- il y a 2 jours
Gravity Matters Developing Space-Based Experimentation
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00:00Good morning and welcome back to all of you to this third day of VivaTech, Europe's biggest startup and tech
00:07event.
00:08Let me introduce myself first of all. My name is Louise Eklund and I'm going to be your host today
00:13for what is to be a very exciting session.
00:16We have an amazing programme ahead of us this morning with sessions offering both an online and an on-site
00:24experience.
00:24So let's dive straight into our first discussion, which is all about space.
00:30This is a two-hour show. The session is going to be divided into three separate discussions that aim to
00:36give you a real overview of the major trends impacting the sector.
00:40Thanks to the participation of renowned experts, we're going to dive into many different topics, including space-based experimentation,
00:49building the foundations for life in space, and how best to craft commercialisation policies for space.
00:56If you're with us, stay with us for the next two hours as we'll be offering you the possibility to
01:01ask your questions.
01:03And you can do that via the application. Those of you watching us online as well, go into the chat
01:09box and send us through your questions.
01:10We'd love to have them. Let's kick off our first topic at hand. It's Gravity Matters, Developing Space-Based Experimentation.
01:20Here we go.
01:43So space is becoming a limitless laboratory. Thanks to a unique environment, space-based experimentation can lead to breakthroughs,
01:52not only for our personal lives, but also for a possible future life in space.
02:00And for this fascinating discussion, I have just been joined by three amazing experts that we have on the set
02:05with us today.
02:07Nicola Goum, you are co-founder and CEO of Space Cargo Unlimited. Thanks for being with us.
02:12Very nice to be here. Thank you, Louise.
02:14Wonderful.
02:15Hélène Hubey, you are co-founder and CEO of the Exploration Company. How are you this morning?
02:21Very good. Thank you for inviting me.
02:23You're very welcome.
02:24Daniel Campbell, you are managing director at the London branch of Space Pharma. How are you doing?
02:30Very good. Happy to see space as part of the Viva Tech Show.
02:33Well, so are we. This is new for us. Wonderful to have you with us.
02:37So, Nicola, I'm going to kick off this panel with you.
02:40You co-founded Space Cargo Unlimited in 2014, a European startup dedicated to seizing the potential of microgravity research for
02:49commercial applications on Earth.
02:50Thank you, Jonathan. First of all, maybe to set the scene today, can you tell us what microgravity research actually
02:59means and how you came up with the idea of Space Cargo Unlimited?
03:03So, what we do is we create a product of high value on Earth for back, I'm sorry, on space
03:09for back on Earth.
03:10Okay.
03:11We focus on the topic of agriculture and viticulture currently and we basically grew plants on the International Space Station.
03:18So, the International Space Station is a pressurized vehicle in all Earth orbits around 450, 500 kilometers ahead of our
03:27heads.
03:28And inside the space station, everything that is Earth is recreated. Temperature, pressure, oxygen level, everything but one thing, gravity.
03:37Of course.
03:37And that changes everything. Because gravity is actually, for the past 4.5 billion years of life on Earth, the
03:45only life parameters that has never changed.
03:47So, across the 4.5 billion years of evolution, there have been different temperature level, pressure, humidity, brightness.
03:55And that means that species died, evolved according to that change of environment.
04:00But gravity was always there, a constant, and it became the backbone of life.
04:04So, when you recreate everything on Earth but gravity, you create an immense stress that accelerates, for anything alive, evolutions.
04:14And so, that can give a variety of applications.
04:17I know that Daniel will talk about what he does in the pharmaceutical industry, which is super inspiring.
04:21We, on our end, decided to send very young vine plants that were very much cut from the field in
04:30Bordeaux, where our Space Biology Limited, our research company is,
04:34and brought straight, in partnership, the French Space Agency and the European Space Agency to the launch pad in Cape
04:40Canaveral and SpaceX with Dragon,
04:43and sent it to the station for 10 months.
04:45And because we actually sent these vine plants in a very early stage, at a very specific moment of their
04:50development,
04:50when they were exposed to this environment I described, they chose a different path.
04:56Nature changed them naturally, organically, and made them a different species.
05:01Back on Earth, we replanted these vine plants, and we actually now, after one year and a half,
05:06we actually made an announcement yesterday, witnessing that our plants,
05:10because they resisted to this huge stress of absence of gravity,
05:14changed to get more resilient, more effective, to defeat lesser stressors back on Earth,
05:20and specifically the one related to climate change.
05:22So, our plants, organic, are more resilient to disease like mildew, which is affecting the vine plants,
05:30to hydrate stresses, change the water levels.
05:33And we are going to continue growing these plants this year and the next,
05:36and we will put them on the market in 2024, and basically all the wine producers around the world,
05:42from Napa Valley to South Africa, will be able to buy Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon,
05:47organic, more resilient to climate change, thanks to this boot camp that the space environment has been.
05:53Wonderful. Fantastic experience.
05:54We're going to go into a little bit more detail on the subject of experimentation as we go along.
06:00Helen, I'm going to come over to you now.
06:01You are CEO, but also co-founder of The Exploration Company.
06:05The mission is to make space exploration more affordable and accessible.
06:11You are in the space vehicle industry.
06:15Maybe you can explain to us how you are different from your competitors
06:19and why it matters to your organization to actually democratize space.
06:25Yeah, so, Nicolas and Daniel are already in the microgravity environment.
06:31As you mentioned, we are the vehicle, so we are building a space-to-space transportation vehicle.
06:38It's a vehicle that first and foremost is going to serve the low-Earth orbit, so the stations.
06:44So today you have two stations in low-Earth orbit.
06:47You have the Chinese space station and you have the International Space Station.
06:51And tomorrow, tomorrow means approximately in five, six, seven years, in any cases by the end of the decade,
06:59that number two is going to become four, five, or six, perhaps even seven.
07:05So that's a very fast-growing market.
07:08Low-Earth orbit is going to become a kind of suburb of the Earth
07:11because we are moving from a time when International Space Station is going to become three private space stations,
07:18plus India, who is having also a project of space station,
07:21and Europe is partially also thinking about its own project.
07:25So we want to serve these stations to resupply them
07:30and to bring the experiments of Nicolas, to bring the experiments of Daniel up there,
07:35with the possibility also ourselves just to free-fly around the Earth
07:38and to provide this microgravity environment for 10% of the price of a space station.
07:43And with the same architecture, plus an additional propulsion system,
07:47we also can fly to the moon in a second step.
07:51We have this competence in the team because I had a chance to work on the European Service module program,
07:58which is half of the air-end vehicle, which is bringing back humanity to the moon.
08:02And you were asking, you know, why we are different?
08:04We are different because we design our vehicle like cars,
08:09meaning we reuse the same tech brake for low-Earth orbit and for the moon,
08:14so we have economies of scales.
08:16Like a car, our vehicle is reusable.
08:19So again, a lot of economies.
08:21And like a car, we can refuel our vehicle in orbit.
08:25So it means that basically, from a price point,
08:29we can provide microgravity environment for 10% of the price of a space station.
08:36We can reach space stations for 25% of the price of the competition.
08:40And we can reach the moon and the cis-lunar economy for 33% of the price of the competition.
08:46So this is when we speak about democratic space exploration.
08:49We are serious about that.
08:50You're making it very accessible, for sure.
08:53Daniel, you are managing director of the London branch at Space Pharma, as I said,
08:59an organization whose mission is to enable the development of new drugs in space
09:04thanks to a miniaturized microgravity lab technology.
09:10Maybe you can, in simple terms, explain to us a little bit about this technology.
09:16Perfect.
09:17So Space Pharma deploys and operates microgravity laboratories in orbit.
09:23It can be on board the International Space Station, but also beyond that,
09:27on our own satellites and future platforms and vehicles.
09:33We allow researchers not only to send their experiment to space,
09:39but also to remotely control it from their own labs via our own ground station.
09:45So life science and material science researchers can enjoy the unique condition of microgravity
09:54to develop new drugs, new drugs delivery methods, and we'll speak about other applications further on.
10:03Wonderful.
10:04Thanks, Daniel.
10:05So let's move to some topics that we wanted to try and cover today in our 27-minute and 26
10:12-session that we have together.
10:15First, can you elaborate on what makes space such a unique environment?
10:20And we started to touch on it with you, Nicolas, but maybe going into a little bit more detail.
10:25It's a great environment for experimentation.
10:28It is.
10:29It's absolutely fascinating.
10:31And it's interesting, you know, because for 20 years, we've been doing fundamental research on the International Space Station.
10:37And as often, fundamental research does not necessarily percolate immediately into applied research.
10:43It's also probably linked to the fact that we're not this commercial space dynamic
10:48that has been growing from North America to now Europe.
10:51And it's extremely inspiring to see that this potential is becoming more accessible.
10:56And I think it's a matter of cost and opportunity.
10:58But going back to your question, Louise, in all fairness, gravity is such an important component.
11:04There's also a number of other components related to radiation level that are a little higher and other things.
11:09But the absence of gravity allows you to do many things.
11:12I talked about what we do in agriculture.
11:15Daniel is doing a lot of, in space pharma, a lot of things in the pharmaceutical industry.
11:19And really, we have many other applications.
11:22One of them is, for instance, new materials.
11:24When you create a new material, by essence, the heavier material is going to go down on Earth and the
11:31lighter ones are up.
11:32So if you blend two materials, there's not a perfect blend.
11:36Imagine you remove gravity, then the blending is perfect.
11:40There's also a number of applications that are extremely interesting and that have been developed on Earth that cannot manufacture
11:46it on Earth.
11:47There's a French company that invented a fiber optic named Ziblane, which is based on fluor base instead of silicium.
11:54And this particular cable for certain wavelengths is extremely conductive.
12:00But it's very, very hard and not impossible to make it perfect on Earth.
12:06Some experiments were done by the U.S. Army and a number of companies in the U.S.
12:12And that has actually a lot of application.
12:13And when you start digging into this, you see a lot of exciting opportunities moving forward that has related to
12:19the specific condition of Earth.
12:21Think about, for instance, microprocessors.
12:23If you look into the long term, you're all trying to go to miniaturized processors and you need to have
12:28a perfect white room.
12:30Well, space is completely perfect in that sense.
12:32So you could think about the way you could create microchips and many, many other applications,
12:38which eventually will also be related to the fact that there's a lot of materials and raw materials in space.
12:44For instance, we all know that we need a rare Earth to build batteries like cobalt and many other mining
12:51materials.
12:52And, well, there are scarce quantity on Earth.
12:55Extract them cost a lot of money and have a very, very strong sustainable footprint.
13:00Well, you have meteors and you have a celestial body accessible and more and more accessible to Earth to be
13:08able to bring these materials back on Earth
13:10or manufacture elements and products in space for Earth.
13:13So a lot of exciting perspective.
13:15Yeah.
13:16Daniel, do you want to build on what Nicolas just said?
13:20Yeah.
13:20So just to emphasize maybe to the audience that physics, biology and chemistry behave differently in space.
13:28Yeah.
13:28There is no gravity, no sedimentation, no pressure.
13:34You can actually accelerate processes and test accordingly.
13:41So a few examples would be drug discovery, drug delivery systems and also anti-aging products.
13:54I was very interested to visit, you know, the booth of the beauty industry.
13:59That could also be a potential there because, again, organs and biological systems age faster, unfortunately, in space.
14:09So we can learn from that and, again, bring back application, not just for astronauts, but for all of us
14:16here on Earth.
14:17Yeah.
14:17Hélène, you've got lots of different companies calling you up, I can imagine, to find out more about the fact
14:25that it's accessible to go into a space and everything.
14:28What kind of companies?
14:31I mean, we talked about aging products.
14:32We talked about why.
14:33Who's calling you?
14:35Yeah, so indeed, we are a platform which is an agnostic platform.
14:42So we work with companies like the one of Nicolas, the one of Daniel.
14:47We have partnership, for example, with NanoRacks, which is one of the global leaders of microgravity experiments.
14:53We have partnership with URI, which is a company based in Germany, which is focused also on a pharma experiment.
15:01We have partnership with Space Tango, which is also a company in the U.S.
15:05So basically, we have, and currently, I mean, we're going to fly a very first demonstrator this year already, and
15:11then the next one is for 24.
15:13And in 24, we fly with clients.
15:15So today, we have already 60% of our capacity, which has been pre-booked by clients who sign LOIs.
15:21And these clients, or part of them, are partners.
15:26Comat, for example, in France, Comat has performed, I think, 85% of the European experiments in the space stations
15:35up to today.
15:37So part of our partners have booked, but also direct booking.
15:42Space companies willing to perform or to demonstrate technologies in space with us, but also entertainment.
15:49I'm sorry I cannot quote the name here, but we have among the biggest worldwide luxury companies, having booked pre
15:57-reserve some kilograms with us.
15:58I'm also one of the biggest web companies willing to work with us on the metaverse.
16:05So I would say one part of our client, one third is space companies, private space companies willing to accelerate
16:11to demonstrate their space technology.
16:13And of course, you need to be in orbit for that.
16:15Another third is basically a company willing to use microgravity as a research platform.
16:22So it can be for pharma, it can be for agriculture, it can be for materials.
16:25And the other third is more about entertainment, actually.
16:28So this is what today we sell.
16:30And, you know, being a free-flying platform, we're going to sell that.
16:35But frankly speaking, our very big first market is about serving the stations.
16:39As I was saying at the beginning, we move from the western part of the world, from one station to
16:45four to five, and you have very few vehicles that can do that.
16:50You have Dragon from SpaceX, which just announced they're going to stop the production, because they're going to focus fully
16:58on Starship, their very next super, super big vehicle.
17:03You have Cygnus from Northbound Groupman, you have the vehicle from Boeing, and you have one being developed by Sierra
17:10Space.
17:11And you have no European vehicle.
17:13So we are the only one European vehicle.
17:16We are the only one privately funded today.
17:19And I'm quite confident that we can be ways less expensive than the Boeing, the Northbound Groupman, the Sierra Space
17:25ones.
17:27And SpaceX just said that Dragon is not anymore a priority for them.
17:31So I think we have an avenue in front of us to serve this market from Europe and serving, you
17:37know, clients globally.
17:39I'm curious because I can get my head totally around the fact that we are experimenting in space on the
17:46pharma industry, the wine and everything.
17:48But just a question about the entertainment side of things.
17:53I'm not sure I quite understand what that means.
17:58Yeah, it means, I'll give you a few examples.
18:01You know, we spoke about democratizing space.
18:04And if you want to go to space today, you have to pay like 100, 200, 300K as a minimum
18:10if you fly with Bezos, for example.
18:12And if you really want to stay a few days, it's minimum 50 million.
18:16So if you think about, you know, a meta environment, which is a mix of virtual stuff and real images
18:23that, you know, can be kind of experienced real time.
18:26But a mix of virtual and real.
18:29I mean, we can be this platform.
18:31So this is the kind of thing we're currently discussing with our entertainment partners.
18:34I should say, we did it, as far as we're concerned, to fund this research on vine plants.
18:41We tried to be creative and blend the research with the entertainment factor and find ways to create value.
18:48So what we did, because we were working on vine plants for the wine industry, we actually shipped 12 bottles
18:53of wine to the space station.
18:56In a way, revisiting a tradition of bottled wine to aged bottled wine on seaship.
19:00We aged bottled wine on starship.
19:02And we actually brought them back after a year and a half, a year and two months in space.
19:07And we auctioned them, private sales with Christie's.
19:10And we sold the bottle, which now is funding our research.
19:14So there's creative ways of funding.
19:16And going back to Hélène's point, you know, there's quite a few companies, nevertheless, building a vehicle like Hélène is
19:23doing to entertain this growth.
19:26Of space station, we believe there are other ways to approach this.
19:29We're working on a very exciting in-space manufacturing platform ourselves, which we'll be announcing soon.
19:36And we feel that it's only the beginning, because all these opportunities, obviously, are going to be nurtured.
19:41More opportunities, like what we're working on, like what space, all the very space company that Hélène referred to,
19:49are going to go more of the company like Spare Pharma and ours to do exciting projects.
19:54So it's very much a unique moment in this industry.
19:57Did you taste the wine?
19:58We did taste the wine.
20:00It's actually fascinating.
20:01It's different.
20:02We're still studying the reasons why.
20:05To the nose was the same.
20:07The color was a little more brick for the space wine to the wine on Earth.
20:11And the finish was much more floral.
20:14So, you know, we're studying this wine.
20:16It's making a unique product, transformed things to space.
20:18Fantastic.
20:20I'll know, this is a kind of backstage bit of information here, but on our call, when we were discussing
20:26with you guys how to set up this round table for this morning,
20:30someone mentioned the great thing about space experimentation is that you actually can't fail.
20:36I don't know who said that, but can you explain why?
20:41Daniel?
20:41Well, I would never claim that you cannot fail in space, but I think that what space has become more
20:49accessible and more cost-driven
20:54is that you can actually adopt the mentality of many startups here, fail fast and fail often.
21:03So you can actually go to space, not just for one shot, but constantly and routinely and actually in a
21:14very, very rapid manner test your paradigm and change it if needed and work faster to get to new products.
21:23We all appreciated the way that the pharma industry came up with solution to the COVID crisis.
21:30And I think that the expectations of people is that space will also support that rapid development, including failures, but
21:41with great success that will follow.
21:43Can I add one thing?
21:44Because one of the reasons, I guess, that was discussed in the prep meeting is that, you know, when science
21:50realized that temperature could change many different things in the way life evolves.
21:55You know, you know that heating kills, you know, bacteria, and then, you know, that cold can maintain a status
22:02in life.
22:03So one life parameter, temperature, changed the way we approach science.
22:08Yeah.
22:08Now, when you go to space, and again, going back to the fact you remove gravity, which is something you
22:13cannot do on Earth for a durable time.
22:16You can do this, like, a few seconds in a parabolic flight, for instance, but you can't do that for
22:22a long-lasting moment, like on the space station, where you're a free-fall stage.
22:26Well, imagine that it's ten times what life and science discovered when they were able to understand the impact of
22:33temperature on science.
22:35Now, the impact of gravity on science is really gigantic.
22:40I think that we covered some of the application, but it's mind-blowing, the only opportunity you can consider.
22:45Are people like, you know, jouets des coudes, trying to get into space, like researchers, are they fighting to get
22:52up into space?
22:52Because this is such an amazing opportunity and puts a whole new perspective on for researchers.
22:58Do you have people calling you every day saying, you know, we want to go and make it as accessible
23:03as possible?
23:04So, the market currently for microgravity research is, from my perspective, in its infancy, because there was just one platform,
23:14now two platforms available, the International Space Station and now the Chinese Space Station.
23:19So, it's a very few platform, and it was still costing a huge amount of money to go to these
23:24platforms.
23:26So, if you're a company, from my company, perhaps you don't know about that, and then if you know about
23:32that, it's still kind of super expensive, and then you want to have scientific protocols.
23:37And, of course, there is a certain, you know, time period, and Danielle is ways more knowledgeable than me on
23:43that,
23:44until you can basically transpose one-to-one, an experimentation you've done in space, into something you can scale on
23:50Earth,
23:51because you need to have a certain number of statistics, repeatability, protocols, et cetera, which are industrialized,
24:00that we cannot do if you just have a few experiments.
24:03So, I think what is changing now is on the availability first, because you're going to have, as I was
24:09explaining,
24:10ways more platform where you can perform experiments.
24:13So, again, on the affordability, with vehicles like mines and also others,
24:18it's going to cost one order of magnitude less to do these kind of experiments.
24:23So, then, basically, it becomes a new research platform, and what we see on the market,
24:29and we had the chance, actually, to partner with McKinsey, whom I'd like to thank here,
24:33and you can see, actually, online, there was recently an article published by McKinsey about the potential of microgravity.
24:39They really partner with us, so they work for us pro bono,
24:42so that's why I'd really like to thank them.
24:45And there is one part of the industry with quite maturity, most in the U.S.,
24:51because NASA played a great role, actually, evangelizing this industry.
24:55So, companies like Merck, like Lily, have done some experiments already.
24:59In Europe, it's less mature.
25:00So, we have, today, among our clients, mostly people who have already done, actually, microgravity experiments,
25:06and who see with us a possibility to do that for ways cheaper, ways easier.
25:13But we also have, altogether here, a kind of duty to evangelize the market,
25:19and that's, for example, why we're organizing, on the 22nd of June, an event.
25:24I mean, if some of you are interested, happy to share more details.
25:27We have the NASA astronaut, Kate, who is a biologist and who performs some experiments on the space station.
25:33She's going to explain how space can serve our needs on Earth.
25:38We have Blue Origin, who is building a private space station,
25:41and already performing, very often, microgravity experiments with the new Shepard,
25:46which is the vehicle many of you know because of space tourism,
25:49but actually, every time they fly to space with tourism, they also have microgravity experiments.
25:54We did one experiment with Blue Origin.
25:55Yeah.
25:57So, it's a market, basically, which is starting, which has a super, super high potential,
26:04and it will grow with, on the one hand, the availability, affordability of the new platforms,
26:11and, on the other hand, step by step, I would say the industrialization of the protocol
26:16so that space being done, sorry, science being done up there can be industrialized on Earth afterwards.
26:25You just touched on the idea because, with this event that's coming up with Kate from NASA,
26:32but how can the discoveries in space concretely help things evolve for us on Earth?
26:41There's a question here that's come through which is quite interesting.
26:44How can space experimentation help us fight climate change, for example?
26:49I can give, perhaps, a very few examples and then let it to you.
26:53So, climate change and environment.
26:55So, when you are on board space station or board space ship,
26:59you're here for quite long, so you have to recycle a lot of things.
27:03And many, for example, technology membranes for purifying water
27:06has been actually invented first in a space station and then scaled back on Earth.
27:10Today, for example, you recycle plastic on space station
27:13and then with that plastic, you make powder.
27:15With that powder, you print repair pieces.
27:18So, imagine you scale this techno on Earth.
27:20You're going to recycle plastic bags and to print repair pieces
27:23for the car industry or for the airplane industry.
27:25This is really huge, actually.
27:27Space is also super hard,
27:30so you need to be very, very frugal with your energy
27:33and highly efficient.
27:35If you grow plants in space,
27:37you don't have a lot of energy in space station or at lunar surface.
27:40So, you want these plants to grow super fast with very little energy.
27:44And this is exactly the same problems we have here.
27:46So, I have plenty of examples like that,
27:48but I'd like to leave the floor to Daniel and Niklas in their specific areas.
27:52Daniel?
27:53Yeah, so, I think that, first of all,
27:57we should acknowledge that there are lots of new applications
28:00that can enjoy microgravity conditions that we don't even know yet.
28:04And we need to address that with all the audience,
28:08with all the startups.
28:09If you innovate on something,
28:12go back to your physics and maths,
28:15see if you can remove the G from your equation
28:18and see if it works to go to these platforms
28:24and our labs and others and test your experiment.
28:29We should also remember that the current platforms
28:35also enforce some limitations on the way that we can do things in space.
28:40Again, think about experiments with viruses,
28:45radioactive elements, dangerous materials.
28:49All of that are currently in danger.
28:53The astronauts, but can certainly be experimented with on autonomous platforms.
29:00So, I think that we are just seeing the start of a lot of new applications
29:05that can directly impact humanity.
29:09Nicolas?
29:10I agree with everything that you've said.
29:11I think you need to step back, okay?
29:14A lot of things that are happening today
29:16are driven by certain amazing thought leaders
29:20that are escapists.
29:22Escapists?
29:23That think that life needs to happen on other places than Earth.
29:26And that's driving an entire industry,
29:28which is, I think, a chance for back on Earth.
29:31I am not an escapist.
29:33I think there's only planet Earth.
29:34I think it's fragile.
29:35And I think that there's many opportunities that space can provide.
29:39So, indeed, it's an engineering playground, like Hélène said,
29:43so you can create solutions that are going to be used
29:46to go to the Moon and Mars
29:48that can actually give us more innovation technology back on Earth.
29:52But I really think that's what Space Pharma does.
29:54That's what we're working on with our company,
29:57is to really build high-value solutions for Earth thanks to space.
30:01And, again, absence of gravity brings this very, very strong perspective.
30:07One of this mission, and this mission we're doing on agriculture,
30:10we're doing it for the vine plants,
30:12but we'll be able to deploy it on every agriculture segment.
30:15But what we're doing is we're doing organic plants
30:18that are, again, completely natural,
30:21but because they've been exposed to the extreme environment
30:23of absence of gravity,
30:24they're going to be more able to sustain climate change changes.
30:29So, basically, our plants already show
30:31that they're more resilient to hydrate stress,
30:35so less water.
30:36They're able to grow faster.
30:38They're able to resist to disease and fungi
30:41that are growing with climate change.
30:43And that's, again, keeping a health balance
30:46with plants that need...
30:48I mean, if you look at the Maslow Pyramid,
30:49feeding humanity is a key thing,
30:51and with climate change, it's going to be a challenge.
30:53And I really do believe that space can bring these solutions
30:57for the future of humanity.
31:00I just would like to give some very, very concrete examples.
31:03I'll be fast.
31:05So, in pharma, one example is stem cells.
31:08Stem cells is currently a bottleneck for the pharma industry,
31:11and experiments of stem cells can be performed
31:14in an easier manner in space
31:16because stem cells are more resistant.
31:19Second example is organoids.
31:20So, the way you actually test the active principle of medication,
31:26how it can be carried within the body,
31:28it's easier to study in space than on Earth.
31:31Third example is printing organs.
31:32You can do that better in space than on Earth.
31:35And the last example I'd like to quote,
31:37because this is, like, super concrete.
31:39In the space station,
31:41it was invented surface treatment
31:45that could capture bacteria.
31:47And actually, this is currently being scaled by Boeing.
31:50in the airplanes to fight against COVID.
31:53So, I just wanted to be very concrete
31:55because I think the more concrete we are,
31:57easier you can understand
31:58how space can serve Earth needs.
32:01Definitely.
32:02I mean, examples are always the way forward, aren't they?
32:04I've got an interesting question here
32:06that's come in from the audience.
32:08Yesterday, we had a session here on Race to Net Zero.
32:11Obviously, climate change is a huge topic here at VivaTech.
32:16Can we still afford space from a carbon emission perspective?
32:19Are these experimentations carbon neutral?
32:23So, I'm the vehicle here.
32:26I'm the one probably polluting the most,
32:27so I feel like a duty to speak.
32:31So, you know, going from Earth to space,
32:34of course, we need some energy,
32:36and this energy pollutes.
32:37This is for sure.
32:38But you can, I mean, in our company,
32:41we are engaged into a certification process
32:43to prove that we can be carbon neutral.
32:46We use methane to propel our vehicle to the moon,
32:50and we're going to use biomethane.
32:51and we're the first in the world,
32:54the first in the world, actually,
32:55to use green propellant on our capsule to fly to stations.
33:01So, I mean, like every transportation mean,
33:05you need energy,
33:07but you can design to think in a way,
33:11how can I be as protective as possible
33:13while still, you know, serving my mission?
33:17So, that's, I think, the way to think about that,
33:20because we're not going to stop our activities,
33:22but we need to be responsible
33:24in the way we perform our activities.
33:27Of course. Nicolas?
33:29I think, Hélène, capture it.
33:31I think that it's also a cost-to-benefit perspective.
33:35Sending our plans to space
33:36was the equivalent of a diesel car
33:38driving from Stockholm to Bordeaux.
33:42So, it's a footprint,
33:43but the plans that we grew
33:46and that we came back on Earth
33:47can be actually thousands of plants
33:51surviving and being stronger on Earth.
33:53So, the benefits of what it is you get from is,
33:56but as I think the industry is very much aware
33:58of the challenge
33:59and making the efforts that Hélène called out,
34:02and I think that the benefits
34:04for the sustainable future of Earth
34:05are very significant.
34:07Of course.
34:08Are we discovering new materials in space?
34:12Daniel?
34:12Yeah, so, again,
34:16the unique conditions of microgravity
34:18allows us to crystallize protein.
34:22Think about purer, bigger,
34:26and uniform crystals
34:28that can later be used to drug discovery
34:31and new drug delivery method.
34:34So, yes, we are working with customers
34:38to explore something.
34:41So, most recently,
34:43with the first Axiom private mission,
34:46we grew artificial meat in space.
34:50So, that's another application,
34:52you know, for food tech.
34:54People speak about sustainability.
34:56So, there are endless opportunities.
34:59We just need to make sure
35:00that we allow customers
35:04to have an accessible
35:05and affordable way to space
35:07and then show them the impact
35:10that it can bring back to Earth.
35:13Okay.
35:14We have time for one last question.
35:16We have two and a half minutes left together.
35:18So, I'm going to ask you the question
35:19to all three of you to finish.
35:21What is the one misconception
35:24most people have
35:25about space experimentation and manufacturing
35:27and space exploration,
35:29maybe more generally?
35:32Well, that it is something distant from real life,
35:35distant from practical outcomes.
35:38This is a misconception.
35:39And I hope all the examples we shared
35:41and all the thoughts we shared with the audience
35:43will be helpful for people
35:44to understand the immense opportunity
35:46that space provides to Earth.
35:48We can definitely feel it.
35:50Hélène?
35:51Yeah, I think the misconception
35:52I often meet is,
35:55okay, space exploration is for billionaires
35:57for polluting the planet
35:58and want to have five-minute fun up there.
36:01I mean, this is really seeing
36:02like a small, small, small part
36:04of space exploration.
36:06We live at a time
36:07when space exploration
36:08become part of our future,
36:10where we are step-by-step building vehicles
36:12that can fly to the moon,
36:15can contribute to build
36:16a sustainable settlement in the moon
36:17and where humanity,
36:19step-by-step,
36:20and that's going to happen
36:21in the next 15 years,
36:22going to settle on Mars.
36:24So, this is huge, actually.
36:26This is even more than at a time
36:28when we were discovering the Americas.
36:30And if you think back
36:32about the technologies
36:33that emerged from
36:35discovering the Americas
36:37or even the Apollo mission,
36:38it means that we're going to discover
36:40new technology,
36:41new science.
36:43Human is going to live differently.
36:45So, it's not about billionaires
36:48or whatsoever.
36:48It's about a complete
36:51new area
36:52of technology,
36:54of living differently,
36:55that is step-by-step
36:56opening for each of us.
36:57And that's, I think,
36:59the reason why also
36:59it's extremely important
37:00that you all participate
37:02to the next era.
37:04Wonderful.
37:04Daniel, you have the last word?
37:06So, it's not just science.
37:08It's not just research.
37:10It's also production.
37:11It's also formulation.
37:14And it's a new era
37:16where, again,
37:17space supports Earth
37:19and we can be part of that.
37:24It's not just going to Mars.
37:26It's going back to Earth.
37:28Wonderful.
37:28Thank you very much
37:29to the three of you.
37:30We could discuss
37:31a lot more, of course.
37:33It's been an extremely
37:34interesting session.
37:35I definitely learned a lot
37:36and I'm sure
37:37those of you
37:38that are watching us
37:39would say the same.
37:41We're going to take a short break.
37:42We'll be back in a few minutes
37:43for our next session,
37:44which is called
37:46Extraterrestrial Home,
37:47Building the Foundations of Life
37:48in Space.
37:49And for those of you
37:50watching us,
37:50if you want to continue
37:51watching us,
37:52make sure you enter
37:53on the Stage 2 banner
37:54available on the digital platform.
37:57You can also click
37:58on the Stage 2 button
37:59that is in the chat window
38:01right now.
38:02We'll be back at 10.45.
38:03See you in five minutes.
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