 I envision a time where we're gonna have domes on the moon, where people are gonna be able to go and pick up their crops as a layover flight to then go to Mars. I truly see this as the future. Imagine Mars having biospheres made of something known as silica aerogel that was made by Harvard scientists and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientists. And it's this cloudy material that was originally used to be the insulator for spacecraft. But it's not too far fetched to have it be domes on Mars to grow crops and moxie, an instrument on the latest Mars rover, the Perseverance rover, is a material as an instrument that can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. And it's gonna be able to do that on Mars. So who knows, maybe within the next five to 10 years, the robots that are already living on Mars will be able to start building these habitable locations for humans to be able to visit. Athea Brensberger is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas, brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine. Athea advocates for space exploration through her platform, Astro Athens, a website, YouTube channel and various social media platforms pretty much everywhere. People can find do-it-yourself astrophysics demos, rocket launch coverage and going behind the scenes at events around the world. She's worked with Seeker, Futurism, Ariana Group and Dexter as a correspondent on all things astronomy and rocket science. With a background in astrophysics and fashion, Athea's mission is to show that space is within all of us. No matter what industry you are in, her research includes work on protoplanetary disks and low mass stars. After giving her first talk on stage, she fell in love with presenting science rather than conducting it. Athea, welcome to the show. I'm so glad to have you here. Thank you so much, I'm so excited to be here. I'm glad you are and I'm glad you gave me the short version of your biography because I know there's a lot more to you, a lot more depth and substance that we could uncover but I'm hopeful that we'll uncover it here on the podcast today. From what I know and have stalked you online because I follow you on many different channels and just love what you do and how you present things, I know that you're a person of depth and substance or deep thought and you provide quality content and a lot of that content is something that I think we're going to align with and we're gonna be able to get down into some rabbit holes, do some deep dives because of that. To start out, I would like to kind of see if there's something deeper that comes out because you are a model, you do model and you probably maybe more so in the past but how did that transition come about that you went from there to here or is it still in balance with what you're currently doing kind of also bringing us up to speed to where you are today? Yeah, they're both quite harmoniously balanced coincidentally I sort of feel and shockingly because they seem like such opposing industries, the science industry and the fashion industry but it really has become so intertwined in my life. I've been modeling for about 10 years now and it first started when I was pursuing dance and theater when I was much younger. I was three years old the first time I started dancing. So my love for the arts actually came before my love for science and right around age 16 when I started learning how to track asteroids and maneuver around a planetarium, that's when I started to really combine both worlds. I was studying music and also studying space and then it just continued into college and then modeling started the summer that I was doing research at the Hayden Planetarium under my NASA space grants on the propelids what you mentioned, protoplanetary disks which we should totally get into. They're super cool. And I got scouted for America's Next Top Model while I was working at Aeropostal, that like clothing brand store and I was doing that at the same time as my research and taking an accelerated calculus class which was just crazy and thought maybe I should really pursue this maybe I should see where this goes. I was never really too attracted to the fashion industry at first but my mentors who Dr. Charles Liu was really active in musical theater and is a deep cosmologist as well. And so he was like, I think you should pursue it. See where your direction takes you if you were to pursue that science will always be here, you can do both. And yeah, I just took that leap of faith and decided to test it out and it set me on this journey of being able to pursue science in a more creative artistic way while pursuing also modeling and acting. And there's things I learned from both industries that allowed me to parlay them into each other. That was pretty cool. That is fabulous. So I first discovered you on TikTok and that is lately becoming a very controversial platform especially for the United States. Do you have thoughts or feelings as you're monitoring or as you're doing this, what your views are that you could share with us and how that journey has gone? I'm really a big fan of everything Chinese and don't have biases towards anyone in the world but I think there's some really cool things happening there but I'd like to get your inside views of what your thoughts and feelings are. Yeah, I think the main thing that led to the controversy was security concerns with the app but coming from, I mean, I'm not an app developer but just having friends that work in IT and develop apps. A lot of apps would have almost risky security concerns that you would think about but it's all really, a lot of it's really protected and I think that there was maybe this misunderstanding probably with the app in the US. I'm not 100% certain on what the status currently is of whether it's gonna get banned or not. I know that Instagram recently just created something called Reels which is essentially what TikTok does but they're trying to make it now for Instagram but what was so special about TikTok was when I started it was specifically because they wanted to bring more education to the app and you have to be very clever to try and like demonstrate science in 60 seconds but also make it captivating and quick and so that was the real challenge and I not only loved it for myself but all the creators I got to see through at the other science communicators that just took on the app and just made it awesome and people started doing voiceovers of our own voices explaining theories and quantum mechanics and that's what's exciting because TikTok started as kind of a voiceover app and dance competition and music kind of singing app but the whole point now is that it's become so many it's got so many other layers to just yeah to the app in general where now there's other industries participating and I think that's awesome, it encourages young kids. Yeah, it's beautiful. I like the way they mix pretty much everything. They address a whole another humongous or terrifically big group of people that probably weren't addressed in some other apps before I've seen Neil Tyson, the grassy who I'm also a big fan of doing some things on there and it's addictive. You get on there and you have to be real careful. You could really go down some addiction things for a long time in that path but thank you by the way for that update because I'm a techno lust and kind of a nerdy guy but it's a conversation and topic on a lot of my listeners that are wondering what is this TikTok? Where are my kids gone? Why have they disappeared on TikTok? And now with what's going on in the US so it's nice to get a little bit of insight of maybe somebody who's doing that you've seen quite a bit of success from that. During the pandemic so you've been doing this for a while you've doing it for the pandemic and you've kind of not only learned about the resiliency that space provides someone the knowledge of astrophysics and space and going to space and those things are those things that you've also applied into your life and have any of them or speaking about these topics prepared you for this pandemic to be a little bit more resilient or to know how to continue to create content continue to move forward with what you do with success but also maybe possibly put you in another position to help others or to educate others with some knowledge to get through this time. Yeah, there's definitely a few aspects there about just the science mindset in general and then also the applicable form of making social virtual video content. The first one I wanna touch on is kind of that I guess more of the philosophy of the science mindset and how it's been applicable to me when the pandemic first started. So that was what you were mentioning and there's something I love sharing and it's called the overview effect. And yeah, and so there's this extraordinary experience that happens with astronauts when they see Earth for the first time from space. And it's almost as if our bodies are not designed to see our own planet from space like that. And it's this unlike world, like it's very hard to verbalize the sensation as if I haven't even experienced it but just from speaking to those that have it's such an extraordinary experience that being able to sort of shift our perspective from what we're seeing every day on like our, just on our streets and our buildings and our society, economics, government, everything we've built, if we removed that for just a moment and saw Earth in its totality, there's just this absolute pure beauty to it. And shifting your perspective to that, I think is, was definitely vital for me specifically in the beginning of the pandemic and then sharing that with others. I think it's really helped just generally a lot of people, so you've heard of it. I've definitely heard about it. I speak about it all the time. Not only is it the overview effect, it's also the cosmic perspective. It's one of profound awe. There's actually only about 500 people who've ever seen our planet live from outer space to date, more coming every day, especially with great companies like SpaceX and some of the things that are happening that are occurring, giving more opportunities for people to have that. I have also not seen it live this overview effect but I have received that experience in a couple of different ways. One, I travel and fly a lot, speak at events and so I've been on some international flights and kind of had a different view of an overview effect on a long haul flight. I've also seen a lot of satellite and drone footage that gives you a pretty high overview effect of some things, but I recently got an Oculus Quest. And yes, I did and as I told you, I have techno lust and I really like technology and things but it gave me the experience of the overview effect, the cosmic perspective because I did see the Earthrise live from the Apollo mission. They actually, NASA has uploaded not only the moon landing, Apollo 11, but they've done, I believe our Earthrise was Apollo 8 that did that and as they were rounding the moon and just by accident happened to see that Earthrise and get that feeling. They also have that on the Oculus Quest plus the ISS station where you can actually float around and you can grab something. Absolutely mind blowing but that it is so realistic, it's so 3D with the sound and the vibrations and the feeling, it really gives you that awe feeling and so there's technologies and things available to give people that feeling if they really need it. I believe I had it before I even saw these because I've also always kind of looked at not only maps like this but NASA images a lot and when I speak in my presentations on the environment and climate around the world I always begin with two images. One is the Earthrise, December 24th, 1968 and then the blue marble image which was taken just a few years later the complete image of the Earth and what I say is what is this? You know, people say well does that's our planet and I says no, it's innovation. Had we not gone to the moon, had we not sent satellites and missions to the moon, had we not looked to outer space and to other planets and to space travel and even trying to get to the moon we would not have these images, we would not have looked back and had those images of our planet which began the entire environmental movement and it is profound because a lot of environmentalists tree-huggers always say we got to go back to the roots I hate technology, it's ruining our planet. In reality it can be used for good and evil. It can be used for bad and good and it was really used not only by Al Gore by Carl Sagan and many other fabulous people to really tell us the lifeblood, the pulse and the heartbeat of our planet and that's when I've spoken about Earthrise. I hate to go off on a tangent but that is my connection and I feel that connection is very important for every human being to have because what we're trying to portray is not only that sense of awe and that sense of respect of our only home but that we're all on spaceship Earth. We're all long together that there are no nations and borders. We're all breathing the same air, drinking the same water and moving in the same direction. There is nobody who was dropped off from planet Mars or planet Venus or whatever else. We're all together on this spaceship Earth and we're all crew members, none of us are passengers. There's a time where we're babies or elderly where we can't contribute as much but we're all crew members on how our planet turns out and will end up over the centuries and years and decades. So sorry to go off on a tangent but like I told you, we could really get down some rabbit holes especially where I am as passionate as well. That's why I jumped on your not only TikToks but Instagram and your other channels and your website because I really like the way you educate people. I like the way that you present very complex, very difficult to understand things in a nice simple way, fun and it's just a pleasure to listen to you. This does bring me to the first question and you know it's coming because I warned you but there's this term global citizen or planetary citizen now with SpaceX and Elon. We're gonna be an interplanetary species and things like this. I would like to know what your feelings are on global citizenry being a global citizen if you feel like one and secondly kind of as an add-on to that, how would you feel if the future was one without nations, borders, divisions of humanity that we really side each other all on the same spaceship earth together without dividing or hating or fighting against each other like Carl Sagan said in his talk about the pale blue dot? Yeah, so to answer that question I wanna branch off of what we were just talking about about why technology is important for bringing more of a global shift in our consciousness about the climate change but also just about seeing our planet. I get the question a lot about why are we just going to space? Like we're just leaving earth behind like why are we doing that? We're gonna have so many problems on earth and my answer is always what you just said about like seeing that perspective that might be just enough to trigger a whole movement to help those that are still have scarcity of water those who are living in poverty who do not have fresh food and sometimes the technology that's developed out of space missions is directly applicable to say what we're facing right now in a pandemic and that would be the second part of the question you asked earlier which was that was what my focus has become during the pandemic for my content creation is what I first mentioned was kind of that philosophy of applying the scientific mindset but then creating content around that to help those who are struggling in quarantine who are completely alone isolated from people if they don't have family or roommates at home and that is something so important to keep in mind. So that directly ties in with a global citizen because yeah, we're all here on this on spaceship earth on the same planet and looking at just how we've grown all together as a species, how we've gained different levels of melanin in our skin and how we've gone different like hair and heights and body sizes, all of that is part of the beauty of our evolution and all animal life and plant life that's on our planet. And so I love the term global citizen and about three years ago I was actually looking into the possibility of knowing if there was a passport I could get as a global citizen passport because I really wanted to try and get that I wanted to have like some possibility of just getting like the earth flag as my stamp. And but then as I've grown over the years past, I mean, this was maybe four years ago I had the thought I've started recognizing the beauty of our differences is something to also keep in mind and cherish to hold on to our different cultures and my thought on the borders is quite like it's kind of like torn because part of me is like, yeah, if we removed all borders like I think that would be great because we need to experience other cultures we need to be immersed, especially children because children look at things in wonderment rather than criticism or judgment they look at things with awe and excitement and they're like, well, why is this person you know, handling this situation differently or cutting their vegetables differently than this person or than me and it could be because of, you know where they were raised to cut the type of vegetables or whatever. And then I think, well, maybe if if we were to start to look at all of us as like identical, I would have want that to remove the beauty of our differences. And I think that's the fine line humanity needs to walk along, to remember when it comes to evolving into this next level of equality because we are equal, but also look at the ways in which we are different as beautiful rather than a determined of like hindering our inequality as it shouldn't hinder equality at all. No, not at all. But it should be cherished. I mean, there's so many beautiful things. I mean, the first time I ever traveled to another country that I didn't speak any of their language and I was the quote unquote foreigner that here in the US people will say all the time, oh, the foreign is the foreign. And I'm like, no, like experience you as the foreigner then you'll really understand what it's like to be immersed in other cultures. We're all human beings and we just speak differently because of our vocal cords. And we, yeah, it's just all of that. I'm just, I love it. And I think that we all need to experience that at least once in our lifetime, if not multiple times in our lifetime. That's so beautiful. I'm glad that you shared that with me and I'm going to dive a little bit deeper into that rabbit hole. With, I ask that question to most of my guests but I don't ever follow it up with what I'm going to tell you now. Carl Sagan said, we are all star stuff. We are made from the interiors of collapsing stars, our calcium, our iron in our blood, our calcium in our apple pies and our nitrogen. And we are the basic elements of collapsing stars and the basic elements of life are those that are found here on earth that earth is created of. So we are all star stuff and we are all global citizens. We are a part of this earth. And I use a term called homosymbiose that we need to kind of evolve from homo sapiens into homosymbiose that comes from Professor Chin who kind of talks about that evolution of humanity but more so that we become part of the symbiotic earth. And by no means do I mean that we all look the same, we all speak the same language or have the same culture as a global citizen even as a planetary citizen, even as someone who has this world citizen review it's okay to still have your belief, your political views, your religion, your color, your religious belief, your non-religious belief but there is this much higher unifying operating system that connects us all as part of the symbiotic earth as global citizens and as distant cousins really because we're all connected a lot less than six degrees of separation because we're all really distant cousins and crawled out of this primordial soup of humanity and how we evolved and the beginnings of life on earth really start with those basic elements and bacteria and the majority of our bodies are made up of this bacteria. So I am a huge fan of Carl Sagan and if you haven't picked that up yet or you didn't know that with my pre-questioning and a matter of fact, I just interviewed his daughter on our podcast, a Sausage Sagan on Monday but I just think that the wisdoms that he provided us wisdoms that Neil Tyson deGrasse provided us, wisdom that Athena is providing us and evangelizing and making it very entertaining a new form of modern day cosmos or contact a new modern day of how we understand our world, how we understand space and how that it's all interconnected for me is beautiful and I thank you for that. My question is with all that that you do and all that you've known how who is the biggest mentor or influencing your life, doesn't have to be Carl Sagan but that has kind of pushed you or taught you the most or kind of your personal hero who's helped you on this journey whereas it just been dry books that you've read or movies that you've seen or you've kind of got to have a mentor, somebody who's inspires you to do what you're doing. I know you do a great job but there's got to be somebody out there like that. Is there such a person? Yes, yes, yes 100%. I'm always talking about how important it is to have a mentor in whatever field you're in and for me it was my first astronomy professor in college, Dr. Charles Liu. I mentioned it earlier actually in the beginning of our interview and he is just so extraordinary. We're still in contact, we definitely still talk and he not only was my mentor for my research when I had the NASA space grants at the Hayden Planetarium but he's the one who I would chat with about like modeling contracts when I went to Korea for the first time like we would meet up and I would meet his students at the Hayden Planetarium or at the College of Stan Island and say hello to all them, chat and everything and just talk about space and then we would chat about kind of my next contract in Hong Kong or Korea or wherever and it was just so awesome because it felt like, I mean it still feels like no matter what it's like I have this support but also like I'm able to really go to just someone who is really wise and has done the things that I am doing and want to do so he's like published astronomy books is like the most amazing science communicator that I know. I mean our first day of class he literally ran into the classroom jumped on the desk and said who wants to learn about space and then took like a spinning stool, put it up there asked for a volunteer and demonstrated some triple accelerations like by putting the arms out that you spin slower than pulling it in and you spin faster and I remember looking around the classroom and just seeing everyone just it clicked for them all different like majors as well like this was astronomy 101 so for a lot of the students that weren't physics majors this was like a extracurricular for them and I mean there were arts students, business students all of the above and they just were like wow I just learned something that I never thought I would understand because the name sounds so complicated and that day I just knew it I was like I wanna be able to communicate science the way he does. So yeah, he my biggest inspiration Dr. Liu you're awesome. Great, great. He's great. Well he'll definitely hear the shout out but thank you for sharing that and I'm the same way I have some great mentors as well Al Gore is a mentor of mine I was one of the first 50 people trained by him in his ranch in Carthage, Tennessee as a climate speaker and a climate leader William McDonough who wrote the book cradle to cradle and upcycling as a friend of mine and has mentored me on many things and many, many other greats and I believe mentor or even if you never meet them but have read their books or seen their works like Carl Sagan can mentor you and you can create almost a mastermind by following their works and looking at them to see the passion that they delivered and it definitely sounds like your mentor had the passion and the way to convene it that made it something that could be very scary or complex, something fun and interesting and that's what I see in you and what you do and captivated by the way I've watched you do your presenting. I wanna get into kind of maybe a side channel a little bit to do with space but kind of not so with your modeling, the big thing in the last five years at least that is really bubbling to the surface is sustainability in the clothing industry not only the wages that are being produced the type of fabrics, the type of pollutants the type of things that go into that and how products are produced and where they're produced and I'd like to know your thoughts and feelings on that and how maybe you have pushed sustainability or thoughts or processes into this industry and also if you're one of the advocates out there saying, you know, even though I'm a model we need to kind of do it different there's a different better way to produce and to consume and to have products that don't harm human health and wages but also our environment and our planet. Yeah, completely. I was about, I would say three years ago the first time it really clicked for me and it's kind of a terrible thought. It was about like what would happen if my house burned down which not go with it won't happen but I just thought like would I really miss any of my material items? Do I actually need any of my material items? And the most I could think about was actually my childhood teddy bear to be honest everything else I just realized like, wow all of that is replaceable as long as my family is safe that's the most important and to have, you know, a new roof over our head but that was the moment I realized like I don't need all this stuff that I've been so absorbed in this consumerism that's put into our minds all the time. I mean we see it on the computers we see it walking down the street I mean everywhere there's just this need and this obsession with constantly purchasing because you think you need more and that moment that realization I just got up and donated like 80% of my belongings. I remember that specifically we were giving out it was during winter time and we're collecting bags for the homeless and we're putting together all the stuff that we could and they handed it out to them. And ever since then I just really started looking at my purchases. I started really looking at thrift stores and thought let me just see what that's like and then I started really like this actually is from a thrift store it's so spacey which is so cool I found that a thrift store but doing second hand I started really getting into and then trying to shop sustainable but realizing that a lot of sustainable brands are so expensive and I'm not quite sure why but I've noticed like even big corporate like huge companies like H&M have their own section of fabrics that were recycled from people that donated their clothes so it's called a consciousness I believe so I really love that they have that and being a model especially doing showroom so showroom is when we're presenting like the newest collection to stores like Macy's and SexFit Avenue for a specific client and if certain collections don't make the cut there's all these samples made that just sit in warehouses and eventually some brands will donate but a lot of brands don't because they don't want their patterns to be repeated elsewhere or they don't want people to copy them so a lot of times they'll actually get dumped and those dyes, those fabrics and the human labor that went into it is just such a waste and I realized this about I would say two years ago the first time I actually decided to ask the clients of mine like what it was what they do with them I'm not gonna mention their name but after that I was like I can't I personally cannot work with them anymore and I was like I just I was like it's just wrong and there's so many other ways that we really could be moving forward we're so advanced at the fact that we have a device that can talk to us and our phones that are like tiny little like quantum computers like all these incredible things and yet we're still really overdoing it with the fashion industry and it just makes me sad because I really started growing in appreciation for like designers and the different stitches and textiles and really looking at how you go to a museum and you see an artwork on the wall and you go to New York Fashion Week and you get to wear that artwork so that's part of like the human mind that I think we definitely should be preserving is kind of this creative outlet of the fashion industry but now it's about trying to evolve that beyond our way of thinking the past you know 40, 50, 60 years I want to say 100 years but I'd say you know we're sort of really getting bad like right when Polyester which I believe was fabricated in 1941 and a lot of other man-made materials and it just you know it just started getting a lot worse so for me I've just become so avid at looking for brands that are using recycled material and I'll go into places and question them and I'm like is this something that's used or where are your fabrics made otherwise I just will stick to like vintage shops and yeah and I also think it's kind of fun because you start to embody like the person that might have been in those clothes before of course not workout clothes or underwear or anything but I think it's funny wear a jacket that someone might have been wearing to who knows like a concert or something and it's I think it's quite interesting clothing has a much longer lifetime and then I think we realize and we don't need so much yeah. I believe consumerism you know as it plays a big part I believe that more so than the consumerism as the way we produce so if we were to produce affordable clothing with good materials that paid people a fair wage that didn't have harmful dyes or chemicals or processes in the way we produce that that could harm human health or could harm our environment or planet there really wouldn't be an issue with it really there really would not be an issue with it because no one is being harmed no harm no foul now if you produce a product that has a lot of chemicals and pollutes rivers and pollutes human health or you have a mother who has a daughter or a child or even childhood labor that is producing a product in a factory not earning a fair wage and not allowing their daughter to go to school and what maybe not even being able to go school themselves at a price to produce a extremely inexpensive garment without good working conditions and a fair wage and things like that and we've seen it with all different industries just seen it in the phone industry as well and the food industry and things like that that's really a travesty but what most people don't know is there's a couple of ties to space with that concept and that thinking if you look the same the overview effect if you look at our world from outer space there is no throw away everything that we produce here on this earth remains here doesn't matter if you throw it in the oceans or if you burn it it turns into greenhouse gas and as an emission if you throw it in a landfill it remains here to pollute and harm our planet now if we took another way of looking at it if we produce things that were compostable or that if they were thrown away wouldn't harm our planet or be a waste of resources or if that we thought in circular economy principles or efficiency principles kind of cradle to cradle instead of cradle to grave one time usage products certain type of things then it would totally flip the switch on that industry and it's really not the consumers it's the producers they shouldn't produce products that are one time use or to be thrown away or that harm our planet or those who produce it in any way that's a big factor but where space also comes in and this is where it also comes in with a lot of other things that we kind of touched on in the beginning is this resilience if something can work in space it's the most efficient resilient it can work in the depths of darkness of space and it's very efficient we don't want to waste any energy you don't want to waste any resources you want to have it be so that it protects you and is safe and can be reused and that's really why I like SpaceX so much that they're trying to reuse and repurpose and not totally waste in every aspect how we travel to space how we get to Mars how we do things that it's in a smarter more efficient way of doing that and those efficiencies that way of thinking how can we do it in the harsh conditions of outer space need to be applied to our planet because we are also locked into our planet earth there is no throw away and so if we think in those biological cycles and those technical cycles it's so fabulous what we can see that those same principles apply but it's one that is more sustainable for the future which leads me really and unless you have a comment about that which leads me into my okay go ahead and give your comment because the next is the most hardest question I'm going to ask you oh man next but go ahead and make make your comments on that the International Space Station is the epitome of recycling and you made me remember that even their urine they recycle that into water and everything on the space station if you've ever watched any of those really long NASA broadcasts that I mean like seven hours long before like Doug and Bob they were on the demo two mission through SpaceX the Dragon cargo sorry the Crew Dragon capsule right before they left the ISS International Space Station to get onto the capsule they had to do a whole like laundry list of checks and they're like okay so you had two lunches we've had two empty lunch bags and we have you know four bottles completed or you know different objects and they are so like you mentioned efficient with every single thing that has been used imagine if we had that mentality with things like just carrying around like a reusable container or carrying around straws one thing that's kind of been bugging me about the pandemic and I understand for cleanliness reasons but you know like the glass that you're using I can't go to my coffee shop anymore and get a refill they have to give me a single use you know plastic whatever it is so I really resorted to go into blue bottle coffee because they use those biodegradable cups and even the lids and the straws as well both of them are completely recyclable and I've actually been reused from previous recycled fabrics so that's a really you know positive thing one other thing I'm just going to mention really briefly is you reminded me of the dyes even harmful to our our own health I learned that I have this crazy allergy to disperse red 17 I actually am covered in hives right now it's not too bad but I'll break out in hives when I come in contact with certain materials fabrics and colors and that alone like you know so many people might say oh I have really bad eggs and my really bad hives look at the things you're using you know those chemicals that aren't natural to our human essence they're not natural to us we should not be using them and being in the modeling industry all the makeup the hair products the aerosols all those things I'll break out on my head as well like from certain shoots and I have to go home and immediately get it off and so my my makeup bag I over the past 10 years has gone from a lot of stuff to now I own one brush one eyeshadow thing and then Vaseline for like my love and it's it's wonderful to imagine if we just more of us kind of looked at it from that perspective and thankfully this blue hair dye didn't didn't cause any reaction but the brand is actually a vegan brand that has a whole bunch of less chemicals no formaldehyde any add-ins and stuff which is great that's interesting you know I think we're becoming more conscious of this stuff yeah we we have to because there's we only have one planet and so eventually I mean if we I don't want to get too far off on a tangent but if we kind of refer to what Greta has been promoting she says why go to school if you yourself are not listening to that what you're trying to educate me in why go to school if our politicians are doing a total opposite thing and what you're trying to teach me about our future about the way the world is and what's going on then it's not even worth going there and I think the reason you educate and evangelize and and talk about the things you do is you want to depart important message important wisdom knowledge to people to to look at our world to look at outer space to look at things a little bit different with a different aspect and you feel like you're you know I don't know if that is is your true purpose or mission but it's a different perspective that you have that you want to depart to those people to actually say hey and here's a sustainable takeaway hopefully this makes your life better maybe I can help you progress a little bit further in your view of the world or life and and that that could help impact somewhere else I don't know if that's true maybe you've experienced that okay I mean do you have like a mission or why or purpose that you that you say this is why I do it this is why get up and create this content because you create content for many platforms and it's a lot of work why do you do it do you have a purpose mission or why could you share that with us yeah the overall gist is to just really shift our consciousness on a collective level that can sound so broad and crazy and maybe hippie-dippy but it's really it's it's ingrained this more scientific perspective of everything of our own decisions we make with ourselves with each other and with the world that we live in and I think that if bringing it in a non-intimidating way which science can be very intimidating at a young age then we will actually really start to evolve altogether and I think that that one of the like the root of evolving through the problems we have today is to just shift the way that we learn at a young age and like that's why like since the pandemic started like I started really becoming so much more passionate and like working with kids and making content specifically for for younger kids and the youth because like that really is so important right now I've gotten so many messages from kids saying like I wish if only you were my science teacher and adults saying if you were my science teacher I'd be a national physicist or I would look at our world differently or you know I would work harder I would love more I would treat people differently I would slow down not feel like I need to rush ahead the person next to me on the street I'd let someone go ahead of me like all those little moments are sewn into our bigger fabric so but the overall answer is shifting human consciousness on a collective level okay I'm going to dive down a little bit of another rabbit hole and delay the burning question the difficult question for just a few more moments you've done some amazing shit you've seen some cool stuff and during the pandemic during this lockdown part my friend Elon Musk and other futurists and other leaders who have this resilience have sustainability have this big picture of our world and and how they create things they were all put in a unique position to help others with respirators to help others with food and things I need Kimball Musk Elon's brother he delivered food and did a lot of amazing things planted trees during this pandemic but every single Tesla SpaceX his neural net and on and on Solar City and whatever else he's working on they continue to have deadlines and operate and work through this pandemic time maybe it was controversial but he met the goals he met the challenges he met the deadlines and you were at you got to see some things live and experience some stuff I'd like to hear about that and and how those experiences were from you because also in that and I don't know this was earlier before the pandemic or during you also saw some things about how to grow food and space and vertical gardens and I want to hear all about that I want to hear about those those cool things yeah that's all thanks to an awesome program at NASA NASA has something called NASA's socials and they you should totally apply and anyone watching should totally apply for the next missions now it's all virtual of course but I first heard about it actually about four years ago it's funny I've said the number four a lot about four years ago a lot of things have started for me and I applied to a mission and essentially you're going as like media but social media so just like how press and media have their own access we have our own access to social media and it's not even it's not for people with like millions of followers it's for everyone I mean they want to expand this to like sports players and musicians and artists like every single person and I got accepted and recently the one that you probably had seen when I went to learn about how they grow plants and space was for the final dragon cargo mission it was right before demo two so right before crew dragon which is with the two astronauts now was my first space X launch and it was the beginning of March it was March 3rd and I got to go down to Florida Kennedy Space Center it was right before limits started hitting I think the U.S. right around like March 18th and so at this time we were good to go and I got to go inside of the veggie facility so we learned all about how they're growing vegetables in space now they're growing peppers and it was just it was extraordinary and they work with schools as well so they it's like citizen astronauts and citizen scientists they get to collect these these this data and information of what they're doing on the ISS and students get to go through the data and then they contribute to NASA it's extraordinary I love it yeah it's fabulous and then I you know I watched how how you watch the launch and you saw the experience and things that that was truly amazing and thanks for taking us on on that journey but I you also were were at a loss for words because you had at some moments not all the time because I could tell it's an awe-inspiring thing it's you're in the moment you're it's so big and it's it's really interesting and I really appreciate you taking us on that journey and for all my listeners I would really recommend that they go to your your videos and your your website and everywhere where they can kind of watch watch what happens because it's really nice behind the scenes behind the curtain and look at what goes on and the grandeur of it all excuse me the the whole tie of space and and innovation and the things that go into all that process as you mentioned the crew dragon launched and they've since returned and first time in 11 years that we've had a crewed mission from the US where it's not from Russia or go to the ISS space station and where we're really getting back into not only the space race but the race for innovation and for technology and and bringing back some things that could really help not only the United States but our planet as a whole in a lot of ways to live better to live differently with this resilience here on earth some of the tools if you look at the old Apollo missions or the old space launch missions and even the current Russian missions that send those up to the ISS their control panels their instrumentation inside the cockpit is that of you know a decade two decades ago it's outdated it's old and then when we saw the crew crew dragon and there you know they have touchscreens well 12 buttons and touchscreen and that's it it's like the future is here finally we're we're getting up to and a lot of it it's automated even though they have the checklist there's so much that is really taken care of and has securities and redundancy to help them you probably have a lot more insights into that than I do I just know enough to be dangerous but but I also follow that in a lot of respects because I look at it from a different lens I look at it as a lens of sustainability a lens of resilience I look at it as we are all star stuff and star dust and and that these elements and the way we're made up as so I want to understand that I also want to know where we want to go into the into the future so I don't know if you have any insights that you could share with us on that and if not then I'm I'm going to lead you into another question let's go into that big question I'm really curious so I want to know what it is okay this this the next question is is the burning question WTF and that's not the swear word it's what's the future so right now the future we're living in is with gas masks social or face masks social distancing you know lockdown borders things like that black lives matter some unrest Beirut just happened we've got unrest and Belarus you know protests and new voting things what's the future yeah it's where my mind goes it's kind of like where you were saying your lens is really on seeing the overall environmental impact and our impact on ourselves and reusability and my lens is really is around education and the first thing that I'm thinking is is about how this is evolving the young minds of today and the adult minds of the future so as they're going to grow up because you know I think for younger students to sort of see like the problems we're facing today one with the health problems but then two with black lives matter the fact that that's going on when I mean I grew up in the melting pot of New York City and it was so immersed and integrated that to fathom that this is a problem in our system is just it's it's just so like it's just something that shouldn't even still be going on and I think for young kids to be processing that is probably just as intense because I'm hoping it's going to really start to shift their minds into saying we're going to make a difference one day and we're going to start to develop the systems now with this education with living through these moments to make sure that our kids aren't going to have that because right now I mean in the 60s is when the ripple effect started and now it shouldn't still be going on we know that it's still going on even before the black lives matter movement really became as as as virtually prominent as it is now we knew it was still going on and unfortunately there's a lot of people that didn't think it was still going on they're like well what do you mean there's problems yes there's always still been problems with school systems with looking at each other differently with payments with yeah like with payroll like that should not be something still happening and yet it is and I think that looking at it from an educational standpoint that's really where um I think the future is going to evolve with having students seeing how we're going to make this change I think right now what's unfortunate is starting in end of august and then beginning of september a lot of students are going to be going back to school and we'll either have to take turns so meaning they'll be going to school once every two weeks I believe that's what it is that's what my little sister is doing or when she's at school it's going to be like a minimum of maybe like four or five kids I think like in the classroom total or maybe 10 kids and you know just thinking about kind of the long-term effects of that just socially it's going to not be really too much of a good thing but what I'm hopeful about is that the innovation that's going to be developed during this time of either solitude or quarantine is going to be tremendous I think a lot of people because they're really reflecting on themselves and their lives and their abilities what they can contribute to the world I'm hoping a lot of innovation comes out of this because if we look at history a lot of big companies were developed out of times of of isolation even some of the greatest writers and thinkers of human history comes through moments like this and so what I'm always talking about with my friends when they're getting really bummed out about this I'm like take this time to really go within and I know that we've been kind of seeing this as sort of like desensitized on social media where they're like oh tired of going within like you just want to go drinking it's like no that's not the right way to look at it because like yeah we can still kind of do social distant meetups and everything right now but it's in those moments of not waiting for it all to be over to finally do the thing you're waiting to do it's to start doing the thing now and start planning for it whether it's getting a notebook and writing out the ideas so what I'm hoping for is through all of this the future we're going to start seeing a major like innovative shift and and I hope that for the US because we're banned from the rest of the world right now from traveling I hope this will actually wake up a lot of people to recognize that you know there is something beautiful about traveling the rest of the planet because there's so many people in the US that will just never leave but now that they can't leave maybe that'll actually reverse psychology with them and make them think maybe I should actually travel now once borders are open again and then they could experience that that's great yeah I'm a global citizen I'm actually from America as well but I live in Hamburg, Germany so I I found my niche my mother was German and my father's American and so I picked the place where I feel the most comfortable to live but I travel quite a bit so I hope those borders come down as well I want to unpack a couple other things whether you have comments or insights about those about what you touched upon so the big thing was education the big thing also was during time of a pandemic or pause or great depression or war there's all sorts of innovations and this humanity tends to rally together with positive ways to change has amazing abilities not necessarily bounce backs not the right word but to innovate and to come up with some solutions to get us into a much more resilient place or a different place for the future the world economic form is calling it the great reset and I truly know and believe that we cannot go back to business as usual and bailouts we need to have a great reset because our current civilization frameworks are not working for humanity to the two points that you talked about with education and innovation with education if you look at a school room even 10 years ago or even back in the 1930s the 1940s or 1950s not a lot has changed our school rooms our classrooms the way we instruct the way we do things is pretty much the same layout it's pretty much the same structure we have some new tools some new labs some new computer systems maybe a little bit more modern library but in general our schools especially for those and not so fortunate areas or private schools public schools hasn't improved much since those that my parents went to or even the ones that we went to and that is something that needs to get up to speed with our world you would never be okay with driving a car when Henry Ford first came off the automotive line the first Ford car or the first Cadillac or the first Volkswagen all those vehicles thank God for Tesla and thank God for people who can innovate and think about what the future of travel and mobility and how we should do it is because that would never fly we would never still be carrying around a landline or one of those big brick phones we evolve but why hasn't it evolved in school and education and so I believe that your form of educating students and people and I belong to the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network which does online graduate level MOOC courses I think that is a huge step in the right direction to presenting new ways of educating new ways of transporting important materials and facts that are real time that keep us up to speed with the big history and the big vision the cosmic perspective of our world and so that's another thing that ties in with space it's always we can't go to the space to space in a Buick or in a Ford Mustang we've got to go to space with the latest efficiencies technology resilience and computing power well why are we still stuck in the dark ages in the way we do education on earth and so that shift in consciousness or that paradigm shift in the way we do things we needed to learn a lesson from space and those who are on the space race or who are in that business to start applying those technologies and those innovations which you address today because they're out there zoom is not that great of a technology but it's surprising how zoom has come up to speed with all the other great businesses and performers during this pandemic because they had that platform available and ready to jump at the scenario but we need to start applying our technologies I don't know if you have something to say to that but I just want I want to make sure my listeners put those things into perspective because we're we're too comfortable allowing our children I have to say I'm a grandfather I have three grandchildren two granddaughters and a grandson and a granddaughter on the way in November yeah I have four adult children so I'm extremely concerned that the education system of today is not up to speed one of my daughters is actually an educator a teacher and a fabulous educator and she is still living on and operating and doing a lot of the old models we need to get up to speed I think it's important for humanity not just the U.S. but for the entire world and that's one of the United Nations sustainable development goals the reason I ask you this burning question is because we need to know what the plan is for the future so the crew demo and SpaceX that sent the Falcon and the Dragon often is currently continuing to launch and to send the Starlink broadband network satellites continually which is that's continuing to progress but that plan that mission has been in place for quite some time it just didn't happen yesterday they've been working on it for a long time and they've reached and met the milestones well over 10 years I think and you probably would know that more the same thing for that and for other technologies and education and that there has to be a plan in place and right now we are a global planet we are this symbiotic earth this one spaceship earth what is the plan for humanity what is the plan out there and that's why that's why I kind of ask you that question because it's important that we all know what it is so that we can achieve it and you might know that I'm a sustainable development goal advocate and I speak about the sustainable development goals because I believe that is the historical precedence the first time 197 countries came together and agreed upon anything let alone a global plan to save us and create a sustainable infrastructure for our entire world people don't know it's a historical precedence they don't know that it's a global moonshot it's the first ever world's global moonshot it's hard enough you're in New York so you've probably seen some things from the united nations that it's hard enough that two countries try to decide on where they're going to go to lunch let alone 197 decide on a roadmap for the future by 2030 and how we're going to get there and how it's going to be a better world than we're in today and help us to keep our planet capped at 1.5 degrees of warming in the Paris Agreement so that's a plan and something I talk about but where it also ties into space again which I want I want to kind of go back to what you said about innovation and education I come from a generation where my visions of the future were Star Trek were a 2001 Space Odyssey were Star Wars so they all had to do with sci-fi some kind of space but you also mentioned Black Lives Matters and some other things that tie nicely into that in Star Trek there was no smoking they had no currency they had the Trekonomics economy so there was no currency or form of monetary system yet they had a different type of economy where everybody was educated had technical jobs clear down to a bar person who serves drinks at a bar they had the technologies and innovations and when I watched that even though it was movie magic science fiction it was a whole other world of the future that was created and presented every single week and in that process when I watched that it inspired me and said boy I'd like to live in a world like that where there's interracial couples interplanetary different species all getting along together and new discoveries that there's new technologies like a 3D printer and a hollow room and and you know tricorders and whatever else the cool gadgets were all those today pretty much in one form or the other have come to fruition they've been realized through innovation because some engineer Steve Jobs or somebody saw that and was inspired and said yeah that's movie magic but I'm going to engineer that I'm going to make that happen in one way or another we've been able to realize that and so now now I'm coming to my point today and for the last couple decades we have not had any TV movie programs or series that I can speak of that show me what the future is going to be like in 2030 and 2050 that are not dystopian I don't I can't think of one that says boy that that's the future I want to live in because they're all very very mad max very fighting over resources yeah they're very dark and very dystopian and so with that education and with that innovation I think we need to help humanity and I like how you do it through you through your show and through what you do talking about space you present a beautiful vision of a different type of future and I think we need more media and content that presents those those visions I know you do some stuff with Tribeca film festival and some other things that is some media that not only children but humanity needs so they say wow I want to live in that green beautiful clean air oxygen future and I'm an engineer I'm an architect or I'm an educator I'm going to make sure that that we maybe do it with movie magic at first but I'm going to start working towards us achieving that and that's where this the goal of the sustainable developments the narrative about talking about and educating people so that we can start striving for it because right now if we were to strive on our current models or what we were to strive for what we're currently seeing it doesn't look good where we're going it looks very very dystopian there's only a few people like NASA and Tesla and some other great companies that are working on some good futures for a new societal structure a new way of living that I'm really hopeful of yeah it's really in the mindset you know like as as you're speaking and I'm really thinking about that it really defends so much of why I do what I do which is to shift that consciousness what I mean is really that mindset because if we're looking at films like this that are more destructive as versions of the future that if we go to space it's going to be a struggle it's going to cause this and it's going to be you know like if we are multi-planetary species there's going to be wars between the Martians the space bearers and the earthlings and if we look at it that way all we're doing is we're we're not becoming hopeful for the future we're really stagnating ourselves a really incredible school that I work with is called Dexter they're based in Wichita Falls in Texas and their system and their structure is all about the innovation of schools of tomorrow and really focusing on that evolution of bringing a different format of education to students and what you mentioned if you look inside a classroom and it's funny because you were actually saying the same thing that the CEO Michael Arthur Olia said in an interview that he did about a week ago about specifically the structure inside of a school and how to change that and how they're changing it and I've been doing virtual streams with them called Cosmic Playground where we do like hands-on activities learning about space we made Mars rovers and learning about a bunch of things and it's this interactive feature I mean this is again because of COVID but we're able to there's a chat going and I'm able to communicate with them and chat with them and bring them on the stream and we build things in real time and learn about this stuff and I had a class where there's these students that are only like 12 years old asking the biggest questions in modern day theoretical physics asking the biggest questions that Stephen Hawking is asking and working on these theories together students that are like 12 years old and it's extraordinary and it's because there it is within all of us it is within all of the youth and it's about being able to deliver that in the proper way and I really encourage you and everyone to check out this school dexter because the way that their structure is in the way that they really are are getting on the level of the students and realizing the brilliant potential that all students have within and learning to bring educators together the way that the way that they should be like you said like your daughter for instance and think about the amazing thing she's doing in the classroom but imagine being able to repeat that and being able to teach the technique that she uses to all these other instructors so that when she's ready to retire not teach anymore other instructors can do what she was able to do and I think that's what really comes with the infrastructure of planning the educational system of the future is being able to find a way to automate it but be able to take the things that work and then repeat it so that this happens in every classroom and it's tough right now with the structure that we have now just because of you know with with a lot of the teachers you know I mean they have everything all the jobs that they I mean they have to do they have to write the curriculum get the supplies grade all the tests and and they and then and then teach the class and the most time they're teaching multiple classes so it's it's quite a lot and my teachers are from when I was younger my biggest inspirations and champions because they were not only able to handle so much but also you know having their own kids as well and helping them with homework and imagine being able to structure in a way where you have the educators being able to strictly educate and then having the assignments be graded in a different way or creating assignments that are fun you know most of the time kids hear the word assignment they're like oh no no but now when I do my streams with kids I'm like yeah like go ahead and like make your thing and they're like I'm totally going to do this task and they're so excited because because it's it's conveyed in an exciting way and because they think they could do it most of the time if they don't think they can do it then that's when there's a fear so it's been yeah it's been extraordinary working with with this platform virtually and it's just so awesome and I think that really is the future of the school system I believe we're going to be seeing many many more things from you that your journey is actually just beginning that I hope you remember little old mark when I when I call you in a year or two and try to get another podcast or a discussion with me when you're this famous superstar educating our world because I really believe that the way you do is it's very contagious it'll spread and it's enjoyable to watch you is there anything that you can maybe give us some inside views or tips what to expect from the compound Athena what's coming well we can look forward to some things your your are the the the shuttle shuttle Athena I'm not sure what the right term is the the space lab Athena maybe I love I love all of these these terms that you're you're coining I think they're all super awesome right now my main thing is I I love connecting people as I've we've already discussed in the beginning of our zoom session and I want to be able to build that on a much bigger scale where there's so many people I've just had the pleasure of meeting over the years just in the space industry and so on my website I'm building a new feature where I'll be able to connect people around the world to one another within the space community so that I'm hopefully going to be really seeing quite soon to the public I definitely want it to be very interactive and fun and educational especially now that we're all virtual I think it can be quite lonely our planet and I think that finding ways to find your own company your cosmic company is a way to do it and so that's definitely something coming soon and yeah continuing with making some like exciting awesome content just around like new space discoveries that's definitely yeah something I hopefully I mean I think it's going to be tough to travel so I won't be able to really go to any launches my plan this year was to actually go to every single launch but certainly being able to yeah just cover them as much as I can for those who maybe have no idea that they're going on and tie that in with with the fashion industry so but the main thing is that new feature on astraathens.com I'm really excited I've created a newsletter that I'm calling the Astra Athens Transmission very star-trekkie I love it yeah and it has like a whole bunch of astronomy history per month so this day in astronomy history as well as upcoming launches or meteor showers or discoveries that were made things you can do to go outside and check out either an astronomy or streams to catch that are from NASA or SpaceX so I've just started doing that it's been really fun actually so I'm hoping to make it a little bit more interactive in some way but that's that's really the main thing right now I have one last request or type of question for you if you could depart a message or an empowering takeaway sustainable takeaway for our listener something that they could implement that would make their lives better a word of wisdom or your message that you say you've got to know this you've got to hear this this is going to help you what would that be could I get you to depart something like that to our listeners and say dang I didn't know that or boy that was great wisdom that's really going to help me and I'm going to I'm going to check out her website I'm going to check out her Twitter I'm going to check out her Instagram I'm going to check out her videos because that's what I need I'm going to share an affirmation that I actually have written on my wall right behind my computer right now that actually just wrote out two days ago says today I embrace my potential to be do and have whatever I can dream and I drew a shooting star underneath it because you know potential is one thing but then to be able to really believe that you can pursue that into creating your actual dream that's when we really can start to make a big difference in our lives and everyone on this planet and everyone in the universe and I think that the shooting star it traveled light years throughout interstellar space breaking apart through our atmosphere really is actually just the meteor but space rock and breaks apart and then as it comes down starts to disintegrate and then that's when we see that streak and we only see it for a quick moment but I think that that since it's traveled so many thousands of miles to arrive here on earth we should recognize as us being very special that we've overcome so many so many obstacles and evolution to be able to be and live in these extraordinary bodies that we have and that we have life and that we can actually consciously witness life and the universe around us so I think we have every reason to to do whatever we can dream I agree I believe that your path and we won't have time to go into it but I believe your path up until now has been one of exponential functions so it's gone wild and crazy with a lot of success and I know it's going to continue and really get into that hyper drive on success I know that you're going to do very well I want to kind of depart my thank you to you and also something that is in alignment with your your affirmation and your vision and I say it and talk about it a lot and not only the sustainable development goals but also when I talk I'm a big food reformist and talk about food and how it can fix and save our planet but I speak a lot about how we can make our planet better how we can draw down our climate crisis and global warming and kind of create these resilient desirable futures to live in the top way is global food reform but the second and third way is empowering women and empowering girls that's also one of the sustainable development goals gender equality I strongly know and believe that everybody needs to and be empowered and have that but I know that gender inequality especially for women and girls has something that is really messed up in our world and needs to be fixed I believe that you are a powerful woman and you can empower many women and girls with your wisdom and your knowledge and your education and that's where you'll have the biggest impact of making an innovation and an impact for purpose at bettering our world that just would like to thank you for that what you do but also encourage you to keep going and do it exponentially and touch as many women and girls as you can to join in astrophysics and astronomy and space and to the betterment of our world and future especially around the education you do and I thank you very much for your time and lest you have some other wisdom you want to depart this is it and I thank you for your time on the show and the podcast Athena it's been a sheer pleasure thank you so much Mark and just one thing is always breathe through the nose don't be a mouth breather there's a lot of research about your breath and how important it is for everything so I just wanted to share that absolutely true thank you so much Mark this was awesome thank you take care bye thank you