Marie-Pier Boucher: If we fail to do this, there is not future in Space

Introduction: In Episode 105 of the Space Cafe Podcast, host Markus engages with Marie Pierre Boucher, who provides a fascinating perspective on integrating arts and diverse cultural elements into space exploration.

Guest Background: Marie Pierre Boucher, a visionary from the University of Toronto, expands on her extensive work that spans across art, technology, and space, illustrating how these realms intersect to create more inclusive and sustainable environments in space.

Key Topics Covered:

·       The Role of Art in Space: Boucher discusses how art and cultural perspectives can
        fundamentally reshape the design and functionality of space habitats.

·       Inclusivity in Space: The conversation delves into the need for broader
        participation in space projects, emphasizing roles for artists and non-engineers.

·       Transformative Narratives: She highlights how narratives around space exploration
        are evolving, promoting a diverse and inclusive approach.

Memorable Quotes:

·       "Integrating art from the start can transform space environments not just
         functionally but also psychologically." — Marie Pierre Boucher

·       "In the vastness of space, every voice should be heard, every perspective
         considered." — Marie Pierre Boucher

Key References and Must-Click Links:

·       University of Toronto - Learn more about the institution where Marie Pierre
        contributes to transdisciplinary research.

·       European Space Agency - Referenced as an example of collaborative space
        exploration efforts.

·       NASA - Mentioned in the context of public participation and project transparency.

·       Orion Module - Discussed in relation to human factors engineering.

·       Canadian Space Agency - Discussed for their data protocols and public engagement.

Featured Media and Cultural References:

·       Movie: Aniara - A film discussed for its portrayal of human psychological 
        experiences in space.

·       Movie: Space Down - Directed by Dominic Gagnon, available on Vimeo.

·       Music: "Surrender" by Suicide, discussed as a song representing calmness in space
        travel.

·       Music: "Scrambles of Earth" - The reimagined Voyager Golden Record tracks,
        speculated to be remixed by aliens.

Follow Our Journey:

·       Host: Markus Mooslechner

·       Guest:

You can find us on Spotify and Apple Podcast!

Please visit us at SpaceWatch.Global, subscribe to our newsletters. Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter!

Transcript

[00:00:00]

[00:00:00] Markus: Hello, everyone. This is Space Cafe Podcast, and I'm Markus. Where do you get inspiration from? I usually get inspired when I'm confronted with something unusual, something I haven't seen before, something my brain seeks to compartmentalize, something that literally extends my view of the world. Like, very recently, when I visited a film studio with an 8x4T that is 4 0, Meta U shaped video wall for completely new forms of film production in such great resolution that I immediately had to think about an earlier conversation we had on this show with Georgi Petrov.

[00:00:58] You know, the space architect who builds for ESA and NASA. Remember when he mentioned how difficult it is in space to build a window to make life in space more enjoyable and less ending up shining style. so very briefly we touched on the idea to skip windows altogether and use high end resolution displays in place.

[00:01:20] Remember? So as I'm standing in this film studio, completely immersed in this monster of a screen, I could totally imagine the potential of such a thought. Feel stuck on the moon? Fire up that Alpine 360 degree mountaintop backdrop and cool down your AC for some immersive feeling. Spare any kind of window to the outside and save a lot of sweat and expenses.

[00:01:45] Now Back to the inspiration bit. Let me challenge you. Let's swap the video wall for an innocent observation. Like, why is it that space is still reserved for science and engineering while 99 percent of the world are not scientists and engineers?

[00:02:02] Who speaks for the 99 percent that will ultimately, eventually, call this place home? Shouldn't they have a say in all this also? Enter my guest Marie Pierre Boucher from the University of Toronto. Marie Pierre is a transdisciplinary thinker and visionary who challenges any status quo she's confronted with.

[00:02:23] She builds and thinks for and about extreme environments on earth and in space. And fear not, Marie Pierre understands extreme in a deeper dimension that I would have ever imagined It's meaning to be. Ladies and gentlemen, get ready to immerse yourself in some radical and challenging way of thinking.

[00:02:44] It's the scientists and engineers who bring us into space, but it's people like Marie Pierre who challenge us on how the future up there may look like. Before we leap off, I have a very mundane request. In case you're an Apple user, Apple made an update to its podcast subscription app some issues with getting notifications for new episodes on this channel.

[00:03:09] So please head over to Apple Podcasts and re subscribe to this channel, and whilst doing so, in case you're not on Apple, and somewhere else. Please recheck all your links for this, as we are migrating to a different distributor, which may affect your subscription status. so as we have got this covered, without further ado, welcome Marie Pierre Boucher to the Space Cafe Podcast. 

[00:03:38] Marie Pier: It's a call for action, perhaps for, like, young, young girls to feel that they can be in the space industry, 

[00:03:45] like, because women have been kind of, like, discarded or not really celebrated in space history. But also, like, one of the things I think that we're trying to undo is the first narrative.

[00:03:54] We don't claim to see first women, first this. We're trying to undo that and to create something more complex.

[00:04:01] But, uh,

[00:04:02] Yeah.

[00:04:03] Markus: I think there is so much issues in our society. Underneath or between the lines, which we mostly do not see, two of my colleagues, female colleagues, told me that during their, school time, the girls were taking out of physical exercises , like for half a year, to do a self defense 

[00:04:22] um, 

[00:04:23] training, and the guys, the boys, were still playing soccer. So the question is, why not take guys out of soccer training and teach them how to behave properly?

[00:04:34] Marie Pier: Yeah, that's a good question. 

[00:04:36] Markus: Why, why the girls? 

[00:04:38] Marie Pier: Yes, that's a, that's sad, I have to say that's very sad. but I think, I think the book we try to avoid to reproduce the binary, Between Men and women. And we try to complexify that to see that we could ally ourselves Rather than distinguishing. but certainly there is a kind of male domination Or patriarchal domination in the space industry. And, but we don't want to, the book is not about deconstructing that we think that providing new narratives that are constructive and powerful. is better than trying to undo something that we don't like.

[00:05:13] So we're trying to add more and maybe create more rather than deconstruct. So, yeah. 

[00:05:18] Markus: Let's 

[00:05:19] talk about space and why why space 

[00:05:21] is a good launching pad for all of this. Why is the space dominion something that interests you in that 

[00:05:30] respect? 

[00:05:31] Marie Pier: Well, for me, what is interesting about space is that it forces us to reinvent every single kind of relationship that we have with one another, with space, with the environment.

[00:05:40] It also includes all kinds of technologies like so biotech, nanotech, they all come together uh, for space exploration. So for me, it's a way to encompass most of the technology that uh, we can work on. And, Uh, also, I think, uh, space, there's still a mystery, or, a desire to discover it or to explore it, which, uh, there's still a place for new imageries, or, I think one of the things, the problem for me with space is that we always serve the same narratives and the same images, and I think we need to populate visual imagery or conceptual discourses with other types, so I think the book does that.

[00:06:20] Uh, but I think space is, uh, It's, it's a, it's an open canvas, but at the same time it's very, uh, it was very, it's populated. So it's kind of like this, this dichotomy that becomes interesting for me. 

[00:06:34] Markus: But 

[00:06:34] we're doing, at the moment, we're doing quite badly, from that perspective, because I cannot think of a single female, Um, in the space industry of similar importance as Elon Musk and as Jeff Bezos.

[00:06:49] Marie Pier: We have the Canadian Space Agency, uh, Director, who's a woman, Lisa Campbell. Uh, but it's true that if we think about the industry part, uh, women are often tokenized, actually. uh, They're, uh,

[00:06:59] they're, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,

[00:07:00] uh, uh, uh, uh, they're used, for promotion rather than for their intellect or their capacity to contribute.

[00:07:06] That's true. Yeah. Yeah. that's unfortunate, uh, I would love to say, maybe Grimes. 

[00:07:13] Markus: they still together? 

[00:07:14] Marie Pier: I don't think so. 

[00:07:15] Markus: Not 

[00:07:15] anymore.

[00:07:16] Marie Pier: Yeah, so I think, I think it would be nice to see, there are some women who are in powerful position. Uh, I think about Arielle, she's, uh, the director of the Space Initiative at MIT, and she's really leading, like, really amazing work, but, 

[00:07:29] Markus: uh, 

[00:07:30] Marie Pier: she's not really celebrated or no, That's the thing. Women also, like, I think women prefer to work in the shadows often, so that's also a reason why perhaps we don't necessarily want to be 

[00:07:40] Markus: like 

[00:07:41] Marie Pier: the leader of anything. That would be not, that would be behaving like a man in the space industry, right?

[00:07:46] Yeah.

[00:07:46] Markus: how can you

[00:07:47] tell?

[00:07:50] those boundaries?

[00:07:51] How can you go beyond this? Because on the one hand you're saying it's a female trait, to behave just like that, as there are male traits to behave very dominantly. So if you're envisioning a different world out there, how can you go beyond those boundaries? 

[00:08:12] Marie Pier: Well, that's a very good question. If I had the answer, I think I would already be in space.

[00:08:17] but um, I think it's a matter of sustained work.

[00:08:21] These

[00:08:21] things, they think they take a lot of time to change. Uh, so I don't think the effects will be felt in the next few months or years. I think that's going to take decades before we can feel the change, right? But I think it's a matter of continuing. You know, you have to, like, do sustained engagement.

[00:08:37] Like, Nahum does, uh, Nelly Benayoun is here, does too. Like, people are trying to change little by little. For instance, like, um, Uh, the woman, uh, Pascal, who was the director of the International Astronautical Federation, for, uh, for, uh, for a couple of years, um, when she, uh, she got into, uh, into her position, she changed all the titles from the sessions at the, the congress.

[00:09:02] Everything that had colonization, she changed it with exploration. So these are the small changes that will actually be affected, but I, I think it's kind of difficult to break these boundaries, but we have to come together. I think this is what the project does too. It's like, you need a coalition of people, For For things to change.

[00:09:21] So, yeah. 

[00:09:23] Markus: So we're not colonizing Mars. We're, what are we doing up there? 

[00:09:27] Marie Pier: Well, I don't think it's a matter of just changing the mindset. If you change the vocabulary, then you change also, like the, the way you think about it, I don't think that we're, I think the companies they do colonization. They do exploitation extraction.

[00:09:41] Uh, but I think that through changing the vocabulary and also like, I think the goal of people like me is actually to, um, to turn our research in a way that is meaningful to these people. And I wouldn't have said that a few years ago, because for me it's a bit transfiguring my own research, because I'm not supposed to speak the economic language that they do.

[00:10:02] But I think this is our goal.

[00:10:04] It's our duty to actually, not transfigure what we work on, but to make it meaningful for people who just want accumulation of capital. And I have to say, I mean, capital, capitalism is bad, 

[00:10:17] Markus: but 

[00:10:17] Marie Pier: maybe the accumulation of capital is not so bad. Depends how it's redistributed, right? So maybe it's the politics of redistribution that we need to work on.

[00:10:27] Markus: If 

[00:10:27] um, 

[00:10:28] someone handed the reins of power over to you for a year, what would you do differently in the space industry? So you're the boss of SpaceX, you're the boss of Blue Origin, you're the boss of NASA and ESA, and so you have the reins of power for a year. 

[00:10:51] Marie Pier: I think I would create the most, the craziest team of people for advising.

[00:10:56] I would create a collective way that I would engage like, The problem for me, I think, with the space is that it's only reserved to experts and lots of the people who don't know about it feel that they are not entitled to be part of the exploration of the pro of the project because they are not experts. So I would bring non experts.

[00:11:13] I would bring, uh, artists, designers, and I have to say I wouldn't bring artists and designers to make the design look good, but to really think I, One of the problems for me with is that culture or art or all of these, they they are appended. So like you develop a spacecraft, then you add some aesthetic value to it.

[00:11:34] So myself, I would what I would want to do is to start the aesthetic value or the cultural value from the onset, rather as something that you can add after. So like, when you think about spacecraft, the only thing about survival, they don't think about putting colors, they don't think about any of this.

[00:11:51] They only think about it after, but it's too late in the process. You can't add like as a culture afterwards. So this is what I would do. I would try to like, really like have some cultural from the onset. 

[00:12:04] Markus: Yeah. 

[00:12:04] So what, what would be your main incentive to go into space at all? Because if you do all those things, someone would come along and ask you, so how do you, do I make money with that?

[00:12:15] So where's the business model behind that? 

[00:12:17] Marie Pier: Well, myself, I, I have my thinking is that. Most of us will never go to space, but we will end up living like astronauts on Earth. So, like, the kind of spacecrafts that we're building are probably the future spacecrafts, like, we might end up, like, I think this from Dorian Sagan, who is, like, the son of Carl Sagan and Lynn Margulies. He wrote this book on biosphere, and he says that he thinks that, ah, we will end up living on biospheres on Earth. So it's a little bit this idea that They will make loads of cash, lots of cash, but on Earth by, like, We can see that, like, there's this guy named Peter Anker, he's a historian of science. He wrote this paper called the Ecological Colonization of Space, where he explains that it's space exploration that brought Uh, the recycling devices on Earth.

[00:13:05] It's true the, the bio toilet solar panels, and all of that were developed for the space station, right? And then they were adapted for civilian use on Earth. So, for me, this is this kind of thing that perhaps The space industry will end up partnering up with industries on Earth to kind of develop space modules or whatever that will be inhabited on Earth.

[00:13:26] So we can think about like, catastrophic places, you know, like, uh, when you have hurricanes or these kinds of things, right? 

[00:13:33] Markus: Is this something 

[00:13:34] new that we're ignoring 

[00:13:37] the 

[00:13:37] arts and the humanities in exploration Has that ever been different in history? 

[00:13:46] Marie Pier: Well, I think DASA always use humans to create their stories of like, uh, the heroes of space.

[00:13:54] Like, you know, this is funny because like historically it's the animals who are the first heroes of space, right? But we never speak about them, right? So there is a hierarchy of who uh, space belongs to, to a certain extent. I think humans were used a lot. They're still used. I, um, I think Yeah, I think there's, I think the, I don't think there was, maybe in the history there was before more interest, but I think there was a renewed interest in bringing artists and designers in scientific projects, maybe like in the 80s, like it started more or less.

[00:14:26] But lots of people don't even understand that an artist is not there to make your design look good or beautiful, right? So they instrumentalize the artist, they're not really interested in what the artist can contribute. So, Yeah, I don't know if I have examples, historical examples, where humans were more at the center or humanist discourses.

[00:14:44] Even the the, the development of the self sustaining spacecraft and so forth was done at the expense of an invention of a form of humanism, right? So you had to have like, uh, the carrying capacity, like, you know, to make sure that the spacecraft would be able to carry a central number of people and so forth.

[00:15:02] But then this was done at the expense of any kind of psychological things that you could live in. 

[00:15:06] Uh, 

[00:15:06] so like for instance, when you, we speak about space exploration, do we ever hear, uh, astronauts speak about 

[00:15:12] suicide 

[00:15:13] ideas or depression? so these kinds of narratives are important. 

[00:15:18] Markus: It's very interesting.

[00:15:19] Uh, 

[00:15:20] Are you ready for a thought experiment? Let's, uh, let's try to really, um, put ourselves into a world where all this is happening. Where you are bringing artists into space, painters, musicians, architects, whatnot. what what would a world look like? If we had all this. So, for example, I could imagine that someone, a musician, for example, or a painter, who sees space with their own artistic eyes, would come back to earth and produce novel ways of cultural interaction, thereby giving 

[00:16:05] significant 

[00:16:05] audiences who never go into space a new experience.

[00:16:09] Is that what you're striving for? 

[00:16:11] Yeah, 

[00:16:12] Marie Pier: I think kind of, you know, there's this documentary by the BBC where they interviewed the three astronauts from the Apollo 8 program who took the Earth horizon, the image of the Earth horizon. And the guy,

[00:16:25] uh,

[00:16:26] I can't remember his name, the one who took the picture, but he he says at the beginning, he says like,

[00:16:31] um, what they should have sent was poets because we were not able to capture the grandeur of what we had seen.

[00:16:39] So I, I think this is really important to bring what you, like you just said, like non specialists or non experts who can have a different take on it. And there's examples of that, actually, that happen now. So there's a fabulous, uh, French choreographer and dancer, named Kitsu Dziuba. She started to work in the space industry in the 90s, so she's kind of one of the pioneers.

[00:16:59] And, uh, she brought dancers at the Rus at the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, in parabolic flights, maybe she did about 20 flights. with dancers And she's trying to reproduce our experience of weightlessness through circus activities, playing with lights and so forth on art so that people can have a feeling of what it means.

[00:17:20] So there's examples of that that are very creative. Um, yeah, I think they already exist, but it's a matter of like, Getting more funding. So I think perhaps to respond again to the questions you asked me before, maybe I would do, if I would be leading SpaceX, I would make sure to have some sort of fellowship program where, uh, it wouldn't have to be instrumental, but it would be like really exploratory where I would fund these kinds of artists.

[00:17:46] Right.

[00:17:46] Yes.

[00:17:47] Markus: If I don't know what became of that project, but if I remember correct, Elon Musk announced a couple of years ago that for the first 

[00:17:55] Starship 

[00:17:56] flight around the moon, 

[00:17:57] he 

[00:17:58] would bring only artists 

[00:18:01] on 

[00:18:01] that starship. Can you remember? 

[00:18:03] Marie Pier: guy, there was a Japanese millionaire who said that he would want to bring six artists on space.

[00:18:07] Yes. Well, the funny thing is that this guy came out in the news a year later saying he was searching for a partner. So, I am not sure about the ideas behind that, right? So, it's a I don't think artists should go alone too. Like It's not a matter of creating a class of artists. who I think we should go together with different groups of people.

[00:18:29] Markus: It's 

[00:18:30] what the, I mean like what the Star Trek story. had already in the 60s. I 

[00:18:36] think it's 

[00:18:37] it's a motley bunch of traits of human traits assembled on that spaceship. So you had the engineers and you had the artists and you had the managers and whatnot. So they, they had it already. Yeah. And maybe that was a fruitful moment in time, as you already mentioned, um, people on the show who know me, regular listeners.

[00:19:00] will

[00:19:00] get annoyed if I keep coming back to Carl Sagan again. But he was the one who was one of the visionaries 

[00:19:08] who dared 

[00:19:09] to express the artistic importance 

[00:19:14] Marie Pier: Yeah, and also like, but One of the things he was doing is was really present Carl Sagan

[00:19:18] in, uh,

[00:19:19] in uh, popular media.

[00:19:22] We don't

[00:19:22] really have examples of people.

[00:19:24] There's a few YouTubers today, uh, but we don't have many examples of people who actually care for making this accessible. So Elon Musk goes on all these podcasts, you know, he can smoke weed on podcasts and so forth, but he doesn't, it's more about the celebration of who he is and what he thinks, but it's not really about communicating anything.

[00:19:45] Markus: I think what we're forgetting is that

[00:19:51] By bringing artists on board, we're extending and expanding our vocabulary for something we have no vocabulary for. 

[00:20:01] So 

[00:20:01] it's, it's like 

[00:20:02] knowledge, I think.

[00:20:03] going to Mars 

[00:20:05] and analyzing 

[00:20:07] the rocks on Mars without bringing a geologist. So in fact you're analyzing The rock formations without any knowledge. So if you don't have knowledge, you don't understand what you're doing.

[00:20:23] The same could hold true. But please do correct me if I'm wrong for artists. So if you do not bring an artist, 

[00:20:32] that's 

[00:20:32] only half the experience you're making. 

[00:20:35] I think so. 

[00:20:36] Marie Pier: But I think you need to bring more than one artist because one artist cannot carry the weight of this pressure on their shoulders. We cannot, like, rely and put this pressure on them to solve the problems either. So I think it's really, it has to be a multidisciplinary team, but not just one person of each segment. Because some artists disagree with some aesthetics and so forth, so it's a matter of creating politics where difference can be celebrated, or recognize or, uh, fought for, 

[00:21:06] Markus: right?

[00:21:07] Are we deliberately throwing away potential? By ignoring it. 

[00:21:12] Marie Pier: But also for me, like the biggest throwing away of potential is the instrumentalization of artists. So instead of like having artists like coming with their own instincts or desires or like aesthetics, like we get, we assign them specific projects and we want it to have this kind of impact.

[00:21:31] It has to be either sustainable or this or like, This is not the way, yeah, but this is not the way artists work. So like to predetermine a certain goal is also a loss of opportunity. 

[00:21:42] Markus: Tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:21:45] Why are we discussing this? So what's your background? 

[00:21:48] Marie Pier: So my background, I have, uh, I studied communication science and then uh, visual and media studies and then uh, um,

[00:21:57] I also did postdocs in art history and, STS, science, technology, and society. So I have some sort of transdisciplinary background. I used to work creating communication, campaigns for public health in developing countries.

[00:22:10] So that's very far away from what I'm doing now. 

[00:22:12] Markus: Uh, 

[00:22:13] Marie Pier: but, uh, so I started, uh, so this is my journey came out of this work, working in Africa and in Cuba, uh, doing these information campaigns and realizing that People wanted to change people's behavior with scientific data or scientific means. And I grew frustrated that I felt that you can't assess social or cultural things through scientific lenses.

[00:22:35] Markus: So I moved 

[00:22:36] Marie Pier: away from that towards the arts, and I started to explore how artists are investing the development of technology. So I started working on biotech. I did my master's on the artificial uterus, like visiting bio artists in Western Australia, work in biological science laboratories, trying to create new forms of meaning.

[00:22:53] And, um, then I did my PhD on how astronauts orient themselves in microgravity conditions and how these kinds of perceptual experiences could be used to reinvest, or reinvent the way we construct architecture on, the kind of architectural projects on Earth. 

[00:23:08] Markus: Um, 

[00:23:09] Marie Pier: and right now, I'm, I'm working on, um, a project that is trying to use satellite data for urban communities, so um, we're trying to develop some protocols so that Regular people like you and me could actually use the data, uh, for their own, uh, sake in the city.

[00:23:26] So, that's a bit of my trajectory. 

[00:23:28] Markus: one of your, um, 

[00:23:30] special, 

[00:23:31] projects and expertise is designing for extreme environments. is this limited to space or any kind of extreme? 

[00:23:41] Marie Pier: Well, I'm, I was interested in the concept of, of the extreme, 

[00:23:44] um, 

[00:23:45] but then I, I started to realize that perhaps it became an anti signifier for several people, that you just see extreme for whatever, you can see extreme for religion, you can see extreme for economics, so like extreme was used as a way to, uh, uh, to speak about changing markets, right?

[00:24:02] So, like, it was used historically in different ways, uh, but I, my understanding of uh, extreme comes more from Louis Beck, who was a artist based in Paris, um, who said that the relationship between it, it, the extreme depends on the relationship, it's contingent on the relationship. So, like, let's say, like, a trans woman who can't use the bathroom of her choice is facing an extreme environment.

[00:24:26] So this is the way I work through it. So it's like, so perhaps my understanding of an extreme environment is that if it's extreme, it's because it reduces your capacity of action. So how can you, like, reinvest energies so that you can attach yourself to the environment differently. I think historically, so there's this guy, who gave, uh, Ted Kruger, who gave a talk on uh, mediated perception in extreme environments, and he said that one of the Sad things, actually, is that we only develop technology that protects us from these environments.

[00:24:57] We never really get in contact with them. Right? So, it's a, it's this idea of how do you open the closed environment? So, like, when, if you think about, if you think about the spaceship, let's say, in in space, often they're built in a way that are completely, uh, disconnected from their environment. Nothing from the 

[00:25:19] Markus: the environment is dangerous.

[00:25:21] Marie Pier: Yeah. But maybe we have, we can find new ways to adapt, you know, like, so perhaps, uh, I'm not exactly sure how this could be done, but I, this is this kind of opening that I'm trying to get. So like, if you think about space habitats on Mars, uh, everything has to be a closed bubble. So there's no possibility of cultural sharing.

[00:25:42] So from the onset, if we think that way, then cultural sharing will never happen in space. Everybody will be stuck in their own bubble, a bit like COVID times, right?

[00:25:50] Markus: It's interesting, um, because what you're referring to in space is, is also in some way happening on Earth, that we are literally 

[00:26:01] not 

[00:26:02] only 

[00:26:02] We are not 

[00:26:02] communicating socially or living socially inside bubbles.

[00:26:06] But 

[00:26:07] we are literally detaching ourselves from our environments. The buildings we use, the ACs to control the climate we use, it's also a shield to shield us from the extreme environment that is our home at the same time.

[00:26:25] Because we can't deal with it anymore. We don't even know We're surrounded by plants here.

[00:26:31] We don't even know the names of those plants anymore. And this has been our home as Homo sapiens for 200, 000 years. So something is seriously going wrong. 

[00:26:42] Marie Pier: Yes,

[00:26:42] that's it. 

[00:26:43] Markus: a, 

[00:26:43] Marie Pier: it's also like, let's say in my project, Space and the City, like, I feel that even cities, Like There's no more public space in cities.

[00:26:52] There's no place where you can just loiter or like hang out, right? Uh, not uh, not loiter.

[00:26:57] yeah, loiter. So, uh, so this idea that space is becoming privatized and everybody has their own little spacecrafts to themselves and so forth, so it's also happening in the city. So like, Lots of the places we go to, we think it's public space, but it's actually commercial space.

[00:27:13] Like, if you go to a shopping mall and you're in the This is not public space where you go. have your cafe or your coffee. it's a, So, I see lots of parallels about So, I don't think we necessarily have to go to space to live the bad effects of the way we have, like, uh, explored it so far. Yeah. 

[00:27:32] Markus: all about finding reconnection to where we are.

[00:27:36] Right now, on earth. In space, it's, it's maybe kind of tricky because it's a deadly place, so I don't know how we would 

[00:27:44] connect with space 

[00:27:48] out there, not on, not the, the, the space right here on Earth, 

[00:27:53] but 

[00:27:53] how would we connect with space out there in Mars when it's deadly. But here, down here on Earth, I completely understand.

[00:27:59] We're using shoes. We're using clothes, it's, it's all a shell 

[00:28:05] to 

[00:28:05] shield us from the 

[00:28:07] Marie Pier: Yes, and also I think, so I, we interviewed for Space Feminism, uh, Space Engineer, Jessie Natba, who's based in South Africa. She runs a company called Astrofica, and she explained to us that for her, like when, when the, let's say there's a hurricane or a draft or whatever, like the environment is going bad, she said, she said in South Africa we don't have the infrastructure to respond to this environmental crisis.

[00:28:31] But, we could learn from space because going to Mars is also starting from new infrastructure. So, learning to build the infrastructure necessary on site could be really useful for, uh, some of, regions in the world that are more, uh, prone to climate change, right? So, so I, myself, I see that as a positive thing at the same time because, but I, I just think people start, people, the general public needs to, to know that, that they can benefit from space now.

[00:28:59] Not in 50 years or that they don't need to go to space to benefit from it. So 

[00:29:05] Markus: Perhaps it's also once we're 

[00:29:07] Breaking 

[00:29:08] down those boundaries. We're making space also a lot more accessible to lay lay people to, uh, to 99 percent of humans, because it's, it's not only about rocket science. It's also about being or extending our minds as human beings.

[00:29:28] It's 

[00:29:28] just a new continent. 

[00:29:30] Marie Pier: and I like what you say because I think part of the reason I'm interested in what would it mean to create possibilities to engage with the extreme environments is that myself, I tend to think that people, the way we think about humans in space, nobody's willing to think that humans will be transformed in the process.

[00:29:49] Right, so like, there's this really good movie called Anyara, where it's a spaceship that goes to Mars, they get ejected of the solar, of their trajectory, and they don't have no idea when they will come back. And everybody turns crazy, but everybody becomes blind at the end of the movie. So this is one thing, like, we're not willing, I think, to change our conception of ourselves.

[00:30:10] We think that we can go there and remain the same kind of humanity that we have, right? And for me, this is the kind of like this impossibility of thinking transformation that is at the center of the problem, right? Maybe we become something else than humans when we go there, and that's okay too, right? 

[00:30:28] Markus: Do you think, 

[00:30:29] um, 

[00:30:29] considering what is happening

[00:30:33] In the world right now,

[00:30:36] The world that we live in right now is still very industrial. It's very 20th century. It's not 21st century that we're living in right now. So, What is that post industrial world? What is that new incentive that we are, where we are? Working towards, um, an egalitarian society, for example, and whatnot. So maybe what is happening right now, triggered through artificial intelligence and new kinds of technologies.

[00:31:06] Do you think this is a democratizing momentum that is happening right now? 

[00:31:12] Marie Pier: That's a good question.

[00:31:13] I

[00:31:15] don't know it's a

[00:31:16] It's a

[00:31:17] The democratization maybe it's like a lure or like a smoke and mirrors. I don't know like It's I Think it's also it's the same perhaps we come back to this same thing in the 90s about uh, free information or access to information, so Yes, there's a lot of democratization that people have access, but there's a lack of protocols of application

[00:31:42] or people don't like, for

[00:31:43] Markus: We're left alone with it.

[00:31:45] Marie Pier: So myself, I work on this project where I'm trying to work with the Canadian Space Agency. They have like a hundred sets of

[00:31:52] Several sets of data that I could use, That's about it. they don't know how I could use it. So there's no protocol. So they collect, they collect, they collect, but they don't give any protocol to nobody to make that meaningful or powerful or creative. So yes, there's a form of democratization, but it's not because it's open and available that you're able to use it.

[00:32:11] So I think we are in another step of what it means to democratize technology. It doesn't only, yes, you need to put it in the hands of as many people as possible, but you, without being like. A dictator about how you can use it. You're, so, you should also provide possibilities of utilization. 

[00:32:28] Markus: Mm-Hmm. . 

[00:32:29] Marie Pier: Yeah. 

[00:32:30] Markus: what, is that, what is it that you're doing with the Canadian Space Agency?

[00:32:33] Marie Pier: Uh, I have this project called Space in the City where we're trying to, we're looking at, so like historically, uh, infrastructure, like the electricity grid, the transportation system, telecommunications, and so forth. are shaping urban processes of urbanization. So like we can see that maybe a direct correlation, but maybe some sort of uh, tensions between the two.

[00:32:56] So uh, now that most of the infrastructures that we rely upon, well, there's still a lot on earth, right? Like all the observatories or the cell phone towers or the antennas and like the satellite dishes and so forth. But a lot of that has moved to uh, extra earth or outside of the earth's surface. And so This is also affecting processes of urbanization but at a distance.

[00:33:19] So what I'm trying to do is um, to develop some protocols where we could use data from satellites for urban communities to use them So create, create some protocols that are not necessarily based on goals of saying like, uh, you need to go faster to your job. So it's just like maybe informal or useless outcomes that I'm trying to, I want people to have the chance to encounter informally.

[00:33:42] So that my project

[00:33:43] is about.

[00:33:45] Trying to map informal spaces of sharing in the city and to see if space infrastructures have, have Actually decreased this possibility or not and trying to like give communities the possibility To to meet right? 

[00:34:01] Markus: Can 

[00:34:01] you give me a 

[00:34:01] um, an 

[00:34:02] example of what such as space could be like like what?

[00:34:06] Marie Pier: Well, it could be like a park it uh, it it would have to be only a place that is not commercially owned or maybe like That like the ownership is contested to like perhaps. you know, like if you think about like uh, the kind of welfare

[00:34:22] uh,

[00:34:23] programs around uh, about Urbanization or social housing where the kind of partnerships between the city the population and so forth So they they have some example of that Uh, there's a lot also, like, of uh, examples in South America because South America uh, endured uh, mass urbanization much before Africa or Asia and um, So they have a lot of projects for instance Architects who would give people a prototype of a house that they could expand according to their own needs So this is kind of uh, bringing the lay public as part of their decision making and not having like the star architect like uh, lending into a place and like

[00:35:01] uh,

[00:35:02] uh, Imposing their values to everybody.

[00:35:04] So there is this This 

[00:35:05] Markus: what it has to be and there is no, you don't have any say in, in In

[00:35:09] in,

[00:35:10] in all 

[00:35:11] Marie Pier: Yeah. 

[00:35:11] So what would it mean for people to be able to? To feel it's also like creating Feelings of belonging to the place where you are. Not just like that your utilization, It's that utilization or that you belong to that place and you care for it and you want to be part of it.

[00:35:28] It's also like creating these kinds of values, right? Because today with the kind of public private dichotomy, it's very difficult for people to to feel that they belong to a place or that they should take care of it, right? It should be the city, it should be the government, it should be this. So like, it's kind of like, how can you bring back some, this sense of belonging and care.

[00:35:47] Basically. 

[00:35:50] Markus: From your work so far, do 

[00:35:51] you know, or have you heard of projects that are already very progressive working toward that direction? Are there any space agencies and whatnot more interested than others? 

[00:36:08] Well, 

[00:36:09] Marie Pier: think, I think there's a lot of people who are trying to be progressive and stuff, but it's just like, you know, Everybody works in their own little, we need some, a way to get together and to connect together.

[00:36:20] Uh, I think the, it's not necessarily the space agencies that are more or less, I think it depends on the people who work in the space. So like myself, I know some people, uh, who are astrophysicists at the European Space Agency, for instance, who have been working so hard to help people like me getting involved.

[00:36:38] You know, like, getting more artists trying to, like, communicate as much as possible and really helping the general, the people like me, normal people who are not experts in space, access these locations. So it's more people based than organization based. I think. Yeah. But, yeah. 

[00:36:59] Markus: so maybe we're lacking, 

[00:37:01] or 

[00:37:01] we could use a lot more.

[00:37:04] Momentum towards imagination of new spaces and this can only be supported by

[00:37:12] additional

[00:37:12] voices to to round all this up I guess 

[00:37:16] so 

[00:37:16] and you're calling for those additional voices To have a seat at the table. Is it, I think it's as simple as 

[00:37:22] Marie Pier: as that Well, Because for me for instance, I'm a communication or information scholar.

[00:37:26] We call this media scholar whatever So my role for most people is to actually communicate

[00:37:32] science to people. I'm used to make people understand something. So I'm never going to be invited at the decision making room because I'm there at the end of the process just to communicate. And this is the wrong part of it.

[00:37:44] It's the same as culture. You can't add a discipline after the project is carried, right? So, yes, I think we need,

[00:37:53] we

[00:37:53] need more people at the decision making. And also, like, not only people like me we're profs and stuff, people, like, Lee Publix, we need them too. They should be involved, like. They're the one who paid, who paid the taxes for NASA, right?

[00:38:05] So, yeah. 

[00:38:07] Markus: I like that. where, 

[00:38:08] where do we stand? Is the Canadian Space Agency, are they more open than ESA, NASA? 

[00:38:14] NASA? 

[00:38:15] Marie Pier: Well, the Canadian Space Agency has, a much lower budget than NASA, so I think, I think the budget of the Canadian Space Agency is close to the marketing budget of NASA, so I, we can't compare these things.

[00:38:27] Uh, I think the European Space Agency, what is interesting about it is that it's distributed across different countries in Europe and that there's different politics of access and it creates a different kind of dynamic, so that's, that's, interesting. that's quite interesting. I think the European Space Agency has been supporting a lot of initiative, I know lots of artists.

[00:38:45] Who have been, uh, then NASA, I think they're also open, but it's just like, I don't think uh, like my father could call NASA and you see, like, so it's like you need to have some sort of credentials to access. So maybe we should break these boundaries of access, right? 

[00:39:03] Markus: There's an interesting, um, it's, it's not rocket science, it's not the space industry, but I'm also affiliated with, with the particle physics people at CERN in Geneva. And they have a recurring, uh, interesting project to invite science fiction authors 

[00:39:19] into their 

[00:39:20] premises or onto their premises to help them come up with new ideas.

[00:39:28] The

[00:39:28] crazier the better. 

[00:39:30] Marie Pier: Yeah, because it's such a weird place, right? 

[00:39:32] It's quite difficult to get creative there. 

[00:39:35] Markus: Exactly, exactly.

[00:39:37] So, um, so who has not seen um, CERN,

[00:39:42] Marie Pier: doesn't know about that. 

[00:39:43] Markus: It 

[00:39:45] use a rebuild. 

[00:39:46] Yes.

[00:39:48] but

[00:39:48] what I'm told is that every cent, that comes into CERN is being invested 

[00:39:55] into 

[00:39:56] science and into the latest bits and pieces of technology, but not into infrastructure. Like what the offices look like, It looks like 

[00:40:07] dates 

[00:40:08] back to the sixties, I guess.

[00:40:10] The, I mean,

[00:40:11] like the offices, I love their offices because they're the, the regular office of a, of a scientist or a project engineer is a a cubicle sized room with a black or green board. It's, it's even a green board because they're even older, 

[00:40:25] a wooden desk dating back to the sixties, a chair, 

[00:40:30] a 

[00:40:30] laptop, and that's about it.

[00:40:33] And an additional chair 

[00:40:35] for. Visitors. that's what 

[00:40:38] that's what it looks like. 

[00:40:39] Marie Pier: Yeah, it's a weird place. But I think it's, this is a great thing. And I have to say, I think some scientists already do that. So, when I visited the Johnson Space Center for my research, for my PhD research, I met this guy named Robert Howard, who's a um, human factors engineer, uh, who worked on the development of the Orion module, and he's also a science fiction writer.

[00:41:01] He publishes science fiction. And it's really funny, because when I visited I knew that because I had made my research on him. None of his colleagues knew about it. So that's very interesting to see that even a scientist still wants to engage with more than what is there, right? So like, if you're like, a, that's crazy that he has time to do that, I have to say, but this is, uh, I think this is kind of interesting, 

[00:41:24] Markus: uh, 

[00:41:27] Marie Pier: maybe you don't necessarily need the science fiction, you need the science fiction writer, but it's interesting also to see like, what would the scientists write as science fiction and to like, Do these interplays between different roles and force people maybe to adopt another position?

[00:41:39] It's also that, right? How can you be transformed in the process of what you're doing?

[00:41:45] Markus: Wonderful.

[00:41:46] Are you a science fiction buff? 

[00:41:48] Marie Pier: Well, I have to say, I was not into really deep into science fiction, but um, my partner is a filmmaker, his name is Dominique Gagnon, and um, he did a movie where he asked me to uh, kind of uh Bring some of my ideas or share my expertise with him uh, in the process when he was making the film.

[00:42:07] And it's actually, It's called Spacedown. It's titled Spacedown. It's a one hour, it's a it's a movie made with found footage videos from the internet. So it's a, um, basically he paired, um,

[00:42:20] uh,

[00:42:20] visuals from uh, space exploration, from extreme environments, extreme workplace, uh, caves and stuff like that. And he paired that, um, with, uh, audio testimonies of people during COVID.

[00:42:34] So, so he brought a very different narrative that is not about progress or that is more a psychological thriller about suicide, uh, uh, self mutilation, depression, sexuality. So like all the people the mechanisms they created to cope with COVID is similar to the way people were talking to us about astronauts. So he kind of like developed this idea that, 

[00:42:58] Markus: um, 

[00:42:59] Marie Pier: that perhaps.

[00:43:00] on cyber,

[00:43:01] In cyberspace, you find some sort of Leigh community or Leigh space Programmer, like a civilian space program on YouTube, right? So, and because of that, uh, during, he was working on that during COVID. So we watch every single science fiction movie that existed online. So now I think I like it. 

[00:43:21] Markus: Do 

[00:43:22] have a favorite one?

[00:43:24] Marie Pier: And Yara. So it's um, one of the things that I, I'm I'm a bit puzzled with space exploration. is that often in the movies, it's only one person 

[00:43:33] Markus: saving 

[00:43:34] the world. 

[00:43:34] Yeah. Or 

[00:43:35] Marie Pier: who is being saved by the world. So like, let's say Matt Damon, he grows potatoes. So the good thing about that is that now we know we can, we can have vodka on Mars.

[00:43:44] Right.

[00:43:45] Markus: Finally, yeah.

[00:43:46] Marie Pier: But, uh, so you have Sandra Bullock who finishes her own in gravity. You have Brad Pitt in Ad Astra who has the psychological who do psychoanalysis with his dad. So this is completely crazy. So Anyaha is a very different.

[00:43:57] um,

[00:43:58] So it's made from, um, I can't remember the name, Martin Arison, I think his name is a poet from Sweden.

[00:44:05] And so this was a poem that was adapted to, like, comedy, music, whatever, but there was a film that was made about it. And it's this, I, it's this, this thing that I was telling you before, when they get ejected of their trajectory. But what I like about this movie is that it's cut at the population scale.

[00:44:22] There's a lot of people in the ship, and it's kind of a collective.

[00:44:26] And

[00:44:27] So yeah, so this is my favorite, but I have to say this is a very, I wouldn't say depressing, but it's a bit challenging. So like if you're depressed, don't watch it alone. If you're depressed, I would wait until you feel better to watch it.

[00:44:41] Also don't watch it alone because it's a little bit intense. 

[00:44:44] Markus: You're already making me curious now. So where is it playing? 

[00:44:47] Marie Pier: Ah, it was released in 2019, so you can find it online. 

[00:44:51] Markus: I can find it online. Good. And 

[00:44:52] the movie of your partner? 

[00:44:54] Marie Pier: It's, uh, we're, we're, we're on the, we're on the, we're waiting to, for it to get released.

[00:44:59] Like, so the, the details about this will come soon, but yeah. 

[00:45:02] Markus: But is there a trailer somewhere? 

[00:45:04] Marie Pier: Yes, on Vimeo. On Vimeo, like his name is Dominique Gagnon. With a C, Dominique Gagnon. Um, and he has a Vimeo, you can find all of his movies on Vimeo. But there's the trailer on Vimeo. Yes. 

[00:45:16] Markus: Would he be, would he be okay with you going into space, uh, to Mars?

[00:45:21] If, 

[00:45:22] if the call, if the call came right now and you told him, Hey, I could go to Mars tomorrow, would you be okay with that? 

[00:45:29] Marie Pier: I think it would probably be okay, but myself, I wouldn't go. 

[00:45:31] You wouldn't go? No. Why not? Well, I, I, I, I don't think I'm psychologically, um, uh, Sick? No, I, I thank you. No, 

[00:45:41] Markus: no, 

[00:45:41] I'm sorry, but 

[00:45:42] Marie Pier: no, I don't, I don't mean that, but I think like I tend to, uh, panic in close environments, and stuff. I'm a little bit claustrophobic, so I don't think I would.

[00:45:49] have.

[00:45:49] With lots of medication, I could probably do

[00:45:53] Markus: Well, We're talking 

[00:45:54] about starship type spaceships, so you got all the space you want. 

[00:45:59] Marie Pier: Okay, maybe, yes, I, I would, but, uh, it's like, I, I, I saw this, like, post on, uh, online when they were saying, like, uh, so maybe one day we terraform Mars, allowing humans to be miserable on multiple planets. So, I'm just like, yeah, but what would I do if I go there?

[00:46:16] I mean, like, that's one thing to go, but, like, 

[00:46:18] Markus: After three weeks, it's getting boring, I 

[00:46:20] Marie Pier: Yeah, that's it. Maybe after three days, you know,

[00:46:21] Markus: know, 

[00:46:22] Marie Pier: I'm

[00:46:23] not sure what I would do if I would move to Mars 

[00:46:25] Markus: do you play an instrument? Maybe make music or 

[00:46:29] do 

[00:46:29] some painting or, so it's getting boring quite, 

[00:46:33] Marie Pier: yeah. I'm not sure what I would do.

[00:46:35] Honestly. It's not that 

[00:46:36] appealing to me, I'm more

[00:46:37] Markus: more 

[00:46:38] Marie Pier: if,

[00:46:39] if I can get it there, you know, like five minutes delay for everything . But yeah, I think for me I

[00:46:46] think that. I'm already in space. The Earth is in the solar system. So that's why I start to, like, I'm taking this from an artist based in Berlin, Agnes Mayer Brendis.

[00:46:57] She speaks about extra Earth. She doesn't see, uh, outer space. And uh 

[00:47:02] Markus: space is part of Earth. 

[00:47:04] Marie Pier: we are in 

[00:47:05] Markus: we are in, so We're on a spaceship. 

[00:47:07] Marie Pier: a 

[00:47:07] Markus: We just don't notice. We 

[00:47:08] Marie Pier: spaceship Earth. Yes. 

[00:47:10] Markus: We've got, we've gotten used to it. Hmm. So, um Speaking of boredom and loneliness, um, 

[00:47:19] Assume 

[00:47:20] you go into space, you're traveling to Mars, it's a long journey.

[00:47:26] Which

[00:47:26] piece of music would you want to bring, which single tune would you not want to miss

[00:47:34] on

[00:47:34] that journey? 

[00:47:35] And 

[00:47:36] the reason I'm asking is, 

[00:47:38] I 

[00:47:38] have a Spotify playlist 

[00:47:40] for 

[00:47:41] the aspiring space traveler. And each of my guests

[00:47:44] uh,

[00:47:44] Guests contribute one tune to that playlist. So what is yours? 

[00:47:48] Marie Pier: Oh, that's funny. Well, one of my favorite songs is, uh, Surrender from Suicide.

[00:47:53] So that 

[00:47:54] would be because it's very calm. While it's calm. I think I wouldn't bring like, uh, death metal. I don't think so. Maybe I would need it, but I don't think this is what I would go with. But, uh, actually, maybe what I would go with, um, you know, this story about scrambles of art. So, like, uh, with the Voyager this, they send music, right?

[00:48:14] And there's people, I think it's at SETI, or I can't remember who they are, where they are based, but they kind of made the artwork with that, and the remix the whole music, and they said that it was intercepted by aliens, who remix the music and send it back to heart. and they even said that, Officially, you're not supposed to listen to it on ARD because the copyright belongs to the aliens.

[00:48:36] So, you can find it on Spotify, actually. It's called Scrambles of ARD and it's really good, because You have, like, you have the sound, the music, the sounds from space that are added to the kind of, like, classical music and stuff, so it's 

[00:48:50] Markus: So now we know what the aliens, what kind of music the aliens like.

[00:48:53] Marie Pier: Yeah, well

[00:48:55] a

[00:48:55] projection of humans thinking what 

[00:48:57] Markus: Yeah, 

[00:48:58] Marie Pier: You know, Natalie Cabral at SETI, she always says that we have always been searching for other versions of ourselves. So it's time to change the kind of, like, signals that we're looking for, or so that we don't just look, we don't miss the aliens perhaps because we're just looking for ourselves, right?

[00:49:18] Markus: Speaking of which, do you think we're alone? 

[00:49:21] Marie Pier: I hope not, but I, myself I tend to think that Often we we portray aliens or as like lower class. maybe we live in a simulation and they're all laughing at us, right? 

[00:49:33] Markus: Like 

[00:49:33] right now? 

[00:49:33] Yes.

[00:49:36] And now, right, like right now they're saying they're listening in on us.

[00:49:40] And they're saying, 

[00:49:41] Marie Pier: Oh my god, they're so stupid. 

[00:49:42] Markus: does not get it. She doesn't get it. It's not that difficult. 

[00:49:46] Marie Pier: It's the thing that I think that we always think that if we meet another life form, it's necessarily going to be lower than us. And I tend to think that maybe if there exists some, they might be more intelligent than us.

[00:49:59] Markus: I 

[00:49:59] don't even understand what lower and higher means, because we 

[00:50:02] because we 

[00:50:03] have no access. I don't have an access, I don't have like 

[00:50:06] cognitive 

[00:50:07] access to an ant or a mouse. 

[00:50:09] So 

[00:50:10] I don't know what's going on in their minds. 

[00:50:12] Marie Pier: No, that's it. So 

[00:50:12] Markus: So maybe they're super smart. I don't know. 

[00:50:16] We assume they are not.

[00:50:18] And, and

[00:50:18] religion has told us for centuries that we are The 

[00:50:23] cream 

[00:50:24] of 

[00:50:25] Marie Pier: Maybe they are, right? 

[00:50:26] We don't know. You don't know.

[00:50:28] So it's

[00:50:29] also 

[00:50:29] Markus: the slime 

[00:50:30] Marie Pier: like, how can we undo our assumptions? Yes. So that's a For me, that's a bit the idea of space, is why I'm so interested in space. Because it forces you to rethink all

[00:50:41] the basic relationships.

[00:50:44] and, and,

[00:50:45] then you can take up to the challenge or not.

[00:50:47] It's your choice. 

[00:50:49] Markus: I think the great thing is

[00:50:52] it's a

[00:50:53] great, it's a great opportunity, but the

[00:50:55] most

[00:50:57] most 

[00:50:58] thing to do is to 

[00:51:00] allow 

[00:51:01] a restart 

[00:51:03] and 

[00:51:03] to be open to start anew. I think because this requires lots of 

[00:51:10] boldness

[00:51:11] and

[00:51:13] and

[00:51:13] maturity. 

[00:51:14] Marie Pier: But perhaps we shouldn't call it starting anew. I think this is also part of the capitalistic, like the exit strategy, the new beginnings, the start, it's also like really like the ideals of the modernist project from Europeans getting into South America, right? Uh, The tabula rasa in architecture was very important. So perhaps we should speak about metamorphosis or transformation rather than restart or new beginning.

[00:51:42] Markus: Yes. 

[00:51:43] Marie Pier: Because also like, well, if we, if we're like uh, attentive to what's happening with, uh. Indigenous communities, right? So like, if we do a restart, we negate all the violence that happened in the past. And I think it's a matter of not negating that violence. We need to, we shouldn't celebrate it, but we have to recognize it.

[00:52:05] And that's part also of the transformation process. 

[00:52:10] Markus: Hmm. 

[00:52:11] Um, One last question. Um, this show is called the Space Cafe Podcast. 

[00:52:18] Marie Pier: Oh, nice. 

[00:52:19] Markus: it's a, it's a coffee. place. You got your 

[00:52:21] Marie Pier: Thanks. Thanks.

[00:52:24] Markus: and now and then you have coffee to energize yourself. Um, so why don't you share an espresso for the mind with me, with the audiences right now.

[00:52:34] So, 

[00:52:35] try to come up with a shot of inspiration. 

[00:52:39] That 

[00:52:39] you feel like that could be inspiring to audiences. And you can pick whatever kind of topic you want to pick. We have been very inspiring already.

[00:52:49] so

[00:52:50] far on that show. 

[00:52:51] So, 

[00:52:51] but maybe you have one more shot of inspiration for us. 

[00:52:57] Marie Pier: more shot of inspiration about space?

[00:53:00] Markus: whatever

[00:53:01] kind of topic you

[00:53:01] Marie Pier: think you should watch Space Down. and That's a, That's going to be a very good show. I invite all your

[00:53:06] um, your

[00:53:07] people to watch Space Down. I think that's going to be a good shot of inspiration because it's

[00:53:11] uh, it's bringing back space really down on art. Well, it's using art as space, right? And uh, I think there's a lot of provocative statements in the movie.

[00:53:21] uh, Also amazing music and editing. So that would be my takeaway I, uh, You'll have to watch it to understand what I mean. 

[00:53:29] Markus: Wonderful. Marie Pierre, thank you 

[00:53:31] so 

[00:53:31] Marie Pier: you Markus. Yes. 

[00:53:33]

[00:53:33] Markus: two movies on the watch list. before I let you off the tether, my friends, if you liked this episode, why don't you share it with someone you like and feel it could be an inspiration for? Just grab a link and whatsapp or signal it over. Yes, I want to grow our little universe, it's episode 105 already and my mind keeps expanding with each new episode. Every guest, just like the Hubble tension that discusses how the universe not only increasingly expands faster and faster the further out you go, but also depending on where you look.

[00:54:12] So perhaps the universe is not the giant infinite sphere that is expanding out into whatever that out there is, but rather an unevenly pointy shape with infinite spikes of different sizes around its perimeter. My mind is blown, and I promise I will have someone on the show very soon to explain all this in more professional detail.

[00:54:36] Until then, thank you for being part of this journey. It means a lot to me. Bye bye.