60: NASA Astronaut Jessica Meir Went Off The Earth, For The Earth

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: It's so beautiful to hear you talk about that. And of course, the overview effect is so famous. I think it was Michael Collins who said, he got out there and looked back and just felt it's tiny, it's beautiful, it's home and it's fragile. And hearing you speak then, I mean, you've clearly been aware of these issues of the environment for a long time, but still you went out to space, you look back and it still had that kind of deep effect on you. And I've, I've seen some, some analysis that suggests that astronauts that return not only have that kind of cognitive shift, but they tend to change their lives as well afterwards and live in a slightly different way. So I'm curious to know those sorts of changes that the overview effect describes are sort of what we collectively as humanity need to sort of step into and embrace a bit more. Having come back and having had that experience, did you get any insight into how, you know, not everybody can go into space, but how we can all get more of a flavor of that so we can all have that sense of fragility and responsibility and beauty of the planet?

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Jessica Meir (guest, NASA astronaut): Yeah, that's an excellent question and I wish I had a great answer to that one. It is something I thought about a lot and still think about so often, especially right now with so much going on in the world, ranging from environmentalism and taking care of our planet, to this global pandemic, to the civil unrest that we are experiencing in our country right now. And for me, all of those things are the one, the one underlying theme that also resonated so loudly from looking at the planet from space, is that we are truly all in this together. And for some reason, when you experience that, just like the Overview Effect describes, when you see this with your own eyes, and you see the land masses that are all connected, and the oceans, and how everything is spinning really down there beneath you, in its entirety, it really is one object and one home. And that's so plain to see from your eyes and from your perspective up there. And I wish that I could transport every human's eyes up there with me to gain that kind of appreciation, because it's really clear from there. It is absolutely clear. And I think that most people would agree with me when they feel the same way when they're looking at it. So one of the things that we try to do as astronauts is to serve as ambassadors to help spread that knowledge, just as many of you do in the climate world, to first of all inform people, to make sure that people are aware of all these things. That's really number one, is to make sure that we are educating. Because although all of these issues may be painfully clear to you and to me, the word still needs to get out there in certain communities. We need to make sure that we are doing our best in communicating, as well as just gathering the science and trying to inform policy. Because if you can't educate the public and the constituents and all of the people, the general public on the planet, then I think that we are in a bit of a losing scenario. So I think that's incredibly important. So we try to serve as ambassadors in sharing our views, our experiences, our photographs. I tried to share a lot of what I called earth art type photos. I'm certainly not the first astronaut to do that, but to try to help relay the beauty of the planet, different ways that we can think about it and make those connections. It's something I've said as well. I wish all of the world leaders could be up here and see this view because I think it really could be paradigm shifting in terms of how it does change you as an individual. So short of getting everybody to space, I think we can just try to use all of these means of photo and video. There's a new project that's being done on the space station right now called the ISS Experience and it's actually a 3D virtual reality, 360-degree virtual reality, completely immersive experience. And that is something that I am blown away by how it enables me to share what I do with people because you really feel like you're there and experiencing it. And so we have footage now of that camera inside the cupola looking down at the planet and maybe those kind of views will help people relate to that feeling and that perspective a little bit better in the future. So I think just continuing to communicate is the thing that I'm trying to do the most. But I would love it if you have any more ideas on how to help share this perspective.

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Christiana Figueres: Well, Paul wants to jump in, but I'm sorry, Paul, can I just go for it?

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Paul Dickinson: Go for it.

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Christiana Figueres: Jumping at the bit here to ask us a follow up to that. Jessica, in this very intentional communication effort that you're now on, are you trying to reach people's head or people's heart?

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Jessica Meir (guest, NASA astronaut): I think I try to reach both people's heads and their hearts, because I think that both are equally important. And it goes back to bits of advice. And one of the typical questions we always get asked as astronauts, do you have any advice for kids or for people aspiring to be astronauts? And the thing that I always come back to is to that passion and making sure that you are following what it is that you're passionate about. And so I think that that's incredibly important in communicating all of these ideals and communicating what is important, the issues and the data that we have now about our changing climate and the effects it's going to have and what we need to do to inform these decisions. People need to care, first of all, before they can use their brains. We definitely need the heads as well. We need their brains to make those changes. They have to be intentional. People have to be do these things very consciously. But I think if we don't first capture their hearts, then you just won't have the same kind of support and out.

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Christiana Figueres: Paul, sorry, I bow to you now.

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Paul Dickinson: So look, Jessica, I just want to lower the tone a little bit here to try and bring us down, to allow people to kind of connect with your extraordinary experience of more than 200 days in space. So forgive me asking a silly little question, but what was the best moment and what was the worst moment?

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Jessica Meir (guest, NASA astronaut): That's difficult to put into words of what the best moment was, because there were very, very many. But I think that one of the best, of course, that I can think of right off the top of my head is the moment that I arrived on the International Space Station. And for people like Melania that know me well, I think the look on my face really captured exactly my sentiments and everything that I was feeling. And it was interesting. There was a certain combination of words that so many people contacted me with and used to describe what they saw when I arrived on the space station. And so many different people, from all different walks of life, everybody used the combination of words to say, pure joy. There was just this look of pure joy on your face.

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Christiana Figueres: Oh, how beautiful.

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Jessica Meir (guest, NASA astronaut): And I thought it was a really interesting choice of words because I don't think it's, I don't think joy is actually a word that people use very commonly. You know, we say-

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Christiana Figueres: Let's put it this way, not in the science field.

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Paul Dickinson: Not enough, not enough. That's what I'd say.

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Christiana Figueres: Not enough.

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Jessica Meir (guest, NASA astronaut): But even when they're talking about that emotion, I think people use the word happy or they, there are other words that we, we've used and everybody from very, very different backgrounds, sets of people were saying the same thing, saying pure joy. And that moment, it just, it was, it was surreal opening that hatch and being on the space station. I mean, really all of it was surreal. It's something that I say a lot and I think maybe that's just the way my brain kind of works. And when these things, when these extreme things are happening to me, that I, that it's difficult for me to believe that they're actually real. And I think for that, for this, this was something I thought about since I was five years old and worked so hard at trying to achieve my entire life. So I think that joy when I first got to the space station, and not only did I arrive to the space station, I also arrived to an assortment of crew members, many of which were actually, many of whom were actually my classmates. So when I say my classmates, these are the other individuals that were selected to be astronauts at the same time as me, and they're like my brothers and sisters.

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Paul Dickinson: So it's a kind of class reunion as you're spinning around the world at 17,000 miles an hour, right?

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Jessica Meir (guest, NASA astronaut): It was. At that moment, there were actually four of the eight of us. So 50% of our class was up there at the same time, which was something I never dreamed could happen. And so I think that was probably one of the best moments. The worst moments, I don't know if I had a worst moment. I was really smiling for almost seven months straight, which again, I think Melania can attest to, is not my normal state.

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Paul Dickinson: Not anybody's normal state, really.

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Jessica Meir (guest, NASA astronaut): Right. But of course, you know, there are moments that are frustrating when you're working on something and maybe it's not going as planned. And, and as astronauts, of course, you can imagine a lot of us are perfectionists. And we feel an incredible sense of responsibility when we're up there because we know how fortunate we are to be the ones on that end. And there are so many other people that are equally deserving of that opportunity, but unfortunately, only a few of us get it. So it's really an enormous sense of responsibility that when you put this pressure on yourself. And I think for me, those were some of the harder moments for me, was actually just realizing that I couldn't physically do everything that I wanted to do for everybody else and for myself while I was up there, just because I was limited by time. So that was something that I had to deal with.

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Christiana Figueres: What was one thing that you really wanted to do that you didn't get to?

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Jessica Meir (guest, NASA astronaut): One thing that I really wanted to do that I didn't have a lot of time for was I flew a piccolo up there. I play the flute and piccolo and saxophone. And I decided not to fly the flute because it was taking up too much space in my very small allocation. So I flew the piccolo. And then there was also a saxophone on board that Thomas Pesquet, the French astronaut, had left up there. And I had grand plans to really spend some time playing these instruments. Actually, playing music has been one of the things that I found that I really miss about my life in terms of getting older and not having time to do all of these things that we used to do when we were younger. And so I really was hoping to have some time to connect with my musical instruments up there. And I played them a couple of times and over some short periods, but not in the way that I'd intended. Wow.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: I didn't think the answer to that question was going to be, I didn't get enough time to play music, but that's amazing that that's the answer. Can I ask sort of, you've answered part of this question already, but I'd be really interested to hear your sort of straight answer to it. What can leaving the planet do for our attempt to live well on it?

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Jessica Meir (guest, NASA astronaut): I think that leaving the planet can do a lot of things in terms of what we can bring back to our own planet. And the first of all, that is science and data. And I think we all understand that those are really the foundations of what we need to provide to the world in order to make these well-informed policy decisions, so that we can take the steps necessary to save our planet. So at NASA, we have a lot of different experiments and a lot of ongoing areas of research that do bring back that earth science aspect to deliver what we're saying, this off the planet for the planet, off the earth for the earth. And I think that's an incredibly important part about what we do at NASA. And a lot of times, people forget about those experiments because they're not as visible. They don't have a human element in them. People love to tell the stories and take pictures and video and see us doing an experiment, one that requires human interaction. Whereas a lot of these experiments actually don't. They are a piece of hardware or a scientific instrument that may be mounted on the outside of the internal space station, for example. Of course, there are many other remote sensing and satellite systems that NASA has out there for a variety of scientific experiments that are not on the International Space Station. But I'm a little bit more familiar with those that are, given the fact that I spent almost seven months there. But these instruments, a lot of them are mounted on the outside of the space station, so they receive less attention than the things that we're directly interfacing with as humans inside. And that's, I think, just simply human nature. I think we all know humans love to see that human element. It makes them better able to relate to whatever it is you're trying to explain. So sometimes, if I'm trying to connect with a human about an experiment that I'm doing, it's a lot easier to use an example of something that they can relate to that has a biological or a medical implication, or they can see me touching. But just a few examples of some of the instruments that we have collecting data actively on the International Space Station. There's an experiment that is taking thermal infrared measurements of the Earth's surface. So it's looking at changes in water availability and really trying to understand when vegetation is under water stress, what impact that has to the global carbon cycle. We have several instruments that are looking more at weather systems, severe thunderstorms and their role in atmosphere and climate and upper atmospheric lightning, those kinds of things. Looking at solar irradiance, so looking at the solar irradiance and the total energy input that's delivering to the Earth. There are instruments looking at the nighttime observations of airglow, so that faint emission of light in the upper atmosphere and how that affects weather. There are examples for other global weather patterns, hurricane detection. There's an instrument that's measuring methane concentrations in the atmosphere. Of course, I don't need to tell this audience here about the implications there in terms of our changing climate, but this instrument is capable of providing very accurate measurements of methane in our atmosphere. There's an instrument measuring ozone and other gases and aerosols. And again, I think this is a very important set of data that NASA can deliver to help policymakers to inform them, to inform people, to inform those policymakers to lead us in the right direction to make these hopefully climate changing decisions that can help us preserve our planet.

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Christiana Figueres: Now, Jessica, all of that data is important in and of itself. But in order to see changing patterns, changing concentrations, changing conditions, we would have to have an accumulation of that data over time. Because that's what climate change is all about, right? It's changes over time. So does NASA, you used a wonderful word before, payload, which I think you told me was devices that are up there and are the basis of the experience. Does NASA have time, not specifically for one time, but rather long term data collection capacity and data collection analysis that can help us understand what we from down here recognize as increasingly quick changes that are no longer linear but exponential? Is that something that is evidenced from the data that is collected?

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Jessica Meir (guest, NASA astronaut): I think so, and I don't know the particular details of, you know, we'd have to look back at the data sets that we have now. But NASA has been making these kinds of measurements and other similar measurements for decades now. You know, NASA has been doing earth science and climate research for quite a while now. We've had the satellite capabilities, and of course they're ever changing and evolving, and we have different experiments coming and going. But I would have to look into some more of those specifics, and I know we have some incredible personnel on the earth science team that I think could probably deliver us with some specific resources for that, and I'd be happy to help you track those down, and maybe that is something that we can help provide to the listeners in the future. But of course, that is incredibly important in looking at that overall data set. We have a data archive, I know, for example, with our life science experiments, and we're very... NASA does a very good job of making sure that that is robustly recorded. There's a repository for all of those data. So I'm certain that this must exist for all the other disciplines as well.

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Paul Dickinson: Jessica, can I ask a question? You know, you mentioned Mars, but like many people, I've watched a little bit of science fiction, and we all know the stars are a long way away. Do you think we will one day go to sleep and travel to the stars? And would you go on such a mission if we had the technology?

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Christiana Figueres: Why did you say go to sleep?

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Paul Dickinson: Because it takes a hundred or a thousand or a million years, Christiana.

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Christiana Figueres: You can't stay away from it. It's not a normal sleep.

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Paul Dickinson: Okay, okay.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Where do you get your space data from, Paul, just out of interest?

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Paul Dickinson: Arthur C. Clarke.

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Jessica Meir (guest, NASA astronaut): Yeah, I think it's wonderful to dream in those directions of eventually traveling to other stars and in evoking those kind of more science fictiony type stories and visions. And I think that eventually we'll get there as a human species. I mean, that is, of course, if we're successful in keeping our planet alive for that long, first of all. But I think we are actively planning at NASA right now with Artemis missions to go back to the moon. That will happen, hopefully, in my career. And I hope that we do get to Mars relatively soon as well. I'm not sure realistically if that will actually happen during my career as an astronaut, but hopefully in my lifetime. And then we'll see what is beyond that next step. I think eventually anything is possible, as we've seen through the emergence of technologies. We certainly never imagined before we had airplanes flying, it was something that seemed completely science fictional. And then eventually leaving and looking back at our planet and that very iconic Earthrise photo taken on Apollo 8 by Bill Anders. That image was of course very pivotal in shaping the environmental movement and making people understand how special our planet was. So I think whatever we can dream, we can eventually make happen if we put the right importance and resources behind it.

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Christiana Figueres: Well put. Well put. Well, Jessica, we have taken so much of your time and I know that there are others waiting for you for yet another interview, probably interview number 56 of the day. So we will give you the last word, but before that we will give Melania the last question.

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Melania Guerra (guest co-host): Well, what an honor. Over the last hour you guys have made me laugh and cry and just feel completely overwhelmed with pride for knowing all of you. So this last question, I want to bring it to the question of ambition, because ambition is such a big thing this year in the climate world. In 2020 is when the countries are having to pledge their new fulfillment for the Paris Agreement, but also ambition is what you talked about for NASA, for those plans of going to the moon and back to Mars, back to the moon and to Mars. So coming back to your first answer about that picture of you standing on the moon, what are your current ambitions right now, and how do you work day to day towards that, and how do you keep yourself inspired and motivated with those really long-term goals? How do you create that new imagined reality to work towards that when it's something so far away?

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Jessica Meir (guest, NASA astronaut): Well, I think the first answer for the first part of the question of what my next ambition and goal is, I think, is to make that original drawing come true. And although I have gone to space and I have indeed worn a spacesuit in the vastness of space, I have not been to the moon. And that's what that first picture was. It was a drawing of me standing on the moon. Since we are poised right now with these Artemis missions, I really hope that I do get to play a role in those missions. If it's not as one of the astronauts going to the moon, then at least supporting somehow from the ground. So that is my next goal and what I will be working towards here as I return to my support roles in the astronaut office. And I think that kind of ambition is important for everything that we do. We talked earlier about the heart and the brain and which one is more important. And I think that that ambition really all plays into both of those things, to fueling those passions that we have in our hearts and toward making those things come to fruition, making them, being able to carrying them out in using our brains. And those are some very ambitious things, the things that we are talking about today in terms of saving and protecting our planet, in terms of the future of space exploration as well. But if we don't set those goals for ourselves, if we don't give ourselves something truly lofty to aspire to, then we certainly won't be making any progress forward, I think, in really any of these arenas. So I think that kind of ambition is really important. And it does need to be realistic as well. There need to be incremental goals. And that's exactly what people like this group are trying to do by establishing these policies by bringing together all of these international players toward one common goal. And having that ambition is really the place to start. And that's something that I really like. I listened to that first episode that you did for your Outrage and Optimism podcast.

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Christiana Figueres: With David.

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Jessica Meir (guest, NASA astronaut): Yeah, it really meant a lot to me because I have to admit, I've actually been feeling quite pessimistic lately in terms of returning to Earth during this global pandemic and everything that is facing us as humans right now, it does seem pretty insurmountable. So keeping that dose of optimism, you know, that was something that my father used to always say to us. He would say, this too shall pass. And I usually shy away from those kind of platitudes, but what I think is important about that expression is not only in a negative way that, okay, this bad moment will pass, but also for people to remember that when good things are happening, to enjoy them, to cherish them, and to appreciate them, because those good things are also equally as fleeting. And one of the things that I did, I think it was only two days before I left the space station, I was able to talk to your very first guest on this podcast, to Sir David Attenborough, from space, and we have a few opportunities where they'll try to arrange a conversation with someone kind of noteworthy that you might not be able to talk to otherwise. And the second one that I did on the space station was with David Attenborough just a few days before leaving. And I positioned myself in the cupola, because I wanted to be looking down on the planet while I was hearing that iconic voice.

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Christiana Figueres: Oh, how beautiful.

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Jessica Meir (guest, NASA astronaut): And it was so powerful listening to his voice in my ears as I was going around the planet. It was certainly a conversation that I'll never forget. But moments like that do encourage me and hopefully encourage the world to retain some kind of optimism. Because I think as you have captured so well, without that, you certainly won't be able to rise to any challenge.

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Christiana Figueres: Well, you have unquestioned by us and unprodded, you have actually answered our usual concluding question, which is we feel that we need both outrage about what we haven't done yet, as well as optimism about what we can continue to do. And we usually ask all our guests in that space between utter outrage and utter optimism, where do you place yourself? But I think you've kind of done that already, unless you want to add a detail there.

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Jessica Meir (guest, NASA astronaut): Yeah, I think that probably sums up most of it. I think I do. I probably end up more on the outrage side and have to remind myself to still be optimistic. But I think both are equally as important. And I applaud your approach because I think that it is the right way to go about this and to really face these insurmountable or what might seem to be insurmountable challenges.

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Christiana Figueres: Well, fantastic. Jessica, what a true pleasure to be able to chat with you. On behalf of Paul and Tom and Melania and Clay and Marina, all of us on the phone here with you. Thank you so, so much. We were very much looking forward to have been looking forward to this for months. And finally, we got our little dream here to talk to you. So thank you so much for taking the time and sharing with us.

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Jessica Meir (guest, NASA astronaut): You're very welcome. It was wonderful to speak to all of you today, and especially on Melania's birthday.

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Christiana Figueres: Happy birthday, Melania.

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Paul Dickinson: Thank you.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Bye, Jessica.

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Paul Dickinson: Bye, Melania. Bye, y'all.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: So, I don't know about you guys, but I've always wanted to talk to an astronaut in my life. That was an amazing experience to have her relate that journey that she was on. What a privilege to have her on. What do you leave that conversation with?

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Paul Dickinson: Well, I was, you know, it was lovely to hear talk about the pure joy of arriving at the space station. All these different people that she knew all said that that was what defined it. But no, I picked up, obviously we all know this, this kind of, it's almost like a cliche, you know, you leave the earth and suddenly you realize it. But I was really dwelling on some of the words she used, how it does change you, and it changes you philosophically. And she called the earth a beacon in the void of space. You know, it's not flat, you know, we are on this kind of spaceship, this spinning spaceship. And she's, you know, summing it all up. She talked about preserving our planet, this unique home. We are truly all in this together, seeing the land masses linked and then concluding by saying, I wish I could transport every human here. I wish all the world leaders could be up here and see this view. And certainly when I think of national leaders kind of, you know, throwing barbs and gybes at each other, that would be a very good thing. I will chip in for the crowdfunding campaign to lift the UN heads of state into space.

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Christiana Figueres: You know, I don't know how many of you remember the NASA's twin astronauts, the identical twins, Scott and Mark Kelly. Scott went almost on a year-long space flight way back in 2015 and 2016, a good year for us. And Mark stayed on Earth deliberately, you know, to measure genetic changes that were caused by space flight, et cetera. But I had the opportunity at one point to speak to Scott. And I asked him, when you came back, what was your, you know, what is your most important message? And it is exactly Jessica's message. Interesting. Exactly the same message. He really wishes that all of us would have the perspective of this little blue dot. That is all intertwined, that is all interconnected, that is so fragile, and that we are just taking so for granted and so abusing consciously or unconsciously. And he said, you know, seeing that from out there just absolutely changes your mindset, your perspective, your attitude toward your behavior here on Earth. So I thought it was fascinating that they both have exactly the same message.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: And what's, I mean, you know, obviously I've never been to space, but I'm fascinated by this overview effect, as we talked about. And what's interesting about it is it doesn't fade. Like so much of our experience is you have an insight and then it fades over time and you go back to your old habits. But from the research that I've read about the overview effect is it changes you permanently. It's really amazing, isn't it? I mean, it really is.

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Christiana Figueres: Why, Tom? Why?

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: I don't know. That's what's so fascinating about it. And it really is.

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Paul Dickinson: It's hard to imagine. I mean, all that happens is you're on this enormous stick full of kind of practically explosive stuff. Then your eyeballs are put into the back of your skull. You're blasted into the atmosphere. And then you're so dangle in an entirely weightless environment looking out the window, listening to David Attenborough. I mean, it's going to have an effect.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: I think that that's just such a brilliant explanation of the scope and the majesty of space travel, Paul. I really think that really we should do an experiment. Let's send Dickinson into space and see if it has any impact.

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Paul Dickinson: Whoa, whoa, whoa.

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Christiana Figueres: Is he applying for, you know, astronaut status?

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Paul Dickinson: When the rocket is going off, I have to do something else that day. I really would love to, but I can't because I'm tiny weeny bit scared. I'll tell you what, here's the thing. Kind of interesting actually, because you'll be aware that there's been, you know, the recent SpaceX rocket launch and a lot of talk from billionaires about going to space. And do you know what, a little bit they're inspired by. I've heard Elon Musk and others talk about like, oh, what happens if, you know, Earth is blown up in a nuclear exchange or something? You know, we need to have humans on another planet. And then to hear Jessica say, well, no, we got to protect and preserve this home to be able to get the technology together to be able to leave the planet. So in a way, it's kind of weird to have all this kind of, we got to get to Mars because we're about to die on Earth. But it's got people thinking maybe about a theme earlier. We were talking about kind of risk.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah, I think the other thing which can give you that experience and that breakthrough transformation is art, of course. And one of the, I don't know if anyone's seen this, but recently when I gave my Ted Talk, there was someone else who gave a talk at the same time called Oliver Jeffers. And Oliver is the most brilliant children's illustrator and author. He gave a talk at the same time and we sort of bonded a bit over and we become Zoom friends and we sit up late at night and drink wine when our kids are asleep. And if you haven't seen Oliver's work, you should have a look at his Ted Talk. And he did this brilliant thing when his son was born, where they created this enormous earth and they drew the boundaries on the map. So that you couldn't quite see, you could see from a distance, there was something written there. It was on the High Line in New York. And then when you got closer, you could see that what was written on every country is just people live here. And it has this kind of amazing experience that we think we see the difference, but the similarity is so much greater. We should pivot now to let you know, you will have known, those who joined us last week for the live show will know that we are bringing you a new part of these podcasts each week. And that is we're bringing music. Now we were really inspired to do this and to bring amazing music from emerging artists. Many of us sort of struggle to find new music or find new music that's written with a purpose, but there's so much creativity and interest in this space at the moment. And we formed a partnership with Sofar Sounds. Sofar is a brilliant global group that was created by a very good friend of mine called Rafe Offer. And it invites people to come to somebody else's living room, and Sofar arranges for the musical artists to come and they play. And if you haven't been to one of these, obviously you can't do it at the moment with lockdown. But when we're all back and able to be together again, I'd really recommend it.

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Christiana Figueres: I did it several times, Tom, when I was living in London.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Right, right, right.

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Christiana Figueres: Totally loved it. And I was so intending to host one of these fantastic concerts. And somehow we never got our act together to be able to do that. But a fantastic experience that I too would highly recommend.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: You know, you could host one at the beach in Costa Rica. That would be a nice thing to do.

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Christiana Figueres: Now we're talking.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: There you go, yeah.

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Paul Dickinson: Lots of artists making their way over to Costa Rica.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: So anyway, through Sofar, we have, because of course they know all the music in the world that's thinking about this. They've curated this amazing list of emerging artists. And we're going to bring you a song each week that is a song with a purpose. And this week we've selected one that's by an artist called Mesadorm and the song is called Easy. And I think this is particularly relevant, again, going back to the conversation with Richard Curtis, all the questions from people about the struggle that people have. Because this is about sort of facing that and being honest, but also, you know, finding a human way through it. And I would really recommend also that you watch the video, because the video on YouTube, it's absolutely beautiful with multiple different voices and people singing.

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Christiana Figueres: And the link is going to be...

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Clay (podcast producer, live in studio): I've got it.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Claire's got it.

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Paul Dickinson: Claire's going to put the link in the show notes. And you know what? I think the song Easy and also what you were saying earlier about that globe on the High Line, it's like we're all these little islands, us people. And then for me personally, the music is the bedrock that just connects us all. So I'm so looking forward to hearing it.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: And we asked them about this song and they said, you know, the underlying theme of it is our desire in life for things to flow, to be easy, to feel free. And the fact that most of the time life's not really like that, but sort of that's okay. And then we sort of do our best. And they're also very thoughtful about sort of the role of artists during the climate emergency. They really point out the fact that, you know, leaders of culture need to show the way, making our lives less about work and money, less about competition, less about success and inverted commas, more about collaboration, about meaning and about connection and integrity. So they really have an amazing philosophy. And it's a beautiful song. Hope you enjoy it. I'm going to be out for a couple of weeks. I'm going on holiday with my family. My brilliant co-hosts will be in charge. Probably with an additional guest co-host. I'm sure it'll be fun. So thanks for joining us this week. Hope you have enjoyed it and they'll see you next week.

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Christiana Figueres: Have a good time, Tom. Bye. Bye. Bye.

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Clay (podcast producer, live in studio): Bye. So there you go, another episode of Outrage and Optimism. Outrage and Optimism is a production of Global Optimism and is produced by Clay Carnel, an executive produced by Marina Mancilier-Sherman. This podcast happened because of our team, Katie Bradford, Sarah Law, Sophie McDonald, Laura Richardson, Sharon Johnson, Freya Newman, Sarah Thomas, Nigel Topping, and Michael Northrup. And our hosts are Christiana Figueres, Paul Dickinson, and Tom Rivett-Carnac. Okay, so this Saturday, July 11th, Tom is moderating a special virtual event for Yassamin Ansari with former Obama National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes. Yassamin is running for Phoenix City Council District 7. I actually got the opportunity to meet Yassamin when we recorded our interview with John Kerry, and I was so inspired by her story, why she's running for office, what she wants to do. So you can learn all about this and more and support her by attending her event on this Saturday, July 11th. Link is in the show notes. Don't miss this event. Okay, on to my weekly thank yous. Thank you to Mesadorm for recording for us a version of their song Easy. As everyone mentioned earlier on the podcast, you need to go watch their music video for this song. Link is in the show notes. Check it out. Our interview today was made possible by Megan Sumner, the team at NASA and our special guest interview co-host, Melania Guerre, and of course, thank you to our guest NASA astronaut Jessica Meir. One really, really cool thing Jessica mentioned to us after the interview that I wanted to tell all of you about is that for NASA missions, the astronauts designed their own mission patches to communicate the main themes of their purpose for going on the mission. And so for Jessica, she wanted the Expedition 62 Patch to capture her commitment to environmental stewardship as one of the main elements. It's seriously so cool. I'm looking at it right now. It's got these two space explorers on it. One's holding a star. The other is holding a birch leaf, which birch trees are indigenous to regions that the crew members from all sides call home. You need to check it out. I've put a link in the show notes so you can look at it, read a bit more on all the symbols on the patch and what they mean. And you can even buy one and then sew it on your jacket. And if you do that, you should post it and tag us. Oh, and tag Jessica too at astro underscore Jessica. And speaking of tagging, we're on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at Global Optimism. And if you love the podcast, please subscribe and leave us a rating. Nobody knows why the ratings help, but they definitely do, like a lot. Okay, next week, can we survive without Tom? I don't know. Tune in to find out. We'll see you then.