former vice president al gore joined leaders in the space industry to talk about the future of space exploration and research. the hour-long discussion was part of the annual world economic forum. >> hello and welcome to this very special davos agenda session during which we will explore how space research, space investment, and the space economy affects our life on this planet. i'm rebecca blumenstein, a deputy managing editor at "the

new york times." the global space economy will reach $1.4 trillion by 2030 and over half of the impacts from climate change are only visible from space. the forum's global risks report in 2022 warns of crowding and competition and the risk that results from the more accessible space. it seems now more than ever, establishing common rules between governments, business, and civil society on the use of space is an urgent challenge. to discuss these trends, we have a very, very special array of panelists. in a half hour we will for the very first time at the world economic forum connect live to european space agency astronaut matthias maurer, who is currently orbiting the earth aboard the international space station. we're joined by a unique panel of experts and industry leaders. first is al gore, former vice president of the united states, who has been at the forefront of bringing climate change to public attention for decades. and mr. gore was also at the forefront of establishing the

international space station which we'll hear about in a few minutes. josef aschbacher, director of the european space agency, which sponsored the astronaut we'll be talking to in a few minutes. sarah al-amiri, from the united arab emirates and chair of the uae space agency which last year launched a spacecraft to mars. she also heads a team comprised 80% of women in the uae. and chris kemp, founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of astra, one of the many space stars that's out there now and an absolute investment frenzy that's happening on the space front. vice president gore, i would love to start with you. you recently launched something called climate trace which uses ai in space to actually bring accountability to climate change. could you please explain how that actually works? >> yes, thank you for having me, rebecca. it's such an honor to join this

distinguished panel. climate trace, trace stands for tracking real time atmosphere carbon emissions, it is one of the new possibilities opened up by artificial intelligence and machine learning. we take the data -- it's a nonprofit coalition, international, that relies on artificial intelligence to process data from 300 different existing satellites, coupling it with more than 11,100 ground, sea, and air based sensors and multiple internet data streams to create unique algorithms that can give us a highly accurate and precise quantification of every significant emitter of greenhouse gas pollution. we released our first national inventory last fall in advance of the cop26. later this calendar year, we will have an asset level

inventory. you will see, for example, at least the 500 largest emitters in every single sector of the economy. oil and gas, transportation, every ship, every refinery, every power plant, every factory, et cetera. and the purpose is to get real time or near real time measure the measurement of where all this greenhouse gas pollution is coming from. there are more than a hundred countries that don't have any inventory at present. the itself even of the large countries are at least in most cases five years out of date. but now, with artificial intelligence, some things you can see directly from space. methane, for example, there are a number of new satellites that will pinpoint methane. but the noise to signal ratio, the difficulty of measuring co2 emissions against a highly varied co2 background on the earth makes it necessary to use

artificial intelligence to get the precision that we need. you've heard the old cliche, you can only manage what you measure. we haven't had until now the measurements necessary to really manage greenhouse gas pollution. we're not the climate cops. we're kind of neighborhood watch, except our neighborhood is the entire world. and we're hoping that this precision will be of value, i know it will be of value to investors who are trying to green their supply chains and reach net zero, as so many countries are now. the world economic forum has been one of the leaders in this movement. but also governments that in many cases do not have accurate information about where their emissions are coming from. and industry itself, many of the companies that would like to reach -- make a commitment to net zero don't presently feel comfortable with their ability

to measure their own emissions. we're going to do it for them. and every country will be accurately measured in near real time, and governments will be able to identify precisely the best strategies for quickly reducing greenhouse emissions. we've got to reduce them 50% by 2030 as a weigh station toward net zero by 2050. >> until now we've only had self-reporting and in a sense this is bringing radical transparency to emissions. when is that report going to be out? >> it will be out at the end of the third quarter of this year. and yes, all of the emissions data at present derives from one single source, and that is the self-reports by some countries, the so-called annex 1 countries, the developed countries, to the united nations. they're out of date, they're inaccurate. we have already reported oil and gas operation emissions are at

least double what they have reported. emissions from some countries are three times what have been reported. there are many other fascinating findings that have emerged already. and more than 100 countries have no reporting at all. they will soon have an obligation because of the ipcc and the united nations process, to join this reporting. we will be able to do it for them, many of these countries, who don't have the capacity to do it on their own. but what's so unique about the space resource is, we can see and measure and identify things from space that are extremely difficult to measure at ground level. >> joseph, could you please tell me, how does the european space agency plan to use this sort of effort in terms of space and

monitoring climate change? >> thank you, rebecca. also thank you for having me on this panel. i'm very impressed also to listen to vice president al gore, what he's saying is absolutely right, that we have an enormous need for information. we need independent information. we need information from satellites. what we do in europe, as you know, we have a very, very green agenda in many countries. the green parties are winning votes and really are defining the new politics in europe. we have the european union, in almost all the countries, a very clear goal of reaching carbon neutrality by the middle of this century. what we do from space, we call it sometimes we are taking parts of our planet from space with our satellites and we do exactly what vice president al gore was just saying, we monitor, we measure the parameters. this is of course in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide and

many other elements of greenhouse gases. but one has to never forget that the carbon cycle is a cycle which has of course the effect on the atmosphere but also on the land surface and the oceans, so this is a whole carbon cycle. of course you have to measure the co2 in the atmosphere but also what happens on the ground. the deforestation, agriculture. it was mentioned by vice president al gore that rice fields are emitting enormous amounts of methane. some call it a ticking time bomb. there's a lot happening there. we have some of the world's leading earth observation programs, also with earth explorers. they're bringing all this data to the people who need it. i think it is fair to say without satellites we wouldn't know about climate change, at least to the extent as we know it today because they feed the models, they feed the information we have. we really create information and avoid creating fake news because

these facts are really giving the status as it is. so yes, we are very active in this. we have a large program in europe that looks to the business segments and i'm very happy to work very closely with many partners on various aspects of climate with the united states in particular, but also many other countries in the world. >> excellent. sarah, i would like to go to you. along with the surge in private investment, national players like the uae are also becoming very ambitious about space. could you talk about what you see, how this plays out? is this a uae effort? how shall we think about global cooperation as well? >> thank you, rebecca. overall the uae space program came on the back of international cooperation. new countries that are entering into space cannot do it without leveraging on know-how and experiences that are there around the world. the purpose of it is twofold. one, it reduces risks significantly than starting

something from scratch. but the other end of it is that collaboration, cooperation, is part of new space and part of enabling new space. as our understanding and utilization of space as a technological resource and data resource becomes more and more vital across different key sectors. so we heard from vice president al gore, from josef as well, the impact and implication that we have and the better understanding that we have due to having space assets in space. currently we will look at having better connectivity around the world, utilizing satellites that are now at a lower cost than current spacecrafts that are currently in orbit, providing communications. as we move forward, space exploration becomes important because what it does is gives us scarcity. in scarcity when it comes to technology and high risk platforms, you're able to create high impact science that we can realize the potential of it today, but more importantly, it feeds into our development and

understanding for decades to come, just from an initial investment. when we're talking now also on an international front, the dialogue needs to continue with regards to the sustainability of access to space, ensuring that nations around the world have the necessary access to have their assets in space. secondly, to ensure that we're not cluttering space and creating another issue in space as we have today, monitoring sustainability here on earth. that needs global dialogue to ensure we're doing it in a mechanism that is supportive to space development. and thirdly, something that was mentioned across the board, access to data. access to the analysis that comes out of it. if we keep space as a platform of only those that get access to data are the countries that own a satellite in space, we deprive a large portion of the world from the ability to get the necessary knowledge, the necessary evidence to action,

policy making across the board, to get better crop yields, to get a better understanding of how to use sustaining production processes and what the real numbers are. this is something happening across the board and why we're focusing in the emirates on enabling earth observation from a downstream perspective, enabling entities to be able to analyze data from the satellites available around the world and be able to create the necessary solutions that touch on other sectors. overall, rebecca, we need to continue our dialogue internationally on how to trl space for policy making and how to transform space into one of the technological tools for advancement across different sectors. >> excellent. and chris, i would love to go to you. investment in space itself is soaring. it reached $7 trillion last year, doubling in just two years. what is behind this? we're hearing about billionaires going to space and space tourism. but is there inherent danger, is

this almost too much of a frenzy right now? >> i think space is essential, as you've heard from al and sarah, to monitor the earth, to understand the impacts that we're having on it. and the combination of all of these companies deploying various new sensors in space, combined with ai, will help us really understand the impacts that we're having and also give us the ability to take action, influence our climate. examples, astra's partner here in san francisco, planet, has now launched over 200 satellites. and their entire purpose is to help us keep track of the environment, to monitor the planet, which helps the climate trace consortium led by al gore to track emissions. there's been projects like the carbon mapping project, alan

coral access, astra is launching satellites for nasa out of cape canaveral to help us better understand tropical storms. all these companies are doing different things. the value of the overall space economy is predicted to grow to over $1 trillion in just the next few years. we've seen this year alone, this past year, over a dozen companies either become public companies, we were the first space tech company to go public on nasdaq this last july, but since then we've had almost a dozen companies, either go public planet on the new york stock exchange or many others. so we've never seen this level of investment. and we've never seen this level of opportunity for the diversity of satellites and the diversity of sensors to supply us with new tools to help us manage and understand our climate. >> so if i were a climate change activist and listening to all this surge of interest in space, and for a very good reason,

especially in terms of accountability and measurement, is there some concern, i guess this is a question to you, chris, but to all of, is there a risk that all of this interest in space detracts from all the work that needs to happen on earth to combat climate change? do you see them as oppositional or can they be mutually beneficial? >> i see the majority of investment in space, on earth. if you look at companies like spacex, the capital being invested in these companies are largely being invested to create a more connected planet and a healthier planet. and a planet where we can better and more efficiently consume our resources and operate as a species. and if you look at all the satellites that we've launched, they're largely satellites to help us connect underserved populations and to help us provide new tools to manage the resources here on earth. >> josef, is there a risk, i

know regulators, with elon musk, you recorded recently being concerned about keeping pace with some of the scale of the private investment that europe and other parts of the world could be left behind, and there could be overcrowding in terms of satellite. how concerned are you about that? >> "concern" is probably -- i'm concerned, but let me start from the good part of it, the good part being we really do see, as was mentioned just before by chris, a new race in space. we had the race in the '60s and '70s during the time of cold war. now we have a completely different race, actually between countries, between, say, the u.s. and china, as the two extremes, but also between the public and the private sector. chris i think is a very good example of what evaluated done and what he is doing very successfully going from the commercial side. this is something which is happening very strongly. we should never forget that the two richest people in the world

are investing massively in space. i think this is all great, this is really something that creates a completely new environment, new opportunities with a lot of economic growth and a lot of technology advancements which we all need. on the other side, and this is exactly what you have been just raising, yes, of course, because we launch so many more satellites into space, which is great, because we depend every single day, every single minute on those satellites, for navigation, for earth observation, for climate research. there are so many domains where we really depend on them. of course if there are more satellites, it needs to be regulated. we need to make sure these orb its are clean and sustainability in the same way as we look after sustainability on our planet. yes, there is a need for regulation. there is a need to make sure that these satellites are traveling. it's not only the satellites themselves because once they are operating fine, that is not the issue. the issue is when they become -- when they get out of their end

of life, when they become debris, and therefore a danger to other satellites in the orbit. today we have a huge amount of debris in the orbit. we have something on the ordinary of 30,000 pieces which are the size of a tennis ball or larger. this is a lot. and we are constantly avoiding this debris and flying what we call maneuvers to avoid collisions with one of these debris, even in the space station, we will speak in a couple of minutes to an astronaut, matthias maurer, after they came to the space station, a couple of days afterwards they had to take shelter in the rocket that brought them there because of debris which was coming towards the space station. so yes, on one side it's good to have all this activity. for me, of course, i'm very fascinated by this, we need to build up a strong capability. on the other side, yes, of course we have to regulate and make sure this is used in a safe

way. >> sarah, how do you look at this tension between governments and private industry and investment? you obviously are working for the government. how are you hoping to tap this interest in terms of investment dollars as well? >> so in terms of the investments themselves, it's not about keeping tabs on the investment. it's like josef was saying, it's having a better understanding on how you manage space debris so it doesn't impact the critical infrastructure that we have in space. because on beknownst to everyone on a daily basis you're using a form of satellite technology to just get on with your daily life. that is something that needs to be managed from an international perspective without inhibiting investments in space, without inhibiting development in space. that's why it is embraced by governments around the world, diversity in technological

developments, giving you access to different sensors at a lower cost than you would typically expect because there's healthy competition in design and development. any industry eventually evolves into having a relationship between government and the private sector. the roles are evolving, the government is seeking to alleviate risks in development. space is very risky and will continue to remain that way. so alleviate risks for businesses and therefore make investment in space more attractive. and at the same time developing capabilities and capacity in areas that you continuously need to evolve in. that also goes into basic science exploration that gives us a better understanding in the world that our world lives in. and these two factored in together, i don't think we have a global answer on how do you continue the healthy investment that we see in space, that's advancing technology at a much faster rate than we've ever seen

it before. and at the same time, ensuring that the access to space remains open and remains unchallenging to access and, again, unchallenging to operate in. >> vice president, you were at the forefront of creating the international space station, which has led to a continuing effort on behalf of many nations to cooperate when it comes to space. could you talk about those early days, and looking back on it, how it resonates today in the politically polarized world that we found ourselves in? >> well, with the tensions between the united states and russia right now, in part because of the dangerous moves by russia vis-à-vis ukraine, it's useful to think back to a time when we were able to cooperate very smoothly together. in 1993, we began the

commission, the former premier of the russian federation and i handled that binational relationship on behalf of our respective presidents for quite a long time. one of our missions was to establish the international space station. it has been a resounding success. we invited our european partners to join. other nations have participated. and it is an ongoing international cooperative effort. and what it makes possible, along with the use of the space resource, i want to emphasize, rebecca, the combination of the space resource with artificial intelligence. one of our partners at climate trace, for example, can use artificial intelligence to examine 45 years' worth of landsat data and can tell you the inherent fertility on every field of every farm on the entire planet.

chris mentioned a lot of the private companies, one of them he mentioned, planet, planet labs, gives us a complete picture of the entire earth's surface every 24 hours. you have to realize that cloud cover obscures some areas on some days, of course. but there are multiple other companies that give us not only a visual of photographs, but in multiple wavelengths so we can measure greenhouse gas emissions, as i talked about earlier, but also a variety of other opportunities to cut down on chemical use that's unnecessary, on the synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use that is wasted in so many cases. there are many other examples. we do have this problem with the debris in space. there needs to be international condemnation of any further anti-satellite experiments in space. some of the debris comes from

recklessness in that realm. and we have to -- but the resource is amazing. we also, years ago, declassified what we called the gps system. we take that for granted today. but it is incredibly valuable for all of us to be able to locate things on the earth's surface, which was impossible until we began to develop space science. >> chris, could you talk about -- you've been involved in sprays an impressively long time. i've thought of the blue marble, which was such an iconic image for so many of us. could you talk about your company, astra, and just in two, five years, where you're trying to do more frequent launches to space, but where you hope you will be, where will we be just looking out into the future here if all goes well. >> the company that al mentioned, planet, was the first in now hundreds of organizations that now include nation-states,

space agencies. the idea that you could take a device the size of a loaf of bread and fly it fairly close to earth and take very high resolution pictures, provide connectivity, put other kinds of sensors to help us understand the co2 in the atmosphere. there's been a revolution in space, not just an evolution, where satellites like the discover satellite al mentioned earlier would cost over $100 million, and it would launch on platforms like the space shuttle that would cost over a billion dollars to launch. astra now is at cape canaveral, we have our first flight here in the next week or so, where that flight was purchased by nasa for less than $5 million. i think it's by far, by maybe a factor of ten, the least expensive flight out of cape canaveral in history. so the access to space has enabled a whole new generation of entrepreneurs to build companies, to take these companies public, to provide new capabilities. and so this innovation is

something that is akin to the internet back 20, 30 years ago. and the internet was another one of these things were there was a time where you had to be a university or a government to be on the internet. and now you see tech companies spin up resources on a credit card, innovative and change the world. and i think we're seeing this kind of thing happen again. and to the point of managing the resource, we did it before. we did it with our airspace. we have millions of planes flying around, not colliding with each other. we did it with the internet, where we can't have collisions of names and addresses. we've pulled together some of the thought leaders behind the internet and behind some of the most pioneering companies and we've started to ask those questions. what can we apply to how we've made this work successfully in other domains to space? and these folks are coming together and we'll be presenting some of these ideas at the

meeting in april. but i think we're just getting started here. and these are all solvable problems. we have a lot of incentive to figure this stuff out. >> does space tourism run the risk of sending mostly very wealthy people into space, besmirching and taking away from these broader ideals and goals you're speaking of? >> i think it's important to recognize most of the investment in space is not in tourism but it's in space tech and in providing the tools we need to help manage our planet, to connect our planet. the tourism business, there's only a few companies that are investing in this. and it's a small sliver of the overall value of the space economy and the overall investment in the space economy. >> sarah, i would love to ask the same question of you. two, five years, you won a lot of accolades for launching the spacecraft to mars, the uae

being only the fifth country i believe to do so. what's next? where are you focusing on? >> two different aspects at the moment. one on developing capabilities across the private sector for us in the uae. as we continue as a nation's diverse economy, the space industry is one of the ones we're focusing on. on the other hand, we're continuing our exploration mission on the back of the emirates mars mission because of some of the outcomes that we'll come back to. our next mission is one to the asteroid belt with a fly-by to venus, due for launch in 2028. that will look at the history of the evolution of parts of the asteroid belt and more interestingly, looking at the evolution of the asteroid belt as a resource for space exploration. when we talk about why we're moving towards, there's two different angles, the private sector in the uae, the development people and the private sector.

the reason for that is it provides us with necessary capabilities and drive to make sure science and technology becomes the basis of the uae's economy in the coming decade. the beauty of space is that it instigates and instills in society a deep understanding because of its aspirational nature, a deep understanding on the benefits of science and technology for society at large and also for the economy. and through that, you're able to tap into the development and the adoption of technology across existing industries, ensuring sustainability, also across existing industries. you're able to catapult that forward. we wouldn't have been able to do this even five years ago without the mars mission being in orbit. first, it was a monumental shift in mindset particularly on risk. space increases your appetite for risk because the bigger the

programs, the chances of success are lower and lower. and therefore your appetite for getting into interviews that are riskier becomes higher. >> i must say i was fascinated to read that over 80% of the scientists in your program are women. is space becoming an area where women are focusing more? >> yes, we started about 14 or 15 years ago with our development part of our space program. and that meant that early on, we were a very young team. when we first started on the mars mission, i think the average age was about 27 out of the team. what that helped is a true reflection of the outcomes of the hiring education process where in the sciences and in s.t.e.m. at large, at the time, at that time, 30% of graduates were women. right now we're about 40%. so the number of 80% of the science being women, 34% of the overall mars emirates team being women is not surprising, it was a natural reflection of where we

were as a space program. it was really interesting to understand that that wasn't the norm, as we went into the program and became more and more connected with the global science community. and for me, the agenda of women in s.t.e.m. is very important from a global perspective. and diversity in s.t.e.m. is very important from a global perspective because that's how you ensure you have innovation across the board and development happening without bias across the board. >> and vice president, very quickly, before we go to josef who is going to shepherd us for the link to the international space station, where do you see this heading two to five years, if all goes well? >> well, i think we're going to see a tremendous expansion in the use of the space resource. and in addition to what chris was talking about, these light payloads, elon musk has revolutionized the ability to launch heavier payloads with the

reusability of the first stage. that's really a dramatic advance. and along with all these other developments, you're going to see a great expansion. but let me say, rebecca, briefly, just to put this in perspective, the orbit of the space station is up above 250 miles. if you were going to drive a car straight up in the air at autobahn speeds, it would take you most of the day to get there. but if you were going to drive to the top of the sky, it would take you about five minutes and below you would be all the greenhouse gas pollutions. it's a very thin shell surrounding our planet and we're currently filling it up with 162 million tons of man made global warming pollution every single day. we're using that thin shell as an open sewer. that's what's causing the crazy and dangerous weather extremes and threatening the future of human civilization. we have to stop it. the space resource will give us the ability to measure where it's coming from and to give us

the tools to manage the sharp reduction in the greenhouse gas pollution and save the future. >> and with that, we are going to thank you to the panelists and please hang on, because after the interview with our astronaut, we'll come back to you for your observations. i would like to turn to josef who is helping to organize the live stream with your astronaut in the u.s., video feed from houston, it should be shown on the screen now, as the connection is being made. josef, would you please explain what's going on here. >> so what's going on, vice president gore was recalling some of the highlights of it. the space station right now is somewhere over the pacific, somewhere halfway over latin america which will be the next

landmass it will hit. and i just heard some sound, i think we are connected to houston. >> josef, director, european space agency, i can hear you loud and clear. this is matthias maurer, astronaut on the international space station. >> you have a green t-shirt, which is the color of our discussion today, i really appreciate it. so how are you doing and where are you and what have you been doing just now? >> yes, so i'm doing fine. i'm doing well. and this morning i was actually involved in a lot of cargo operations. we filled our vehicle that we send back. actually i think cargo is the wrong term, i should say our harvest vehicle, because it's full of scientific experiments. we worked hard in the last weeks and months and now we bring this

harvest back to our planet earth for the scientists to analyze all these samples that we have produced up here in space and to produce science and knowledge for humanity out of it. right after my cargo activities, i also did some sports. that's why you see me probably clean and in good shape now because i just had my kind of wet towel shower. >> fantastic, matthias. as you know, we are here connected through the world economic forum's virtual space session. and i would like to hand over to rebecca blumenstein, "the new york times" deputy managing editor, she will moderate this session with you. rebecca, over to you. >> thank you, josef, and hello, matthias, it's so good to see you. >> hello, rebecca, it's wonderful having the opportunity to talk to you from space. and hopefully to have a very nice exchange also about a very important topic. >> i must say we were debating

whether we should say good day, good evening, good night, because you orbit the earth every 90 minutes, it's a bit of a real time call. but i would love to start off by asking, how have your views of the planet changed since you have been aboard the international space station? >> yes, so you're right, we circle our planet like every 90 minutes, 16 times a day. and we work according to the uk time, so greenwich mean time. so we're only one hour offset of you. yes, i traveled the planet once before, and that was always my big dream. just like seeing the world changed my life. it gave me a lot of different attitudes, like how we should work with our planet and the people on our planet. but now being in space, and especially this morning when i did my sports activity, i can look out of the window and i see

down there our planet gliding by. i saw latin america, south america, gliding by. and a few minutes later, less than ten minutes, we were over africa. it crossed my mind that christopher columbus took this journey just in the opposite direction, like 500 years ago. for him it was a really tough adventure. and he had his three ships and his crew and everyone needed to work hard to make this one challenge possible. and nowadays, i look at from space down there, and for me, like space is like our planet earth, it's one big spaceship. and i think like the tribulation, the crew of our spaceship earth is like the crew of a ship of christopher columbus at that time. we all need to work together in order to meet the challenges of our day, like climate change, for example. so i've been here in space, i've fallen in love with our planet even more than before. >> and how does the work that you do help the environment?

what would you say to some people who say we're focusing a bit too much on space and not enough on the earth? >> yes, i think like space cannot be the only solution to have the solution for climate change. but space is definitely a very, very important aspect. and i see three different layers to it. for example, like we have the personal layer, like every individual needs to contribute, and space is a big motivator. when i talk to the kids, i can motivate them and describe what i see. and we also have the technological layer. for example, we need to improve our technology to create less co2, to have more efficient machinery, more efficient transport. here on the space station, we do a lot of research to produce these new and innovative materials. and there's also the political level. and i think you are today there at a political level discussing such problems. i think you, the political

decisionmakers, they need to have the data. the data comes from satellites. it also comes from the science that we do in space. for example, we look at the earth with the satellite data we provide for you but we also prepare exploration and exploring space means also looking at different planets like planet mars, for example, who used to have an atmosphere and a lot of water but now the water is gone. so obviously there was an extremely climate change over there. and so space can bring in a lot of knowledge and feed all this information into the decisionmakers so that you can take the right decisions. >> vice president gore is on our panel and he played an instrumental role in creating the international space station. could you please talk about just what cutting edge research you're doing? you mentioned your cargo work before, but just what is your goal for this week or month up there?

>> so i'm working here during six months in space, and i would say that between 100 and 150 experiments, i will be participating in. it's a large spectrum, for example, it involves a lot of life sciences. you all know that humans in space in zero gravity, it has a lot of changes, the bones dissolve and get weaker. that is much, much faster than on planet earth. so actually the loss of bone mass happens up to 30 times faster than on the ground. so astronauts are kind of guinea pigs, we can study in a very controlled environment, in a very fast way, a very fast progress, like how to fight such diseases that can be done by nutrition, by medication, but also by doing sports. and i have a very interesting experiment which is called myotones. it is an experiment, i can

measure the strength of several muscles on my body and then we feed this information back to the scientists who then prescribe us countermeasures. for example, i have a suit that provides small electric shocks and it also comes for rehabilitation, this feedback will help other people who have problems with their body, like muscle problems, bone problems, to like remain longer time fit and healthy. once they are in hospital, maybe to get out quicker from the hospital. but i also have very interesting experiments that are correlated to the pandemic, for example, the corona pandemic. we all know transmission of diseases is a very importants toic important topic. i kill bacteria, especially in space, with space radiation, the

mutation rate of microbes is faster. scientists learn a lot how the new surfaces we have here in space, in this controlled environment, we can analyze it and hopefully transfer this knowledge into everyday life, for example in hospitals where surfaces that everyone touches, a surface that's prone to transmit these microbes from one infected person to the next healthy person, that we can stop this chain and cut this chain. it's very important. then we have simon, which is artificial intelligence. once we fly further away from the earth, i will not have my houston ground control team or in munich, the european ground control team, who looks over my shoulders and steps in i have a small error or if i have a question. so artificial intelligence is really important for exploration in space. but on the ground it's very important also to increase efficiency in all ways of transport or also space

transport management. then we have experiments that are also related to reduction of co2. we have concrete hardening, a very interesting experiment that looks into seemingly very hard material, concrete, which we have everywhere around us, but not in space, usually. but during the production of concrete, we produce a lot of co2. and so if we can improve this process by a better understanding of the process, we can actually cut down also the co2 emissions and that will be very significant. >> you sound very busy. i would love to hear your views about space tourism. do you think it's a good idea for more people to have the experience you're having now? and i would also love to know, what do you do for sport up there, for sports? >> for sports, we're not playing football for sports. but we have three different devices.

one is like running, it's like a treadmill. so i'm running, but actually i'm chained down to this machine that puts me with a certain force on there. so the force that i have here is like -- almost like the gravity force on mars. so i'm always having my mars session on the space station. we also have the bicycle, a bicycle without a saddle because we don't sit, we just float there. we do a lot of the work with the legs, like pulling and pushing. that's for like cardio activity. but then we also need to do sports that tells you need your bones and need your muscles. we do weightlifting, obviously in zero gravity we don't lift weight but we use pressure that's like weightlifting on the ground. the use of machines for exercise

by astronauts in space has become much better. and the question, remind me again. >> space tourism, do you think it's a good idea for more people to have the experience of looking at the earth the way that you get to every day? >> yes, obviously like space tourism is like, it's a two-sided like knife. it has one positive side, like the more people fly to space, the more ambassadors we have that hopefully come back to our beautiful planet earth and say we need to take care of our planet, we need to reduce the emissions, we also need to stop everything that i see here from space that makes my heart bleed, like burning rainforests or like the melting of the glaciers, all these phenomena, we can see from space. all the flooding in brazil that we can observe from space, clearly evident. everyone who has been only a few

days in space has become a really avid ambassador for our planet earth and to protect it in the future. on the other hand, the more people we fly up here, the more rocket launches we will also have. so we create also waste and space debris. and here that's a very important topic, because on our planet earth, we ignored for way too long that the open seas, the oceans that don't belong to any country, are still important, so we shouldn't like put our oil there or our garbage there because in the end it will end up in the food chain. and we have to learn this. and the same happens now in space, we fly to space, or we have been flying to space for five, six decades. and now we see that every time we launch a vehicle to space, we leave space debris. and that piles up. and in the end, either we actively clean space or we will have the same problem that we have on the ground with too much

garbage. and like people get annoyed by it. here it actually is a safety issue. and so we need to take measures to make sure that space is clean and accessible, also in the future for everyone, because you will not want to live in a world where space is no longer accessible. our economy, our daily lives, depends way too much on everything that we have here in space. >> with all the new satellites and the space debris you mentioned, is it becoming dangerous to orbit the earth in the international space station? josef was saying earlier there was an incident recently where you actually had to take shelter. >> yes, so we have always had like space debris issues. it comes from the earlier rocket launches. but also we have natural space debris, because there's also like stuff coming from the universe and entering the atmosphere, passing our orbit. space flight is risky. but if we take the right

measures, i wouldn't say it's dangerous. for the international space station, we have a lot of ground control teams that like measure the area in the space we're flying in, and if there is any object coming close to us, we will take measures. so one measure could be that we do a debris avoidance maneuver which usually means like we start up our engines and lift the space station a little bit. sometimes we also need to slow down and lower the orbit a bit, just to get away from the object. if the object comes on a very short notice, then we need to go into shelter which means like we hide in our spacecrafts and close all the hatches between the different modules just in case something happens. but i think so far, everything went well, and the flight controllers have a very good situational awareness. but the more rockets we launch and the more stuff we bring up to space, i think we need to have rules, strict rules, who needs to do avoidance maneuver if, for example, we have a

collision upcoming between two satellites that can be actively controlled, because everyone who torches to the sideburns energy and reduces the lifetime. it has economic impact to do so, and iss is in a very good position and have experts working in the space awareness program but a question that the director general of isa would probably answer already or raise again because it affects everyone not just esa or nasa, it's everyone in space. >> you talked about cooperation, just to wrap up, how do you think, if you're talking to people, we have a very global of panel, people tuning in from around the world. how can we ensure cooperation for everyone on earth for the beneficial use of space? >> well, i think we can look at

space, international space station is really inspiring. i mean, we launched this project 21 years ago and people have been living here ever since. people from a lot of different nations, languages, cultures, and it works. we all work together and we're one team and i wish we could extend this cooperation, this success on to many more projects and especially the very important projects like fighting climate change and so i think the, we can inspire people, that look at what we achieved with international space station and let's go an additional step also in other topics. >> and finally, climate change is obviously such an urgent issue here an earth. do you think that, you mention the fires and sometimes the flooding that you see. you feel you can actually, just with your eye, see the impact of climate change from space?

>> yes. i mean, when i fly around the earth like 16 times a day, we cross over areas that are very arid, very dry, and i can see scars on our planet earth where people dig deep into our planet just to extract resources so are actively reshaping our planet, we are cutting down trees, burning down rain forests so i see the flames and i see huge areas of agriculture where generations of astronauts before have seen a nice intact rain forest. so also, the glaciers are getting smaller and smaller, but i mean satellite photos provide here much better imagery for this one because you need to look into long-term and my six months here in space is probably a little too short but also see areas of flooding. and we astronauts here can be communicators and communicators to the people because data is one aspect but having an ambassador who tells it is

another aspect. we are also contributing here in procuring technology that is hopefully helpful against climate change, for example the exploration of the moon and mars and in order for this exploration we need new technology. we need to have closed-loop chains, for example the water loop. we recycle all the water that we have here on the space station up to roughly 91, 92%, i believe. but in order to be successful in exploration, we need to come up to 98%. so in all this technology that we use and develop for space, we then spin off to the ground and help to produce clean water on the ground and have more efficient closed loop systems and i think that's a very important aspect. also, looking at energy production. you saw the energy here on the space station so the energy has

been like developed in the past quite a bit for space applications and now it's a game-changing technology also on the ground to fight climate change. >> well, i want to thank you so much for your time. we learned so much talking to you and best of luck up there. you're doing very impressive, important work. take care. >> well, thank you very much for giving me the chance also to communicate about this very important work and please keep on going, discussing the very important topic about climate change and we all need to contribute. all the best for your very important work. >> thank you so much, mattias, take care. >> this is houston -- >> so to hear from our panelists, what your impressions are listening to him and what he's doing, he's very vocal about the need for international cooperation concerned about space debris, joseph, let's

start with you. >> i mean it's always fascinating, of course we do talk to astronauts occasionally but everytime i hear an astronaut speaking it's just so fascinating because they are ambassadors as he says. i mean, we are also using satellite and see with the vice-president we spoke before about the use of satellite to see measure climate change, the barometers more than half come from satellites to measure climate change data but not the same as the voice of an astronaut human being who lives there, sees the deforestation they see, not only africa and topical areas but the northern parts and it's amazing to hear his voice happen. it gives us perspective how to see our planet because we all know if and really so happy we have vice-president with us who has been telling us an inconvenient truth and we have to tackle it and look into it

and i think the combination of technology from satellites and astronauts is fantastic. >> chris, what are your thoughts listening to him? >> i think there's a moment we have now that has never existed in human history where space is now accessible to entrepreneurs to the private sector in a way it has never been before. and we can now invest in these companies on public markets for the first time in history. we now have the opportunity to build sensors and put them in space to help us see our planet for the first time. so we're beginning an era of innovation like we've never seen before. and so i'm incredibly excited and honored to be a part of that and enable all these entrepreneurs through astro to get the satellites into space and make it easier to operate in space, excited about what elon

is doing, potentially take us beyond earth to mars, excited about the space tourism they're working on, this is truly a time where if we embrace this, tackle the problems on space debris, the precious spectrum that we need to use efficiently, we can make humanity far more efficient in our resources, use our resources here on earth, reduce the carbon emissions in the atmosphere, hold people accountable that don't help us with these objectives so we're just getting started. >> sarah, to you. >> i follow on chris for just getting started. space is opening up to even more and more innovators and better understanding to connect different sectors so you're moving it from the realm of something that is highly specialized to a small group of nations and individuals to a tool that is accessible to the masses and it's through that that you're able to increase

investment in it, be able to get the right answers to complex questions utilizing space through the international space station, using satellites, getting a different understanding on our universe at large. space is here to be both impactful to the economy, it will continue to be a major driver of scientific knowledge and will continue to be an area by which we need to continuously invest in and continue it from perspective of international collaboration. >> and vice-president, if you could please close us out with some final words on your observations. >> well, thank you rebecca, i loved your interview with matthias and as joseph said, seeing through his eyes the views only available from space reminds me that actually the first time we as human beings saw our planet whole in space was in december of 1968, before the moon landing, when the first

mission went around -- that far out into space, around the moon. and in many ways, the modern environmental movement began when we were able to see our planet floating in the dark void of space. and it brings a new consciousness and a new awareness. i might just mention that a million miles on the other side of the earth from the sun, 1.5 million kilometers, the james web telescope is unfolding now and will give us a chance to see into the distant past, to see the first moments of the universe's emergence, but we have to use our moral imagination to see the future of humanity and see the grave danger that is posed by all of the global warming pollution that we're putting into the atmosphere everyday. it's trapping as much extra heat every 24 hours as would be released by 600,000 first

generation atomic bombs exploding every single day. that's what's threatening our future, and by using the space resource, we will be able, with climate trace and other initiatives to be able to get very precise in finding out exactly where this pollution is coming from and then encouraging, but whatever means possible, the sharp reduction of the global warming pollution that's threatening humanity's future. >> well we look forward to that report and so much to come and i'd like to offer a special thanks to mattias and all of our panelists for the most memorable and historic discussion. thank you all so much. >> thank you. >> american history tv, saturdays on c-span 2, exploring the people and events that tell the american story. at 2:00 p.m. eastern on the presidency, abraham lincoln

scholars, noah feldman and diana shaw talk about the president's speeches and what they reveal about the constitution, then the annual lincoln forimin pennsylvania with discussions on the civil war with lucas mora author of "lincoln and the american founding" and annette read, and karen janey, author of "ends of war," exploring the american story, watch american history tv saturday on c-span 2 and find a full schedule on program guide at c-span.org/history. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government, sponsored by these television companies and more, including buckeye broadband.

buckeye broad band supports c-span along with these television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> now, select committee on the modernization of congress held a hearing on recommendations to make congress more effective, efficient, and transparent. we'll hear about telework, staffing, and committee voting systems. >> listen, congress can be a tough place to get things done but we're, i think we're proving that it's possible. to date, the committee passed a total of 142 recommendations to make congress a more efficient and effective institution. over 60% of the 97 recommendations passed in 116th congress have been implemented or seen meaningful action toward implementation, 24 fully