Dr Katherine Bennell-Pegg

The whole space economy that we rely on now, Earth observation, looking at the Earth, the communication, Starlink and so on, all of that came from what was created in Apollo as well as advances on Earth.

Artemis is going to be the engine room for the next wave of innovation in space and how it will support us as well as here on Earth.

So from Apollo, we can thank Apollo for the Silicon Valley, right?

We needed to have

transistors, silicon chips, in order to stabilize the big rockets of Apollo.

And when Apollo wound down, the Silicon Valley spun up.

Artemis will have similar follow-on effects we can't even imagine yet.

Now, I don't think we can justify space investment on spin-out alone.

You have to justify it on planned return, but we're getting those planned returns too.

The whole mission for me was absolutely incredible and surreal.

About 10 years ago, I worked on the vehicle, the European Service Module, which was a cylinder at the back of the vehicle that went around the moon and my husband too.

So it was special to see it launch and to be able to cheer on those that have been working on it since, to see, you know, astronauts that, you know, I'd met in Houston when I was training go up there.

It's very different when...

You move from satellites to humans on top of a rocket to see a launch and then to move to humans who you know on the top of a launch is quite something.

And to have seen all the people, the thousands of people around the world that had spent their careers developing these vehicle and these systems.

to get to the combination of a launch was really special.

Then, you know, when to see the systems proceed and check out as an engineer was exciting.

The toilet's always a good topic of conversation.

You know, I'm qualified to use some of the space toilets.

We have to do lessons, you know, and get the certificate.