Halfway there!
This week we reached the halfway point of Expedition ISP20! It’s hard to believe that we only have a couple of weeks left. On one hand, it feels as though we only started the program a week ago.. and on the other hand, it feels as if we’ve been working together for months!
An Unexpected Outcome
We began the week with a seminar on the ‘Legal Underpinnings of Space Activities’, delivered by Tanja Masson-Zwaan, where we learnt about the field of international space law and its main principles. We focused on the five UN space treaties that govern the use of outer space for peaceful purposes.
Later that day, I had a workshop on ‘The Contribution of Satellite Imagery and Geospatial Data to Managing Pandemics: Policy and Legal Aspects’, delivered by PJ Blount and Alexander Soucek. We talked about the legal and policy aspects of Earth Observation services, GNSS services, and the sharing and distribution of remote sensing data.
I also got to spend some time with my Expedition coach Lucy Stojak in a mentorship session. We had a very interesting discussion on the legal aspects and concerns of resource mining in space.
One thing that I never expected to happen on ISP20 was to develop an interest in the legal aspects of space exploration, but I have thoroughly enjoyed being introduced to the subject and I hope to continue learning more about it!
As always, every week brings a number of extremely interesting daily seminars. This week included:
- ‘Space Mission Design’, delivered by Ming Li, Senior consultant of China Academy of Space Technology.
- ‘Spacecraft Subsystems Engineering’, delivered by John Connolly, former Exploration Chief Scientist at NASA HQ.
- ‘Human Performance in Space’, delivered by Robert Thirsk, former Canadian Space Agency astronaut.
- ‘Life Support Systems’, delivered by Christophe Lasseur.
Teach me your Language!
Although the course can be very content heavy, there is always time for some fun!
This week we had another set of Crew Talks! It’s always really interesting to hear about the work that my fellow crew members are working on outside of ISP. This week we had seven really interesting presentations on a wide range of topics from heavy ion collisions to lava tube exploration!
We spend a lot of time working on our Team Mission, but the interaction with my crew members goes beyond the program itself.
We have had countless social events, and informal chats on the differences in our cultures and languages. And this week we had a ‘Teach me your Language’ session, where I got to learn a little bit of Japanese courtesy of our habitat officer Paul! ありがとうございます(Arigatou gozaimasu)!
Mentorship
I can’t write a weekly blog about ISP without including the mentorship sessions! This week I had a mentorship session with Piero Messina where we discussed the future of European crewed spaceflight!
I also got to meet with Ilaria Cinelli! It was particular interesting to talk about her background in Neural Engineering, as a Fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association and about her experience as a Senior Analogue Astronaut at the Mars Desert Research Station. It was a very insightful and inspiring session, it’s always extra special when I get to interact with women within the industry!
Fun Fact: Ilaria completed her PhD in Neural Engineering from NUI Galway!
My final mentorship session of the week was with Erin “RobotGrrl” Kennedy, CEO and technical founder of Robot Missions! It was amazing to hear about the 3D printed robot she has designed and developed to collect plastics on shorelines of waterways.
I was fascinated to hear about the process she went through and the road blocks she encountered, both technical and business related, when developing her robot.
Alumni Conference
I took part in my first ever space conference this week! The ISU has done a fantastic job at converting what would normally be an in person conference to one that is entirely online. The alumni conference ran 24/7 with various panels and activities across numerous time zones. The schedule was extremely exciting, if only I could stay up all night to catch every single session!
It began with the opening ceremony including a talk from Soyeon Yi, former astronaut, who discussed her personal experience of launching into space and compared it to the recent Demo-2 launch earlier this year. She shared a heartwarming memory of Valentina Tereshkova, the first women Astronaut, holding her hand until she boarded for launch.
Fun Fact: Soyeon was an Astronaut before she took part in ISU’s Space Studies Program(SSP) in 2009!
The keynote address followed and was delivered by NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. You can watch this here.
We were then treated to a session on NASA’s exploration plans where John Connolly interviewed Jessica Meir, current NASA Astronaut, on her journey from the Master of Space studies program at ISU to the International Space Station (ISS). I always love getting to hear about her experiences aboard the ISS and the experiments that she carried out!
“If you’re not taking risks, if you’re not making mistakes and failing along the way, then you’re probably not working hard enough.” – Jessica Meir
Some other highlights of the first day of the conference include Jim Green, NASA Chief Scientist, delivering an intriguing talk on ‘Science and Exploration of the Moon and Mars’, and a fascinating discussion between Jeff Hoffman, NASA Astronaut, and Omar Hatamleh, NASA Technology Integration Manager, on ‘The Future of Human Spaceflight’. These were followed by panel discussions on ‘Latin America in Space’ and ‘Space and Social Movements’.
Another Fun Fact: Jeff Hoffman was unable to go on a mission to the ISS because he was too tall to fit in the Soyuz Spacecraft!
As I mentioned, there was a lot of very interesting panels across the weekend, and I was unfortunately not able to see all of them! However, a few that I did manage to catch included:
- ‘How I Survived the Mir Space Station’, with Cosmonaut Aleksandr Lazutkin.
- ‘NewSpace is the NewAfrica’ panel which you can watch here.
- ‘Governance Challenges for Lunar Exploration’, with Valentina Sumini and Piero Messina.
- An open debate on the ‘Sustainable Development of Space: Space Mining’, moderated by Lucy Stojack and David Kendall.
It was a jam packed weekend, but it was fantastic to see the amount of people that participated and what everyone thought of the conference at the end!
And what better way to round off a super busy week than with an online party, DJ and all?!
