Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1493016
44 I-CONNECT007 I REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2023 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE It came down to something very practical. When I was graduating from MIT, I got a call from a production company asking me if I wanted to be the host of a TV show, and that's how I literally got my foot in the door. This company found me because I had done a lot of outreach in schools, talking about my research. There was video out there of me talking about science and technology; I had the credentials and the ability to communi- cate these topics to kids in a way they could understand. I studied science policy at MIT, meaning I studied how to describe very complex sci- ence and technology topics to policymakers, which uses a skill set and language very simi- lar to those used to explain science and tech- nology to children. I was perfectly trained for the task at hand. Te: Who are some of your role models, particularly female role models? I admire people who are very hardcore about science and technology but can combine that knowledge with a creative skill, whether that be rapping, songwriting, stop motion animation, drawing, or storytelling. When someone can combine those things, I find that more compelling than anything in a text- book. A lot of the people I admire are on YouTube and TikTok; they might have a PhD in a tech- nical field, but they're creating and using a storytelling platform to share that knowl- edge. Dr. Raven the Science Maven is an incredible rapper, songwriter, and microbi- ologist who understands a lot of the science behind everything that was going on during the pandemic. She's so incredibly fun. AsapSCIENCE is another one of my favorites; not only can they sing a great a capella song, they also know chemistry incredibly well. They have a beautiful song about the table of elements. There are people out there who are so mind-bogglingly creative, but also know their science, and those are the people that I aspire to be like. Nguyen: Thank you. Now, I'd like to ask you some questions about space commerce. How can companies in this industry sustainably do business in space, particularly concern- ing space junk? How can we be responsible about that issue? Space junk is becoming a major concern. To summarize what I said in my keynote, there are 30,000 pieces of space junk larger than a softball in orbit today. Only 6,000 of those 30,000 pieces are operational satellites. The rest of that space junk currently in orbit is comprised of dead satellites that stopped working and were just left there, or pieces of satellites that were created from collision events. That debris could be from accidental collisions with satellites or ASAT tests where a nation shoots down their own satellite. Russia did that recently, which created a lot of debris in orbit. The biggest challenge with space junk is policy enforcement; although