07. Hélène Huby - Co-Founder & CEO at The Exploration Compan

Just over a year after Marcus Wandt was selected to ESA's astronaut reserve, it is time for him to go to the International Space Station as ESA's first project astronaut ever. We talk to him about what this means for the Swedish and European space industry in general. We also meet up with Adrianos Golemis, ESA Flight surgeon and responsible for Marcus' health, and Luca Anniciello, Increment training lead, and the person who ensures that the astronauts' training is adapted to that particular astronaut's mission. And, we have a chat with Alexis DeJarnette, Public Affairs Officer at Axiom Space who talks about the AX-3 mission and the future of the private space market.
Have we gone to Mars yet? is produced in collaboration with Saab.

Have we gone to Mars yet? visits Japan and Professor Masaki Fujimoto, Deputy Director General at JAXA’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science to talk about a few of JAXA's space missions. All of them small steps towards the long-term goal to land on planet Mars.

Hayabusa 2 was a sample return mission to the primordial asteroid Ryugu, launched in December 2014 with the samples returned in December 2020. 

We also hear about MMX - Martian Moons eXploration, a sample return mission to Phobos, the inner of Mars’s two moons, which will be launched sometime in 2024. 

And of course, the recent SLIM mission - Smart Lander for Investigating the Moon, that was launched on the 7th of September this year, and will reach the Moon sometime in the beginning of 2024.

もう 火星に 行った？

Have we gone to Mars yet? is made at Beppo by Rundfunk Media in collaboration with Saab

We want to reach the stars. 

But, how fast do spaceships go? The ISS moves at almost 28 000 km per hour. And to leave earth a rocket needs to get up to about 40 000 km, per hour. So if we are talking about going to Alpha
Centauri, our closest naighbour, 4.5 lightyears away, even with the fastest spaceship on the market it would take tens of thousands of years to get there. Light, on the other hand, just a few years - the speed of light is 300 000 km / second. But to go that fast you would have to lose all your mass, which you can't. But what if we tried to make a spaceship as small as possible?

Avi Loeb is a professor at Harvard, and one of the minds behind a project called Breakthrough Starshot Initiative! 

Former Airbus and Ariane employee Hélène Huby co-founded the Exploration Company in 2021 with the goal to provide affordable ways for anyone to access space. We went to Munich to talk to her about their mission to democratize space exploration.

Jessica Meir's first spacewalk became historic as it also meant the first spacewalk performed by only women. During her time on the ISS, Jessica managed two more walks outside the space station. Good training for the future, and with any luck she will be the first woman to walk on the moon. Looking forward to Artemis!

We visit Kiruna and meet up with Nikos Petropoulos, Research engineer at LKAB, to talk about robots and drones and how they can be used to explore and excavate around the solar system, and we talk about how they use Boston Dynamics robot SPOT in LKAB:s mines and how it can be programmed to perform different tasks in areas that are difficult for humans to reach.

Space is opening up, and every launch full of payloads takes us one step closer to that Mars mission we are so excited about. Today we get to talk to someone who helps making space accessible to everyone: Veronica La Regina, Head of European Operations at Nanoracks in Torino, where they are on a mission to democratize space!  

CEO of porkchop, a Stockholm-based startup where they build reusable in space logistics vehicles, aiming to establish an interplanetary economy, Matija Milenovic tells us about how they went from idea to launch - of the company and with an actual payload on a SpeceX rocket. He also talks about his visions for the future and how to raise funding and to get people to believe in your ideas.  

Video game developer turned explorer turned astronaut, Richard Garriott tells us about his journey to the International Space Station and all it took to get there. He also talks about investments, the future and what he thinks is the best way forward for humans conquering of space. And of course he answers the most important questions of them all, Have we gone to Mars yet?  

Satellite pioneer, creator of SES/Astra, and allegedly Europe's most dangerous woman tells us about a lifetime in the (new) space industry. Candece gives us her view on the space industry today, what to consider as an investor or entrepreneur in space, and tells us how to build a space nation from scratch.