 Good afternoon everybody. My name is Andrew Ross Sorkin of CNBC in the New York Times and it is a privilege for me to be with everybody here. This is going to be I have to say a very special panel. I swear to you there's I don't actually think there's anything like what's about to happen here. I've been coming to Davos I think coming on 15 years and I don't think we've ever had a conversation about space like this nor what you may see in about a half an hour depending on the great technology we can always hope. We're going to have a conversation about space and what is happening. It feels like there is so much changing and shifting investments being made but also larger governance questions about space that are being raised as this entire space to use the pun if you will is shifting and growing in so many ways. Let me tell you who is with us right now. Joseph Oscar is the director general European Space Agency and he's going to be helping us with a little bit of technical help in just a moment. Sylvia Macario is the geospatial engineer Cagali hub in Rwanda and William Marshall is here. He's the co-founder and chief executive officer of Planet Labs. And as I said to you what's going to make this amazing. We're going to be going to space all together in just a little bit and we're going to have a conversation with Samantha Christopher ready. She is an astronaut with the European Space Agency. She is up in space and we're going to have a link with her in just a bit to discuss her own experience and what is going on. And boy does she have a lot to say about what is going on. Here's what I want to start this though and I'm going to start with Will at the end if you could just set the table for us because I think we're all trying to understand and we see lots of headlines about Elon Musk doing this and Jeff Bezos doing this and the Europeans doing this and the Russians doing this. How do you see it. What's the opportunity but also where are the fault lines right now. Yeah great question. I mean I think there is a space renaissance going on is an exciting time for space no doubt. We are seeing we use rockets we're seeing space tourism we're seeing missions to the moon and Mars even private missions to the moon. But I would say that behind the scenes there's a couple of things that are driving that one is lower cost rockets and therefore reduced access costs of accessing space. We've seen rocket costs come down about five X over the last five to 10 years. And then what we're also seeing is the increasing cost performance of satellites. We've seen those change for about a thousand X over the last five to 10 years same period. And so it's a bit like the main frame to desktop computer time frame for space. And it's bringing out radical new capabilities just like that time in computer industry or new capabilities. The real upshot which I think is the sort of behind the scenes what's going on. The upshot of that is actually a is nothing to do with rockets or satellites or the moon or Mars. It's actually to do with data and AI and the earth economy and and how we're helping both sustainability with massive new data sets because we were producing 10 times more imagery and information about the earth surface. Our own company has 200 satellites we image the whole earth every day is brand new sort of data set. There's other companies doing other things like that. So we have brand new data sets to help us to take care of planet Earth and we have more communication bandwidth to send information around the planet and all of this amounts to ways in which we can help us to take care of the sustainability of the planet and help take care of situations like in Ukraine right now where we're shedding light and bringing about global transparency and accountability to the problems. The old you were saying there's a couple facing us. We have space debris our environment challenge in in space and just like the environment on the earth the sooner you nip it in the bud the better and we have tools to do that. But there's some challenges of governance there and also ownership. There's a lot of competition going to take place on the moon even though the moon is quite big. It's the size of the African continent. The areas of interest are in the poles where there's all the water for example and so everyone's going to want to go there and the peaks of eternal light where all the power resources are and so everyone's going to be zooming in some areas. But we haven't really sorted out who can own what and and how do people have property rights if at all in space. And so we've got very basic rules but we need more established rules going into more more details on that. So there's just a couple of the problems that can be faced in the space community. OK. I want to have a debate about that in just a moment. So I want to ask you this for those who are listening to us now and who say to themselves why are we spending all this money out there when we should be spending money here. You tell them what. Right. Thank you so much. First of all I wanted to make a little correction. I'm a global chef from the Kigali hub. Yes. And I'm a geospatial engineer and space technologist and so the importance of space as well as highlighted is very fundamental. We are using space technology every day every single day. The thing is we need to do more awareness as space technologists or space engineers or engineers and scientists working in space. When you came here or when you're trying to find a place to to go eat during your doubles event you used Google Maps. That is due to space technology. You are probably using when you use the shuttles. These walkie talkies being used in the shuttles that is due to space technology. So once we start creating that awareness on the importance of space technology and how it can be used to track disease to help monitor the environment then we will pull all the public to understand and go with us that space technology is indeed important for the general population and it's not for just a few billionaires. You mentioned a few a few billionaires and let me ask you this. There's been a debate about the privatization of space and given the public piece of this that you represent. How do you see this public private either partnership but also debate about who should own so much of space. I mean there's a huge debate as you say between the private and public. But let me just say one one more word what we were saying and I really like your statement of space needs to be made for people because it has to help people. And there are many tools that are really helping people in all countries across the globe. I mean we have climate research agriculture in case of natural disasters. There's a lot of information that comes every single day to people in need. Ukraine is a very good example where people really rely on the information in order to do what needs to be done. But coming back to Andrew what you say about public and private. Yes I am from the public side but I'm a big fan of commercialization. When I became DG about a year ago I put priorities a strategy on the table of what we should do in Europe. I'm in charge of the European Space Agency in Europe. What we should do in order to really foster and develop the commercial sector. And there's a lot to be done. Of course I have been inspired by Silicon Valley and the companies there. In fact I was visiting Will's company some time ago and many others SpaceX Google and many others. What I do come from from that trip where I took my most critical managers with me because I had to convince them that we have to change gear in Europe is that in order to succeed you need actually do three things. Number one you need talented people who are driven by by an idea who have the energy to do it and just ready to go for it. You need access to money. Of course this is always useful and here in Davos of course a very hot debate but also you need to be fast and dynamic and really respond to it quickly. And I think we can do that. So in Europe we're building up this new commercialization and what very few people I think realize is that even the big companies they call and mask us as the as a good example of SpaceX. SpaceX has been built together with NASA and he's very grateful to NASA. And as he also said publicly because NASA has been providing a lot of expertise engineering and technical expertise but also funding to build up the Falcon rocket as you know about four billion U.S. dollars have been put in from public money to build up the SpaceX the Falcon rocket. I think that's also model I would like to adopt in Europe to make sure that public investment is fostering new companies small and big in order to really have a very vibrant commercial landscape which we need to have. Let's talk about property rights if we could because it's a fascinating issue here on Earth for a very long time. If you got there first it was yours. That's how we did it. And so the question is how you see this playing out in space. Who shows up on Mars first. Is it Elon's. For example if Elon gets there first does he get to keep it. Does Jeff Bezos get the moon if he wants if he gets there. If you know how how is this support honestly. How is this supposed to work and do you imagine that there is going to be wars waged in space over property. I mean this is certainly a discussion we have and there is there's very limited rules today in place to regulate what happens on the moon. Let's assume somebody goes there is putting up a big factory for for example getting resources from the moon. There are quite a few which we expect to be. And very right question. If you put there your tools and your your caterpillars or whatever you have. Can you stay there. And what happens if somebody next door wants exactly the same access to these resources. Actually this is not settled today. There is a moon treaty but not signed up by some important countries. There's an Artemis core which is also on the table again not signed up by everyone. So it is. There are some initiatives and there's a lot of discussion. But to be frank with you it is not properly regulated. What do you think. Well if I just add yeah I mean I think this needs to be resolved for clarity for economic development as well. And for human interest because it shouldn't be just the first first concert first serve while West sort of scenario. That's not going to be good for humanity. But I would say that there is a you know the outer space treaty does say that countries and it implies because of the way international law work companies cannot own the moon. Although there are companies right now that are talking about going there and landing on the South Pole the moon and claiming ownership of parts of the moon. They can't actually do that. But as Yosef is saying when you get into the details they can land there but can they if they extract resources is that then there's what if somebody lands next to them. If it's close proximity there's all these details which you know if you stack up the law of the land it's like yay hi the law of the sea it's yay hi the law of the air it's yay hi and the law of space it's like this. You know we've got five treaties and we're just at the very beginning and it needs to be a collaborative venture between all the different actors current and future to take into account the needs of everyone. Is that a pride Sylvia and just everyone can jump into this. Is that a private public partnership that we're talking about. Do you think that that is nation states that have to effectively create those rules. Just and just to read you where there's a report back in January that NATO put together a policy. NATO will consider an attack against a member country's assets in space as an assault on the alliance and such actions could lead to a coordinated armed response from all members if necessary and that attack of course would be on earth. So this is this is a fascinating sort of development to sort of think about what this could potentially mean. So during the advent of space we had very few nations trying to come up with legislations on how to access space that put limitation to other countries trying to access space and it is what it is to up to today and more countries are trying to get into space. We obviously have the international communication union which is charged with spectrum allocation to offer opportunities for countries to launch satellites to space. But we are progressively working towards that. But I want to put a different perspective on what we talk about in terms of colonization of space. It gives a really bad vibe in terms of coming from a country in the African continent where colonialism actually really decimated opportunity and potential. When you think about Mars we think as scientists and everybody else looking into Mars we think that there are no beings in Mars. But what if there are beings in Mars and we are talking about colonization of Mars when potentially there could be beings who are actually surviving off of Mars. So changing that narrative is really incredibly important and that's why we need all nations on board on the table trying to create legislation that works for everyone and not just a few countries. Speak to it because this is your this is your business. And and do you think you can get all the countries in the world around the table and are there going to be countries that are going to try to splinter off in the same way we're having conversations about globalization. And we're talking about deglobalization. I mean this is a big challenge and you absolutely right. And I think this is maybe from a legislative point of view the biggest challenge we are facing of course technology is the one we are dealing with every day and building the rockets and building the spacecraft to make it possible. But equally challenging is really the rules of engagement and the rules of behavior there. We have a forum that does that. The United Nations Office about the space affairs is the the entity and the corpus is the body that is dealing with international legislation related to space. However to be very very clear it is a very slow machinery. And it is something that needs a lot of time to really form this consensus. And I think this is something that that we see. But there is no other body. There is not any anyone else that can regulate. But let me come to something you you mentioned earlier which is space debris where we have a real life situation today. The moon is still a bit further away and until the moon is getting used for resources. There are still a couple of years to come. But in space in orbits space debris is an issue today because we we have millions of particles of the size of a centimeter flying around to track them to know whether they hit the space station. And in fact one of my employees Samantha Christopheretti with whom we are talking a couple of minutes is out there. And I'm worried about her because she is in danger of space debris. And this comes from ASAPS as they're called anti satellite tests which are creating new clouds of space debris. We had the most recent one in just in fall last year 15,000 new particles coming there. And another astronaut Matthias Maurer who was up there at this point he had to go into the vehicle. The Orion space capsule to take shelter together with the astronauts because they're safer than the space station itself. And this is a problem. This is a problem for astronauts but also satellites up there. What is the solution. What's the solution. There are two types of solutions. One of course is the more I would say formal way of dealing with it through space traffic management and we are putting programs to get to do that. So first of all to know where space debris is and then to have rules of engagement how to behave like traffic rules on the on the surface or rules for aviation. And the same is being discussed in space. But there's also the very practical aspect which is those who are having satellites just call each other. I mean there is of course not the red phone but this is all very automated but call each other and say look your satellite is colliding or is about to collide with mine. We need to do what we call an orbit avoidance or collision avoidance maneuver. So one needs to go up the other one goes down and then they avoid each other. And this is happening on a routine basis through the various operators of the satellite. So they're practically those people or those operators and owners of satellites are work very well together. Well can I ask you this is a broader question. But it's about what I would call the good guys and the bad guys which is your company right now is working with the Pentagon to track Russian troops from up in the sky. Can you explain how that works. Yeah. But also this is the good guy bad. It's being used I would argue because I think of you as one of the good guys. But I can also see how this type of technology could be used by one of the bad guys. And how we are all supposed to think about that. Well let me just explain in the context of Ukraine because I think that's really illustrative. I mean firstly when we started planet the primary goal is about helping us understand and take care of the planet like monitoring deforestation and ice caps and and helping businesses like agriculture and all these things that can benefit from this sort of data. The same rules apply that it's the same theory of change which is that you can't manage what you don't measure. And so we're having data on a faster timescale that help us to manage all these problems. This is bringing accountability on the sustainability side. It's the same on the security side. We are imaging all of Ukraine every day like we're imaging every other place on the planet every day. And you know you can't get away with large scale troop buildups without everyone noticing. We help provide that to entities in defense of Ukrainian sovereignty right now. We also provide it to humanitarian organizations that are trying to bring reliefs effort. So medical suppliers to people in Ukraine take care of refugees displaced people within Ukraine. There's seven million people displaced within Ukraine. And finally we're trying to where appropriate show that to the news media. A lot of the when you see images on the front page of the New York Times your your outlet has had our imagery on a few times in the last month where we've been showing the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure in in Marriott poll for example. And in each case it's cooling out what Putin was saying is doing the opposite. You know with drawing troops. Oh well we see them building a bridge over here exactly in the opposite. We're not hitting civilian targets. We point that out. And everyone gets to see this through putting it online and putting in the hands of journalists to expose that to the world. I think that's playing a significant part in cohering the West. There's no longer debate. You know this is and it brings everyone closer to what's going on. We get to see it in real time. Everyone gets to see it not just the CIA and the KGB. Everyone gets to see it. And that's I think a lot of why Switzerland has become less neutral. Sweden and Finland are talking about joining NATO. Germany is is increasing its military budget and so on. And it's and the coherence of the West in response to Ukraine is because everyone's on the same page about exactly what's going on. What Putin is doing and what it can be used for bad purposes. I mean I worry about being used for for targeting civilians for example. But it's extremely hard to do that actually. And what it's generally useful for is wide scale scanning for and and the more people that access that data the better. So we have a non-exclusivity principle. So we will never give an image to one person that we won't sell to others. And that ensures that in any conflict there's multiple eyes. Is the New York Times gets to look at it. The U.N. gets to look at it. The Ukrainians get to look at it. And then and then that's going to serve everyone better because it's when there's misinformation and when there's a lack of information that there's miscalculation in wars. If you go back to the Cold War it was when the U.S. put missiles in Turkey and the Russians didn't know that it almost got hot or when the Russians put missiles in Cuba. And the U.S. didn't know that things almost got hot. When people knew about each other's activity it was better. We are bringing helping to bring transparency to the whole world to everyone instead of just the two superpowers as was then. And I think that that generally enhances peace and security. So what do you think about competition in space. I think we need to redefine capitalism. That's that has been my discussion with my task. But when you have will here he will say that that we shouldn't do that. But for me I would totally agree with it. Redefine capitalism. Absolutely. OK. Let's finish. What do you mean. Hold on. Let's go. No I mean the whole idea of space technology and the amount of capital needed to accelerate space technology is very intense. It's very massive. And that's why we need collaborative efforts across countries or across nations if you will. And bringing along individuals while working in different sectors to understand the value that space brings to us from the point of solving climate change for example. But then these discussions are not happening with the right people. We are constantly the same people over and over in the same rooms. How can we advance this conversation to ensure that the right people are in the room and the right people here. I don't mean just white and male only. We need women in the table. We need young youth leaders on the table who understand issues in their communities and how space technology can actually solve that. If we have that and working with frameworks that actually makes sense then maybe we can redefine capitalism. But is your sense. I guess the question is is the capitalistic incentive structure the right structure for the new frontier. If you will. I don't know the answer to that question but can I just touch on this that I think it's super important. The whole of humanity has to redefine capitalism to take into account the natural capital. We have to every company has to measure its ESG targets. Every country must measure its emissions and we need to put that into the capital system otherwise we're going to screw up this planet. I mean we're on the course for that. Also to your point about what's right in the long term. I mean I think there's there is a good idea to think about new forms of capitalism. We went public just last year and we did so as a public benefit corporation and that actually writes in the mission of our company into the chart of the organization. Now the board of directors have a fiduciary duty to look at the mission which basically use space to help humanity basically is the mission of our company. And now they have a fiduciary duty to execute against that. And I think that's fantastic because this isn't just about dollars and cents. This is about building long term prosperity. And I think if we address big long term challenges that the world faces from climate change to security we will create real value. And that's the right thing. I think there's a trillion dollar economy around space in the next few years. But we should do it in the right way. Just not just I think space or especially earth observation is a tool or space in general but earth observation in particular is a tool which really can help people all over the globe because it's not stationed somewhere over a certain point because satellites do fly around and information which is gained is actually helping everywhere. I mean let's start with climate change. We would not know the massive for impacts of climate change if we wouldn't have satellites. So we only know what we know because we have this information. The other question of course is are we doing something about it. We're doing enough. But the information is there and we get them through this means. The other part. And I think that's extremely important that I really like your bit provocative statement Sylvia. I think we have to more much more massively use this data for Africa for other parts of the world and not only by white males as you as you call it. I think this is absolutely important and we'd have huge programs. We work with the World Bank. We work with Africa. Myself I was initiating programs in 2002 after the World Summit of Development in Johannesburg as we just said before this meeting here to really use space for sustainable development. The SDGs are using data from space. There's plenty of it. But you're right. We have to make sure this goes down to the people and into the hands of people and not just in some communities. I think there's a challenge and that we need to work more. I want to pivot the conversation in just a moment. But I do want to mention to the Web folks who were with us if you could get the countdown clock rolling because I do know that we are waiting for the space station to get into exactly where we need them so that we can we can actually make the connection which we're going to do. But I know that that countdown clock needs to needs to begin for us. I hope in just a moment. Here's where I want to go with you though politically. And it's actually kind of interesting because we're going to talk to Samantha in just a bit. There's a Russian astronaut up there too. Two of them. And how you think about the collaboration between certain countries that have by the way enormous background and expertise in space and what it means in the future given what's happening on the ground here about what that means in terms of future endeavors. I mean this Andrew has been my headache of the last couple of months and weeks to deal with the geopolitical situation and what does it mean for space. So let me just maybe in one or two sentences say what what happened after the 24th of February I immediately had to make decisions whether or not to launch X or Mars rover to Mars with Russia which was built up for 15 years. Of course within a split second after consulting my member states the decision was made that we suspend this cooperation and we do not launch with Russia. Of course this poses a huge problem now to me because we have a rover ready to be launched. It was about to be shipped to Baikonur and of course we could not which now we need to disentangle at least those components that that are Russian components and replace them with European ones or possibly from some other partners. So this is a huge thing we we had to do and we are doing right now in order to really disentangle the economy just as we do it in gas or in energy other energy oil gas and other domains where we have built up dependencies based on decisions by politicians at top level 20 30 years ago that we should work together and now suddenly we can't anymore. In space just here there's a 10 we got we got the 10 minute we just got the 10 minute countdown and now the clock is up so we're getting ready. So talking of the space station since we just heard the countdown is coming. Yes there we have Russian astronauts or cosmonauts up there together with our astronauts and US astronauts and they need to work together because if they don't there's a problem for them up there and for us down here. So there we have really no choice than other than to to work together make it work under and make sure that the space station is safe first and foremost and the people up there are safe. I can't say that it works on a routine basis because they just go about their job there's a huge program or for work they have every single day. They know they have to do this experiment to repair the station here to replace a piece of equipment or electronics somewhere else and they just do it regardless of nationality or color or whatever. This is it's important. But it's it's the way the astronauts are trained because they are really trained just to make sure everything is going well and it's going that situation now given that they're up there. But how's this going to change in the future. How does it change. Many of you have seen some of the announcements on Twitter space or other news outlets that there is that they might pull the plug and therefore not any more work together on the space station. It's not that easy to start with because you need both units to basically work safely together. Secondly I can say that despite the rhetoric which you've all seen it does work. It does work on a routine basis for whatever needs to be done. So I'm confident in very in everyone's self interest that the space station is safe and that the safety of astronauts and people is the top priority. And we continue doing that. And we're doing this in the daily program. You will hear it in a few minutes from Samantha. She is going about her business. Well I was going to come in that I want to say something slightly controversial that you know right now here and now of course we're we're we're in a tense situation with Russia. But one of the amazing things about the International Space Station is that it's continued to work to become hell or high water on the earth as a symbol of cooperation. Now it's a very difficult one obviously in this circumstance. But the Apollo Soyuz project was the first cooperation between Russia and the Soviet and the US during the height of the Cold War. It was the first place where they cooperated and then they agreed together to then build the International Space Station with the Europeans the Canadians the Japanese and others. And I actually think it's hopeful that we have a place which is a little bit above beyond the politics and that we go look long time we need to cooperate we need to be able to do that. I am hopeful that we will continue to keep space as a cooperative place including all players. There's tension right now about the Chinese and the US. For example I would love to see the Chinese and the US work together on the space station or a moon base it's probably the most natural thing because I think that could be a symbol of cooperation to bring things together. We can't completely decouple the discussions of decoupling the economies it's impossible and technology it's impossible the scientific community it's impossible. There's certain areas we must but there's certain areas where we must cooperate as well and I hope that it remains that theatre of cooperation as well. Let me take another example and of course the space station is a very visible one but the the other area where we need to work together we have no choice is down on planet earth for the future of our planet. Climate change climate change still exists despite geopolitical tensions maybe it may even be intensified. Climate change needs to be tackled by every single one. That means the information from all the countries from Europe from the US from Russia from China and everyone else. We need to work together to care for our planet and there we literally have no choice. How do you think about how some of the wealthier countries think about space relative to some of the more developing countries think about space. As I earlier mentioned it's it's it's normally a fundamental issue on the legislation and patenting and the research that comes off of space that impacts health or the health sector or the just general the internet in general and everything that is due to space. At the end of it all we are looking at countries that have resources are able to put this technologies in space and these technologies are able to help their people on the ground. Right. And incidentally you find that African countries have to pay huge amounts of dollars to access imageries and and to use this to either cooperate on food security or just disaster risk management in the monitoring of the environment in the African continent. But then at the same time the issue becomes to what extent to what end do we get to a point where spec spectrum allocation is available for various countries or the charity or the way maybe we'll launch as a satellite to space and then we have more than a hundred countries. We don't have a hundred countries. More than 50 countries trying to share on the on board on board of the satellite to launch this to get space to do research in their in their own way. But then that incentive has to come from various nation cooperating and being able to do that. Sylvia is saying access to data is crucial and just a minute and a half. Access to data is crucial and the Copernicus program which we have developed in Europe is providing free data to everyone at any place of the world. And this is something I've been fighting for more than 10 years ago now. And I'm very happy to say that these data which we do provide are for free to everyone. Of course you need an internet access. This is clear somehow accessing the data and we have been doing that. But this data we provide for free. And I think this is fundamental because as you say correctly this should not be a privilege of some white people somewhere in a rich country in other in other words but really for for everyone. And we have huge projects where we help people to get access to it through low end with technology. We're connected to space in 30 seconds. What do you want to say. I only want to say it's been democratized. It's the crisis are coming down exactly. So I think that countries in Africa can leap forward and come into the utilizing the value of this new data set where the free data sets are much reduced. We're getting the countdown five. No. We're not launching into space. We're getting very close. He actually has a GPS of where the station is the station is right now. And I believe that you can see right there. We're there. This is Houston. So what do we see. Are you ready for that. There's a fusion. Yes we are. This is you. This is this station. I'm ready for the event. You're being straight agency and participant. This is mission control Houston. Please call station for a voice check. This is ESA calling station. Are you ready for the call. Is this a station I'm ready for the event. Welcome aboard the International Space Station. So hello Samantha. Very nice to see you. We just met about a month ago when you were launched into space one day after your birthday which was a very special moment. Very happy to see you up there. You look very good and very good shape. And I see you all smiles. I'm calling here from Davos from the World Economic Forum and this is a very special event down here on earth. But you will tell us in a minute how it is up there in space. So I'm handing over to Andrew. Andrew is the moderator of this session and he will now moderate this part. Hi Samantha. It's great to see you. I know there's a little bit of a delay so I'm going to give it a little bit of time between between questions. We've been having a conversation down here on earth about actually a lot of things that are happening on earth as it happens. And I wanted to understand from your perspective in terms of your space exploration and your own research how important the future cooperation is between Russia and all of the various what we might describe as space economies are right now. Yes. Hello. Well first of all I'm very happy to be here to hear the voice of our director general and I'm very happy about this conversation we are about to have with you Andrew. And to answer your question with the short answer is it's it's quite important I would say I think that the International Space Station where I have the pleasure and the privilege of being right now is a testament to international cooperation and certainly Russia is an important partner in in this endeavor. But just in you know and the space station just to clarify is really an integrated facility where components of provided by different countries and different agencies are integrated together and really can function only as a whole in that include the Russian segment the U.S. segment and also this piece of Europe here in space which is the Columbus laboratory. So but in general space exploration is indeed I think an area of human endeavors in which international cooperation has proven key to achieve success and the ISS is really a testament to that. Maybe this is going to be a personal question but there are Russian cosmonauts on board with you. How is it working with them. Do you discuss what's happening in Ukraine and what's happening on the ground. You know I think that on a on a personal level we are we you know we are all sedent and devastated by the events ongoing in the current conflict and that's a fact but at the same time in terms of our relationships here on board. I think what prevails and and informs our relations and our work together on a daily basis is on a personal level our personal friendship to our colleagues whom we have known for quite quite a long time. And on a professional level our common commitment to the success of the mission and to continuing of the amazing work of science and technological advancement that we perform on a daily basis here on the International Space Station which again is a product of integrated work of many international partners. I was going to ask you given the challenges that we're clearly facing about inequality and climate change and we talked about that a little bit down here before we got to you. Can you tell everybody about the purpose of your mission and how how you would tell everybody on earth how you think it's going to ultimately help resolve some of these issues. Yeah I think that global big challenges like obviously climate change and inequality have our best faced when societies have at their disposals powerful tools and those tools are knowledge, technologies and general you know strong economies. And so I think that there's two ways of answering your questions. I mean of course I could go and go off and tell you about all the space based all the space based assets that monitor the earth on a daily basis. And some appear by the some of those are free flying satellites but some of those are here installed on the external platforms of the international space station because they benefit from the fact that they have this platform and not the power that is available and you know the data transfer. And so and you know and that it was possible to install them here. So I could go off and tell you that but I think that one should also have a more holistic perspective and understand that space is really part of our lives of our technological development of our scientific advancements. Ultimately ultimately of our you know economic resources and the technological and scientific resources that we overall have at our disposal to tackle challenges especially like like climate change. So as we develop space capabilities and the space economy that becomes a multiplier of all the technological tools that we have at our disposals to tackle climate change and you know all the great challenges that face humanity. What do you think you know we are in this this new era of space exploration and there are billions of dollars pouring into it in from the private sector. What do you think of that. And what do you think of what the private companies can and will do up there. Yeah I think that that is a very exciting and positive development. I think that a cooperation between the private and the public sector is going to bring us a lot of benefits. I think that the private sector when it comes in it probably brings an agility and ability to innovate you know competition that the power of the market economy when it's brought upon the space business is that it's bound to you know be partially disrupted but certainly help develop it make it more resilient make it more affordable from an economic point of view. So that again as I mentioned earlier of the space capabilities can really be leveraged from many diverse industrial societal economic sectors and you know space is not this thing out there and doing things on its own but it's integrated in the web of society and economy. So this is I think the benefit that bringing in a lot of commercial actors will bring. You know the as I mentioned earlier I'm here in Columbus the European Laboratory and Board externally to Columbus. We have an external platform which is an example of this public private partnership which is Columbus in the rack right next to me. There is another example which is the ice cubes research facilities. So you know also in Europe there is you know some of that private public partnership already ongoing and we're certainly striving to get that more and more. I want to turn the interview personal for a second. This is your second time up there. I've never by the way interviewed an astronaut in space before. So I want to know what it's been like and what's it like the second time. You know there's always conversations here about coming to Davos your first time and what's like the second time. What's it like the second time up there is a different. Have you did you bring different things with you. Are you getting better sleep. What is it. Just tell us about what the experience is like. The second time is very different. Not worse or better but different. I would say that the first time I came to space station as a rookie. It was quite overwhelming. You know all the way from from launch. It was this influx of new experiences new physical sensations new skills that I had to learn you know like like floating and in zero G and handling this rather complex environment of space station and handling the work up there or up here. And I think if I looked back at those especially those first days and weeks it was all a little bit of a blur. I didn't have very clear memories. And so I was really looking forward to come up here a second time as a veteran astronaut this time and have a little bit more of both cognitive and emotional buffer to experience this a little bit more in slow motion. And it's definitely been the case. I mean you know that I didn't have to learn everything from scratch. It came it came back to me fairly quickly like riding a bicycle I guess. And so I had that space in you know in my heart and in my mind to observe the experience and really take note of details and and hopefully also remember it better for for the future. What's the most exciting thing you're working on up there right now. Well this weekend we had quite an excited event. We actually had a brand new space vehicle. It's called a Starliner that sort of prototype the demonstration flight occurred this weekend. So the vehicle came knocking at our door in the night between Friday and Saturday I believe. And we had a pretty intense short docked mission in which it demonstrated in a number of capabilities. And then we closed the hatch last night and it will undock. And of course we are we are all confident that we will safely land to earth shortly after that. But yeah other than that I mean that there's always a lot of science on board is always difficult to pick a favorite. But I will let just see me to choose for me like what you may become glancing in the camera that I'm not supposed to touch but I set up yesterday is a facility to demonstrate telerobotic operations. So once we are ready to do the the demonstration operations I will actually use this. It's like a haptic controller. So I will hold it in my hand and kind of move my hand. But actually on the ground I will be moving remotely the hand of a robot to perform his tasks remotely. So that that's pretty exciting. That's stuff that is is going to be useful for future surface explorations of Moon and hopefully one day of Mars. And I don't know if this audience knows this and this is so cool. I think she has been a great champion of women and space engineers. And Mattel the toy maker has made and commissioned a Barbie doll of Samantha. And I just thought maybe you could tell us about that. How it came about. I don't know if you have one up there with you. But it sounds like a fact. How did that happen. Yeah. They have this campaign which I believe is like the dream gap campaign. And the idea is to provide young girls that really you know especially starting at a young age like preschool age with role models so that you know they don't they keep dreaming big. They do not start to think already like in preschool age that some professions are maybe not suitable for them. Some career path. Some you know some disciplines that they can study in college for example are not suited for them. That's what we want to prevent. You know what I encourage women to you know to to to consider STEM careers or considered working in the space sector. I don't necessarily have an end state in mind because I mean it depends in the end on individual choices on individual freedom which for me is sacred. But what I I hope to help accomplish is that you know young you know girls and women feel that freedom. They you know they they they make those choices knowing that they are free to choose from you know the full palette of of human enterprises. Samantha you're an inspiration. We are I'm super grateful to have this conversation with you. We want to thank you for joining the World Economic Forum in Davos from space. I hope we get to do this again and talk to you very very soon. Maybe we'll we'll call into a zoom together at some point. What time is it there for you. Do you have to go to bed. I don't know I don't know if it's the morning or night. It's about 10 to three so we should just be a couple of hours behind. So it's it's been such a pleasure talking to you Andrew and to you the G and to everybody in Davos. I thank you for your interest and for visiting me up here on the International Space Station. Thank you so much. That was fun. How often do you get to talk to her. Actually I talked to her soon after she arrived at the space station because there were two astronauts of visa there one from Germany and Samantha from Italy. And we had a connection with the leaders of space in those countries and myself which was about two and a half weeks ago three weeks ago. So I do have these conversations. I would say we three weeks to the three weeks. It's always fun. It's always but the best one I had and this was completely unexpected. It was on my birthday. I got a phone call from space by my astronaut up there. I was the best kid and I don't know how he knew but he called me and said Joseph this is your astronaut calling from space. Happy birthday. And this was fantastic. Are you guys going to space. What's what's what's what's the plan. Yeah. Yeah. Whenever the opportunity opens. Do you think that we're all going to be going. Do you think everybody in this room is ultimately going to be in space. I mean in our lifetime this is going to be a thing. Absolutely. I think it's a thing. I mean the prices are coming down. We're going to see it becoming more and more tractable. It's if you want to. I mean you so what are we going to be doing. Are we just going for the 11 minute ride or is there actually more to this than just to sort of the amusement of it. Well I think there is more to it than the museum. I mean I love the idea. I think the biggest thing will be split space tourism for a while. I don't think that's the biggest effect of space on as we said that this is a trillion dollar economy helping us to take care of the planet. But I think it's really. I mean just this experience again reminds us how inspiring space can be. How it can be a place of international cooperation despite the challenge on the earth as well as reminding us of the technology that it brings that help us and understand our climate understand our challenges on the earth. The same is true. Like when you know we're trying to image the earth to help everyone see what Samantha is seeing when she looks out the window. But of course there's nothing quite that's going to replace going up there and having a look for yourself and going up there. I personally love to go to the moon to see the whole earth from the moon because it would be four times the size of the moon is in the in the Earth's sky. You just imagine this big orb. I mean wouldn't that be amazing to do that. If it's possible I'd love to go and I'm sure many people here will do in our lifetimes because it's it's it's in a space Renaissance and it's having dramatic changes the cost. When the astronauts come back of course I usually receive them in our astronaut center. And I asked them I asked everyone the same question I said look when when when you come down here what is your biggest memory and what what is your biggest impression you are you're having from space and what you want to convey and every single one in different worlds but everyone is saying look up there you see our planet very differently and I've become a very very sustainable person because I realize how thin the atmosphere is and how vulnerable our planet is it's beautiful but also very fragile and we have to we have to protect it. In fact one astronaut was saying I wish that every single citizen of this planet can come up to space and see it from there because then they would behave differently. Right. So what were you saying. I think most of the astronauts that go to space whenever they come back it's the change of perspective on how you are they are is a very tiny block from the International Space Station and then you get to see how insignificant sometimes you are as a human being and how cooperation and just collaborating together and loving on one another is important. You can't if you can't cooperate then we end up destroying our Earth and we do not know if really we have another Earth to go to. So we have to be very very careful. You don't see boundaries from up there. You don't see boundaries. You don't see different people. You see a planet and I think that that view would be very helpful for many of us. On that note I want to thank you all for the conversation. I want to thank you all for joining us. What a fantastically inspiring discussion. Thank you. Thank you.