The Infinite Monkey Cage - Extreme Exploration - Anneka Rice, Mike Massimino, Britney Schmidt and Jess Phoenix

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

Brian Cox and Robin Ince venture to the home place of exploration in Porto, Portugal at the Explorers Club as they discuss science at the extremes of exploration. Joining them is volcanologist Jess Phoenix, astronaut Mike Massimino, astrobiologist and oceanographer Britney Schmidt as well as adventurer and broadcaster Anneka Rice. They discuss breaking robots under the Antarctic ice shelf, chasing after narco-traffickers to retrieve a rock hammer and how viewing the earth from the vantage point of space can profoundly influence how you feel about humanity. Producer: Melanie Brown Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem BBC Studios Audio Production

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello, I'm Brian Cox. I'm Robin Ince and this is a Gaiola Infinato dot Macaco. Very good because that's Robin's Portuguese because we are in Porto, Portugal for a gathering of the Explorers Club. That does mean Infinite Monkey Cage by the way, we checked with a waiter earlier and we made sure he had a good tip so I think I trust him. Anyway this is a very exciting thing because we are

celebrating the Explorers Club, something which Brian is a member of, which is ridiculous as well because any regular listeners at home will know Brian frequently gets lost going from the dressing room to the stage so the idea that you're an explorer mixing with people who have traveled across the globe and indeed into space and you find a hundred meters difficult. My claim is I'm an explorer of the subatomic world where you inevitably get lost. What a cast iron alibi. The Explorers Club in New York is housed in a remarkable building celebrating exploration. The coffee

tables are made from a ship that survived Pearl Harbor. The chair of the last emperor of China is in the sitting room and there are flags carried in space by Apollo 8 and Apollo 15. And if you've never been there as well, on the walls the most beautiful paintings of intrepid journeys which more often than not have had to turn to cannibalism. Really is true, when we were first taken around it felt like that was an amazing journey, unfortunately they got caught there and three of them were eaten. Today we are asking what are the new frontiers in the 21st century?

What are the engineering challenges of exploring in extremes and, indeed, why do we need to explore at all? We are joined by a volcanologist, an astronaut, an astrobiologist slash oceanographer slash space mission designer and a treasure hunter. And they are? I am Jess Phoenix. I do volcanology and I'm the science ambassador for the Union of Concerned Scientists. I also do concerns, clearly.

And I would most like to explore volcanoes on Venus, but that is going to require some of y'all to figure out how we get there and live. Mike Massimino, former NASA astronaut. Currently I am a professor of engineering at Columbia University. If I was given any place I could go explore, I'd like to go to the moon.

That's what inspired me as a little kid watching, as a six-year-old watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin there, and now we have, I think, a very good chance of getting people back there, hopefully in the near future. I would love to be a part of that. But I'll be watching, I think, this time again. But that's where I would love to go. I of that. But I'll be watching, I think, this time again. But that's where I would love to go. I'm Brittany Schmidt, Cornell University.

And I study ice anywhere we can find it, which brings me to where I would most like to explore with all due respect to Europa, which I'm sure I'll talk about quite a lot. I'd like to go to Triton. That's my actual favorite place in the solar system. I'm Annika Rice. I'm a broadcaster and an adventurer. And I think most of all, I'd like to have all my career again,

flying around the world in a helicopter with outdoors. That bit is fine, but I don't want Kenneth Kendall shouting at me, hurry up! I just want to do it in my own time and enjoy it. And also, Jess, I want to go bareback with you across Mongolia. Because I know you've done that. Oh, yes. Can I come with you next time?

Yes, we can plan a date. So rare you hear about a date in Mongolia. So well done for organizing that. So soon into the program. And this is our panel. Applause Brittany, I just have to ask you quickly before we get to question number one, which is always what happens.

Triton, you didn't answer. So why Triton? Because it's Europa, but with Titan frozen out on top and it came from the Kuiper Belt, and now it's stuck somewhere it didn't want to be in the first place. Seems like we should check it out. That's a very strong answer. Annika, last night, I had never known this before until we had a meal last night and found out how much you loved exploring and indeed idolized

explorers. Can you tell me a little bit about in childhood when you realized that this was your passion? It started at a very young age when I was little I had an explorer suit it was actually a red snow suit with fur around the collar but I would stomp off for hours on end and my parents never knew where or what they weren't very interested in me anyway to be honest so actually fitted in very well with the family dynamic and I'd go off stomping around huge adventures six-year-old me off I went and then when I was a teenager and all my fellow schoolmates you either went David Cassidy or you went Donny Osmond that was just the choice of the

poster on your bedroom wall I went Sir Ernest Shackleton because I was so enamoured with him and that sense of exploring and going off into the unknown, I've really followed that through my complete adult life and I love being frightened, I love being fearful, so I live my life by the importance of being Ern basically What I love is that any Freudians listening to this you've given so many clues the bareback riding in Mongolia The my parents had no interest in me and I do love butchware and that's kind of building up to a very interesting picture Just giving you something to think about for the rest of the program Now you've set the bar for everyone in your your introduction, you must have a literary reference. Oh yes, sorry about that.

The importance of being honest. Jess, volcanoes, what brought you to volcanoes? I'm gonna blame my parents a little bit because they were both FBI agents. And when they scared off my first boyfriend by putting their guns on the table and then shaking his hand after work, that was sort of like, anything less than that would be boring.

And so volcanoes was actually a really fortunate twist of fate, thanks to a horrible ex who brought me to Los Angeles. I studied geology and I applied for a researcher position at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. And to their, I'm sure, unending sorrow, they said yes. And lo and behold, I set foot at the summit of Mauna Loa, the world's largest volcano. And that was it. It was done.

I was walking on Earth younger than I was. And there is nothing cooler than seeing the Earth both simultaneously create and destroy itself. Can I just say that was a great hold my beer moment. You all need a literary reference. And you went, I Can I just say that was a great hold my beer moment. You all need a literary reference and you went I think I can up that. My parents were FBI agents. Whoa! Jess has got whole literary references down her arms. You have TS Eliot on your arms. Can you explain? Yes, I actually thought I was going to become an English professor when I went to college.

What's the quote? It's, we will not cease from exploration. This is an Elliott quote, isn't it? Yes, yes. The Elliott, everything Elliott does is great. And it's all he's very into. We shall not cease to be explorers. And you know, I mean, it's funny because he was somebody whose work showed me that we can explore our relationship to the universe while sitting down and thinking. And to me that's just as valid a form of exploration as going to the moon,

going to Triton, or going to the bottom of the ocean. And we don't know ourselves fully, even though we have a whole lifetime to figure it out. So Mike, we have Shackleton, FBI agents, top that. I don't know if I can. I got interested in the space program, as I said earlier. I was about eight years old. I figured I could never become an astronaut. It's about that time I discovered

I was afraid of heights. And I wasn't much of a thrill seeker in this group, especially. So I didn't really see that working out. How do you grow up to be one of these superhero astronauts, like my heroes when I was a little boy? When I was a senior in college, I went to the movies and saw this movie The Right Stuff based on the book, literally referenced by Tom Wolf. Very good, well done.

Thank God. So, but I saw the movie, read the book and it had me thinking again at that time I was graduating college what do I want to do and decide I didn't know if I could ever become an astronaut. I was rejected three times and got in on my fourth try. And when do you learn how to fly? Once you get to NASA, then they teach you all kinds of stuff. I had a space walk, I had to work on the space shuttle, the space station. I was a co-pilot in the T-38, got to fly with that guy right there a few times, Michael Pez-Alegria, one of my colleagues.

So they train you. They look for a vast variety of backgrounds and then they get you ready to do the job to fly in space. I've often found with American and Canadian astronauts that the answer to that question about why is like Chris Hadfield in his book talks about again seeing them for the first moon landing and then every day going to school going what can I do to maximize the chance that I might be an astronaut and the two UK astronauts Helen Sharman and Tim Peake if you ask them they both

say I saw an advert and I thought I'd have a go at that. Yeah. And I think, you know, it's that big difference. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I knew I had an interest, but since I thought it was impossible, I really didn't pay much attention to it. But some of these other folks, where they did all, I don't know what would have happened.

I think it's better to follow what you're interested in. And especially with the astronaut job, at least the NASA program and the other government agencies, they're pretty much looking for a variety of people, so there's no one path. And are you still afraid of heights? I don't like them, no. I do not like heights. I try to avoid them, but really I've had a conversation with Reid Wiseman, one of our colleagues, we were talking about this, and a lot of people don't like heights. Really what it is, is we're afraid of gravity. So I'm okay as long as I'm in an aircraft or a spaceship or I'm space walking or whatever it might be.

I don't know problem there. It's gravity. That's what I'm afraid of. So if I've got something to protect me from that, then I'm all right. And Brittany, you had the longest job description of the panel. How did that come about?

Well, because I pretty much have always just followed what I found interesting, which as it turns out is everything. I started off in English and broadcasting and I was really interested in music and journalism and that kind of stuff. I really like heavy metal, so musicians were kind of like the modern poets to me. And so that's what I thought I was going to do. And then I had an identity crisis in college and went, I have no idea what I'm doing here

and why am I here and what am I going to do? And so I took a class in everything to see maybe what else would be out there and if not I was just going to move to Chicago and like write about bands. So I had this amazing experience of taking a class which taught me really what Europa was, which became the thing I wanted to do. I had an amazing professor who really knew how to explain things, and when he talked about Europa, about this alien ocean, far from us, but very much like our own planet,

I was like, what are we doing with our lives, people in the audience? What are we doing? Let's all change our majors and do this, and I was the one that did that, but it was really fun. And so that's kind of it, it's been piecing the whole bit together, and all the pieces you need to understand in order to Think about it. So it's just kind of a natural evolution

So in a way your your life has been focused on getting to Europa. That was the inspiration Your career choice just for the people listening that don't know maybe you could just give us the one-minute description of Europa Yeah, so Europa is the innermost icy moon of Jupiter. It's kind of being pulled apart by tides, and because of that, it has about a hundred kilometer ice plus ocean layer on the outside. So it's the most Earth-like place in a lot of ways. So four billion years of evolution of the solar system has led to this ocean and contact with the rock, and it just makes it a

Place that I can't imagine not going to at some point see whereas I wanted to know Metallica or Judas Priest Because I know those dose I was thinking that I've always loved the different pieces of music the different astronauts have taken up When they've gone to you know, I assess another place. So what what's what's what's your number one song then that you're taking? Ooh, honestly it'd probably be Cashmere. Good choice. But the Metallica thing is real. That was like a band that changed my life. And Harvester of Sorrow, you know, a really light piece would probably be actually the real thing.

We've still not seen, we've seen making burritos in space, we've seen crying in space, we've seen brushing teeth in space. We haven't seen head banging in space. And I seen crying in space, we've seen brushing teeth in space, we haven't seen headbanging in space. And I feel you should be elevated immediately for the next mission. This is the perfect place for headbanging. I mean, the hair's going everywhere anyway, so... Just imagine the possibilities.

There's no way, even if you're moshing, no one's going to drop you. You're going to still float, it's going to be okay. You can have a lot. Actually dancing and moving around is kind of fun. You could really enjoy that, I would think. What I found was is that, like the scene out of the window looking at the planet, you would, and I listened to a lot of music while doing that, and there was certain music that went with the scene. You know, like nighttime music, or being over the ocean. So for me, it was like trying to match the music that would allow you to enjoy, kind

of like building your own soundtrack for what you were experiencing looking out the window. How different is it being inside the spacecraft and being outside? Because you've got a very, was it 35 hours space walk or something like that? Huge number of hours outside. Yeah, I'm looking at Michael Pizella, I think how much do you have Mike?

He's got 67, so he's got more than anybody, I think American, yeah. Isn't that right, any other room, you would have won that competition. 67 so he's got more than anybody I think American yeah You would have won that competition How you all get into the Explorer's Club, you know now we've had a fellow Explorer in the audience So the cutting in there with it you apply apply Is it like the Garrett Club or the form. Is there a waiting list? Is it like the Garrett Club or the Golf Club or how does it work?

We need a couple of recommendations, but we can take care of that. It's nice enough. So you're not waiting for one to go before? No. No, no. Good, no, I just want to just intrigue. But I mean, inside the spaceship is kind of cool.

The first thing you want to do is take a look at the planet and what else you can see when you get to space. So you unstrap, float up to a window, and look, and it's extraordinary. And it's the most beautiful thing you've seen. But to me it was like, oh, look at the pretty fish through the window of an aquarium. But when you go outside, the whole universe opens up to you.

And now you're more like a scuba diver. I feel like a real spaceman. I'm interacting with that environment. And I can look wherever I want. And the whole sky opens up to you. And the Earth, you can see the curve of the Earth from where we were up at Hubble and you realize that you and your buddy

are the only two people we know that are outside in the universe, or maybe someone somewhere else that we don't know. But at least from what we know around our planet, we're the only two people out there, which is kind of cool. It's the coolest thing I've done. I think it's most extraordinary thing that astronauts can do.

I know other people have done some pretty cool things in this room too Yeah, I wanted to talk about planning Expeditions and what we'll come back to planning a space for but I thought Jess if you can give us a sense So you've visited a lot of volcanoes. They're dangerous and difficult places in any way You know someone's at the back is gonna go actually I visited seven more Could you take us through very briefly how you set up an expedition, what you do to keep

safe? Well, I can tell you what not to do off the bat, which is do not do your PhD research in Sinaloa, Mexico when the cartels are at an all-time high of violence. It's not always the humans. It's not the volcano or the geologists. It's not the volcanoes, no. And also, don't take your newlywed husband with you and tell him that that's your honeymoon. Because that's what I did.

And I ended up actually having to chase narco traffickers in our rented Jeep because they stole my rock hammer. And my Spanish is serviceable, but I never thought that I would be literally driving after Carlos was driving, I was passengering and going, we have to get this rock hammer, I can't do my research. So you have to have the fundamental ingredients that you need and it would take weeks to get a rock hammer to this location. So part of planning is thinking, okay, what are the things I absolutely need to accomplish? What are the things that would be nice to accomplish? What are the things that the

people who are funding this would really like me to accomplish but probably won't get? And then you try to keep everybody safe. And with volcanoes in particular, you can joke, like I joke all the time, like I'm the most irreverent person, especially when we're in the field. But as I tell my students and people I lead on expeditions, you have to be 100% focused on safety because none of it matters if you don't come home alive. And hopefully in one piece. But no, the volcanoes to me are, yeah, they're dangerous,

but it's an acceptable risk because you know from what is written in the rock record what the volcano is capable of, if you have that part of the rock record still. I think that movie's gonna, I see Angelina Jolie and Liam Neeson and I see the tagline, they took her rock hammer, she's gonna take their lives, something like that.

Oh yeah, oh yeah. And we'll have Chav the Rock playing the rock hammer as well. You know, the Rock actually retweeted me because I made a geology reference and he liked it. And so now I'm like, oh, I'm friends with the Rock. Yeah, no, I'm not. Who was it you were chasing?

You were chasing? Narco traffickers. Like bad guys? Like actual bad guys with guns. For a hammer? So what happened was, yes, for a hammer. Call one of us, we'll get you a hammer. It's a special hammer, okay?

It came with me on this trip. It's in my hotel room. It's an insight into the character of all geologists, isn't it? We're insane. It's the special hammer, okay? It came with me on this trip. It's in my hotel room. It's an insight into the character of all geologists, isn't it? We're insane. It's the rock hammer. So, Annika, on the evidence so far, the idea that insanity is quite important to be an explorer. Yeah, definitely.

Where do you stand on that at the moment? I think insanity is really important, and I'm learning a lot about the panel. And I was talking earlier about fearlessness and you know just absolutely embracing life, being more earnest, just going on a journey across the Antarctic where there's no need for him to go. You know he could have stayed at home but he made that journey and it went a bit wrong but then he didn't just leave his crew to perish, he got in a boat with four crew members and they went on an 800 mile odyssey to get help, so all the crew

came back home again. I'm sorry, I'm a bit obsessed with Ernest, but what I think I'm saying is that there has to be a degree of I will try anything to be a successful explorer and it's the sheer terror that makes it so enjoyable. You said you love terror, you said you need it in your life so you know for years you were doing TV shows where you were challenged to have the beam points where you went do you know what this one looking back the answer should have been no. Yes caving. Now we all have sat in this room because we're at an explorers convention which in itself I find thrilling just to

be in a room full of explorers but we've just seen this talk by Lee Berger who was talking about exploring in South Africa and finding in most inaccessible places underground they squeezed through rock they couldn't get both arms down, so one arm went and then the other one went, their head got stuck, squeezing through presses and wedges to find bones of a species of man that they discovered. Now, I don't understand that, I don't know how anyone can do that, and I did it at one point in my career, and I did it at one point in my career and I literally cried every single day and the crew that were in me thought they were having the

time of their life because they were straight out of Vietnam war photographers and a crew and they just thought this was great, daring do, heroics and I just was utterly traumatized but it has always given me perspective doing all these big projects I've done as well, that you are just a little cog. And I think it's Maya Angelou said, didn't she, if you want to live, leave a legacy, make a mark on the world that can't be erased. And that's basically what everyone in this room is doing, it's awesome. Brittany, for you, so you're the expeditions that you meant, you said ICE is your professional fascination at least.

So could you talk us through some of the expeditions you've done and why you go to the Antarctic? The first time you go there, you're overwhelmed by the place, but very soon after you find out that it's the people you're with that are maybe even more amazing. And so seeing them have an opportunity to be exceptional,

I think is my favorite part. But we go to Antarctica for a couple of reasons. I started going because this bizarre obsession that I have with Europa and the search for life and where do we go for that? And it took me from Tucson, where there's as you know lots and lots of ice, to Tucson and Arizona by the way. So very, very hot, the exact opposite of Antarctica, down to doing this.

And I was working with earth scientists who were doing ice penetrating radar. So it's kind of like taking an X-ray of the ice. It does for glaciers, for Antarctica, for the Arctic, and hopefully soon for Europa, what seismology does for the inside of the earth or what X-rays do for our body or MRIs. And so you can kind of see through the ice

and see what's going on. But we got really interested, or I got really interested in what's happening underneath it and its interactions with the ocean. So we bring underwater vehicles and try to get them into terrible places where they like to get tangled and where it's difficult to get them. We try to kill robots for a living, basically. So we look at the bottom side of Antarctica with these technologies.

It's really fun. Jess, I wanted to know a little bit more about, you've mapped volcanoes. So we're gonna remove the drug cartel element and the problems there. But in terms of just, say you're mapping an active volcano, what is the plan for that? How do you, what is the starting point

and how do you then put together that whole picture? It sort of depends on the purpose of the map, right? If it's a hazard map, that's because there are active lava flows or active projectiles or an ash cloud that's threatening somebody or something of human termed value. However, we use very basic technology for a lot of what we do. Nothing really beats boots on the ground when it comes to mapping lava flows, particularly ones that are changing hour to hour, day to day. So you find yourself sometimes hacking through bits of vegetation while there's a river of flowing lava next to you.

And you're sitting there trying to get a GPS to take its waypoint every three seconds so that you can then go back and brief the team which then talks to the media and says okay these seven houses are in danger. So we did a lot of that in Hawaii particularly whenever there is an active flow eruption but also you can do it on volcanoes that aren't erupting. So I was part of the Mauna Loa mapping project, and that was an effort to try to understand this behemoth of a volcano that has built up over about a million years,

is what was exposed on the surface. And my boss there, Frank Trusdell, at the US Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, that man can look at a lava flow from 50 meters and go, oh yeah, that was the 1838. And then look at another one, oh yeah, that was 1722. And you're just like, how do you know this? But it's low tech.

It's remarkably low tech. And hazard maps are more complex when you get the more potentially explosive style of eruptive volcanoes. So if you're looking at a Mount Etna, a Mount St. Helens, or Mount Rainier, which is quite a big hazard in the US, those are the volcanoes that don't just do the sticky, oozy, runny lava flows that are nice to walk up and sample when they're flowing. Those are the ones that have the potential to be pretty cataclysmic for people nearby. So then we use satellites.

We use these really neat things called tilt meters, which were originally designed for the military, but you can put them in the ground and they tell you on a millimeter to centimeter scale how much the ground is rising or sinking, which in volcano terms is, is the magma chamber inflating or deflating, is magma entering the system and pressurizing it along with gas,

or is it getting safer? So we use a lot of different instruments. We even use satellites these days that can actually give us really cool diagrams that look great for the public and you don't have to explain too much. You just say, oh look that area that's magenta, that's bad. And so you know we've got good graphics now too, not just oh look I drew a map here, don't go here. Now, Mike, we talked about planning, so both your missions were Hubble servicing missions, but the Hubble Space Telescope keeping

that magnificent instrument working. So could you talk us through, because I imagine that every single second of a spacewalk is planned. It is. We plan, and then you also plan for things to change. Because, you know, once you get out the door, every spacewalk is planned? It is. We plan and then you also plan for things to change because you know once you get out the door every spacewalk whether you're inside helping with the choreography and going through the checklist help your friends outside or if you're outside if you're in the control no matter every spacewalk something is not exactly as you would have expected or you might

make a mistake that wasn't planned so but they are planned to the second and we would always look for ways to improve. We would train both with virtual reality and in the simulator but it would all come together in the pool underwater. We would do underwater training in our big pool and we would always look for ways to improve. Even if we could save even one minute of spacewalking time that was significant. And then we would try to see what could go wrong. And sometimes we would discover that in our training,

oh I don't know I could break that, or I don't know this could have, or maybe I need this. And then you would try to imagine what could go wrong and you'd have a plan to answer those problems. But I remember every spacewalk, getting ready to go out and thinking what's gonna happen today that we didn't think about. Something's beyond your imagination,

or something is not the way it's supposed to be, because you can't really practice on the actual location. You have to simulate everything and then go out there. I felt that was like training to play in the World Cup or the Super Bowl or World Series without ever being on a field. What was your most interesting moment? It was all during the spacewalks,

especially on Hubble and the space station spacewalks as well. You have a plan, you have to execute, you're given a great responsibility, you don't want to mess this up. You feel like you have to do your job, of course that's number one, but at the same time you're in this extraordinary location and especially from the vantage point of a spacewalk and you can't help but take these little looks whenever you can. And the thought that went through my mind was this is a view from heaven, is a heavenly

view and I dwelled on it just staring at the planet and said, no, it's more beautiful than that. This is what heaven must look like. And from that moment forward I have a different opinion of where we are. I think we're in an absolute paradise. And it's very fragile as well. You look in the other direction and I'm wearing life support, I couldn't be up there for very long.

The other direction you look out there, it's kind of cool looking out there, but we've checked out the neighborhood, we've got nowhere to go. So I have an appreciation, I think, different than what I had previously of how beautiful this place is that we live on, that we live in, and how fragile it is. So interesting you say that, because I thought it would be a good idea to everyone who is elected to run a country should be sent into space. And I said most of them should come back. But because I mean.

As long as I get good crewmates, they've got to be able to get along. But it's what you say. That experience, every astronaut I've had the pleasure to speak to has said the same thing, which is you come back with a changed view of our place in the universe. And the other thing is my concept of home, of where I'm from. When I was a little kid, I grew up just outside of New York City and my home was my Franklin

Square and that's where I grew up. That was my home. And then as I got older, I identified New York more as my home. And then as an astronaut, I had the American flag on my arm going to work and I was an American, you know. But after going around a planet and looking at it, I started thinking differently. This happened more in my second flight

where I started thinking of home as Earth and it's a place we all share. That's big, isn't it? Home is Earth. We should mention the quote that was up earlier because a few days before we started recording this, William Anders or Bill Anders died and he was one of the first three people to leave the atmosphere and took that incredible image of Earthrise, which is such... And again, I think even before we start sending the politicians into space, the idea that

every politician should have on their wall Earthrise, that living image. And I just wonder for you, Brittany, the certain images, how much of your work do you feel the importance of communicating, as Mike was saying, the rarity of this experience that we have of being on a living planet surrounded by such variety, and you're looking also further out and thinking, well, where else might we find these things? I really resonated with what Mike said, actually,

about where you start thinking of home, because I have since going to Antarctica, so I just passed in the last field season over two years out in the field in the ice, and that's where I think of. I kind of am grounded there. We were having a conversation last night about whether you leave parts of yourself really back

in places that you've been. And I feel like that. I can center myself in that place, even though I'm not there. And so I think that that, for me, is a big part of it. And it wasn't why I went down the first time, right? Went down the first time, because I've got to understand Europa,

and I'm obsessed with this thing. And the first time I stood on the ice and looked out, it was just overwhelming. And the way I I stood on the ice and looked out, it was just overwhelming. And the way I've always described it to someone is, like, imagine, remember the first time that you stood under, like, the most impressive sky, right? And you felt small but significant at the same time, like, lucky to be feeling that way.

And that's how you feel, at least I do, every time you walk out. And so when you get to talk about what your experience is, I think hopefully it becomes more accessible, more human, and more kind of grounded. Because just like Mike was also saying, it's incredibly powerful. People wanna ask you about the weather,

they wanna ask you about penguins. And really all I wanna talk about is how much power it has but how it's falling apart and our role in how to do that. And so if we can bring importance and intent to that, then it makes it much more important because most people will not go spend a whole bunch of time sitting on ice, trying to kill robots, and trying to figure that out,

but it's still a huge part of who we are, is to feel a part of the planet. And so seeing it that way, when I describe Antarctica as, or in Europa as Earth-like, because we've been there, that's actually part of it, right? It is actually very relative, I think, in that way. It's very important what you say, isn't it? That exploration is not a selfish act. It doesn't have to be, yeah. I think sometimes people think it is but there are gonna be people who will go out and do something because it's a first but

it's not necessarily the first that matters I think it's all it's the seconds and the thirds and it opens the door to I think these really transformative experiences and then stewardship and things like that. Yeah I want to talk about the future actually and actually actually Jess She says in your introduction that one of the volcanoes you would like to visit the volcanoes are the volcanoes of Venus Which we now know are active within the last few months I think so one of those other volcanoes Olympus mons on Mars are the volcanoes of IO Would you go if you could I mean you can't go to

Venus, I definitely guarantee you're not going to Venus, but maybe Olympus Mons. It's just killing my dreams, Brian. Olympus Mons though, the largest volcano in the solar system. On Mars, yes, it is, yeah, and I'm sure there's probably a bigger one somewhere else, but for what we know, it is the grand champion of size in volcano world. It is not active though, currently, so I'm really drawn to the ones that are active, and active doesn't It is the grand champion of size in volcano world. It is not active though currently. So I'm really drawn to the ones that are active. And active doesn't mean erupting.

It just means that it will erupt again. So for me, I've worked on six continents. I've had that privilege and honor. I actually have one volcano that I have my eye on and it is actually in your neck of the woods, Brittany. I need to go visit Mount Erebus because it has a lava lake. And my very favorite volcanoes are ones with lava lakes. And at any given moment, there's anywhere between like seven

to eight that are active around the planet. And I believe that we're going to learn a lot about our future as a species, as a planet, as a place in the solar system by looking at the primordial processes our future as a species, as a planet, as a place in the solar system, by looking at the primordial processes that formed the planet. And the fact that our planet is not a cold dead rock. I mean, when you see it from space, it's not just a blue marble, it is an active, changing, vibrant place

where there isn't just biology running around on the surface, but the very rocks themselves are constantly changing. It is dynamic. So for me, I'm super excited to see the discoveries we're going to have that integrate geology and biology and atmospheric sciences, chemistry. I mean, all of this is what links us as humans because we all share that curiosity. And I think if we just keep stoking that curiosity and we recognize

that we have these places here on Earth that we can go to, right, we can go to Mount Erebus. You know, it's possible and we can see the real complexity that we still have yet to truly fathom. Mike, I was just going to pick up on really what you were just saying there, Jess, and previously about boots on the ground as well, which is of of course, one of the debates around space exploration. Some people do say, look, why do we

keep needing to send humans up? Can't we just all do this with whatever robots survive? What is your answer to those who do go, surely we can just do this with technology and without humans? I think there's always going to be a place for human exploration. And I think it's just how do we use it? Do we use it wisely? And the more that the technology can cover, the more that we can learn about a place without

sending people, I think that's going to make the time when we do send people to these places much more efficient and safer. We talked about Mars earlier, actually, there's a session here at this conference about going potentially to Mars in the next 20 or 30 years. That must also be an important component. That's hard to justify though, but I think that that's probably in my mind the most important reason to send people is that, but you can't, oh the robot can do this and it's safer and all this stuff, but it also it captures our imagination. There's something about people doing things

You know you mentioned Shackleton and how he's inspired you and that's when people do things we can relate to it and it enriches our life Also, we see something utterly extraordinary amongst explorers when something goes wrong like the group of boys Trapped in the cave in Thailand where those cave is who I was sort of slightly Laughing at earlier, you know, what's the point? You know, the shared expertise and knowledge of cavers around the world, you know, I was in tears watching that documentary because they were just truly extraordinary the way they went in and found a way to bring those boys out of the cave. And that's exploration. That's humans doing it, isn't it?

There's no machine that's going to go in and do that. So I'm really being geared up to cave is now decided I love them. And I want to go caving again. I can just say that the office here, I'm sure you want to go on. Brittany, in terms of the future. So Europa, as you said, this ice moon ocean world around Jupiter. Could you give us the vision of what we are going to do there in the next, what is it, 20 years maybe? Yeah, well I mean I think it starts hopefully on October 10th.

So we're launching Europa Clipper. So it's the first mission to focus on Europa and it's going to be joined in the Jupiter system by an E submission called JUICE. So October 10th, we launched to Europa. And the idea is to figure out how this place works, to map the surface in detail for the first time. So when we look at Mars, you could see this table or this microphone in most pictures of Mars, but on Europa, we call high resolution anything better than 300 meters per pixel,

we would miss this building in most pictures, right? So how do we get there? So that's, I think, the first step, and we're going with a bunch of tools to be able to sample materials coming off of the surface, and we'll get really close and understand how deep the ice is, things like that. But eventually, we've got to get in the ocean. We've got to get into the ice show, we've got to melt through it. And so those are the steps that kind of start now.

We're working on how does the spacecraft need to think, because it's a long time delay. And then you have to go down through 30 kilometers of ice to get there. What are the science that we have to do along the way? And so as we're thinking about that, we have to teach ourselves how to explore there. And so there's that connection and why our backyard becomes so important for bending and breaking

the way we think about exploration and so our hope is that we end up sending a lander and it sits on the surface and it melts into the interior and we get to actually sample an alien ocean in that way for the first time. And just to emphasize 30 kilometers of ice you've got to get through. We've got five on this planet. So that's also a goal, right? Is actually we haven't been to the bottom of the deepest ice. We haven't been to the deepest subglacial lakes. We haven't been to the largest subglacial lakes.

So that is on our agenda, right? Is getting into these places. And because it tells us something crazy about our own planet, what's been going on down there and how does life work at its most fundamental level? And then you're prepared to go and ask those questions when you get to a new place. Because you need the right tools, and you have to ask the right questions, right?

It's not just bring a microscope, or bring a camera and look for fish. It's much more than that. But the journey is part of the joy, right? So building the thing, becoming weirdly emotionally attached to the technology, and then fielding it and sending it out into space. It would be cool to find fish.

Oh, certainly. Oh, we're still going to send one just in case, right? Then it's nice because that picture comes back and we can all just go out for brunch and have a really relaxing day afterwards, right? Jess, I imagine that quite often one of the problems is actually getting the money to do these things and get finance. Are there any buzzwords or particular anecdotes that you find effective for going, excellent, finally, I can go to another volcano? When you say relation to origins of life, so you either get people excited and interested,

you know, and intrigued, or you say, if you don't help us study this, you're going to die. So you can go for wonder and joy or you can go for terror. Carrots and stick. Yes, exactly. And as we've all learned, you know, terror sells. So that is, if we can say, if we can tie it to a pressing threat, that tends to get science funded a lot more quickly. I wish we could all just do it for wonder and joy and light and butterflies and unicorns. But we have to do it because lava bombs could kill your town. Yeah, that's a great threat.

Thank you. Mike, what about NASA often has battled to get finance for se- did you feel that when you were working out that kind of like, oh man, if only we could do this experiment or this particular thing, but we're still restricted despite the enormity of the imagination involved. Yeah, I mean NASA's a government agency so it's dealing with the taxpayers' dollars, right? And I always felt like NASA was given a good amount of money.

It's an investment in the future, it does great things at NASA but so do a lot of other things. You have to keep people fed and housed and all these other things. So you always, you can't really do everything you wanna do. It's a bit inefficient the way the government does business because the taxpayer's dollar is spread around the country and so on.

But one of the things that has gone well in the last few years is the burgeoning commercial companies now are seeing some success. And what NASA has been about for a long time is also trying to offload the space program from just being a government-only taxpayer dollar agency to fostering some commercial development. So companies like SpaceX, Boeing has also launched a Starliner to the space station a couple weeks ago. So now we're starting to see the benefits of it.

That's why I have hope moving forward that we're not gonna be totally dependent on taxpayer money to do these things. Wonderful, well, we always ask an audience question, and I'm hoping, I think the audience answer should be the most informed we've had in 30 seasons of the show. So let's see, shall we?

The question we asked, and what was it, Brian? The audience question was, what is the most peculiar thing you've found whilst out exploring? Paolo here says, myself. On a multi-day hike, I felt so tired that it brought me to find that I am pregnant. That was from Kim. Alright, so we've got Carlos, who said a naked man in the middle of the Mojave Desert using magnet on rocks to prove it was a government conspiracy.

Fair enough. That's my husband. I was there. The naked man was legit. Right, well that's the main quote we're going to take out after all that, the naked man was legit. I'm here all week, folks. There's all sorts of things for conspiracies here.

Dozens of pigeon wings, brackets, just the wings, in an abandoned building, just the wings. As a nature record, it's one day on an expedition, I went to collect my equipment five kilometres away from the base. We went by walk. Suddenly, when we were back, we heard a roar. It was a female jaguar, less than 50 metres distance from us.

Amazing. It was at Columbian Eastern Plains. That's a good one. I like that. And Proto-ceratops in the Gobi. Oh, there we are. That is all we have time for. Thank you to our panel. Jess Phoenix, Mike Massimino, Brittany Schmidt and Annika Rice. In our next show we are asking what is gas? What is gas and do we need it? I think the answer is going to be yes but tune in to find out. Thanks very much for listening.

Thank you. In the infinite monkey cage Do you want that one, Ash, again? Hello, Robin again. I just wanted to let you know about another podcast that I've been involved with recently and it was fantastic, an absolute joy to join Greg Jenner at the Hay Festival for an episode of You're Dead to Me. Why didn't you tell me about that? I would have done it. Oh, I think you were busy or something. It was lovely being free from him for once. Anyway, shush Brian. We talked about the history of printing.

We had a great chat and I hope you find it interesting. I like the history of printing. I could have... That's exactly why I didn't have your answer. I knew you'd be interrupting all the time. Anyway, you can listen on BBC Sounds. Just search for Your Dead to Me. Hello, I'm Sean Keavney and I'm back with a brand new series of Your Place or Mine from BBC Radio 4. It's the show where a litany of wonderful guests try to tempt this recalcitrant traveller onto the runway to experience their favourite place on earth.

Custard-filled pastries everywhere as standard. I stayed in a place where that was their... they didn't put mince on the pillows, they put custard tarts. They'll try to tempt me with all the wonders and delicacies from their favourite place in the world. But will they succeed? There's an amazing lighthouse and there's a brilliant tour there by the guy who, his family, were the lighthouse keepers. The lighthouse family, if you will. Listen to all new episodes of Your Place or Mine on BBC Signs.