 Hey everybody, I'm in Adelaide, Australia as part of the International Space University's Southern Hemisphere Space Studies program. We've had two former astronauts living with us. That is Jean-Jacques Favillier and Dr. Robert Thursk. And I had the chance to talk to Bob Thursk about his time on the International Space Station. This is your space pod for February 2nd, 2015. So with me today is Dr. Robert Thursk from the Canadian Space Agency. He's a former astronaut and he was lucky to fly on Columbia as part of SDS-78. This mission performed heaps of science and life science and material science experiments in the Space Lab module that they took up with them. Bob also had the privilege to fly on the International Space Station as he launched on May 27th, 2009 on a Soyuz vehicle as part of Expedition 20 and 21. He had the opportunity to live in space for about six months in a unique environment of the orbiting laboratory of the International Space Station. However, we receive a lot of criticism for the International Space Station and the space program in general as some people think that perhaps this program is a waste of taxpayers' money, that there are problems on the earth that need to be solved and why are we using our money for space. So I wanted to ask you Bob, when there are things on earth that could be helped by using the money we use on the Space Station, what are the some direct benefits to earth that we get from doing science on the International Space Station? I think there's many categories of benefits that investment in space provides to society on earth. First of all, in my case I'm from a Canadian so therefore I can speak from the Canadian point of view. Number one is jobs and it's the economy. So in a typical year Canadian taxpayers will invest about $250 million in space program in general. But our industry, our space industry, not the aerospace industry, just the space industry in a typical year reaps back $3 billion of revenue and 40% of that comes from the export market. So just starting off right away, it's a no-brainer. We make money doing it. Secondly, the technology that we develop for spaceflight to work in a harsh environment of a vacuum and weightlessness and ionizing radiation environment of space is top quality. And a lot of that technology we can spin off to other applications on earth as well. The second example is the robotic technology that we developed for first of all the space shuttle program and then the International Space Station program. Works great in space. It does assembly work. It retrieves satellites. It deploys satellites. It supports astronauts during spaceflight. But we took that same technology, the control systems for the robot arm, the gearing and the shoulder, the elbow and the wrist joint, the vision system that we developed for space application and we developed a robot for the operating room for neurosurgical patients. At my university in Calgary, the University of Calgary, we have a robot that performs surgery on people's brains. It does brain, removes tumors. It corrects arterial malformations in the brain and it relieves patients of the damaging effects of hydrocephalus. The robot arm is just as dexterous as a neurosurgeon's hands, but it's tremor free and it's extremely precise. So that's just examples of just the tangible benefits that investment in the space provides to society, let alone the intangible benefits which I think are even more important. It's not just wonderful examples there. A lot of people might think that the International Space Station is just used for governmental agencies, but it's not just for governments, is it? Universities and schools can be involved as well. Universities and schools can be involved and even corporations, small businesses and medium sized businesses that wish to demonstrate a technology in space have access to it as well through their home space agency. So any university in Canada, for example, any corporation in Canada that wants to make use of it can apply through the Canadian Space Agency and have access to it. So you're absolutely right there. We've flown experiments, for example, from the University of New Brunswick, Canadian University, that wants to improve the quality of lumber that their province, their companies sell to consumers. When they go to a lumber store on the weekend to buy planks of wood for home projects, the quality of the lumber is improving because of the research that the university was doing on the ground before. Another company in Quebec, which is a province in Canada, has applied and worked with the Canadian Space Agency to develop something that we call Flow Cytometer, which is a fancy word, which simply means that it can do blood flow analysis on astronauts in space, doing blood chemistry analysis for astronauts in space to keep astronauts healthy. But that same technology can be used back home in remote regions of Canada to provide medical care to the Inuit population that live in northern regions as well. So no, it is not just government laboratories that make use of the International Space Station, it's universities and small companies as well. Nice. So what about younger students? So a minute ago, Lisa, I was saying that perhaps the intangible benefits of space flight are even more important. When I was in grade three, when I was in level three, student in school, I was inspired by the American Apollo Moon program. And those early American astronauts were my heroes. I knew everything about their backgrounds. I knew everything about the missions that they flew on. And the space program definitely played a role in the direction of my educational path and my career path went later in life. And I want the same today. I want to help today's young people who have the opportunity to do more incredible things than I ever had the opportunity to do in space by inspiring them with space, catching their attention with space projects. And via that, teach a little bit of science, teach a little bit of technology, teach a little bit of math to them. Wow. Are there any interactive initiatives going on board station that kids can get involved with? Absolutely. So one that I'm very fond of is called Tomato Sphere. It's a very simple experiment. Every year, the Canadian and the American space agencies fly tomato seeds that are provided by a famous tomato company called Heinz. We fly 300,000 seeds, so during the weeks and months that they're aboard the space station, these seeds are exposed to, well, first of all, the accelerations and decelerations associated with launch and reentry, but also to up to six months of weightlessness and also the ionizing radiation that they're exposed to during flight. We then retrieve the seeds from the space station and distribute them at present to 15,000 classrooms in Canada, United States and elsewhere around the world, including Australia. We also provide the school children with seeds that did not fly in space and ask the students a very simple question. Do seeds that have flown in space germinate better or worse than seeds that remained on the ground? It's an important question to ask because someday these young people could be on Mars and they're going to have to grow crops for their own food source and for their life support as well. So these students grow the two types of seeds in their classroom, monitor the germination rate, measure the seedling growth over the weeks during school, and then report the results back to us and we compile them and develop a report for that. So these school children are learning a little bit about plant biology, they're learning a little bit about space science and they're learning a whole lot about the scientific method and they're raising the science culture in our country. Nice. So what about future experiments on the International Space Station then? We've got kids learning about tomatoes, possibly a space flight affecting tomato growth, but what do we have planned for the remaining eight or so years of the ISS' life? Well, first of all, in terms of plants, let's talk about them first. You know, the Mars astronauts who will explore Mars perhaps in 20 years from now, those Mars astronauts are alive today and they're currently in elementary school and primary school. And so we want to make sure that they're inspired to pursue science and technology career so they're ready to take on the Mars astronaut job. And secondly, we also have to think about some of the new technologies we have to put in place to make that mission safe for them. Mission to Mars is not a walk in the park, it's going to be a risky mission. One of the things that we can do to make life easier for them in Mars is develop crop technology. We don't have a spacecraft big enough to take the astronauts and their food supply to Mars, so we'll ask the Mars astronauts to grow their own crops. So some of the science that we're doing aboard the space station this year is to grow certain types of crops, lettuce, potatoes, tomatoes, to see what the issues are so that 20 years from now the Mars astronauts will be able to grow crops. Another issue that's come up recently is that we learned that our immune status, astronauts immune status in space, is not as good as it is here on earth. We're susceptible to bacteria infections in space that normally would be able to combat here on earth. Secondly, some of the antibiotic drugs it would take on the ground here against bacterial infections are not effective, as effective in space as they are here on earth. Why? You don't know. So we're going to have to do some more research in the immune system in space, and in particular we're targeting one of the white blood cells. Courses through our bloodstream called T-cells, and the initial indications that they're the problem, they're not as effective in space. And maybe the last important area that we'll be studying over the next couple of years are vision changes in space. My vision, my reading vision in space was as affected. I had difficulty reading in space, and since I flew about another dozen astronauts have reported the same problem as well. Again we don't know what is the cause for the vision changes in space, but we do know that we can't allow astronauts to go for long duration missions such as a mission to Mars without coming up with an answer as to what's going on and how we can prevent that. Wonderful, and I find a question for you today Bob. What was your favorite experiment that you did while you were aboard the International Space Station? Lisa, that's a tough question because it's like choosing your favorite child which is impossible. I enjoyed them all for a variety of reasons, but if you're going to twist my arm I'll probably say that one of the musculoskeletal experiments that we did was my favorite. Astronauts' bones demineralize in space. We lose calcium out of our bones and it's perfectly adapted to spaceflight. In a zero G floating environment you no longer need the bone strength in space as you need on earth to combat 1G forces so it's completely normal for the the bones to lose calcium and lose strength during spaceflight. The problem arises that you have to come back home at the end of the mission. So your bones have to be able to endure the G forces associated with re-entry and then of course the first few days and weeks back on earth again without fracturing. We have not yet found a solution to stop the bones from demineralizing in space. Dietary supplements are helpful. Certain exercises in space are helpful but it doesn't stop it. One of the experiments that I did during my six months in space was called Alendronae. Alendronae is the name of a pharmaceutical drug that a lot of people here on earth take to prevent osteoporosis from getting worse and I participated as one of the first subjects in that study and all of the results are not yet in. However I saw my results and I think that with a combination of dietary modification, vigorous exercise during flight and then pharmaceuticals I think we're converging on a solution to the bone demineralization problem. We'll see. Great well on behalf of myself and our viewers I'd like to thank you for your time today to answer our questions. My pleasure thank you. Thank you very much. Wow thank you for watching everyone and I hope you learned a little bit more about why international space, space and research is important. What questions would you ask Bob Dusk if you had the chance? Leave a comment below, tweet us or ask us on facebook and don't forget to subscribe to our youtube channel at youtube.com slash t-m-r-o. I also want to give a huge shout out to all our patrons who have helped to crowd fund this show. We have just hit our next Patreon goal which will see us delivering you four spacepods per month in 2016 and we've finally got your names into the show. So if you'd like to know more about how you can help crowd fund these spacepods or if you just want to get your name into the show too, head over to patreon.com slash spacepod. My name is Lisa Stodzianowski and until next time keep on discovering.