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TIMOTHY JORDAN: I'm Timothy Jordan.
EMILY FORTUNA: And I'm Emily Fortuna.
Our next guest is a real pioneer, an engineer,
physician, and NASA astronaut, Dr. Mae C. Jemison.
What an honor to have you here.
MAE C. JEMISON: Thank you very much.
It's exciting to be here today, as well.
It's a beautiful, sunny day.
TIMOTHY JORDAN: Yeah, it is.
EMILY FORTUNA: Definitely, very bright.
You've had an extremely impressive career spanning
so many different fields.
What do you see as through-lines throughout all
these different fields?
MAE C. JEMISON: So when I think about the things
that I've done from having been a chemical engineer
and a medical doctor, and then an astronaut.
And then as soon as I left NASA, I
started an international science camp called The Earth We Share,
was environmental studies professor, 100 Year Starship.
Throughout them is the idea that we're connected.
And how do we use our technological prowess,
our resources, to help better the world writ large?
And I know that sounds kind of Pollyannish,
but my revelation, as I've grown up,
as I've looked around the world, as I've lived different places,
it's that this planet has incredible resources.
But they're finite-- the resources include
people and their talents that exist everywhere in the world.
It includes our plant life, our animal life,
not just the things you can dig up out of the ground.
And we have to protect those, and we also
have to understand that we share them.
And if I go a little bit further,
it's like pushing the envelope, not being satisfied
with this is complacent.
I always have to challenge myself.
And perhaps, I push and grab on things
that are really different or difficult.
But for me, the energy comes with trying something
that I don't know that I can absolutely accomplish it--
that it's going to require something new for me, that it's
going require me to grow.
EMILY FORTUNA: Awesome.
TIMOTHY JORDAN: During your presentation here,
you spoke about your 100 Year Starship initiative.
And to introduce it, and I love this,
you spoke about how Mars is too close.
Why is that, and why should we set our sights further out?
MAE C. JEMISON: So I'm going to be perfectly honest with you.
When I was growing up, I assumed that by the time
I became an astronaut--
actually, I didn't even want to be an astronaut.
I just assumed I'd go into space,
but that I'd be going to Mars or one
of the moons around Jupiter, Saturn, or something.
That's what I thought, because we had all these things that
were happening.
In fact, we had probes on Mars when I was a little kid.
So of course, we'll be doing something more.
The reason I talk about 100 Year Starship
from the perspective of it's more audacious
than Mars is because Mars doesn't push us hard enough.
We've been on Mars multiple times.
We've got Mars' address, right?
We can figure out the technological timeline
to do Mars, the technologies that are needed.
The reason we haven't gone to Mars
is not so much an engineering challenge.
It's a public commitment.
But what's going to really push us
is thinking about interstellar, which
also captures our imagination.
That doesn't mean that we don't do Mars.
It means let's do something that's big and audacious,
and keep that in our eyesight.
So 100 Year Starship was seed funded by DARPA
to make sure we have the capabilities
for human interstellar flight.
But the real underlying current there is innovation.
How do we get the radical leaps in knowledge,
in technologies, in human systems
that would allow us to go to another star system?
Now, that's the real piece, because each one
of those challenges that we meet can be applied to life here
on earth, right today.
You can't go to another star system
with humans using the kind of energy systems
we have today for space exploration.
You know, the chemical rockets, and propulsion, and stuff.
We're going to have to generate tremendous amounts of energy
through either a fission, where you break an atom apart,
fusion, like what powers a sun, our anti-matter.
We do fission now, but it's not well contained.
We don't know how to control it, store it.
Imagine if we could just learn how to store this,
what tremendous value it would have for life here, on Earth.
When you think about going to another star system,
you have to be autonomous.
So you have to carry your food with you.
It's a hard journey.
But if you get to going fast enough,
so it's reasonable within human lifetimes,
you're going to have to carry everything with you.
You're going to have to learn how
to grow your food, your medical systems.
And right now, when we're on earth,
we rely on this wonderful biodiversity of the soil--
the microbiome in the soil and all of those things--
to grow food.
We need to understand that.
We need to know how to keep it healthy.
We need to take that with us.
And so there are all these pieces--
financial infrastructures-- we have
to change to be able to do something that's long term.
And if you stop and think about that,
those are all things we need to survive on this planet.
EMILY FORTUNA: Space exploration seems
inevitable with the requisite, what you call, Team Earthlings.
But at the same time, it seems like we could be moving faster.
What do you think is holding us back?
MAE C. JEMISON: I think it's public commitment.
It's really that we haven't included people,
and so folks don't see how space technology impacts
their day to day lives, even though it does.
I live in Houston, Texas.
We track hurricanes, and that's what we know about.
We knew about the hole in the ozone
from space information and data.
So it's constantly a pervasive in our lives,
but we haven't told the story very well.
And when I say we, that's, I guess,
a royal we about space folks.
And you tell the story better by having people involved.
What was riveting people when Mars landed?
That they could-- you know the Mars Lander?
Remember, everybody was looking and cheering.
It's because they could see it.
They could be a part of it.
And I think that's the piece.
And I think that's a piece with all science and technology--
when it's accessible, and when people understand
that it's part of their lives, and it's not
this mysterious thing.
EMILY FORTUNA: And they're energized and excited
towards working towards that goal.
MAE C. JEMISON: Yeah.
And I think one of the things that space offers us
and also other technology innovations
offer us is that we get to do bigger things.
And I think people like an adrenaline rush.
But wouldn't we like to do good things with adrenaline rush?
Right now, we manufacture adrenaline rushes in ways
that are not necessarily so--
TIMOTHY JORDAN: Productive?
MAE C. JEMISON: Productive, there you go.
TIMOTHY JORDAN: Sure.
How does this relate to your theme
of Look Up and the Skyfie apps that you produced?
MAE C. JEMISON: So Look Up came from 100 Year Starship,
and we wanted to connect people with space.
And we also wanted to deal with the issue of human behavior.
How do we get the best out of us?
And we thought, let's ask people to go out and look up.
Like when was the last time you looked up?
Remember as a kid, looking up at the clouds--
and it just made you feel good.
And then I remember, as a child, thinking
that there are other children on the other side of the planet
who are looking up as well.
And what do they see?
I know they see the same moon.
In some instances, they see slightly different stars.
But we're all-- it was just one of those connecting things.
And so we started to work on, how
do we create a campaign where one day, around the world,
we'd all look up?
So of course, we had to make an app for that,
and that's where the Skyfie app came in.
So sky selfie, and the idea is to take an image, a video,
a text, or whatever-- when you look up,
what does it make you feel?
Post it, and we would put it on a globe
that you can twirl around.
And you can see what everyone else is doing.
And it's time tagged, data tagged to where you are.
And you get to see what other people are looking at.
What we came up with is that we want to do different events.
So we started on October 18, one day.
I'm proud to say we trended number five on Google,
which is great.
But in one day, we're able to garner lots of enthusiasm
and support around the world.
Of course, it took a lot of work to build up to that.
And now, we're continuing to work on it,
and we're going to do one also around the 50th anniversary
of the lunar landing.
So I'd like everybody to-- can I do this?
The Skyfie app is completely free.
No in-app purchases.
I know that's like, what is wrong with her?
No, it's because we want people to connect and use it.
And it's available on Google.
It's available on iOS systems.
And the idea is to really just connect us.
And I think, as we were talking before,
just the act of looking up from your phone
changes your perspective.
You get bigger.
You look out.
Just the act of looking up from your desk or your work,
or sometimes, I'm walking down the street,
I'm looking at the ground.
Looking up, it frees us.
It gives us energy.
EMILY FORTUNA: So I have one more question.
This is on behalf--
MAE C. JEMISON: Wait, wait, wait.
You're going to blame Timothy?
EMILY FORTUNA: Timothy asked me to ask this question.
TIMOTHY JORDAN: Between the two of us,
the bigger "Star Trek" nerd is probably me.
MAE C. JEMISON: OK, shoot.
EMILY FORTUNA: So I know that Nichelle Nichols
is a huge inspiration to you.
And I personally believe that representation in media
is super important.
And I want to ask how you got your guest
appearance on "Star Trek?"
MAE C. JEMISON: So let me just start off
by saying when I was growing up, I loved "Star Trek."
I was in Los Angeles before I was accepted into the astronaut
program.
And I used to get my hair cut in LA.
And the person who cut my hair was Stefon Dominguez,
who was a hair dresser in all these movies
and things like that.
And he knew LeVar Burton.
And Stefon and I were talking one day, and he said,
Mae, you should be on "Star Trek?"
And I said, really?
He said, oh, I'll mention it to LeVar.
So he mentioned it LeVar.
I got a call one night.
I was at home.
And it's like, hey, Mae.
This is LeVar Burton.
Would you be interested in being on "Star Trek."
That's what Stefon said.
And I was like, yeah, sure.
This is when the glasses come off.
Yeah, sure.
And they wrote a part for me as Lieutenant Palmer.
TIMOTHY JORDAN: That's awesome.
MAE C. JEMISON: And that's what happened.
Basically, it was an episode LeVar was directing,
and it was really, very neat.
And I was able to go around.
And so I've been one of the "Star Trek" buddies since then,
and was even able to help them when
they premiered the "Star Trek Discovery"
last year, in New York.
EMILY FORTUNA: That's wonderful.
TIMOTHY JORDAN: That's really cool.
EMILY FORTUNA: So cool.
TIMOTHY JORDAN: Before we go, is there anything
else you'd like to tell our viewers?
MAE C. JEMISON: Well, all this discussion we're having now
is really around science, and technology, and some of those
issues.
And it's really important that we understand
that we research science and problems based
on the people who are there-- their ambitions, their dreams,
their goals, their fears.
And so it's really important that we
have as many people as possible doing that work.
We design technology and tools based on the people we are.
It's important that we have lots of people involved.
And we fail to develop and use so much of the talent
in this country.
So I spend a lot of my time around science literacy.
And I think it's vitally important
that every child have an opportunity
for an excellent education, that every child is
science literate.
As adults, that we don't sort of say, oh,
I don't know about that.
That's not cute.
We need to make sure that we're fully engaged,
and that's my task to be inclusive and bring
lots of people along.
EMILY FORTUNA: Here, here.
TIMOTHY JORDAN: Awesome.
EMILY FORTUNA: Dr. Jemison, thank
you so much for joining us on this show, today.
MAE C. JEMISON: You're very welcome.
Thank you.
I get to shake hands.
I always shake hands.
TIMOTHY JORDAN: Thank you.
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