Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Chris Jackson: Auckland University's Spacecraft Missions Director on the first commercial spacewalk

Transcript

Chris Jackson: Auckland University's Spacecraft Missions Director on the first commercial spacewalk · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Polaris Dawn mission successful. A daredevil billionaire turned astronaut has
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: floated his way into the history books overnight conducting the
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: world's first privately funded spacewalk. Jared Isaacman, along with SpaceX's
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  Speaker 1: Sarah Gillis, launched into space about a week ago on
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  Speaker 1: the Falcon nine rocket, and last night they conducted a
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  Speaker 1: two hour walk outside their capsule.
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  Speaker 2: Back an hold.
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  Speaker 1: We all have a lot of works a year.
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  Speaker 2: For some here, Birksure looks.
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  Speaker 1: Like a perfect world. Chris Jackson is the University of
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  Speaker 1: Auckland head of space operations. Chris, good morning, Good morning Ryan.
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  Speaker 1: How significant is this a privately funded spacewalk.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there's been quite a lot of i'll say
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  Speaker 2: advances in private space space tourism over the past or
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  Speaker 2: five or ten years, I guess so, and each mission
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  Speaker 2: has been progressing. So getting outside the capsule is actually
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  Speaker 2: quite a big achievement. You know, there's quite a lot
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  Speaker 2: of danger involved with it, and yeah, technically I think
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  Speaker 2: it's quite a big achievement, and you know, it progresses
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  Speaker 2: things for SpaceX and for humanity space. I guess quite
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  Speaker 2: a long way in that SpaceX want to go to
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  Speaker 2: Mars and spacesuits and the space walk type you know,
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  Speaker 2: is all part of that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, the space suit that they're wearing a lot of
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  Speaker 1: talk about that slim down. It's almost like a wetsuit.
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  Speaker 1: It's that tight on their body. Nowhere near as bulky
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  Speaker 1: is the NASA ones we're used to seeing, right.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And I mean the space suit's quite you know,
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  Speaker 2: quite critical. We obviously think about the I say that
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  Speaker 2: the breathing environment that it obviously provides, but the thermal
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  Speaker 2: environment in space is quite extreme, and regulating temperature in
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  Speaker 2: an environment that has no air around the outside of
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  Speaker 2: the suit is quite critical. So testing that out is
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  Speaker 2: you know, quite a significant step forward. And making it
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  Speaker 2: easier for astronauts to do work outside of capsules with
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  Speaker 2: a smaller suit is something they were't about to do
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  Speaker 2: to do different things to say on the Moon, mining
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  Speaker 2: and things like that that they want about to get to.
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  Speaker 1: He won't say how much he's spent to get up there.
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  Speaker 1: Do you have any idea what it would cost to
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  Speaker 1: do something like this?
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  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I don't know, and I mean he's put
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  Speaker 2: together quite a program, so you know, he's going to
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  Speaker 2: be spending a lot of money. But yeah, it's certainly
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  Speaker 2: you know, tens of hundreds of millions of dollars I
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  Speaker 2: would expect, I mean a satellite launch, just a Falcon
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  Speaker 2: nine launches, you know, in the order of well, let's
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  Speaker 2: say some around about one hundred million new zelland dollars.
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  Speaker 2: So and a manned launches is a lot more than that.
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  Speaker 1: Just finally, there are currently nineteen people in space, which
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  Speaker 1: is apparently a record number. How many is a crowd?
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  Speaker 1: Do you reckon up there?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I think it's only going to start to increase.
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  Speaker 2: You know that there's a lot more stuff that people
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  Speaker 2: want to do in space. As I say, you know,
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  Speaker 2: Nasura going to the Moon and well soon in a
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  Speaker 2: year or two time that that program's drifting a little,
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  Speaker 2: but you know they want to populate the Moon and
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  Speaker 2: obviously use that as a stepping stone for getting to Mars.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, this is only going to be the start
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  Speaker 2: of you know, a lot more people in space and
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  Speaker 2: a lot more different places in space as well.
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  Speaker 1: Fascinating stuff. Chris, Thank you very much for that. Chris Jackson,
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  Speaker 1: University of Auckland, Head of Space Operations. For more from
• 3:19
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• 3:22
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• 3:25
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