Ariel Ekblaw

I'm so grateful to the help that she gave me in not just shaping the talk, but the ideas and the framework behind the message that we really want to share.

And that's what I think is so special about the process is refining to the very core what is that idea that's so important to really share with the public and share with the audience.

We have so many things that we take for granted in our field, which I think is true for a lot of folks coming from academia.

It was really interesting for me to hear feedback and then also from folks that I was practicing the talk with.

What is familiar to people outside of science fiction who weren't steeped in it from when they were a child?

what is and isn't familiar to people about where have we been in space?

People see The Martian and they think, oh, great, we've had humans on Mars for some period of time.

And really smart people can understandably think that there's this crossover now between hyper-realistic sci-fi and reality, what is real and what's not.

So learning what really resonated with people and where they were at and learning to communicate to reach that audience was really an amazing experience for me.

Thank you.

Hello.

Thank you.

Hello, Ted.

It's lovely to be here.

I once had a professor ask me, why in the world do we spend so much money on space exploration in the face of so many pressing challenges here on Earth?

It's a good question, and a tough one for me.

I do believe in the beauty of space exploration for the sake of new knowledge, but space exploration does so much more than just inspire.

Our space program has routinely delivered breakthrough innovations.

The Apollo program gave us the foundation of modern computing.

The International Space Station gave us LASIK eye surgery, contributed to that amazing technology.