company can make that happen." -Brian Barnett

NASA has government-supplied wi-fi for the current astronauts. But what about when commercial astronauts and you and I go to space? We're going to want to be wi-fi connected, too- along with rovers, robots wi-fi enabled payloads to be connected, too. Brian's company, Solstar Space, if working on providing world-class customer service, and we believe that this will revolutionize

"We enable you to do things for the first time in space. There are an infinite number of things people can do for the first time in space! We did the first commercial wi-fi in space, and the first commercial tweet in space, and I want to fly the first drumsticks in space as the first drummer!" -Brian Barnett from the Casual Space Podcast

"Solstar is providing a commercial wi-fi service that people can purchase. More and more people will be flying in space, and wi-fi will be used for things in space- laptops, smartphones, wearable devices that astronauts will want to stay connected to."- Brian Barnett from the Casual Space Podcast

About Brian Barnett:

Brian Barnett [email protected]

Brian Barnett is a serial entrepreneur with 33 years' experience in commercial space, the mobile satellite services industry, as a aerospace technologies at NASA, and at KPMG Consulting as a management consultant. He is Founder and CEO of Solstar Space Co., the first internet service provider for people, Internet of things and machines in space is that is developing technologies to build a Space Wide Web. On April 29th, 2018, Solstar demonstrated the first commercial two-way data and wi-fi hotspot service in space and Tweet from space aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard crew capsule, using Barnett's patent-pending technology. Mr. Barnett began his career at NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center where he provided Space Shuttle payload integration services at the Payloads Project Office.

He also provided astronaut crew training in the Mission Operations Laboratory for Spacelab missions. At Johnson Space Center, he worked in the Missions Operations Directorate, and later worked on JSC's 1992 Strategic Plan. He also managed a contract to document all Space Shuttle operations processes as directed by Congress after the Challenger accident. Later, as a management consultant for KPMG's Space and High Technology group, he wrote dozens of business plans and market assessments for commercial space companies.

This is the group that very early and accurately, predicted that GPS applications would grow into the huge market it is today. Barnett led the Team that wrote the initial business plan and helped identify the best location for the spaceport that eventually became Spaceport America in New Mexico. Solstar Space is his third commercial space start-up. He earned a B.S. in microbiology from the University of Oklahoma, a Masters in Administrative Science from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and is a graduate of the International Space University. Mr. Barnett is a classically-trained rock and reggae drummer and is founder and producer of DrumsAstro®, an organization Connecting Artists and Musicians of all Genres to Space and Space Exploration.

About Soltar: www.SolstarSpace.com and www.Solstar.net

Solstar is the leading commercial satellite communications company pioneering the use of WiFi in space. We use existing commercial communications satellite networks in Low Earth Orbit and Geostationary Earth Orbit. We provide space-to-space communications on spacecraft and bi-directional two-way data services for payloaders.

• Solstar is: Harnessing the power of the very best existing infrastructure to facilitate constant communication with space assets such as SmallSats, Astronauts, LEO platforms, suborbital/orbital spacecraft, and eventually Lunar and Mars exploration.
• Revolutionizing the way people on Earth communicate and interact with their payloads in space
• Improving the way space research is conducted and communicated from space to the ground and back again
• Protecting valuable space assets through enhanced two-way communication opportunities for troubleshooting, diagnosing, and resolving issues.
• Providing reliable emergency backup communications for people and things in space
• Helping to solve the space junk problem enabling our customers to send the "re-enter" command using our embedded space communicator and service.
• Providing 24/7 customer service to payloaders/researchers previously not available to the market

Chris Carberry is the CEO and co-founder of Explore Mars, Inc. a nonprofit space advocacy organization that was created to advance the goal of sending humans to Mars within the next two decades. And, Chris is the author of Alcohol in Space, a perfect look at the past, present and future of alcohol in the story of human exploration.

Chris and Beth enjoy raising a glass and celebrating this rich history and look forward to how we will enjoy our libations in space, perhaps sooner than you might think. Cheers!

Enjoy this lively episode as Beth and Chris talk about the Star Wars (Mos Eisley) cantina, the bar from the movie Passengers, and the wise bartender in Star Trek (Guinan)...and more:

"Science fiction writers look at alcohol as a part of humanity within their stories. It's naturally assumed alcohol will be part of our future in space in most science fiction writing."- Chris Carberry from the Casual Space Podcast

About the Book: Alcohol in Space: Past, Present and Future

By Chris Carberry

Forward by Andy Weir

- https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/alcohol-in-space/ .

Alcohol in Space is the first book on this topic and examines the history of alcohol in space, as well as dozens of companies and projects that are exploring the possibilities of alcohol production in space. Some of these companies have sent barley experiments to the International Space Station (ISS). Whiskey producers Ardbeg and Suntory have also sent experiments to ISS, analyzing how whisky ages in microgravity.

"The production and consumption of alcohol has played a significant role in human society since the dawn of civilization," stated author Chris Carberry. "Will this still hold true when humanity is exploring and settling the outer reaches of space?"

The book also highlights the long history of alcohol in human society, how alcohol has been addressed in science fiction, and space agriculture technologies. This volume is based on extensive research and interviews with some of the most prominent individuals in the space industry as well as the alcohol industry.

About Chris Carberry

https://www.exploremars.org/leader/chris-carberry/

Chris Carberry is the CEO and co-founder of Explore Mars, Inc. a nonprofit space advocacy organization that was created to advance the goal of sending humans to Mars within the next two decades. Carberry is a well-respected expert and influential director of strategic alliances in the space community and has been responsible for growing many partnerships, grants and sponsorships for leading industry organizations. Currently, as CEO of Explore Mars, he acts as the main liaison for efforts and project ventures.

Prior to joining Explore Mars, Carberry served as Executive Director to The Mars Society. In his early career, he acted as a member of the Steering Committee where he organized congressional outreach efforts around the country. He also played a leadership role in congressional outreach events such as the 2007-2017 Space Exploration Alliance Legislative Blitz and has coordinated numerous briefing panels and other events on Capitol Hill over the past two decades.

In more recent years, he has organized and led successful international conferences including the ISS and Mars Conference in Washington, D.C. and Strasbourg, France, and the Women and Mars Conference in Washington, D.C. In 2012, he represented Explore Mars as a delegate to the Mars500 Symposium in Moscow, Russia, and in 2013, he spearheaded the annual Humans to Mars Summit in Washington, DC that has become the largest annual conference in the world focused on sending humans to Mars. Carberry also helped to launch the Get Curious Campaign in 2012 and the Humans to Mars Report starting in 2015. Carberry is also a co-founder and co-chair of the Mars Achievability and Sustainability workshop series, and he recently launched the 1st AR/VR and Space workshop series. In 2018, under Carberry's leadership, Explore Mars will also launch programs in Europe and the United Arab Emirates.

Carberry has presented both oral and written testimony to Congress and has contributed positioning work dealing with space exploration for the Republican Party's National Platform in 2000. He is the author of scores of articles and Op-Ed pieces that have appeared in such publications as USA Today, US News and World Report, Huffington Post, The Washington Post, San Jose Mercury Times, Foxnews.com, Houston Chronicle, The Hill, The Telegram (UK), The Boston Herald and many other publications. He has been featured on national and international television and radio programs such as NBC Nightly News, Fox News, CNN, BBC World, and NPR and is frequently asked for commentary from print news outlets around the world.

Prior to his space career, Carberry worked as an archivist of modern political papers and was research assistant for numerous best-selling biographers.

Carberry received a B.A. degree in political science and a M.A. in history and archival methods

About Explore Mars: https://www.exploremars.org/about/leadership/

Alcohol in Space on OTHER great podcasts!

• Planetary Radio - https://www.planetary.org/multimedia/planetary-radio/show/2019/1204-2019-chris-carberry-alcohol.htm
• Are we There Yet ? (Podcast) - Booze in Space? The Storied History and Bright Future of Alcohol In The Final Frontier - https://www.npr.org/podcasts/470937634/are-we-there-yet
• The Whisky Topic Podcast – http://whisky.buzz/thewhiskytopic
• What the If (Podcast) - https://whattheif.com/episodes/tag/alcohol

Jennifer Inman helps spacecraft enter the atmospheres of other worlds. She and the Scientifically Calibrated In-FLight Imagery (SCIFLI) team use a bunch of instruments on board a plane while it's flying, follow a space vehicle's reentry that's traveling thousands of miles an hour (think Mach 25) from space back to Earth and find it through a field of view as small as a straw. Then, the SCIFLY team has to observe and keep the spacecraft in the middle of the field of view to gather the data necessary to study.

Together on the podcast, Beth and Jennifer talk heat shields, re-entry, Orion, Artemis, Hollywood film makers, and heat imaging and the surprising fact that parachutes on reentry vehicles can be quite challenging, and where she'll be watching the historic spaceflight mission scheduled for May 27, 2020!

About NASA's Forward to the Moon 20204 Mission: "As we talk about going back to the moon, it occurs to me WE haven't been to the Moon… our generation has not been to the Moon..it's important for US to figure out how we're going to go to the Moon." -Jennifer Inman on the Casual Space Podcast

Did you always know you would work for NASA one day? "When I was 6 years old, I knew I wanted to be an astronaut, a Mom, a teacher, and a waitress on roller skates. If it can't be MY boots on the Moon, I'm going to daydream and work towards getting others there."

About studying space and science in school: "I took physics on a whim and fell in love with it. It was all the beauty of calculus with answers that had connections to the real world. Once I got to quantum mechanics and relativity, I was hooked! I just loved the way I could look at the universe around me and have my understanding expanded, and just be in awe of the understanding of the universe we find ourselves in."

Where to find Jennifer and her work at NASA:

https://www.innovationnow.us/index.php/2019/03/25/meet-jennifer-inman/

You've GOT to learn about SCIFLI:

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/how-the-perfect-picture-advances-spaceflight

https://scifli.larc.nasa.gov/team-members-organizations/

The SCIFLI team is based at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA.

In 2007 the HYTHIRM team was formed at the NASA Langley Research Center through the support of the NASA Engineering and Safety Center in order to determine the feasibility of obtaining high quality thermal imagery data of the Space Shuttle during hypersonic atmospheric reentry flight. The outcome of that study convinced the Space Shuttle Program Office to fund the HYTHIRM team to attempt to accomplish the goal of acquiring a single thermal image of the Space Shuttle during reentry. After returning with hundreds of thousands of frames of imagery acquired over an eight minute period of reentry, and after processing that thermal imagery to show that high quality measurements were not only possible but could provide unique and unexpected results, the HYTHIRM team conducted imaging operations on six more Shuttle reentries, the SpaceX C1 Dragon capsule reentry, and more. Every mission has been successful in meeting or exceeding the acquisition and processing of the desired data.

SCIFLI for Scientifically Calibrated In-Flight Imagery. The goal is to pursue the development and deployment of state of the art remote thermal, visual and spectral imaging capabilities from land, sea and airborne platforms over a multi-band spectrum.

How the Perfect Picture Advances Spaceflight

The researchers working on the Scientifically Calibrated In-FLight Imagery (SCIFLI) team acquire engineering quality data images of spacecraft launches, reentries, flight tests, and parachute tests from aircraft- and ground-based imaging systems. The SCIFLI team comprises members from multiple NASA centers, industry, academia, Department of Defense, and international and commercial partners, and together they support human spaceflight, improve aerodynamic models, and ultimately reduce mission risk.

"Our job is to get engineering data using telescopes on the ground or in the air," said Dr. Jennifer Inman, SCIFLI project manager. "The imagery acquired during a test, launch, or re-entry yields flight-truth data."

The team's core capability is quantitative thermal and hyperspectral imaging using state-of-the-art imaging systems with high spatial, spectral, and/or temporal resolution.

"We close the gap between ground testing in wind tunnels, computational fluid dynamics, and flight truth," Inman said. "Even with the best ground testing, we can't match every parameter of flight. A flight test allows us to interpret our ground testing data and improve our computational models."

The team has been continuously improving their techniques since starting work in 2007 and has made more than 28 observations in 2019 alone, including parachute drop tests, spacecraft reentries, and rocket launches.

"Not just anyone with a high-resolution camera can do this work. We're sometimes trying to acquire a target at horizon break, when the vehicle is hundreds of kilometers away; you have to get it right the first time because there are no do-overs," Inman said.

Part of mission planning involves determining the best possible optics and lenses specific to the mission; in addition, radiance modelling is sometimes required to predict optimal sensor settings. To help sensor operators make these kinds of informed decisions, researcher Richard Schwartz created a virtual environment tool that takes into account parameters like focal length, relative angles between imaging target and imaging platform, exposure time, and aperture setting, to enable pre-configuration of the sensors which provides the sensor operators with a baseline plan for acquisition and tracking. He then incorporates mission-specific information like aircraft and/or test vehicle geometry, velocity, latitude, longitude, and altitude to generate synthetic imagery to allow the team to get the data every time.

The needs of the customer dictate the type of datasets the researchers pursue. The team has imaged seven Space Shuttle reentries, the return of JAXA's HAYABUSA spacecraft, the launch of several SpaceX rockets, the return of SpaceX Demonstration Mission 1, the return of three Commercial Resupply Services capsules, and dozens of tests of SpaceX Crew Dragon parachute systems required for crewed operation certification.

Over the last two years, the team has been conducting observations for Orion and both of NASA's Commercial Crew Program partners -- SpaceX and Boeing. Many of these tests have occurred in the Mojave and Great Basin deserts, and have involved testing to qualify parachutes for returning crewed vehicles to Earth. During these tests, darts, weigh sleds, Parachute Test Vehicles (PTV, a lower fidelity version of the Crew Dragon capsule), or boilerplate capsule models, are dropped from helicopters, balloons, or out the back of a cargo aircraft. The SCIFLI team is charged with capturing imagery that reveals intricate details of how the parachutes behave.

"Parachute performance is incredibly reliable under the loads and speeds involved in something like skydiving, but spaceflight occurs at higher speed and is much more challenging. The dynamic pressures are higher, so you need parachutes that can withstand higher impulse forces, and the air is thinner, which makes parachute inflation a less predictable process," Inman said. "In addition, this higher performance requires parachute systems that are far more complex, with multiple parachutes deploying in several stages."

The SCIFLI team is slated to do more work in 2020 with the Commercial Crew Program as it prepares to once again launch astronauts from US soil, with JAXA on the return of Hayabusa II from asteroid Ryugu, and with the Space Launch System and Orion Programs in preparation for Artemis and NASA's return to the Moon in 2024 and journey to Mars.

Kristyn DamadeoNASA Langley Research Center

Rachel is from a newspaper family and started as a journalist, teacher, freelancer and exceptional writer. Then, Rachel joined Twitter, and started writing about NASA missions and soon became a storyteller and science ambassador for the International Space Station at NASA Johnson Space Center. Her official title is Communications Managing Editor for the International Space Station Program Science Office at Barrios Technology.

You're going to want to know more about Rachel and her work, so here you are:

www.NASA.gov/iss/science

NASA Explorers: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2aBZuCeDwlQDM6x6FpHE_X0iL7hvoRpR

"When you're watching a launch, you're looking at this incredible achievement of humanity and completely overwhelming visually, audibly, and then you think, 'There are people up there that I just talked to just days before!'."-Rachel Barry from Casual Space Podcast

"I've learned from NASA coming from an outside perspective, having the advantage of NOT working at NASA for 20+ years- and I can approach things in a way most everyday folks would, so it's helped me be a good communicator." -Rachel

"'You can't be what you can't see' is a shortened version of a longer quote from Sally Ride. It's important for me to share that there are so many brilliant women at NASA, on station, and supporting station, and that there's a place for women here at NASA. I'm excited to see what the future looks like for space exploration and how we have evolved to better reflect what our society is, and how we can all be represented." - Rachel

Where to find Rachel and follow the SCIENCE on Station:

Twitter | NASA.gov | Watch NASA Explorers: Microgravity

The Outer Space Treaty is vague. Rebekah believes there's a way to encourage the international community and develop education to balance opportunities for everyone to use and benefit from the resources space can provide.

We talk Space Force, NASA, private space companies, international and domestic treaties and everything in between. When it comes to space law and policy, sometimes the answers can be as interesting as the questions. So let's dive in and discuss!

"I think we need to be more responsible about space. I think we need to look at space as this avenue for uniting rather than dividing. In some ways, I'm a real optimist." -Rebekah Rounds on Casual Space Podcast

Valuable resources Rebekah mentions on the show:

• A certificate program for non-lawyers (ideal for CEOs and executives of space start-up companies) at The University of Mississippi https://law.olemiss.edu/academics-programs/llm/
• The American Bar Association https://www.americanbar.org/groups/air_space/divisions/divisions/
• The New Space Conference https://spacefrontier.org/newspace2020/

About Rebekah:

Rebekah Rounds is a Maryland and California-licensed attorney whose private practice focuses on corporate law, start-ups related to emerging technologies and industries, telecommunications, and domestic and international space law and policy.

Before graduating with her J.D. from Mississippi College School of Law in 2014, Rebekah served as a legal fellow for the Chairman of the Space Subcommittee in the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Steven Palazzo. Under Chairman Palazzo, Rebekah researched international and domestic space law, space law issues related to Federal Acquisition Regulations and Space Act Agreements, and various legal issues pertaining to NASA Reauthorization, commercial space policy, and liability and indemnity regimes for private space launch actors.In 2017 Rebekah published her paper "The Intersection of U.S. Space Policy Goals and National Security Needs: An Argument for a Regulatory Regime Oversight Commission That Balances Space-Related Policy Interests" in the Journal of Space Law. In 2018 she graduated with her LL.M. in Air and Space Law from the University of Mississippi.

Rebekah believes that the future of space activity relies on a well-established education pipeline.

Dr. Sarah Imam teaches advanced physiology and environmental physiology at the Citadel. She helps describe for us on the podcast what our human body has to endure in extreme environments, including microgravity environments like the astronauts work and live in. Our future in space requires our full understanding of the space environment, and the effects it will have on us as humans. While Sarah's perspective is optimistic, the space environment is not looking like a favorable one for our human bodies.

Here's are some interesting questions Dr. Sarah and I ponder together:

• When you go into these extreme environments (like space), there are so many detrimental effects on our human body, so understanding the impacts of microgravity is going to be more important as we humans continue explore space. Or, are we just not intended to be space travelers?

• Sarah asks me what I'm likely to do when I fall into the icy cold water… and the answer is the complete opposite what I would have thought…

• Is it possible to mind over matter our bodies into health?

"When your body is aware that it will be exposed to a different environment, it helps you to be better prepared."-Dr. Sarah Wallace from Casual Space Podcast

About Dr. Sarah: Sarah A. Imam M.D.

www.citidel.edu (Health and Human Performance)

Sarah is an Assistant Professor of Health and Human Performance at The Citadel, Military College of South Carolina. She teaches physiology-based classes, including graduate-level Environmental Physiology, which incorporates physiology of microgravity. Her training is in neurology and the neurosciences, and her current research involves the study of physical impact and activity upon the brain. She currently works on glioblastoma research at MUSC and has numerous student-based research projects.

Sarah is an advisor of the health professions and has introduced and designed programs to maximize the applicant's chances of admission. She has developed a pre-health app (patent pending), and she runs one of the top healthcare study abroad program's in the nation. She will be co-presenting her study abroad work with the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) at the National Association of Advisors for the Health Professions (NAAHP) conference in June 2020. Sarah started the Citadel Health Career's Society, which organizes student volunteering in the community. Sarah was recognized for her work by being the recipient of the 2019 Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award, an award for excellence of character and service to humanity.

Sarah is a board member of the Southern Association of Advisors for the Health Professions (SAAHP) and a member of The Committee for Diversity and Inclusion (CDI) in the NAAHP. Sarah is a member of several associations and has numerous leadership roles.

Seeing a launch from a young age inspired a clear goal for Debi Tomek: a calling to work at NASA and help enable a sustainable human presence in space beyond Earth.

Working towards this goal is exactly what Debi Tomek is doing, serving as the Deputy Director of the Space Technology and Exploration Directorate where she leads the formulation of the National Initiative for On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (OSAM).

• NASA has needed to shift and change just like everyone else, being innovative and flexible is NOT a new concept for NASA- The NASA ability to innovate and bring space-based solutions to us on Earth is what keeps Debi and the NASA teams going. Applying ways to help solve the current COVID problem for humanity -whether it be using NASA's super computers and coders, algorithms, and understanding models, to the ways NASA implements new technologies that can help with everything from ventilators to computation of fluid dynamic to study penetrating different materials in the masks that folks are wearing.

• Learn what OSAM stands for and why it will CHANGE the future of space and the Mars Perseverance rover mission launched later this summer

• The many ways Aretims IS SO different from Apollo

• "If you're life's work can be accomplished in your lifetime, you're not thinking big enough" is a quote that fuels Debi and her work to think beyond the Moon, Mars and even further!

• NASA HAS TECHNOLOGY READY TO GO. Right now today- ready to be used on the surface of Mars, and the Moon- working with commercial partners to develop the technologies- is EXACTLY the business model NASA's has been planning for!

About how NASA is working within the COVID-19 challenges: "At NASA, we're used to having to figure out how to operate and live around constraints. Think of space, think of everything we've got to do up there. You can't go outside on the space station very easily without any kind of being suited up and being protected. We can't get ourselves under the surface of the moon or to Mars, without having the proper constraints and limitations and understanding risk. So even though that's extreme sense, I think our ability at NASA to innovate and just think like that is helping us with the folks that are healthy, with COVID.

How can we think out of the box, what innovations do we have in our way of thinking and how can we apply that to helping solve this problem for humanity whether it be our super computers and our coders, in the algorithm, and us understanding models, whether it be in our ability to innovate new technologies that can help with everything from ventilators to other areas, and they're actually using a lot of our computation through a dynamic spokes to do computer modeling of flow through masks that folks are wearing to understand how much is actually penetrating different materials.

We're shifting like everybody else, but we're really trying to take how we think, how we innovate and how we've addressed challenges in space and how can we apply that thinking to here on Earth to help with this problem. Right now, that is a little glimmer of hope that's really kept us going."-Debi Tomek from Casual Space Podcast

About Debi Tomek:

Deborah (Debi) Tomek began her career with NASA in 1997 at Langley Research Center. Ms. Tomek has over 20 years of research and technical management experience at NASA and Lockheed Martin.

Throughout her career Ms. Tomek has served numerous roles inclusive of researcher, principal investigator, test engineer, and technical manager on numerous cross-Agency projects and programs. Ms. Tomek's research in flight vehicle dynamic stability characterization was instrumental in the development of numerous flight vehicle aerodatabases inclusive of the NASA Orion Crew Module and Launch Abort System (LAS).

During the Space Shuttle Program, Ms. Tomek managed the Hypersonic Thermodynamic Infrared Measurements (HYTHIRM) Project that was responsible for obtaining high resolution spatially resolved temperature measurements of the Shuttle Orbiter as it re-entered the earth's atmosphere. Ms. Tomek also served as the HEOMD Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Space Radiation manager and the STMD Advanced Radiation Project manager leading teams in the development of passive radiation shielding systems, space weather forecasting codes, and integrated space vehicle hardware in support of long duration human spaceflight.

Ms. Tomek spent nearly four years with NASA Headquarters leading cross-Agency technical capability assessments for the NASA Associate Administrator in support of the development of the Capability Leadership Model and the new Agency operating model. Since her return from Headquarters she has served as Chief of Staff at NASA Langley Research Center working to promote, collaborate, and evolve the projects and capabilities of the Center before moving into her current role as Deputy Director of the Space Technology and Exploration Directorate (STED). In this role Ms. Tomek is currently leading the formulation of the National Initiative for On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (OSAM).

Ms. Tomek holds a Bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering from Auburn University in Auburn, AL, and a Master's degree in Aeronautical and Mechanical Engineering from the George Washington University in Washington D.C.

Learn More about OSAM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP4_Q7iIlb0

NASA Technologies https://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/index.html

NASA Mars Perseverance Mission: https://www.nasa.gov/perseverance/overview

Anima is the Orion Spacecraft Simulations Lab Manager & xEMU Spacesuit Engineer at the NASA Johnson Space Center. Anima recently moved to Texas after 20 years in California to pursue her dream to become a NASA astronaut. Her journey has been a long one, but always determined, driven, sometimes sacrificing, and never wavering. Her steadfast and unyielding approach has finally come to fruition with a formal astronaut application when NASA opened the applications and invited candidates to apply for a 30 day window in March.

• Since she was a young child, Anima wanted to be an astronaut. Growing up in India, a clear path toward achieving her dream was just not available. So she moved, and made her own path towards the stars…

• Anima came to the US as a software engineer in 2000. Becoming a U.S. Citizen was a 12 year endeavor. She just finished her 3rd Masters Degree.

• Anima explains her MANY NASA adventures and endeavors, including looking for life on other planets (exoplanets), how Kepler worked, and Anima believes there is life in the universe and we are capable of finding it.

"I don't want to die thinking, 'what if I tried?' I want to die with the satisfaction knowing I tried!. If I get selected (to be a NASA astronaut), I would be the happiest person on this Earth. It will be like my life has come full circle. All my life I've worked towards this goal, and it would be all worth it!"-Anima from Casual Space Podcast

Advice for young students and want-to-be astronauts: "I don't know how far I will get, but I am enjoying the journey! Have a career you see yourself doing every day and enjoy it!"

About Anima:

Anima Patil-Sabale is an Aerospace, Software and Human Factors Engineer, currently working at NASA's Johnson Space Center for Jacobs as Orion Spacecraft Simulations Lab Manager and xEMU Spacesuit Engineer. Prior to this she has worked on NASA's Kepler Mission and in NASA's Intelligence Systems Division at NASA's Ames Research Center. She worked in the software industry for 14 years before coming to work for NASA.

Anima has a Master's in Aerospace Engineering, Master's in Space Studies - Human Factors, Master's in Computer Applications and a BS in Physics.

While Anima aspires to be a NASA Astronaut and is preparing herself for the same, she is also a Scientist-Astronaut Candidate for commercial spaceflight research projects during her off-work hours. After selection and training, Anima has been participating in upper-atmospheric and bioastronautics research as a Scientist-Astronaut Candidate for Project PoSSUM. She has trained in the topics of Mesosphere and Lower Thermosphere Environment, Fundamentals of Remote Sensing, Remote Sensing and Aerospace Cinematography, Spaceflight Simulation and Operations, Hypoxia Awareness and Mitigation, Spacesuit Operations, High-G Analog and Mitigation Methods, Introduction to Aerospace Physiology and Life Support Systems, and Celestial Navigation and Atmospheric Scattering.

She has flown several parabolas aboard a Falcon 20 aircraft while participating in the testing of a commercial spacesuit in zero-G. She has also flown a high-altitude mission in a Mooney aircraft to study noctilucent clouds.

She has been in a 6-inch head-down tilt position for a NASA Simulated Microgravity Fluid Loading study.

She has spun in a centrifuge and experienced up to 6-G's as she contributed to a Federal Aviation Administration study.

Anima has been a Commander for NASA's HERA VII in 2015, an analog mission to an asteroid.

In April 2018 she has been a Commander for a Martian Analog Mission at the Mars Desert Research Station. She has also been a First Tier Support Engineer for the Hi-SEAS Analog and Simulation missions since 2014. She has been participating and contributing towards the research required for long-duration space missions.

She is a certified scuba diver, and a student pilot (105 hours logged).

She has also completed the following trainings: Land and Sea Survival, Spacecraft Emergency Egress, Hypoxia Awareness and Mitigation, Spacesuit Operations, High-G Analog and Mitigation Method in addition to several others.

Anima loves working with the younger generation the most, to provide them the guidance she missed out on growing up. She is an Assistant Scout Master and a STEM-NOVA mentor for the BoyScouts of America. She is a NASA Girls Mentor and a NASA Speakers Bureau member. She's also been a First Lego Robotics team coach. She has delivered several talks in the US and in India including a TEDx talk while she pursues her motto to Inspire, Guide and Motivate the younger generation.

Her work has been recognized and appreciated by people everywhere. She has received the Silicon Valley Business Journal's Women of Influence 2017 award and is a "Forty Woman Over Forty To Watch Out For" honoree. Rocket-women.com, Silicon Valley Business Journal, TriValley Journal are just a few of the several publications that have published a feature on Anima's journey to share her story to inspire and motivate young and old, alike. Here is the rocket-women.com feature:

https://rocket-women.com/2016/05/meet-a-rocket-woman-anima-patil-sabale-nasa/

She's also a choreographer, dancer, singer, poet artist, and a model. But above all she is a Mom to her two handsome boys.

Learn More About Anima!

http://www.facebook.com/animpatilsabale http://www.animapatilsabale.com

Watch Anima's Ted Talk!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZv9TBPrKp0