Moonshot for Life: Smithsonian's Lunar Biodiversity Preservation Project

In episode 113 of the Space Cafe Podcast, host Markus explores a groundbreaking concept with Dr. Mary Hagedorn, a distinguished researcher at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. The discussion centers on the ambitious idea of creating a backup of Earth's biodiversity on the Moon.Key Topics:

• The critical state of coral reefs and the impact of climate change
• The concept of a lunar biorepository for safeguarding genetic material
• Technical, logistical, and ethical aspects of the project
• Implications for conservation, space exploration, and Earth's future

Episode Breakdown:
00:00 Introduction to the Space Cafe Podcast
00:43 Exploring the concept of "Planet B"
01:48 Meet Dr. Mary Hagedorn
03:44 Current state of coral reefs
04:45 The ecological significance of corals
06:46 Conservation challenges and efforts
09:43 Cryopreservation and biorepositories
19:58 The Moon as a potential biorepository
29:36 Strategic selection of key species for preservation
30:38 Challenges in genetic diversity and permitting
31:24 Sampling and preservation techniques
38:16 Citizen science and global collaboration
43:25 Philosophical and practical considerations for space colonization
46:45 Technical challenges and future prospects
01:02:34 Inspirational vision and call to actionThis episode offers a fascinating look at the intersection of conservation biology and space exploration, presenting innovative solutions to preserve Earth's biodiversity for future generations.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Markus: Hello, it's Markus, and we're recording today the 113th episode of the Space Cafe Podcast. And this is the recording of the intro. Let's go.

Hello, everyone. This is the Space Cafe Podcast, and I'm Markus. So there is no Planet B, they say. Or is there? I'm fully aware of what I'm saying and what that saying is meant to mean. That we can't run from our problems. We should fix our problems here on Earth before we even dare to think about venturing into the unknown. Toward becoming an interplanetary species.

But what if, just for a second, what if, if our cultural and technological evolution has accelerated beyond our ability to address those issues in real time? we're just a click away from a very, very different world. Perhaps it makes sense, just for the sake of this episode, to think twice. To consider a Planet B, just in case.

I know there's a lot to unpack, but let's make, or let's take a moment to reflect. So on this episode, it's my great pleasure to have Dr. Mary Hagedorn as my esteemed guest. She's a distinguished. Researcher at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. She's known for her groundbreaking work in biodiversity preservation with coral reefs.

And only very recently, she came up, she and her team came up with a very provocative idea, put or turned into a paper, which produced quite a bit of debate. And the idea of that paper is to create a backup copy of our biodiversity and transfer it to the moon, as a safety net.

And as you can imagine, the debate around this is just beginning, and as we will see throughout our conversation with Dr. Mary Hagedorn, it may be our only viable option if we want to make it through that, for the lack of a better world.

technological and cultural filter that we're passing or not passing through at the moment. The challenges posed by climate change and habitat destruction have surpassed our current capacity to safeguard these species. And our own species,

So ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Dr. Mary Hagedorn to the Space Cafe Podcast. Get ready for an enlightening discussion on the intersection of conservation, space exploration, and the future of life just as we know it.

Let's go.

What's the state of corals in the ocean as we speak? 

[00:03:50] Mary: it's not, it's not good. Um, and it's not improving. I think that's the 

bad part. You know, I think corals 

are amazingly resilient. 

They can recover from all sorts of things like hurricanes 

and, you 

know, tsunamis. And so they, they're very resilient, but, 

um, we keep, um, Climate change is not abating. And so, um, it's getting 

worse and worse every year.

And as an example, you know, the Great Barrier Reef has suffered, um, several back to back bleaching events in the last six 

years. And when you have 

those kinds of warming events in the ocean which we call bleaching events, um, they 

stress the coral, they can kill the 

coral, um, and it, they can stop them from reproducing.

So you're, you are 

you know, basically hurting, you're either killing the coral or you're damaging the future of the coral. And then if it comes the following year and the following year, um, oftentimes the corals cannot withstand that kind of stress.

[00:04:45] Markus: I just, uh, I'm sorry, just a very basic question, but why are corals important? I mean, like, of course they're important because they're a species and they're part of our planet. So are we? So I may, I shouldn't ask that question, but still, what, what is the effect of corals on the whole biosphere. 

[00:05:09] Mary: Right, so corals are under the, and it actually feeds into this whole concept of the lunar biorepository. This is one of the categories that we're really interested in protecting are, are a group called ecological 

engineers. And corals 

are considered ecological engineers because 

they create, they're animals, but they 

create habitat. And, um, they, they nurture over one quarter of all marine life in, on earth, and they protect our cities and 

our homes. They provide financial, um, remuneration, uh, for our global 

economy, um, uh, it's suggested to be about 10 billion per year in terms of tourism, fisheries, et cetera. 

et cetera. So they, they impact everything.

every aspect of our lives here on earth and, um, they are critical to life on earth because they also help. They don't directly produce oxygen, but they help in the whole sequence of oxygen production on earth.

[00:06:02] Markus: And they're a habitat for, I guess, a lot of marine life. So then it's, it's the home to a large part of marine life, I 

guess. 

[00:06:13] Mary: Correct. And so they're a nursery ground, as I said, for almost one quarter of marine life. And many of those species are fishes that 

we eat. And so you And, you

know, especially when you think 

of, um, you know, sort of island, island states, island countries, 

island nations, sorry. Um, and they're, they're very dependent on the protein 

that comes off coral reefs. And so 

without that, you can imagine that hunger will increase in the year, in the years to come 

if we start to lose significant portions of 

those reefs for those island 

nations.

[00:06:46] Markus: So how, how bad is the situation on a global scale? How old are corals and, and what's happening? And when did things start to go south? 

[00:07:01] Mary: That's a complex question, especially if you think of It 

geologically, because we've had several events

on Earth geologically that

have destroyed almost all of

the species on the planet, right? and species persist, 

right? They keep coming back. and, so, there's no question in my mind 

that. That species will persist if we destroy 

many of the 

species on Earth. But in the past, humans have 

not been a part of the equation of 

those events. And, um,

this, uh, this

event in 

terms of climate change is, is, is very abrupt. And so species are having difficulty adapting and, and, and changing because it is going so fast. And so. It's not clear what's going to happen, you know, uh, uh, you know, a hundred thousand years from now or a million years from now.

Um, but it's very possible that, um, in, um, many of the listeners lifetimes, um, that they will no longer have coral reefs per se. There'll probably still be coral in the oceans, but I could imagine in 50 years, maybe even 75 years, that there will not be much coral left in the ocean. And you look at places like the Caribbean.

Um, there is very little functional. I mean, there's corals left, but they're not very functional. Um, and so like when we had that really warm, big warming event in Florida last year, the water got up to 101 degrees Fahrenheit. I forget that what that is centigrade, probably close to 40 

degrees 

[00:08:29] Markus: Absolutely. Mind blowing. Mind 

[00:08:31] Mary: Yeah, and it was for a long time. And so the, one of the 

major bulk works of the reef there is this species called 

Acropora palmata, commonly called Elkhorn coral, and there are about 125 

individual genotypes. We call them, yeah, corals can reproduce Um, that, you know, they can drop an 

arm or they can fragment and, um, 

they can also reproduce sexually.

And so, um, sometimes you have clones and sometimes you have sexually produced 

individuals, but of the 

sexually produced individuals, 

there was 

125 unique ones left in Florida. After that event, there were only 25. And so you can imagine that 

if you, you were on the, you were in the Caribbean 20 years ago, there would have 

been perhaps tens of thousands of 

individuals, you know?

And so. It's staggering what is happening. So, um, you know, things are 

not good and we aren't changing our appetite for fossil 

fuels, uh, fast enough. You know, I know there's lots of 

people, myself included, um, who really, you know, want to have rapid change, but it's, it's such a problem. It's such a difficult problem in terms of our society and, um, it's complex.

And, and so that's, that, that's what brings me into my job really, you know, in terms of what I do, um, uh, I try and cryopreserve 

coral, coral species. We cryopreserve the sperm. We cryopreserve the larvae. We're trying to cryopreserve the actual small pieces of coral. And the whole goal there is. To 

create this repository globally, we're going to, we're going to create a global 

biorepository and include live 

fragments and, uh, frozen tissue. 

But the goal really is to give people time. You 

know, we understand that it 

takes A lot of time to sometimes change society. And I think of the U. S., um, we used to smoke in the U. S. quite heavily in the seventies and eighties 

throughout perhaps throughout the 1900s. And it was almost in a short span, a span of like five years, all of a sudden 

smoking became a thing.

You know, and so you 

can 

[00:10:37] Markus: So there's hope. 

[00:10:38] Mary: shifts, yeah, I hope, yeah, yeah, yeah. And So, you need to have,

you need to have a little bit of leeway to allow 

these societal changes to happen, um, but, but, but the 

pace of what's happening with climate change is going way faster than society is 

changing.

[00:10:53] Markus: there's um, to me, it was a heartbreaking story. My, my wife and I, we were passionate scuba divers. And so we took our youngest daughter last year to the Mediterranean for a scuba diving, baby scuba diving experience. And we just wanted to show her what marine life looks like, what scuba diving is all about.

But in the Mediterranean, the, the only. Colored thing you Can still see is a yellow piece of maybe 

what's, what you would consider a coral, but there's just, everything is gray. There's just one color. Every, I don't know you, you have to travel for quite a bit to find a piece that's still intact. And this 13 year old daughter how things were, A couple of years ago, 20 years ago, it's heartbreaking that she will maybe never experience that again. It's 

heartbreaking. 

[00:12:00] Mary: mean, it's, I don't know if you ever saw the movie Soil and Green, but it's, it's, it reeks of 

that, you 

know, where, where, 

the oceans die and, and, you know, we're eating people, you know, I 

hope that doesn't come to that, but it won't, um, our oceans are 

vast, um, and there is a lot of resilience, resiliency in our oceans.

in our species. Um, and I think there are people out there that really do care and really do want, 

um, to save species. And so, um, but I 

think that what's going to have to happen in the next 20 years is we're just going to have to dig really deep and help and not just assume that. Nature's going to take care of itself.

And you can hope that nature will take care of itself, but it's probably not going to happen. And so that's where we come in, you know, in terms of all the sort of conservation biologists who want to do 

both ex situ and in 

situ conservation. And the idea that there's only one way to do conservation is, is very, um, limiting.

Um, and it, you know, cause if you only have one way, and let's imagine you're saying, oh, we only do marine protected areas. If that doesn't work, which it's not working, I mean, it's, it won't work in the long run, um, you, you need to have plan B. And so, 

um, you know, you can imagine that it's really important to develop 

these technologies and develop these 

methods and collect, while there's still a lot of biodiversity and genetic diversity in the ocean, so that it can be replanted or 

can be receded into the ocean a hundred years from now or 50 years from 

now. Maybe your daughter will be that 

person who does it, you know?

[00:13:28] Markus: I think, um, perhaps nature will take care of itself, but time speaks against us. That's the problem. Because I think even if we extinct 99 percent of corals on the planet, they will come back, but it will just take a million years. And that's, that's. So this is what speaks against us as humans. Um, anyways, um, so you are in the business now. um, I wouldn't call you an activist, but maybe you were on the verge of becoming an activist. um, because you know that, you know, what's at stake. 

That's the problem. So you. You're in the business of trying to make sure, as you mentioned, um, or as you said, buying time, that we have 

a backup plan and a backup plan, meaning 

that we have something in 

store that once things go south and we can 

reseed the planet. But how would we do that? That sounds like very much like 

taken out of a science fiction movie because I mean, like the vastness of the 

oceans. How would you reseed something 

like this?

[00:14:39] Mary: I don't know that. You know, it's, it's, I mean, it's really, it's really part of the, the, the, the conservation and restoration, you know, parlance. Um, I think people are really now trying, like there's a, there's a program in Florida on the Florida Reef Tract and the Florida Reef Tract is the third largest coral reef in the world.

And it's, it's being devastated by climate change and warming waters. Um, and. What they're, the mission Iconic Reef is this program, and basically all they want to do is keep outplanting corals. They know they're going to die, so they're going to just keep growing them and putting them back out and growing them and putting them back out.

And that's not a bad strategy at all, really. I mean, it's, it seems a bit, you know, um, it seems a bit hard, but the idea really is that You know, uh, you keep the, the diversity, or you keep something on the reef so that if other corals want to settle in time, they will. And, um, and it still allows for fish. It still allows for fisheries.

It still allows for tourism, all these sorts of things. And so you could imagine in the next, say, let's just think of it in the next 50 years where we're actively, really actively, you know, changing reefs, outplanting, et cetera, et cetera. And, you know, it, it might be that, that, that people. Pick, you 

know, 10 reefs in the world and they work on those that are strategic and, you know, that have the right currents, um, that can spread, uh, you know, um, coral larvae around the, you know, around, uh, the oceans in their currents and, and you, you pick those strategic places and you, and you go and you, you really actively 

work 

on those places. So, um, I work on a, with a group, it's called the Coral Bank Alliance. Coral Biobank Alliance. And it's an, it's a global group of, of, uh, professionals who are interested in bringing corals into captivity, who are interested in cryopreserving and also creating, you know, biorepositories for frozen tissue and genomics.

And, um, we're, you know, we're doing a really good job at this point. We've probably got about 250 species of the 1, 000 that are, in the ocean, um, in captivity. Now, that doesn't mean we have a lot of 

genetic diversity. We have a lot of biodiversity, which means we have a lot of species. And it's what you really, really want to have is genetic diversity.

And that's where 

cryopreservation can come into play because we can 

hold 

vast numbers of individuals 

as 

sperm or as larvae in a frozen repository. 

Um, 

while you keep 

10 individuals from a population in Aquaria. It's very 

expensive to keep them in Aquaria because you're really asking, um, you know, 

a professional aquarium to hold them for a hundred years 

or more, you know, and cause corals can live for 

100, 200 years or more. 

[00:17:25] Markus: There's a similar concept, a similar backup plan for plant seeds in Norway, the Global Seed Vault Svalbard. Have you ever been? 

[00:17:39] Mary: It's one of, again, on my bucket 

[00:17:40] Markus: list. 

[00:17:42] Mary: No, I wanted to go, but they sealed it now. You cannot go to Svalbard anymore. You can't go into the, the seed vault 

anymore. Um, I actually had a trip planned and then I, found out, uh, talked to someone from CBS or something like that and 

they said, no, 

it's, it's now you cannot go in. And I was like, I was grateful that it was sealed because it 

had, it had had some rain inundation 

in 2017, threatened the 

vault. Um, and, uh, it's better that it's sealed now and they have, you know, they have 

pumps and things like that to help. Stop 

any future, you know, rain inundation to the vault, 

but, um, even there, you know, we're there, you know, in the Arctic, there's still 

climate change is, is changing our, our planet.

And it was one of the reasons we couldn't, well, there is no place on earth cold enough for a cryopreserved, um, biorepository like Svalbard for animals and tropical plants that cannot be saved. 

[00:18:39] Markus: So there's a difference, um, for, for plant seeds, it's cold enough. So that's okay. So Svalbard is okay. But if you want to. Okay. 

[00:18:50] Mary: Yeah, 

sorry, 

[00:18:50] Markus: No, no, but if you want to do, um, other species like animals, you need lower temperatures. That's the difference.

Okay. 

[00:19:01] Mary: Almost 10 times lower. So, um, there's no place on Earth. So, Svalbard's 

at minus 18 degrees

centigrade, um, at the bottom of the mine there. It's an old mine. 

And, um, 

the, uh, so the plant seeds, they dry them, and then they can stay at that temperature for hundreds of years. It's a, a great way to, to grow.

to store seeds. We, many of the biorepositories on earth store their seeds at that 

temperature. And um, but the, the difference is that Svalbard is a passive biorepository. It doesn't need people and it doesn't need energy. It makes it a perfect backup 

plan for our really 

critical seeds here on earth. Um, but.

As you mentioned, plant, uh, some certain plants cannot be dried, such as tropical plants, many tropical plants, and animal cells cannot be dried, they have to be cryopreserved, and they need to be maintained in liquid nitrogen, which is at minus 196 

degrees 

[00:19:55] Markus: So that's 10 times. Yeah. As you mentioned. Mm. 

[00:19:58] Mary: Yeah. So there's no place on Earth cold enough for that.

And that's why we started thinking about, um, when we started thinking about, you know, a biorepository 

that, that mirrored Svalbard, um, we started thinking about first the International Space 

Station. Um, uh, but there's radiation. Over time, you 

would, you 

would get a lot of radiation and it would impact the, the cells.

And um, then we started thinking about the moon and there's still radiation on the moon. Um, but if you dig 

down about two meters, there's, you 

block most of the radiation. And um, the, the great thing is that on the southern part of the 

moon, there's these things called permanently shadowed regions, which are at one, minus 196 degrees centigrade or 

less.

You know, they're 

very 

[00:20:41] Markus: that's liquid nitrogen temperature. 

Fantastic. Fantastic. So is this, I mean, like before we. dive into that concept. It seems 

like we are already on an 

escape plan, um, because we 

know, um, that we're doomed. And so we're running already to bring whatever is left, um, and we can save and we're transferring it to the remotest places.

Now we're thinking the moon. So 

um, Is it, are 

we doing it because we can do 

it technically and we have 

matured enough to be able to do it technically or are we in a predicament

that we, we know we have to do that 

now because doom is upon us?

[00:21:25] Mary: You know, I, I wouldn't, I personally, I look at it differently. I look at it with one of hope, um, that we are perhaps evolving culturally where we understand that we need to, uh, uh, sort of, Support and backup things that are most precious on earth 

in any way that we can. I mean we do things like that for art, um, for dinosaur bones, for whatever, you know, we spend millions of dollars and put them in museums and we take care of them, but the thing that that that is most important to thing to life on earth, we, We abuse, you know, and, and so my hope is that we are learning that it's really critical that we 

maintain it, that we are in the process of 

culturally evolving so 

that we will learn to care for it better on earth. But in 

that process, in that very 

difficult process of understanding the power and the, and 

the the horribleness of climate change, that we have this backup plan and, and we, we 

technically have the ability to do it. Why not do it while we can?

[00:22:26] Markus: And the benefit is of the moon is it's a low maintenance solution. So it's kind of tricky to get there. But once you are there, there is no maintenance necessary, right? 

[00:22:38] Mary: I mean, ideally that is, I mean, we haven't done it yet. So that is the plan. Um, and so we're in the process right 

now. Um, we just bid for a spot on, um, the Griffin mission. It's, it's a, a mission that's going up in, 

in 2025. And, um, so Potentially, we 

will put our, our, our important cells in these radiation hardened boxes.

And um, the idea that is 

that these radiation hardened boxes and what a radiation hardened box is, it means it's, it stops a good part of the radiation that might enter the box because you'll get radiation going from earth to the moon and then while you're being in transit to being. in the biorepository, which we don't have a place for it yet.

We don't know where that's going to be, but we want to make sure that whatever we place the cells in, that they can keep the cells 

safe until they get there. And so we're bidding for that. And we're going to test how much radiation are, uh, the, 

um, the box and the, 

and well, there's no cells in the box. There'll be no cells 

in the box. It'll be everything but the 

cells because of, there's a thing called the planetary protection acts act that doesn't. You really have to go through a lot of, um, hoops if you want to bring 

biomaterial to another planet. And we won't do that. We'll do everything but that. But we're going to 

be measuring everything possible, 

um, to, to make sure that we 

understand the radiation 

environment.

And then we're going to test the 

cells here on Earth, um, to make sure that they aren't damaged by 

that, 

radiation environment. And, um, 

and 

that we also want to make sure that they stay cold. Um, and we have a, 

um, we have 

a cryo, a small cryo engine 

that we'll,

we'll put on this mission if we get accepted.

And,

um, uh, so we'll have the first phase of 

understanding how

these, um, how these sort of, um, The beginning of the biorepository might 

behave when it gets to the moon. Um, and so, yeah, um, we are starting and we're starting to understand and we'll do a lot more testing and we hope we might be even get up to the International Space Station and test up there.

And then, um, it really then will be about, you know, How do we get money to do these collections? How do we, you know, how do we get on missions to, you know, uh, place the samples? Where do we place the samples? Actually, one of the most complex things is, I don't think technologically, it will be the governance of this biorepository.

And when you think, Svalbard is a really good example of governance. They did a great job with it. But as you know, um, you know, seed banks was, are, are, are, are now a war target. 

Um, the Opinion Seed Bank was 

destroyed and, um, so, you know, we want to make sure that if we go to this trouble for all mankind, that it is 

a neutral zone and, uh, that people will respect that it 

is neutral and that, you know, the, the biodiversity of the earth is not threatened by our societal mores. 

[00:25:47] Markus: Um, if I, if I remember correct, you also lost one of your research banks, right? So you, you pretty much know what, what's at stake and what that means. Can you speak to that a little? 

[00:26:02] Mary: Yeah, no, it's, you know, you

always think, Oh, the bank's fine. I, you know, we're all, we're all good. We 

have liquid nitrogen. So I live in Hawaii and Hawaii

is, is basically a

rock in the middle of the ocean and it's 3000 miles away from anything. So we don't have a lot of 

this, you know, easy access to many things 

and like technicians for, you know, scientific equipment and 

stuff like that. It takes them weeks to get there. 

Um, you know, cause you have to plan it and 

the, you know, the, uh, It just takes, it's, it's, it's a lot. And we had this bank and it worked flawlessly for 

many years and, um, it started failing and we knew it 

was failing and we tried to get, um, the part from the company, um, so that we could fix the bank and, um, they wouldn't take any of, They wouldn't take our credit card.

They wouldn't take a purchase order. They wanted a check from the, you know, from our, from the, from the Smithsonian. And there's, Smithsonian just doesn't

[00:26:53] Markus: Of course. 

[00:26:54] Mary: And in that interim, when they were arguing with us, it failed completely. And we lost everything that was in there. Fortunately, we had backed up some of the stuff at, at, at the, um, USDA's, um, animal germplasm biorepository in Fort Collins.

But still, we're, we're now 

in the 

process of, of putting, you know, building back 

back some of Some of the things that we lost, but 

it really brought home to me how fragile and, and 

actually in the, in the, in, at that same time, Oahu was 

out of liquid nitrogen that because we, we use a boat to bring liquid nitrogen to Oahu rather than making it

here. 

So I now

have a 

liquid nitrogen maker in my lab. Um, I, um, have a new biorepository. Um, but even So I'm, I'm much more cautious. I 

mean, you know, every month 

we, 

we send things away now, um, because being, you know, 

um, in 

an area where things 

are 

fragile, you know, um, you know, supply chains can be fragile, um, or, you know, you can 

have these hiccups in getting parts.

You don't want to be dependent on those sorts of things. You want to make sure that you're, you're 

bio, bio, I mean, material is going to 

be really safe.

[00:28:04] Markus: Even if it sounds technically very challenging, maybe the moon is the best bet because there is no, um, Katrina moments. Um, during Katrina, also a bunch of biobanks got destroyed. Um, there's no check, um, versus credit card issue when it comes 

to refueling your liquid nitrogen. So low maintenance. Uh, I think that was, that was what you're looking for.

Can we now Let's dive into how all this, or no, a very blunt question. If you were charged, you, Mary Hagedorn, to collect samples from all species on the planet, um, how much volume would that take up to bring them to the moon? Is this, I don't know, can that, can that be estimated?

[00:29:01] Mary: I don't know the answer. You know, I think one of the 

reasons we wrote the

paper was really to get 

more global voices in this process because we're just, you know, a 

bunch of, bunch of Americans 

doing this 

during COVID, right? And, uh, we, uh, we understood that we had a very 

limited, you know, 

group and, and that we wanted to 

write this 

and 

get more international voices 

to, to sort of weigh in on this.

So that's really the very first 

thing, you know, you really want to. have more voices to. Yeah. Guide this process, especially in governance, what function, you know, what functionality do we need to maintain here on Earth? 

What are the key species that we need to maintain and, and, you know, send up? So 

I think it's, it's, you need to do it, think of it strategically.

And, um, so one of the, one of the groups that I 

think that's really important is to take ancestral, um, Uh, animals for our agriculture. So 

maybe wild pigs and wild boars or whatever, 

you know, might be an ancestral, um, animal to what, to many of the organisms that we have, you know, in agriculture today, um, 

You know, and, and like certainly all the pollinators, you 

know, those are critical to life on earth.

Um, and as I said, you know, ecological engineers, there, you know, coral reefs would probably be one of them, but then there'll be others as well. So I think having the international community weigh in on, on strategically planning this as to what goes up, what is 

collected 

[00:30:26] Markus: It's like Noah's 

Ark. 

[00:30:29] Mary: in a way it's a little, that's a little overused, but, you know, I think that, um, Uh, because Noah only took two, we only 

took more than two, um, uh, and that's, that's a critical element, you know, like, is there enough genetic diversity left in this species?

You know, uh, you know, you don't 

want to take black footed ferrets, sorry to the black footed ferret people. There's only 20, you know, of them 

or so left and, um, there's more than that, but their genetic diversity is not wide. 

Um, 

[00:30:58] Markus: Ark 

wouldn't have worked because it's the diversity wouldn't have worked. So all the work would have been in vain, right? 

[00:31:05] Mary: Dogs. Oh my gosh. Let us not get into a religious argument about that. But biologically, Noah probably was, was good, but not great. 

[00:31:19] Markus: Mary, um, technically, how, how, how would that work now? so where would you get those samples from? So if we go back to the corals, uh, So how would you sample and, and, and then how, I mean, like, let's trace that path to the moon.

[00:31:34] Mary: So we're actually in the process of trying to do that now for the corals, because we know So much

about it. And it's perhaps one of the more urgent, uh, you 

know, ecosystems on earth to think about. And so 

um, you know, I, 

we're, we're engaged with globally, um, doing, you 

know, sort of, um, 

analysis to see where, you know, some of the threats 

and opportunities might lie for coral reefs and to really start thinking about it 

strategically.

My guess, um, is that 

we will start in the Caribbean, but I don't know that for sure. We're, we're dealing with, again, an international group that's trying to help decide And, um, you know, you could imagine that, um, uh, there may be four, there may be five, there may be eight locations that we would have to go to.

It's, it's complicated by International, Um, Uh, permitting. And um, so there's, there's, there's this process called the Nagoya protocol. 

And that prevents, 

um, you going into a 

country and taking any genetic material 

from that 

country. Um, because it's to stop biopiracy, which of course is a bad thing. But um, it impacts this, Um, ability to say, go to someplace like Belize or Mexico and, and, you know, get a simple permit to take out 20 individuals of a particular species.

Um, so a lot of this will be complicated by the permitting and, and what we actually can get. Um, but. Um, the idea, we're, we're actually going to start here in Hawaii because we've already gotten those, those permits. We've already gotten agreements on, for many groups and, and we're going to use Hawaii as a, um, way to test out the whole entire process.

And so in Kaneohe Bay, where I live, we would go out, um, on a boat and, um, we'd first decide on the species we're going after, excuse me. And then. We would go down and we'd take an image of that colony, we would tag it physically, uh, we would GPS tag it, we would take a fragment or two and we would put it in live, live culture.

Um, so the Department of Aquatic Resources has agreed to take some of this material and we would then send it out. Um, take small samples for genomics, um, for, uh, the microbiome, uh, for a voucher sample that would go into a museum so we know what species we're dealing with. Um, and, um, if we had the ability to cryopreserve the fragments, we would cryopreserve, um, and then we'd bring fragments in later, uh, for, um, sperm and larval cryopreservation.

They, they mostly do that during the summer. We would do this in the winter. Um, so that would, that's how we would do it for one species. But, um, the thing that we, if we were going to do coral, um, and send it up to the moon, we would 

send, um, either sperm or larvae. And so, um, unless we can do fragments, um, 

we're still in the process of trying to learn how to do that.

Um, but the, we have these tiny little, uh, bags and, and they kind of, um, excuse me, they kind of, um, function like, you know, if you think of a, a small ketchup mustard. They're going to be about that small. And for most of the species, we will use skin and, and from the skin, we can take these cells called fibroblast cells.

And so for 

most species, 

we know how to cryo 

preserve fibroblast cells. We do not know how to 

cryo preserve most sperm or even larvae or embryos of most species. Humans is, 

are rare. There was just so much money 

put into humans that we tried to preserve the sperm and 

the embryos and the eggs 

of humans, but for wildlife,

that's

[00:35:24] Markus: So you just can't take, um, I don't know, um, wildlife sperm from a lion, for example, and just freeze it and it works. So it doesn't work. 

Interesting. 

[00:35:35] Mary: no, I 

mean, maybe, maybe for lions, 

there's, there's some, but for most 

species, there's not. I mean, I would say, yeah, there's just not that well known for a lot

of species. So fibroblast cells are these incredible cells that 

can be transformed into stem cells and 

those stem cells can then be used for 

cloning.

And so, um, you know, we may not know how to 

clone every single species on earth today. I'm sure we don't, but. 20 years from now we may, 30 years from now we may. And, um, so we have a pathway for most species. Um, we certainly 

have a pathway for coral, um, and, um, you know, insects, um, 

and there's, there are enough, Uh, people who are experts, um, in many of these areas 

that, uh, you know, basically 

we will just create partnerships around the world and those partners will do it.

It won't be Johnny Appleseed me going out and collecting, you know, the opposite of Johnny Appleseed actually. Um, so, 

um, you know, I think there, there are lots of, uh, very dedicated and very good, uh, uh, People Who Know How to Collect. And one of the authors on the paper is the head of an organization in the U.

S. called NEON, which stands for the National Environmental Observatory Network. And they're collecting across the U. S. every year in all 50 states. And so, they have this huge army of people who know how to collect and also these agreements with European and other nations for collecting. So we have, um, the beginnings of the 

army, you know, in terms of the national, uh, it's called NEON, in terms of NEON.

So we have a beginning, um, and really, um, I think, uh, what will happen initially is that we'll send up a few 

species as, you know, sort 

of, 

um, uh, diplomats to the moon and see how it goes, you know, see how, how, how, how well it goes. And then we don't have to have the money to go to the moon, you know, we don't have to have the money to go to the moon.

The, the, um, the missions lined up or anything like that. There's 

enough cold chain storage. Um, Amazon has 

huge cold chain storage here in the United States where we could 

start to, uh, cryopreserve and store here 

in the U S and Europe, all over the 

world. 

So 

[00:37:56] Markus: Why Amazon? Why, why are they doing 

that?

[00:38:00] Mary: one of the biggest companies in the world, yeah. In terms of how they want to keep things cold. I, who knows? I mean, 

there's 

[00:38:07] Markus: I mean, like for their server farmers, I guess. 

[00:38:10] Mary: perhaps. I don't know.

[00:38:14] Markus: Fantastic. Really interesting. Um, I'm just, I'm just wondering, now you, now you have those samples and is the army big enough that, of collectors or could you citizen science that or is that too complex? 

[00:38:32] Mary: No, no, no, 

absolutely. I think they could because you could imagine because 

we're collecting skin cells. I mean, if you have

cancer, skin cancer, they 

don't come out, you know, usually that you don't necessarily, especially if you're in 

remote areas, you don't necessarily have to go 

in. 

If you suspect you have something wrong with your skin, they'll send you a tiny little 

kit where you, they'll Take a 

little punch and you 

take a 

tiny punch of your 

skin, 

you stick it in the vial and you send it in.

And that's basically what 

we would do. And then we'd extract the fibroblast cells from 

there. So there, you know, citizen scientists definitely could do it. It's making sure that 

the skin is clean, you know, or like if you were 

doing something that was furry, like a, you know, a wolf or something like that, you'd have to, you know, clean that, that, that skin up.

And, and, um, when I did the fit, I, I made some, um, samples already. I used fish fins and, um, I had to really, uh, clean it first with alcohol and stick it in an antibiotic rinse for about 30 minutes. So, but, you know, you can imagine that there'd be kits for this. Um, 

and you know, that, uh, so this sophisticated citizen science can do it.

I mean, there's, there's people who are like birders or, or professionals, you know, amateur astronomers, those sorts of people are just. Amazing and what they know and what they can do. And, you know, um, we, we would certainly want to mobilize those 

[00:39:59] Markus: There's, there's There's a fantastic, um, insect, um, collection, uh, initiative going on amongst citizen science. I don't know what, if that's only Europe or, or globally, but this is fascinating. I mean, like there's really a lot of potential possible through dedicated and enthusiastic and inspired lay scientists. 

[00:40:21] Mary: Absolutely. It's going to be the management of these samples and, you know, making sure everything is put into a database. So we know what's there. Um, and making sure that, I mean, the biggest problem really 

is that many museums want to have voucher samples. You can imagine, um, like say you had a big. You're not going to 

you know, if you're a 

hunter or something like that, you can use a dart and take a sample so that you can't take a voucher 

sample of the mountain lion. You would take a high resolution image and then you would take your 

sample. So, um, I think there's 

there's ways of doing it, but we do want to make sure that we, we are getting the genomics. We want to make sure we do have 

some understanding of what that animal was, not 

just the skin, because you can make mistakes. Mistakes can be made. Thank you. Um, and we, you know, we want to make sure

all of this goes into a 

database so that we know what's there, um, and, and what makes sense to send to the moon.

[00:41:19] Markus: Back in the very old days in Alexandria, there is this myth that, um, incoming ships were forced to hand over any kind of books they were bringing during their stay. And those books were, during their stay, were copied and then handed back to the owners on the ships, 

so that all the knowledge was copied and transferred into 

Alexandria.

So it could also be Interesting. 

now to 

see or to maybe see that as an inspiration for what we're talking about.

[00:41:54] Mary: I got to ask this question, um, what if life on earth dies and then, then it re evolves and we have this, this biorepository in the moon, they're going to 

think that life arose on the 

moon. And 

I was like, oh my gosh. And I think one of the 

things that. Some people 

have, have asked is, could we have a biorepository 

that included, You know, all the knowledge of, 

Earth?

And, um, that's certainly something that could

be, you know, put in the biorepository 

as well. 

[00:42:25] Markus: We had a very interesting person on the show, um, called Barbara Belvisi from Interstellar Labs from France, and what she does is she builds grow pods for plants, um, plant life for, um, interstellar use.

And so, amongst other things, she said that her mission, her life Life's mission 

is to help biodiversity or life, actually life itself, become interplanetary. 

So, and that's a 

big thing to say, but in 

fact, this is also 

something that you are doing with 

that, with that idea 

to bring biodiversity or life in general to a different extraterrestrial 

place.

So. Maybe it's a philosophical concept, but the question is, should we 

[00:43:28] Mary: You know, I don't, I don't, know if we should or we shouldn't. I think it's going to happen actually. You know, I, I, I don't think anyone's going to consult all of us. Um, because I think, I think, uh, people are just amazingly curious and, you know, exploration is in our genes. And I think, you know, these, these trips to Mars will happen at some point.

We, we live on the moon. Um, Um, we will work and live on the moon. And I think one of the things, you know, uh, that, you know, we can't, obviously 

the moon has no atmosphere and, you know, but you, they will have to grow things on the moon, you know, for, for food, there will have to be grow houses, they'll have to be underground.

Um, and so, um, the idea that, you know, missions to wherever, you know, um, will happen. And if people are not, and, and I, I mean, people are talking about it, but I don't, know if it will actually ever happen. You know, they want to put people into hibernation. They want to cryopreserve them. They want to do all sorts of things for these long trips, right?

Um, so, you know, but let's just think of Mars, right? You know, Mars has a weak atmosphere. Um, it's a, it's a planet that's lost its atmosphere and it's, um, you know, you can imagine that, you know, I think the Martian really did a good job. The movie, The Martian, did a really good job of really trying to explain some of the challenges that people would face when they go there.

But I do think that people are going to go there. I think they are going to want to terraform Mars. And, you know, when you think about terraformation, You're really talking about, uh, you know, some, some of the really critical microbes that live on earth, um, that, that live in the soil, that break down soil, that create oxygen, um, that do a lot of really critical, um, function that have critical functions on earth.

You're talking about pollinators, you're talking about all sorts of things like that. And so, you know, um, I, I will be long gone probably by the, by the time those things start. Um, but the bank, you know, the, this biorepository, it's, it's, it's meant for all mankind, really. And, you know, depending on what we, you know, decide as a species or 

whatever. Because it's not going to be, hopefully it won't 

be owned by any, you know. Particular country, um, or group. Um, 

and so, you know, I imagine that 

there will be, um, the capacity to allow some of these missions to take, you know, um, things for terraformation and space exploration,

[00:46:02] Markus: Who do you think can finance something like this? Is this, is this a nation state, a United Nations effort, or is it a philanthropic effort by a super 

rich 

[00:46:15] Mary: um, you know, I think it's a bit, a bit like a natural history museum. Um, you know,

a city, a state, whatever says, Oh,

we really want one, you know, and they get a

big building and they get some people and they slowly start filling it. And 

I actually think that's, it's going to happen over time, slowly over time.

It's not, we're not going to just say, Oh, let's just collect everything in the 

next year and do this and send it all up. 

I think that would be foolish. Because we don't know enough about 

how things will survive and how, how things will work there. I mean, some of the things that are, you know, you think, Oh yeah, let's just put on the moon, but working at liquid nitrogen temperatures, you, you cannot really, you know?

And so, um, I am actually thinking about putting on some, um, oceanographers on our panel because oceanographers have to work in very deep places on Earth where they never see what they're doing, really. They just drop their packages or their instruments down and they have ways of retrieving it, right? And that's basically what we're going to, we may have to do in these places because, um, like if you use a rover or a robot, however you think of it, they only have six hours of lifetime at liquid nitrogen temperatures.

And, um, because the, the battery. Just stops functioning. Think of cars in very cold places. You can't, you know, after minus 50, it's really hard to start a car, right? So a rover is going to have a similar difficulty. Um, you know, how do you, how do you dig at liquid nitrogen temperatures? You know, do you drop a bomb and make a hole?

You know, I don't know. You know, some of these are things we 

just haven't figured out, you know, and, um, you know, the other thing is that I was talking to somebody said, you know, if you take a rover and you put it into a permanently shadowed space, it's going to be warm when it leaves the surface of the rim of that, that it's a, you know, sort of a canyon and it's, it's going to leave a vapor trail.

Uh, as it cools down, going to liquid nitrogen temperatures, you know, so there's, there's lots to consider. Um, you know, I mean, there's certainly a way of doing it and, you know, one, one very simple way is to have capsules that are just made for this, right? And the, but radiation then will become an issue.

You could land a capsule, you know, in a permanently, an unmanned capsule in a permanently shadowed space, you know, area, and then you could. potentially somehow try and figure out, there's people who are trying to figure out how to make cement on the moon. You know, so there's, you know, the people are thinking about building, they're thinking about how that happens.

Um, you know, the next Artemis rover that's going up is going to have a digging arm on it, you know, so there's definitely, you know, people are thinking about how do we, how do we do these things? We don't know just yet. So I think there's some really interesting technical issues and, and, and concepts. I mean, the, in, in the, um, uh, Sea of Tranquility where the, the first, um, Apollo astronauts landed, they just found this massive cave, you know, it's just gigantic.

And so, um, it's unlikely that 

in the, um, you know, in the poles they'll have those caves cause there isn't. I guess there wasn't, um, volcanic action 

in that areas, but who knows, you know, what we would find in those areas. It's still very much unknown. We don't know that much about 

what they actually look like, those permanently shadowed areas. 

[00:49:36] Markus: Would you go on a 

scouting 

[00:49:37] Mary: applied to NASA right after graduate school. I did.

[00:49:42] Markus: You did. 

[00:49:43] Mary: All of the 

many of the people on my group are like, Wannabe astronauts.

[00:49:51] Markus: you'd be 

ready 

[00:49:52] Mary: I would go in a 

[00:49:53] Markus: ready to go. 

[00:49:55] Mary: Yeah,

[00:49:57] Markus: So 

[00:49:57] Mary: seeing, 

seeing 

seeing the Earth from space, I think has got to be one of the biggest thrills, you know, of the astro, of,

of people who do have that

opportunity to

get into space. You know, obviously it's not easy to be, um, um, you know, on the moon or whatever the 

case may be.

And, you know, I will 

probably never make it, 

um, to the moon, but still, you know, I'm, I'm really, I'm. 

The 

fact that we, the, the group that I'm with are just like all these science 

nerds from, you know, MIT and 

Harvard and, you know, 

we love talking about this because it really stretches our mind and our creativity.

It is, it is really, really a lot of 

fun.

[00:50:35] Markus: But this is what it's all about. I mean, like to inspire or to, to have a crazy project on the horizon and to nerd out and to do what humans do best. and that is to be creative.

[00:50:50] Mary: And, you know, I think the whole, whole idea hopefully is that, you know, we'll inspire, you know, a generation that will really take this up, you know, and really 

want to, you know, collect, really want to, to, to make this so it is something that is, you know, a century of work, um, protecting Earth.

[00:51:10] Markus: A technical question. Um, so if, would the, the regolith on the moon or the Mars soil, would that be sort of a basis for future farming on those places? So, or could, could you do something with it or would there need to be a major transformation or would, would we need to, bring our own soil in order to 

grow something on 

[00:51:38] Mary: You know, I, I don't know, honestly, the answer to that. I, I'm not a specialist in that, but certainly, 

um. I just don't know. I don't know 

how, supposedly, 

the Moon, theoretically, the Moon was cast off from the Earth, you know, so you could 

imagine. Um, but yeah, I mean, and that's really one of the questions. And I think some of the people who really want to study, 

you know, astrobiology and the origins of the Moon and other solar planets, um, don't want people to go there because they really don't want it to be.

Um, tampered with, because if once you start getting all sorts of 

people and plant, you know, bacteria and things like that, it becomes very difficult to understand the evolution. Um, especially for, you know, some of the permanently shadowed areas, it's, they, they're supposed to have water in them, or they have water in them.

They know that it has water in them and, you know, the water is devalued because 

it's water, but also it's fuel. Um, but if it's, if it's water that originally came from earth, then you should be able to tell that it's. It has its origins from Earth, but if it's, if it's water from a different process, um, then it will look different.

But once you 

start tampering and putting, you know, a biorepository in the middle of, 

you know, things you want to study, I think it gets a little bit, um, um, difficult. But I'm, you certainly could have places that are off, off limits where you don't, you don't ever touch them and they're just for scientific study.

I don't think the whole moon has to be off limits. 

[00:53:13] Markus: Any reactions yet to your crazy 

project? 

[00:53:16] Mary: When I 

[00:53:16] Markus: Like, political decision maker 

reactions. 

[00:53:20] Mary: about this, um, really, um, my, my institution was not in favor of it at all.

They said, stop working on it. This is great. Don't do this. And of course, yeah, I just kept thinking about it.

And then of course the opportunity came up in COVID when we, you know, I had a lot 

of colleagues who were interested, but, um, no, not, I mean, I think I've 

actually been more surprised by, um, How many people think it's a good idea now?

And I think we've gone through a change, right? We've gone from, you know, say 2016, 2050, where 

people are like, Hmm, what? That's just crazy. We're very 

different now. And, and, and I, it speaks to, I think, our evolution as a species, you know, cultural evolution, not species or cultural evolution that we are, we are changing, we're thinking more broadly.

We're thinking about ways to ensure our, you know, our ecosystems, our survival on this planet. But I also, you know, I, I think it's. More fundamental than that, I got a couple emails, one in particular, from a colleague in Israel, and she said she saw the article in the newspaper and she was very surprised to see that I was doing this, but it gave her such hope in the middle of a war that seemed un, that seemed ceaseless and untenable to her as she, you know, sat there on the edge of Gaza, you know, and, and, and she said it just really.

It really helped her. And I've gotten other emails from people that have said, you know, 

societally, it seems like we've taken so many wrong turns globally, you know, in terms of democracy or how human rights, however you want to think about it. And this really gave them hope that we were starting to think more about what we can do for the planet, what we can do for each other, how we can, how we can support and save each other. 

[00:55:05] Markus: I think it's a, it's a 

massive 

[00:55:06] Mary: And I guess that's, I never expected that. I never, it really was just this, you know, sort of nerdy idea that I never had. I never really intended it to, you know, to be a peace project, but

if it, if it is and people embrace it, I'm, I'm, I'm all for it. 

[00:55:25] Markus: So how much time do you need 

[00:55:27] Mary: Yeah. Um, it's, it's a decade long project, decades long project. So it's, it's the sort of thing where, you know, it's a relay race. I'll pass the baton, you know, and, and, and,

someone else will take it up. Um, uh, you 

know, I think if we, if we, could work out some of the technical details, like we 

know we can get these, these, these, um You know, whatever we're going to send up, a box, um, and we have a place, um, and we test it on the ISS by 2030, um, then we can start to collect here on earth and work out the governance and work out, you know, where we're going to go and how we're going to, you know, how we're going to store it, um, that may take 10 years.

So maybe by 2040, we'll have our first. Um, we will have actually, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm really hoping that the company that's running this next mission will, will, will, um, take our, uh, you know, our, our project. But there's other opportunities. The Artemis project is, there's a call for proposals for the Artemis 3 project and we could also propose for that.

And that is, that is another opportunity. So I think at some point in the next, um, say five years, we'll, we'll work on the technical Aspects of getting this to work. And then after that, it's really just a question of the governance. Where is it going to go? How are we going to store them? And that could take a while, but we can be collecting during that time.

So I would imagine that 2030s might be a period of collection where we're holding things on earth. We're, you know, we're making decisions globally as a, as a, as, as, you know, uh, uh, people and we are 

uh, Collecting all over the earth and we are making sure that, you know, we we've, we've covered a lot of things and, and then it's really a question of how we will get it 

up there.

I mean, it could possibly be that we have our own, you know, 

a series of 

missions are just for this. And then you can think of them as like, you know, natural history pods, you know, 

and if they're properly, you know, 

insulated, maybe, you know, we don't have to dig them down. Maybe we can just leave them, you know, in a capsule that sits in a permanently shattered space.

I don't know. you 

[00:57:39] Markus: It's a it's a troubling thought for myself. When you mentioned 

2040, it's a troubling thought 

that I immediately thought 

if we make 

it through 2040, um, so I mean, like, what time is it that we're living in? Isn't that crazy to have such a thought?

[00:58:00] Mary: here in the US, I really, if you'd talked to me, um, eight weeks ago, I might've been of that same mindset, you know. I'm seeing, I'm seeing a transformation politically, whether that the, you know, that transformation will, will bring us through and, and won't go into autocracy is really an important thing, you know, and, um, but many countries are going into autocracy and, and it is, is, it is just the pendulum shifting, um, as it did in the thirties to the, the 1930s and we went through a really black and horrible time.

[00:58:36] Markus: Um, Mary, let's talk something more jolly. Um, um, you already mentioned that in a heartbeat, you would go to the moon or wherever you were asked to go with your samples. And we have a fun tradition here on the Space Cafe Podcast, and that is to ask, ask our guests for that interplanetary or potentially wherever you you're going journey into, into space.

It's going to be After a couple of days and after the first excitement has worn off, it's going to be a boring journey because there's quite a bit of traveling going on. So I'm asking you, what's the one piece of music you wouldn't want to miss? What's the one tune you would want to bring on that journey?

Because we have a playlist for that on Spotify. It's a playlist for the aspiring space traveler. What's your

[00:59:34] Mary: is Miles Davis kind of blue.

[00:59:39] Markus: Good. It's not taken. Great. Fantastic. It's kind of blue, fantastic, the pale blue dot, kind of blue, fantastic. Um, and one more, um, this is, the show is called the Space Cafe Podcast. It's a, an, it's some, something like a coffee place and in coffee places, you now and then have an espresso to energize yourself when you're tired. Now, why don't you share an espresso for the mind with me?

with the audience is something that you think could be a shot of inspiration and you can pick whatever kind of topic you want to pick.

[01:00:25] Mary: You know, I, I, I have to say it's the Olympics right now. You know, um, it is one of the few things on earth where we still come all together and it is the best of our young people and we hope the best for them and they Get along generally very well. It's, it's a very peaceful time, especially in Paris right now.

It's, it's just amazing to see. And for me, it always makes me cry because of that, that inspiration. I mean, they're, it's just the most extraordinary feat. You know, I mean, these, these people are the most beautiful, the most, you know, sort of, uh, physically fit, fit people on earth. And, um, we need to have that same sort of thing for, um, our science nerds as well, where we bring the best of the best together in a, you know, a science Olympics, where we think of some of the greatest things, you know, some of the greatest strategies and ways to help mankind.

It would be a really great thing to have as well.

[01:01:25] Markus: Fantastic. Um, Mary, do you need help still with your Luna repository project? So if our listeners now are super inspired, where, what do you want them to do? Who are you looking for?

[01:01:39] Mary: We are looking for ideas from anyone, honestly. We want inspiration. We want ideas. We, we, we have no funds. We've done this all in a wish, a prayer. Um, so, you know, it's, it's really, I think, the more it becomes a sort of mainstream social idea. That it is important to support our biodiversity. It is just one of the most critical things that we have on our planet, and it is precious.

The more that idea becomes fundamental to our, our thinking as human beings, um, the more quickly we will, we will, we will be able to overcome climate change.

[01:02:19] Markus: Fantastic. Um, Mary Hagedorn, it's a privilege. Really, it's been a privilege to talk with you about such a, such an important topic. It's not an everyday topic.

[01:02:32] Mary: complete pleasure. Thank you for having me. All right.

[01:02:34] Markus: So, my friends, as we wrap our conversation with Dr. Hagedorn, I want to leave you with a challenge. One challenge that got inspired by her Espresso for the Mind idea and when Mary mentioned the Olympics as a uniting momentum for the world. When she proposed the Science Olympics, I figured, this, maybe, what if this is what the world needs right now?

And let's take it even further. This isn't just food for thought. It's a call to action. Let's imagine this to be a call to action for you and for me and for everyone listening right now, as we are at the critical points with climate change, biodiversity loss, and the challenge of becoming an interplanetary species at the same time, we can't wait for someone else to find answers.

The time to act. Is right now. So here's our challenge to you. How can we make science engaging and captivating like never before and make it, make it meaningful and make it just like the Olympic spirit, the spirit of the Olympic games. What can we do? And I know there's lots of bright minds listening right now.

So let's put our heads and minds together as to how we could achieve something like this. We need rock stars for science. Just like, I may, I'm not telling you anything new, but Brian May, the guitar player of Queen. He is an esteemed, distinguished and very respected astronomer. Rock stars for space. Where are they?

Let's dig them up. Let's bring them to the stage and let's create the, I don't know, the greatest festival on earth for science, because science is full of rock stars. So thank you, my friends. Thank you for listening to my ramblings, for being here. Part of the Space Cafe Podcast. Now let's get to work and let's make science the next global spectacle.

Until next time, stay curious, my friends, and remember the future of our planet and our species depends on what we do together, not alone, but we do as a team, you and I and everyone listening and everyone we know right now. 

Bye bye.