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00:00The structure we see is the space walker. This is Jared now egressing through the forward hatch of Dragon Resilience.
00:08An obvious reference to the Star Wars films. And this is the structure that's going to be used by the astronauts to maneuver outside the capsule.
00:18That's interesting to note that when it comes to technology, this is close to what was done in the 60s, in fact, by the Russians and Americans,
00:25when there was no hatch system with a depressurization. So you had to empty the vehicle they were in, so the capsule,
00:34and then walk out and then come back inside again and repressurize the capsule.
00:39So this is very much what's happening here. Though it has never been attempted by a private company. It's a private mission.
00:48And given that, James, that this is, of course, SpaceX, which is owned by Elon Musk, X is owned by Elon Musk.
00:56Tesla is owned by Elon Musk. Just how powerful is this man?
01:04Well, he is very powerful and we are seeing it also in the, you know, American election where he's decided to back Donald Trump,
01:09which he's offering his services to audit.
01:12Oh, my God, that's amazing.
01:14It is quite amazing. We see Jared Isaacman stepping out of the capsule.
01:24And seeing what must be an incredible view in real life, I'm sure.
01:31I mean, even after the training and stuff, the two years of training, I don't think anything can prepare you for this.
01:37No, quite clearly, it must be something quite incredible, especially if you consider that the training is done either in water,
01:44which is something we've always, we've all, I'd say, experienced floating in water or being held up with a harness so that you work without gravity in a sense.
01:57But it's not the same as actually being there and having no gravity at all.
02:02And obviously realizing that if you, you know, if for some reason anything goes wrong, it's basically over.
02:10Obviously, you know, they're flying at 25,000 kilometers per hour, 730 kilometers from the surface of the earth and stepping out of a vehicle in what is barely a suit,
02:21obviously a very high tech suit, but it's still quite impressive.
02:27From what I understand is the crew have done over two years of training in preparation for this landmark mission,
02:36which includes hundreds of hours in simulators as well as skydiving, centrifuge training, scuba diving, as well as climbing a volcano over in Ecuador.
02:48So they have clearly put in the work, even though these are non-professional astronauts, to be able to carry out a mission like this.
02:59And he's still making his way out of that capsule, Jared Isaacson.
03:06It's actually quite interesting to see the way he's moving on these pictures.
03:11This is the way you realize, you know, you say non-professional, it's true, it's not their job.
03:14But still, at this stage, you could argue that they have, you know, full training and preparation, that they're physically prepared to perform these tasks.
03:23I'd say, you know, I think maybe, you know, you could say that they are astronauts and maybe it's not their job,
03:31but you could argue that they are professional astronauts nevertheless, in the sense that they have all this preparation.
03:37But it's still interesting to realize that you'd have a little less preparation that you would have for, what you would say, professional astronauts.
03:44But once again, you know, Chris Isaacman has already been in space.
03:48He is a seasoned pilot and a jet pilot.
03:51And so, of course, he does have extensive experience when it comes to flying.
03:57And, James, this, of course, is a mission by SpaceX, but are they working in conjunction with NASA to carry out a mission like this?
04:06Now, they do work in conjunction with NASA simply because they use their facilities.
04:10For example, when you take the launch, well, it's being launched from a NASA facility.
04:16So, obviously, yes, they work together.
04:20Those are the four crew members there.
04:22You can see on your screen, Jared, Isaacman, Scott, Poteet, Sarah Gillis, and Anna Menen.
04:30The two, Scott and Anna Menen, will be remaining inside the capsule.
04:42Inside the capsule, exactly.
04:43And while Jared Isaacman, who is making his way out of the capsule now to do that spacewalk, Jared and Sarah Gillis will be conducting some tests, I believe.
04:54Yeah, 38 scientific tests will be performed during this extravehicular activity, 38 experiments.
05:04Now, let's face it, this is not about science.
05:07This is about business and politics.
05:09It demonstrates what?
05:10Because you were asking me about NASA.
05:11NASA is very happy to see this happen simply because it validates their strategy of using private companies in order to perform, I'd say, more simple tasks.
05:20Once again, this is very impressive, but they're not landing on the moon.
05:23They're not sending anything to Mars yet.
05:26It is still stuff that was done in the 60s by NASA.
05:30So, very impressive for a private company, but still, you know, this is not cutting edge space exploration.
05:40But it's interesting for NASA, who will be watching this, of course, because it validates the strategy of using private companies to do what NASA knows it can do.
05:49Also, obviously, it is a pretty strong message when it comes to other private companies.
05:55I would cite Jeff Bezos, who must be watching this thinking, right, they have a certain lead.
05:59Also, if you take, for example, the Chinese, the Indians also, who, you know, have a space program.
06:05It does show that there is considerable, there's a considerable lead when it comes to the American private sector when it comes to space.
06:16So, yes, it is a technical tour de force, and it will validate the whole of the SpaceX process when it comes to this type of activity.
06:27But, yes, it's not exactly, as I say, it's not exactly cutting edge either.
06:31Not cutting edge, but still historic.
06:34Let's talk about, because this, I believe, is one of three missions between Isaacson and SpaceX will be conducting, right?
06:44Yes, absolutely.
06:45But Isaacman has signed on for three missions.
06:47These three missions, the first one is the one we are actually seeing right now.
06:51It is called Polaris Dawn, and Polaris Dawn is this extravehicular activity.
06:58We have no specifics about Polaris 2.
07:01We know it will still be conducted with the same equipment.
07:04It will be probably Crew Dragon.
07:06We don't know what the exact objective of Polaris 2 will be.
07:10Polaris 3, though, would be the maiden voyage of the Starship.
07:14Now, the Starship is this very large rocket that has been designed by SpaceX that has a remarkably interesting capacity.
07:22It's so big, you can actually put 100 people in it.
07:25The point being, eventually, to use the Starship that can land on another planet.
07:31Once again, for now, it is completely experimental.
07:34It hasn't really flown yet, or at least there have been no crewed flights.
07:40But once it actually works, the point of Starship would be to take people to Mars.
07:45Also, it's a very powerful rocket, and it's one that has considerable range.
07:51That's the project.
07:52So, it could send things to the other end of our solar system fairly rapidly, or at least faster than any rocket we have at this stage.
08:01It could also be used, of course, to go to the Moon.
08:03Now, this Starship manned mission will be a very important milestone when it comes to the possibilities of SpaceX,
08:12and even, I'd say, space exploration as a whole in the years to come.
08:18But do we know why the Isaac Man is not floating away as we typically did see back in the 60s
08:27when you said NASA, for instance, carried out those historic firsts?
08:32Is it because of the suit they're wearing, or is it because they're attached to that oxygen, as you mentioned?
08:41Well, they're attached.
08:42Actually, we can see he's coming back in now.
08:45Yes, he is attached to the spacecraft.
08:48This is not an autonomous suit.
08:52We all remember seeing these incredible pictures of the jetpack with the autonomous suit.
08:57Those heavy little things on the back, yes.
08:59Those are much heavier suits.
09:01They're much thicker.
09:03They have an integrated breathing system.
09:05They have an integrated pressure system.
09:08They are arguably much more complex than this type of suit.
09:12Even if you take the suits that were used on the Moon in 1969, they were autonomous.
09:17You saw Neil Armstrong step out of the Apollo capsule and walk on the Moon and walk along.
09:24He had no tubes attached.
09:26Those were also suits that were, in a sense, more advanced than these.
09:29These are not autonomous.
09:32As you can see, there is an umbilical cord.
09:34Now, it does appear that Jared Isaac Man has done his extravehicular activity,
09:39so we're probably going to move on to Jillis now.
09:43Who is a SpaceX engineer.
09:45Who is a SpaceX engineer.
09:47There again, you say non-professional astronaut.
09:51Yes, she works for SpaceX.
09:53If you really look at the situation, we have two.
09:55That means you yourself could do this if you do the two years of training.
09:59Would you love to?
10:00Maybe.
10:02No, well, it's always the same.
10:06It must be incredible to be up there and to have the opportunity to experience weightlessness
10:11and obviously seeing your own planet from such a distance.
10:14It must be quite amazing.
10:16Also, as we mentioned earlier, we are seeing in recent years this concept of space tourism,
10:22which five, ten years ago was not even on the table.
10:29As you mentioned, it was because of moves made by previous US administrations
10:34that we're seeing space travel at the levels we are today.
10:39Well, if you are, what's interesting is to realize that for now,
10:42space travel is not a profitable business.
10:46Obviously, space is.
10:49But I'm talking about manned missions.
10:51They cost a lot of money.
10:52They're extremely complex.
10:54And of course, one of the big questions marks is, right, you develop all this.
10:57You develop, for example, the Starship when it comes to SpaceX.
11:00For now, a lot of this is financed, in fact, by governments
11:04because simply it costs a fortune to send rockets into space.
11:08You have to have, you know, for example, we're talking about SpaceX.
11:12SpaceX cannot at this stage operate independently from NASA because they need the budgets.
11:17If tomorrow you start finding, for example, we know that on the moon there is, you know,
11:23a lot of rare earth that can be used to make phones, et cetera, et cetera.
11:27The Chinese have estimated, you know, they sent a probe to the moon.
11:34They estimate that there is enough rare earths to produce what humanity may need
11:41for the next 10,000 years.
11:43So that, of course, for example, could make it very profitable to send rockets
11:47who could ferry this, you know, important ore back to our planet.
11:53There's also Helium-3.
11:55We don't know what to do with it for now, but it is there.
11:57There's also water.
11:58And you don't know what you'll find on other planets or satellites, for example.
12:01It looks like Sergeles is about to get out of that capsule.
12:07And, James, final question for you.
12:08What is Elon Musk's ultimate goal when it comes to space?
12:14Is it to go to Mars? Is it to go to the moon?
12:16What's his ultimate goal?
12:18Well, I think it's all, you know, Elon Musk has said that he believes that
12:23no species can survive eternally if it is a mono-planet species.
12:30So this is, I think it's very much a philosophical quest to be a multi-planet species,
12:36as he put it a couple of times, as in colonizing another country.
12:40As you know, there's two visions when it comes to the future of humanity.
12:43There's those who believe that we need to stay on Earth and reduce our consumption,
12:46fix the planet and, you know, manage to use less resources so that we can share the planet.
12:53Others believe that we can colonize other planets.
12:55And this is what Elon Musk quite clearly believes.
12:59So his ultimate goal, and this is probably why SpaceX is so efficient,
13:03it has one goal, if you will, and that is sending human beings to Mars.
13:08And this is what they're trying to do at this stage.
13:10And this is one step towards that.
13:13But quite clearly, yeah, that is his ambition.
13:18Fantastic stuff. Thank you. Thank you very much for that, James-André.