There are only a fistful of people who have experience seeing Earth from space and what lie at the bottom of the ocean , but even among those select few , Dr Kathy Sullivan has a record that is singular . She ’s the only person ever to have spacewalked and visit the Challenger Deep , the deepest decimal point in the ocean – the first American woman to do the former and the first - ever fair sex to do the latter .
From hundred of kilometre above the Earth to over 11 kilometers below the sea , Sullivan ’s career goes far beyond search . The former astronaut help deploy theHubble Space Telescope , headed up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( NOAA ) after being confirm by the US Senate between 2014 and 2017 , and was on the President ’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology .
lately , IFLScience sat down withDr Sullivanto public lecture about going to distance , exploring the bottom of the ocean , which she would do again , and what Sulivan calls the " New Space old age " .
Dr Sullivan on Victor Vescovo’s vessel earning the title of “The Most Vertical Girl In The World”.Image Credit: Kathy Sullivan
Tell us about your experience in preparing to go to space.
kB : devise to go on a spaceflight has a pot in common with the readying for any other variety of challenge expedition . Whether it ’s mountaineer or an oceanographic research junket , you have to stay really focussed and move towards the objectives of the excursion , whatever those might be . And then unpacking from there : what equipment will I necessitate ? What will it take to get there ? What will it take to do the measurements or do whatever challenge you ’ve set , summit a mountain , or collect oceanographic data ?
There ’ll be a full police squad of engineers … all sorts of contributors to bringing those pieces together . The greatest personal challenge lies in making certain you are ready to meet those while in the moment . full master the things that you ’re creditworthy for doing or for give up . Your fitness , your knowledge base , your technical skills , The whole package of matter . Even if you have some of them , you ’ve got to take them up to the next level , with a very high standard of operation . That ’s where the personal emergence and the really intense personal challenge do from .
And how do you feel actually overcoming those challenges?
KS : I think there ’s a lot of personal expiation in meeting that moment . let off me an analogy I ’ve often drawn , I ’ve had the chance to compare notes with some Olympian athletes with regard to flying in blank space :
I would happily get another couple of lap around the major planet in compass !
If your country chooses you to be in its cosmonaut computer program , that ’s a bite like making the Olympic squad . You are now entitle to endure the uniform and the jersey of the US national team but it ’s still a long road from the minute you put the cap on to actually start to the Games . But if you get to the Games , when you march into that sports stadium , you ’ve actually have there . You actually are at the Olympics , you are an Olympian , and you ’re in the parade . That is like the moment when you walk out to the launchpad and you strap in .
Dr Sullivan on board the Space Shuttle.Image Credit: Kathy Sullivan/NASA
Still , all of the results you in reality care most about are still in front of you and are still up for grabs . It may go your way , it may not go your way . Some of that you could control , other factors you ca n’t . When you set ashore from a successful spacecraft mission and you did your bit , are pleased with your functioning , you got everything done on the mission , that ’s like standing on the gold medal platform .
If you do get there , if you ’ve got all the grit and stamen and good fortuneit takes to get there , it ’s a moment that hold verbal description . Small wonderment every time a TV personality stick a microphone in a atomic number 79 medal winner ’s sass , at that moment words neglect !
We will come back to space but next, I want to bring you down to Earth, deep below the sea. What was your experience of going down to the Challenger Deep, the deepest known point on the seabed?
KB : Going to the Challenger Deep withVictor Vescovowas a joy . In contrast to the analogy I just gave about earning an Olympic medal , fail to the Challenger Deep with Victor was a lot more like opening a Christmas present![She laughs ]
That ’s because Victor can pilot the submersible on his own ; he had done it many times before . I joined him on an expedition but my responsibility were very pocket-size . fundamentally , I jest that it boiled down to being good companionship and taking some dainty image . I brought some expertness and made a pregnant scientific contribution to the depth deliberation that we were able to do on that trip . The experience itself of the diving was a joy .
There were still lots of things that could go wrong . The squad was prepare a lot like a space launch squad would , being very stern about the condition of the submersible warship : Is everything ready and is all properly check out and test and get up ? In any complex system like that , it surely can happen that you spend two days getting out to the place where you project to dive and you discover something is untimely , that there ’re not going to be any dives . You go back into port and function on fixing it . That can happen .
There was the same kind of suspense and arrest about this [ compared to launch into outer space ] . I made indisputable I knew how to operate the asdic , operate the radio . I would only need to do it in an pinch , meaning if Victor go on out dead , I want to be able to talk to the control surface and release the weights so we will add up back to the surface . Truly that was the one technical province that the soul who ’s not piloting this submersible should check that they know how to do .
I ’m just obviously lucky , to be the person that Victor invited along . Victor and I just had a grand day together . Chitchatting on the way down and oohing and awwing as we navigate along the bottom . When we reach the bottom , we were going to pilot to each of the three different instrument packages we had already placed there . We were think and collaborating about what ’s our estimate of where they are and what heading should we take . There were those fun mini - challenge to solve .
Space and the deep ocean are often put at odds with each other – for example, we know the surface of the Moon and Mars better than the ocean floor – but as an explorer what would you want to do again? Would you be ready to jump into a spacecraft or submersible tomorrow?
KS : I would happily get another couple of circle around the major planet in electron orbit !
You may recall in 1998 , NASA take John Glenn , a very noted former American spaceman , on a blank shuttlecock flying . John Glenn had like five and a half hours in space on his one and only flight of stairs – like all of us he was athirst for more . It was partly to honour John and his life of public service and it was also to some degree to get some aesculapian data on an old human workings in microgravity . He was 77 at the time . so I frequently gloss and point out to people that it ’s great that they got some medical data on one old man and I consider they now require to be catch some medical data on one older woman . I think I ’m first in line !
So you want the John Glenn deal?
KS : I want the John Glenn deal![She laugh ]
I hope that someone at NASA who can make it happen finds out about your wishes. Let’s talk about the other federal agency that is part of your career. You were the head of NOAA. Tell us about your time running it and its importance today.
honey oil : NOAA is a science agency , but it is not at all just a research agency . I like to think of it as a bowtie . It ’s got two sides and there ’s a international nautical mile in the center . NOAA sits at the Calidris canutus . On one side there ’s all of the scientific knowledge from satellites or ship or anything about the Earth , the sea , the atmosphere , how they ferment , how they interact . On the other side is all of society trying to figure out how to run farms or to run an airline organization or whether to take your child out to association football .
It ’s time we all realize that we are crew member on this starship called Earth and set out to think about our part and responsibility in read proper care of the starship that we depend on .
All this information in the science area , all this data can be evolve into information that ’s utile to those determination . NOAA is like that factor . It does n’t make anybody ’s decisions . It ’s not trying to direct everybody to do something but it is there connecting what we know scientifically about the planet to the actual question you are asking .
To me , that ’s really the core of NOAA ’s motivations . We hold up on this planet , we are nearly connected to its systems and affect by its system personally , physically , and economically in all sorting of way . We could be more reasoning about the choices we make if we had some more of that information . I loved being part of the enterprise that was work you that information , provide knowledge and information that can aid us care for and steward this planet .
You’re appearing at theEdinburgh Science Festivalnext month. Can you tell us about the talks you will be delivering there?
KS : I ’m giving a couple of talks at the Science Festival to different consultation . There ’ll be a mix of some stories about what it ’s like to hold out and work in space , in particular for the younger audience where my goal is to really spark their questions and keep their curiosity break down .
The other talk I ’ve titledThe New Space Age . If you say the name SpaceX , everyone goes ‘ Oh yes ’ . But there is so much more going on in terms of res publica that are changing their plans and expanding their visions as well as company that are building new business models and explore new possibilities . A individual ship’s company successfully landed aspacecraft on the Moonjust this month . The biz , if you will , is go to be very different from today . With regards to space , the X follow the 2010s will be radically different than the decades between 1950 and 2000 .
What are your expectations and concerns for this new space age?
KS : I think the one thing that most excites me is there are so many fresh role player , troupe , university , and other countries . I cerebrate the kinds of challenge that they will take in charge , their approaches , the technologies they may develop , that ’s going to be very exciting . you could look a blossoming of new possibility , newfangled capabilities , and new way of life of doing thing that Russia , the US , and China have n’t needed to do or have n’t gotten around to doing or just did n’t think of ! So that imaginative , creative , entrepreneurial , innovative dimension , I think it ’s going to be very exciting .
There are going to be a lot of challenges . It ’s common to cluster those together and say there ’s expire to be a challenge in the years ahead : space will be ever more clog , ever more contested , and ever more commercial .
Let’s get into those three Cs
KS : So congestion . You ’ve got I think at least six land or company now that are be after on putting upmegaconstellationsof C to tens of thousands of satellites . We think of blank space as numberless . But the orbits that are useful for those satellites are like finite pieces of literal estate . Theoretically , it could become like a shell with so much hooey that anyone or anything that require to get beyond that shell , would face a huge risk of infection of a hit sample to get there . dear and risky !
Space is also contested . We ’re seeing another round of sort of major power strategical challenger . Russia , China , and the US . That is going to bring back a lot of proportion of classic military scheme . Who holds the gamy flat coat ? What is the high priming ?
[ I]t ’s going to be like the Wild West in the US . mighty now there are very few rules that govern how anybody should behave in space or what you should or should n’t or can or ca n’t do .
In 1958 , the gamy dry land was in area around the Earth . In the decades ahead , the high terra firma might be this whole area of place between the Earth and the Moon . There are a brace of particular spots in there that would be of enceinte vantage . If you ’ve gotten there , you ’re the dealings cop and potential controller of everything else that ’s happening . Others will be contesting all sort of claims , like contest geosynchronous slot . There are more entities that would like to have of satellite in geostationary range than there are slots in that arena . These kinds of contests , disputation , and arguments will happen with increasing frequency .
The third C is commercial-grade . We have witnessedStarlink , the gamy - execution planetary communication system that has ever exist . Or this private sector society that just landed on the Moon . But it ’s going to be like the Wild West in the US . Right now there are very few rules that regularize how anybody should acquit in blank space or what you should or should n’t or can or ca n’t do , and the few that exist are just between countries and not every rural area .
conceive of you ’re a individual company and let ’s say you land something on the Moon and say I ’m gon na dig up the resource here and I ’m gon na mine the Moon correctly here where I landed and this is now mine . There ’s a treaty that says land will not claim any part of the Moon as their autonomous soil . But for company ? No one knows how it lick !
What ’s the framework ? What are the principles that should subsist ? Should we negotiate that out ourselves ? Should we fight it out ? We ’ve never faced those variety of questions before . There is no legal framework [ Ed- Yet . IFLScience just so happened tospeak to a space lawyerabout this very thing ] . There ’s not even an agree - upon spot that you and I will forgather at this court or that cafe and argue it out . It ’s just all gon na get figured out on the fly with a orotund act of musician and some very high - post , opportunities , and resources in play . So I think it ’s going to be exciting in some ways but also kind of fraught .
Is there a lesson you have learned in your exceptional career that you’d like to share with the public?
KS : It ’s a common astronaut doctrine of analogy , but a really truthful one : it ’s prison term we all realize that we are crew member on this spaceship called Earth and get to think about our role and responsibility in take right upkeep of the spaceship that we look on . We are not just consumer using the satellite around us .
It is our life support system and our spaceship and the interconnections among all of the natural Earth organization and humanity are intricate and rich ; we do n’t infer all of them , but we understand enough to cognise that we , our destiny and fortunes are very straight off shaped by and link to how well what this planet is doing , how well it ’s functioning .
