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i'm peggy whitson
i've been an astronaut for 20 years
i have 665 days in space
i started out as a farm kid in rural
iowa
when i graduated high school and they
picked the first female astronauts
to me that's when the dream became a
goal
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probably the things i'm most proud of
are being the first female commander
on board the international space station
and being the first
female in chief of the astronaut office
i was trained as a scientist
i loved the intricacies of how things
work
that deep-seated sense of exploring and
wanting to
understand more has always been a part
of me
i'm here at space center houston today
to meet with clint crozier
he's worked at the air force and the
space force for 33 years and retired as
a major general now he works with aws
peggy it really is an honor to meet you
and i'm fascinated by your background
being lucky enough to actually get to go
into the space you always want to a go
back
and b go further going to mars has
always been
a dream of mine i know curiosity uses
some aws
technology how about perseverance the
one that recently landed
as the rover maneuvers around mars it
will take soil samples and then it'll
beam
data back to earth and be processed and
distributed in the aws cloud
as a result of that analysis the next
commands will be uploaded
back to the rover telling it where to
drill next nasa
tells us that aws can process those
workloads
faster and so it not only reduces the
idle
time gives you a lot more science time
on the surface
this advancement in gathering data and
making it
into information that's usable for us
it's going to help determine
is there life other places and where is
it where might it have been
and how did it all happen so onboard the
iss we're using satellites all the time
can you talk to me about the next level
of what aws is going to get us satellite
technology is rapidly improving but so
is cloud technology
and when you marry those two things
together it really is a powerful
combination
so maxar is a space technology company
and they build and operate their own
satellite constellations of earth
imaging
and that could push data to users so as
an example
if there's a major storm somewhere
because they built those algorithms and
processes on the cloud
they can do global weather predictions
58 faster
that's the difference between 25 minutes
of warning in an
hour and that can make the difference
between saving lives absolutely
you know it always is about protecting
the earth protecting our people in those
situations
another company that we work with is
fireball international
they've developed a process where they
fuse satellite data
with ground-based sensor data in such a
way that they can identify
a new fire breakout within three minutes
of ignition
it makes the difference between
vectoring response crews in a matter of
minutes while the fire's still small and
not out of control
i really have a huge appreciation for
the fact that this technology this
doesn't happen without the people with
the ideas the ingenuity the wherewithal
to make all of it come together
living in space for 665 days
you have to rely on so many people
the people are the ones that make it
happen the people are the reason
we need it to happen and that's not all
that different than what amazon web
services are doing
so clint can you tell me what this aws
ground station is all about in the past
you would have to invest tens of
millions of dollars in all that
infrastructure
now aws operates all that for the
company or customer
it lets those technologists and
engineers and scientists
focus on what they're really good at
developing insights from space
and we obviously want all these new
space technologies to get off the ground
how do
aws ground stations help capella who are
trying to get a lot of data in
capella space they operate sar synthetic
aperture radar
satellites that can see through smoke
and clouds and the dark
in the aftermath of a natural disaster
the capella being able to port that
directly into the aws ground station
they can start extracting critical
information like where
are the most ravaged areas where are
there signs of life
and they can provide that within minutes
to responding crews
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we see over and over again that
companies tell us that they can operate
three to five times
faster on the cloud than what they might
be able to operate on their own
i think space is on a precipice of
change it's no longer government
organizations and contractors
now we're going to have people that are
trying to commercialize and utilize
space in a different and new way
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aws is going to transform our
technologies
and how we do our technologies in the
future
adding in capability for people to make
those next
big steps
you