 Hello everyone welcome. My name is David Newman. I'm the Apollo program professor at MIT and the director of the Media Lab And it is my great honor to welcome you to our human exploration panel Exploration is not just back. It is thriving and we're going to have an incredible discussion about space exploration but for humanity thinking about why is this such an exciting time and The big questions literally the very big questions When will we find life elsewhere? How does space benefit earth? So it's my great honor to introduce our panelists. We have Joseph Ackbacher the ESA European Space Agency General Director and We have astronaut Mattias Marus who's going to talk to us about the personal experience of living off-planet He's just recently returned from six months on the International Space Station So to queue up the space looking, you know, how does space I say in the solar system? We're exploring again How does it really change and move human hearts exploring? Well, we find life elsewhere and then the science the hundreds of science missions that we have active for all of us And the democratization of space and human space flight is thriving We're gonna have a large 10 minutes for questions and answers So after you hear the panelists, please queue up your questions and we'll invite you to ask your own questions We're live and so look forward to the two panelists Joseph, please So, thank you, Dava and very welcome also from my side very happy to To show a couple of slides and say where we are in exploration and really we are back in exploration But back on the front lines of the newspapers because so much has happened recently This is one of the pictures which I'm sure you have seen in some of the newspapers or news channels the builders of creation James Webb Space Telescope or which we launched on Christmas Day last year as a cooperation between NASA the European Space Agency And the Canadian Space Agency, and I think it really shows that first of all space is international We cooperate among the major space agencies But also we do incredible things if if you create images like this as they have been created from the James Webb Space Telescope They really are so stunning because they are looking what a James Webb Space Telescope is looking back into the very origins of the universe So as you know, the universe is a bit more than 14 billion years old And we go as close as possible to the Big Bang about 300 million years after After the big big bang and this is as close as we can get to really Explore see the creation of the universe or how it looked like in the very early days and therefore better understand Of course where we come from and what this is all about We have a couple of slides to go through and then really would like to stimulate the discussion I will share them with Matias, but before I hand over to him just to recall that space is really used everywhere Of course, we see the fascinating images of the James Webb Space Telescope and all the Exploration we do there, which is really which is really quite quite amazing, but also down on planet Earth Space is used every single day, but you see here are two images of the UK France or parts of France In two years July 21 and July 22 And I think the images already says it all one year We had a very strong drought which was last summer which has turned all the green landscape into brown Soil and this is just showing I mean this is Something that of course you experience on the ground We had a heat wave with maximum temperatures in most parts of Europe And this is just proof how you use satellites on a daily level to monitor what happens But also to predict especially for agriculture and many other applications And this is just one of the many many examples Which shows the power of space that you can of course do this on any single point on on our planet Maybe just one small remark on these images. They are produced with Sentinel-2, which is one of the satellites of the Copernicus program a program Which we develop as from the European Space Agency together with European Commission and all the data Which we are producing are for free to anyone in the world So if you want to log on to the website you can download your image of yesterday of your home garden of your Nexter's key trip or whatever you have in mind They are for free and you can download them from from any part in the world and at any time We disseminate about 350 terabytes of data every single day through this through these channels This is space exploration and this is exactly where Matthias comes to play but I will hand over to him in in one minute This is showing the exploration program Which we have just Presented to our ministers at European Space Agency's Ministerial Council Where we ask every three years for funding by our member states of our activities and I have to say we got a Recorder budget from our ministers 17 percent higher than the previous Ministerial plus inflation that comes on top so this at these times are under these circumstances of the economy and the The state in the world is quite remarkable showing also that the ministers are recognizing space as a as a strategic Activity where you really need to invest and really need to sign up to programs So we have programs going to the space station of course with the European Space Agency Co-operating with the NASA and the other Space Agency partners of the ISS We have programs going to the moon and going to Mars some rover missions Mars sample return and exo Mars in particular But on the moon we have quite a number of activities within the Artemis program But also our own Missions to the moon one is called Argonaut which transports About 1.5 tons of mass to the moon surface and also have moonlight which is a navigation Communication system around the moon so you can make phone calls and navigate on the moon once that as infrastructure is established Maybe at this point I hand over to Matthias who goes a bit through the exploration part and then I come back again Matthias Thank you. Good morning everyone. So here we see the on the slide the three destinations where we want to send humans to The first destination is lowest orbit. We have the International Space Station It's not the only station that we have currently in space We also have the Chinese space station and in the future. We will also see Commercial space stations we use lowest orbit to perform Experiments to do science in zero gravity there We can do stuff that we cannot do on our planet Earth to understand better how systems work But also to develop new materials to learn about humans being in such extreme Conditions and to try what we can learn and benefit and bring back to improve the healing or Like the medicine on earth So we will continue also flying to lowest orbit because it's a it's a wonderful destination And it's also of an economic benefit Because in the future we also hope to do to start some early manufacturing there The next destination is the moon and flying to the moon. It's a thousand times further than the ISS so ISS flies in 400 kilometers altitude the moon is 400,000 kilometers altitude, so it's further away It's also more challenging because we first Before we can land there. We need to get there. So we need more powerful rockets you need better technology and before we land there We also are planning to install a new space station that is flying around the moon It's called a deep space gateway And on a deep space gateway. We want to Use this platform also to learn how we can later on travel to the third destination, which is Mars Flying to Mars. It's in theory possible today with the technology that we have But then we would go there and we would fill up all our rocket with Food and water and supplies for our astronauts and fuel for the return trip And then there wouldn't be any room left for experiments So we would go there plant the flag and come back. That's not the purpose what we want to do So our idea is we want to go there and only take along what we need and then arrive there and find everything What we need to stay there to build a station and also to come back later on with the resources that we get there and That requires that we learn all this technology and make them learn only this by going first to the moon Mature it if it goes wrong if the technology fails we're back in a few days on planet earth You cannot come back quickly from planet Mars. I start with the very first destination Which is the ISS so here's a photo of me last year in cupola it's our favorite place on the ISS the window we observe planet earth and Well, it's usually what we do in our spare time But we also use this place whenever a supply ship comes because we need to catch it with the robotic arm From there we also look down to planet earth and people ask us can you see climate change and I can say like Climate change takes place over a long duration of time But I can see Indications that helped me to understand what's happening down there So you look down you see planet earth is absolutely blue and in the background. It's all it's all black It's the darkness of space, but when you fly over planet earth They're green areas dark green areas, which is the night the rainforest and right next to it There's a light green area, which is the agricultural area and Somehow they are very very many fires Exactly on the border between the dark green and the light green and that's when you understand people are burning down The rainforest to create more room for agriculture and then you fly further on and you see like Desert areas anything like shouldn't there be a lake here in my old maps There's a lake the arrow Lake and it's gone. You don't see anything So that's what we as astronauts can observe from space. We understand there is a climate change But obviously the satellite data provides way more insight That was the most exciting day for me in space stepping outside of the spacecraft Stepping into the unknown Repairing something on the outside, but also installing new stuff and to do this We need space hardware and this space hardware We need to improve in order to enable us also for the future to explore the moon And maybe you can say a few words because you're the expert on this technology. Oh, thank you Well EVA or extra vehicular activity So think about it is taking the entire spacecraft all the systems and shrinking it around the human body So I think it's an engineering feat But the disadvantage is you're in a pressurized balloon a pressurized shell So the astronauts really have to work against the suit. So advanced technology. Hopefully we'll go with human performance We're getting to the moon. We're gonna go on Mars We're going there to explore to find the evidence of past life or life So we really need to make the astronauts very very mobile. So that's where future technologies come in We're protecting them we're keeping them alive keeping them safe But it's a quite a feat an engineering feat because you have to provide oxygen scrub the carbon dioxide Make sure that they're safe and comfortable So it's the miniaturization of the spacecraft if you will and then empowering the astronauts and human performance Yeah, just give you an example. We're here in Davos. You see all the mountains on the outside on the moon We want to climb down a crater which is I believe two kilometers deep. It's very steep So imagine this suit and climbing down the hills here on Davos. You would have any chance So that's why we need better technology To enable us space exploration and this is the beginning of the new exploration era. It's the Artemis one launch so it's a moon rocket that was launched last year and NASA is leading the field but Europe is being part of this because we provide essential elements to this mission We see the Orion capsule Which will bring astronauts to the surface of the moon or to the orbit of the moon, I should say and from there we descend and This capsule is driven by European technology And that's what we hopefully will see in the future. My dream is also to be in that capsule I landed already in the water exactly like this last year in May But that was coming down from the ISS and from the ISS You don't have the speed that you have when you come back from the moon and I hand back to you as of now Thank you. I think this really shows the fascination of Spaceflight and let me just say also that this is of course NASA is in the lead as Mattias was saying but as the head of the European Space Agency I'm very proud that we also contribute to this mission and we are one of the partners of this international Undertaking which is now the new Artemis missions. So now going a bit further. This is Argonaut, which is our our truck As you may call it, which is a big spacecraft that brings Volume and mass to the moon. In fact, what do you see here in this golden color is is this Argonaut spacecraft it can bring about one and a half tons of mass to the moon which can be Equipment experiments can be power generators Whatever you will need on Mars in order to really establish a moon base and therefore infrastructure and start living and Building up some yeah some presence on the moon and this will be reality I would say in the middle of the next of the next decade Because now first we have to go back to the moon on the surface to explore but then really establish infrastructure and this Argonaut launch which we have just decided in November last year will be launched in at the end of 2000 of this decade so around 2030 2021 and will then bring this mass To the moon and really establish as you see here in this futuristic scenario Something else that comes back to our planet is secure connectivity. Of course, you all know very well about Starlink So Europe is also engaging in something similar Of course, we are a little bit behind if I may say so in order to establish such a network of broadband Internet, but we have agreed and decided on the funding again This is European Commission together with European Space Agency in Europe to build up a constellation of Secure connectivity broadband internet for hard government government services light government services and And commercial uses so this is just in the making and certainly something that is extremely important also for security We have seen the importance of Communication also in the war of Ukraine and this is something that of course, I don't need to explain how important this independence is another example, which is shown here is Quite unique will be the first one which is a satellite as you see here that is grabbing a space debris Some space junk. This is an in this case an upper stage of Vega launcher Which is floating in in orbit. It is disturbing And you see here some numbers of how many objects of space debris space junk as you may call They call it are floating around of course in different sizes But the small ones are actually also quite dangerous because they are like a bullet and if they hit a Spacecraft or even the space station. This is certainly a can create can cause a major damage So what this will do clear space one is this spacecraft really grab this piece of Piece of metal or this upper stage of Vega and bring it out of of the orbit and remove literally Space junk from this orbit. Of course, you may say removing one doesn't solve the problem But in my opinion that there's more and more to come and this is one of the first ones If not the first one that is doing it in this way And I'm very glad to see this launched in two to three years from now at the end of 2025 it's actually made in Switzerland It's a European Space Agency who is funding it but the main contractor is actually here in Switzerland together with some other companies in Europe and Really showing how this can be done. And I think this is more and more needed We will we want to establish a zero debris policy Which means that if you bring a spacecraft into orbit, you have to remove it This policy should be in place in a couple of years I'm working now with my government in Europe and hopefully this will be adopted Universally because we need to protect our orbits for our own safety and the safety of spacecraft and astronauts Let me show you one last example before we go back to a bit more interactive discussion. This is Solaris Solaris is something quite amazing and I have to really put a small caveat into this example So what it does it is a study a feasibility study Where we want to investigate whether you can collect solar power in space At in a large scale, of course, you can't do it already all every satellite has a solar panel and this Using solar energy in space But what we what we are proposing here is to really have a big structure Which will be a few kilometers wide or long and dimension a few thousands of tons heavy So just to give an impression of the dimensions That could produce electric power in the order of a gigawatts and this gigawatts then beaming down to the surface And then collecting them of course at the surface and then using them for electricity for energy as we need them So this is the theory the theory itself is actually old Does exist in many years in a small scale We are doing power transmission every single day with satellites in microwaves So but at a much smaller scale at the order of kilowatts and a few Hundreds of kilometers, but this is really big-scale thousands of kilometers and gigawatts And this is something that we're investigating right now. So what we have done I've got a funding of 60 million from the member states just last November to really do a feasibility Technically whether this is possible because as you can imagine such a structure needs to be assembled in orbit with in orbit Robots who are doing this work. You have to stabilize the structure that it's not Moving away and staying on the position and of course testing technology of power transmission from a geostationary orbit all the way down to the surface with all the Complications you can imagine and this is the feasibility we are doing from a technology point of view Of course, there's also an economic viability which we have to test is it worth doing it in space rather than down on the surface We do not have the firm answer yet There are some models and calculations, but with a very big arrow bar And that's what we want to do to reduce this arrow bar to know what it means in terms of cost in order to really implement such a project It's very futuristic, but the order of magnitude is quite Significant and if it works and I really put a big if in the room here if it works It would be a huge improvement for climate change, but also energy autonomy Because I don't need to explain how dependent we are in today's energy crisis from other sources But also climate change of course is a huge issue and this could really solve two of these problems at once If it works at a large scale, but this we will find out in Two to three years, and then I could come with a major proposal. Let me stop here in terms of inspiring you and Launching the debate just coming back to this inspiring image of the James Webb Space Telescope and hand back to the Dava Thank you. Thank you. Thank you both Thank you so much for the inspiring words so again starting out close to Earth low Earth orbit on the International Space Station We are living off-planet Matias is is living off-planet and has and humanity will continue to live off-planet We will become an interplanetary species going to the moon to the moon to stay this time to buy down our technologies in preparation of that human mission and exploration of Mars why Mars Simply an exploration. I think we have three fundamental questions Are we alone in the universe? Are there other habitable planets? What about life the one where we find it past other life past life or current life? We have the chemistry we have the building blocks of life in our exoplanets and on on Mars sulfur hydrogen the the building blocks the chemistry that life would like to exist so it's an amazing future it Makes us as technologists dream big make sure that our technology can go to these amazing places and Hopefully you also heard coming back to home What are the benefits of exploration for humanity in terms of power in terms of also the biomedical? Applications in terms that we always have to be thinking about climate and we observe the overview effect all Astronauts look down on Earth and think of spaceship Earth. They think of humanity together They don't think of which nation they're from they think of everyone together. We all are astronauts We've lived through the pandemic. You've been in isolated confinement and so you're all astronauts Welcome to the club. You know how it's like to be an astronaut and we know that we're better together for some of these huge Challenges, so we're going to open it up for your questions. What's on your mind? What do you want to ask about the future of exploration? Please we're handing around a mic and here it is maybe introduce yourself real quickly and then Jen from India Question about going to Mars. Is there any way to shorten the time period or is there any technology coming up? Which will increase the speed of the craft and reduce the time from six months to any short period time any new engines coming up? I mean, this is a big question which is an On the mind of major space agencies. I know that NASA is doing a lot of research in this direction as well Also, we are the ESA side today does take six to eight months to go there This is the reality and you can imagine for astronauts like Matias and his colleagues to be six to eight months confined in a space capsule to go there and then Stay there for a while and again six to eight months back is a long Mission and also dangerous if I may say so so of course we want to reduce that today There is no proven technology on the table, but I can tell you that we are working. We means NASA ESA other space agencies a lot very intensely to shorten this time significantly, of course nuclear propulsion is Is one of these sources that might might do the trick, but there are a number of questions attached to it So yes, we're working on it, but not yet ready Yeah, but hopefully in the next slide just hopefully in the next in the next decade because we'd love to shorten the trip to Half, you know wouldn't be fantastic if we could go in in three to four months And so NASA was a former NASA deputy administrator in the Obama administration So placing those research and development, you know placing putting it into science research and development So that in the next decade when we get to Mars with humanity in the 2030s then maybe that's a possibility But right now we have heavy lift launch fantastic the Artemis that's step one get back to heavy lift launch capability Which we now have again after after 50 years for getting to the moon next and then Mars beyond that hi Kimberly Washington founder of space for girls and Also executive vice president and equity partner of deep space biology We've worked with NASA for the past two years And my question is about human health all of the ambitious goals that all of the different space agencies Are aiming for to put humans on the moon humans on Mars What is ESA doing to accelerate the protection of human health? Radiation exposure all of the other factors and what types of technologies are you integrating to scale? this level of protection and knowledge No, thank you We have for a program But I think the best one really to respond to that is the the one who has been in space and exposed to the dangers you mentioned Matias you may want to comment. Yes, so like on the international space station We get approximately a daily dose of one milli seabird On the moon, it will be roughly six times higher So like a six months mission to the ISS is roughly equivalent to one month's mission to the moon and flying to Mars And staying two to three years on the road or in space. I should say Would exceed the limits that we currently allow for our astronauts? So definitely there is this need to improve the shielding the protection against the radiation There the classical means you can bring a lot of lead and build a wall of a meter or two of lead around you But then your spacecraft would never fly so we need to come to more smarter and use solutions And that why I hand it back to you because you are working on smart new materials Yeah, so some of the research and development For radiation protection for deep space missions the moon and Mars We have to protect the astronauts from the radiation and now it's cosmic galactic rays as well as a solar Particles, but there is a promising new technologies polyethylene some carbon fiber some boron now So we're looking at new materials and development To help protect astronauts as well as our electronics and the spacecraft So we'll be able to test those out on the moon. Hopefully so we'll know more answers No before we send the astronauts to Mars I would also like to mention muscle and bones because not everyone might be familiar That's why the International Space Station is an incredible laboratory. So Matias is exercising a couple hours of days Because you go through about 30% muscle atrophy and that's okay You could exercise and come back to earth he's doing well bone loss We might lose one to two percent bone mineral density per month now who wants to sign up for the four-year Mars mission So but it's a that's an accelerated process You might lose one percent bone mineral density But when you're 50 to 60 years old on the space station, you know, it's a 10 times factor But we have countermeasures countermeasures and why is that so important just for our astronauts for all of us living on space to think About osteoporosis or the biomarkers so all of the biomedical work to keep our astronauts healthy and well Really have enormous earth earth applications in terms of the pharmaceuticals and the countermeasures that that we undergo Yeah, and the side effect is like if you have a bone degradation This bone degradation leads to the formation of kidney stones and kidney stones is the absolute killer for a space flight mission When we have a kidney stone patient in space, it would bring back the entire crew So imagine you fly to Mars you wouldn't bring somebody back How do you treat a kidney stone on a mission to Mars? So you see there's lots to learn Hi, I'm Nimrod. We've seen a strong Significant shift in the balance between private and public initiatives in in space recently Here on earth It took us a lot of time to find the right balance in public private Initiatives and to understand who should do what I wanted to ask. What's your take on that? Looking to the future in space exploration. Who should do what? Yeah, no, that's a fantastic question and there's a huge revolution ongoing right now I mean triggered also thanks to NASA through the CCP the commercial crew program and commercial cargo program And this is also happening in Europe I have actually since I'm like the general of visas in a bit less than two years now I've put one of the priorities of my strategy here in my post to to foster commercialization And this really means that we as public entity as the European Space Agency act much more as a customer as an anchor customer or first customer of space technology that is being developed whether this is a Commercial space station or this is a rocket or this is a satellite so we much more Act as a customer rather than developing everything from scratch having said that of course and this will remain our core Responsibility we will keep developing technology either as building blocks or an engine for a rocket or some Elements, but together within with industry and the approach will much more be one of co-engineering Together with industry where industry takes responsibility as the application materials So yes, there's a huge revolution ongoing in the US also in Europe And this is something that will change space drastically in the next decade and actually that's that's quite good That's quite exciting because that really brings it much more into the private domain in the commercial domain And this is what really drives it forward Yeah, our public-private partnerships like I mentioned when we laid them out for NASA The government has a huge role to play in all space agencies to exploration to get us beyond but when it makes business sense Let's have the private sector do that governments aren't great at that So in terms of the operations, let's have the private folks. So we've seen disruptive innovation Not so much in the technology but in the launch frequency in the capabilities and that's what the governments are betting on Let's see that disruption in the business model the organizational change So can we move forward so it really is teaming between governments Industry and I would at academia as well for the future and those partnerships are really important and the last Decades kind of laid the groundwork for this very exciting for the real democratization and access to space We are out of time, but I want to thank again our panelists for such an inspiring talk And to to you the audience so exploration is back and thriving is the the final message to leave you all with and we You all need to be a part of it and you're all welcome