Brooke Schlesinger

You know, part of being an adult is dealing with discomfort.

Hi, Jonathan.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, so it started in the days before the Artemis II launch.

I was looking for any research on what Australians' collective sentiment was towards space exploration at large and the upcoming mission at the time.

And I really couldn't find anything that was really contemporary and representative of Australians at large.

So I set out with my team at YouGov to research

do a survey of over 1,000 Australian adults.

We launched the survey on the morning after the launch, actually, and we explored how they engaged with the launch.

So if they watched live, if they watched afterwards, if they didn't watch at all.

But also, as you said, their broader beliefs about the significance of space exploration and the key space-related milestones that they hope to see achieved in their lifetimes.

Exactly.

So about 16% of Australian adults said that they watched the launch live.

When you actually calculate those that watched footage after as well, it's over half, 54% of Australian adults said that they either watched the launch after the fact or live, which is pretty astounding to see that there is still some semblance of a collective media viewing culture today.

Exactly.

And I didn't test this specific point necessarily in the research, but I think it may speak to a need or a drive for perhaps more positive stories that we can rally around.

I think there's probably a multitude of factors.

I will say that, though, when we look at the viewership data, self-reported viewership data, we see that Gen Z really over-indexes, as do millennials.

One of my hypotheses there is that, well, for my generation and the generation younger, this is one of the first major, perhaps, space moments for us.

Yeah, I still think overall it was a positive picture in terms of the overall sentiment.