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0:01
BBC Sounds, music, radio,
0:03
podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren
0:05
Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs
0:08
podcast. Every week I ask my guests to
0:10
choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd
0:12
want to take with them if they were
0:14
cast away to a desert island. And
0:17
for rights reasons, the music is shorter
0:19
than the original broadcast. I hope you
0:21
enjoy listening. My
0:45
castaway this week is the physicist Dr
0:47
Nicola Fox, the head of science at
0:49
NASA. She's leading the space
0:51
agency in a new, ambitious era of
0:54
exploration and describes her job as the
0:56
best in the world and beyond it.
0:59
At present she's overseeing around 100
1:01
missions, managing an $8 billion budget
1:03
and tackling questions like how do
1:05
hurricanes form, what can we learn
1:07
from asteroids and are we alone
1:09
in the universe? Her
1:11
own story starts with that same
1:13
spirit of curiosity. It began
1:16
in Hitchen in Hertfordshire where her dad,
1:18
himself captivated by the Apollo missions, sparked
1:21
a childhood fascination with space. She
1:23
was just eight months old when he
1:25
lifted her from her cot so she
1:27
could watch Neil Armstrong take humankind's first
1:29
steps on the moon. Today
1:32
she has a new generation of spacecraft to
1:34
look after. She says watching them
1:36
launch is like sending your kids off to
1:38
college. You know they're going to go and
1:40
do great things but it's a big sea
1:42
change in your life and you hope your
1:44
kids will call home. We need our spacecraft
1:46
to call home. Dr Nicola Fox,
1:49
welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank you so
1:51
much. So Nikki I want to
1:53
know more about how it feels when you
1:55
watch a mission launch. I'm imagining an incredibly
1:57
heightened mix of emotions. What's that blend about?
2:00
It is a huge mix of emotions, particularly
2:02
if it's a mission that you have worked
2:05
on for years because you've been panicking, you've
2:07
been stressing, you've all the things that can
2:09
go wrong, they haven't gone wrong and it's
2:12
on the top of the rocket and then
2:14
you stand and you watch the rocket lift
2:16
off and it's an incredibly proud moment and
2:18
then you realise I'm never going to see
2:21
that spacecraft again. And so
2:23
you have like separation anxiety and
2:25
you have this sort of sad
2:27
moment of just, wow, it's
2:29
gone and it's the brave one. It's going
2:31
on the big expedition to do all the
2:33
amazing things that you've prepared it to do but
2:35
there's still that sort of, my
2:37
life's not going to be the same anymore because even
2:40
though you're going to do great science with it, all
2:42
your engineering team is going to go off and work
2:44
on another mission and you're going to go and work
2:46
on another mission and so it really is like post-launch
2:48
blues. Do you cry? Oh, I
2:51
do cry, particularly if it's a crew
2:53
launch just because you know it's just
2:55
so inspiring to see it and I'm
2:57
so incredibly proud to be associated with
2:59
it and so the tears flow all
3:01
the time. So
3:04
it's emotional watching the launches but then
3:06
it must be equally emotional watching the
3:08
landings. The OSIRIS-REx mission ended in
3:10
September and that was a big
3:13
moment recently. It brought back the first
3:15
asteroid samples from deep space, the largest
3:17
sample of its kind ever recovered. That
3:20
landed in the Utah desert. What was
3:22
it like watching that? I think it
3:24
was when we knew there was
3:26
the command that said, the capsules
3:28
entered Earth's atmosphere and that's
3:30
the moment when you go, okay, this is
3:33
real and you know it's coming
3:35
down at I think about 28,000 miles an hour at
3:37
that point. It's
3:40
causing a lot of heat so essentially the capsule
3:42
gets engulfed in a fireball and hearing
3:45
the words parachute
3:47
has deployed, I think
3:50
that was the moment that my heart kind of
3:52
leapt out of my chest because that's the moment
3:54
where you're like, okay, we're good
3:58
and you saw it stop spinning. At
4:00
that moment you also know that you're going to have a soft
4:02
landing. I mean it looked like somebody putting
4:04
a cup of tea down on the table. It
4:06
just came down beautifully. What a
4:08
relief, Nicky. All right, then let's go to
4:10
the music. What's disc number one? So
4:12
my first disc is Simply the Best
4:15
by Tina Turner, because it
4:17
has a fond memory. So when I
4:19
was about 17, my father was on
4:21
an executive course and he was
4:23
actually giving one of the lectures and
4:25
the team said to him, oh, you need to have a
4:27
walk-up song. And so he said, what's
4:29
a walk-up song, basically? And they said, oh, no, you
4:32
were just going to play it on when you walk
4:34
on the stage. And so he
4:36
said, oh, I don't know, but my daughter
4:38
loves Tina Turner. So something by her and
4:41
not knowing what his walk-up song was going to
4:43
be, they played the best
4:45
by Tina Turner. And I can just imagine
4:47
my dad kind of sashaying up onto the
4:49
stage at that sort of beginning beat and
4:52
then actually really not realizing that at some point
4:54
she was going to sing You're Simply the Best and
4:56
he was a little bit embarrassed at that point. Every
4:58
time I hear it, I just have this vision
5:00
of my dad kind of breathing his way
5:02
up to Tina Turner. The
5:25
best Tina
5:29
Turner. Nikki
5:40
Fox, the samples brought back by the
5:42
OSIRIS-REx mission came from an asteroid called
5:44
Bennu. Now it's 4.6 billion years old,
5:46
making it almost as old as the
5:49
solar system itself. What are you hoping
5:51
to discover from those samples of rocks
5:53
and sand? It's like a time
5:55
capsule that you can open and pull out
5:57
like the clues for what life was. was
6:00
like. So when our planet was forming, you
6:02
know, before life started here, 25% of the
6:06
sample will be used immediately by NASA
6:08
researchers and researchers all over the world.
6:11
And the other 75% is going to
6:14
be preserved for future generations. If
6:16
you think about the Apollo samples, we are just
6:18
opening some of those samples for the first time
6:20
now, 50 years after they were taken
6:22
and returned. And the equipment that
6:25
we have to be able to analyse those
6:27
samples is so different from 50 years ago.
6:29
And so it really kind of brings home
6:31
to you the importance of bringing back samples, but
6:33
also the importance for saving them for
6:36
future generations to really take advantage of.
6:39
So let's go back to the beginning of
6:41
your own story, Nikki. You were born in
6:43
Hitchen, Hartford, June 1968, and your
6:46
father, Eric, was an engineer at Foxall Motors. It's
6:48
him he credit was introducing you to the wonders
6:50
of space. How exactly did he do it?
6:53
So he had followed all
6:55
of the NASA astronaut programs,
6:57
Mercury, Gemini, and then of
6:59
course, Apollo. And
7:02
it was just very important to him
7:04
that I in quotes knew
7:06
where I was when Neil Armstrong landed
7:08
on the moon. So obviously, eight months
7:10
old, I have no idea. But I
7:12
know the memory, you know, that he
7:14
came and gave me a running commentary
7:17
throughout this. And even I
7:19
think I was about three, we were on a
7:21
family holiday in Spain. And instead of a bedtime
7:23
story, you know, he had glasses on the nightstand
7:25
showing me, well, this is the earth, the moon
7:27
goes around the earth, the earth goes on the
7:30
sun. And, you know, I would
7:32
ask him to tell me more. And so over
7:34
the next few nights, we would add other objects
7:36
from around the hotel room to add other planets.
7:39
And he would often say, just imagine
7:41
what it must be like to work for Nessa.
7:43
So it was his passion. But how amazing
7:45
that he planted these seeds with you. And
7:47
then you took it so far. What did
7:49
he say when you first got a role
7:51
at NASA? Because that that happened quite from
7:53
time ago. Yes, yeah, that was straight out
7:56
of my PhD. I applied for a postdoc
7:58
at NASA and was selected. He
8:00
was extremely proud and so when I
8:02
went over for my first visit, my
8:05
parents sent me this huge bouquet of
8:07
flowers to NASA. I
8:09
didn't really think they knew who I was but
8:11
suddenly at the security gate this huge thing of
8:13
flowers turned up for me. So I was pretty
8:15
well known with the security guards for my first
8:17
day. You're
8:20
an only child. Were you the kind of kids who
8:22
lived in their own imagination a lot, made up lots
8:24
of games? To a certain extent.
8:27
I spent a lot of time building my
8:29
Lego and I was very meticulous. I
8:31
think I was probably too meticulous but if I built
8:33
a Lego town there would be people crossing the road
8:36
and they would be waving and their head would be
8:38
looking exactly at the other person that they were waving
8:40
to and I would spend ages doing that. It's
8:43
time to go to the music. Dr Nicky, your next track if you
8:45
were number two, what's it going to be? So
8:48
it's Bon Jovi, Living on a Prayer. I
8:50
was at, it's actually my Bachelorette party years
8:52
and years ago and
8:54
we're out dancing and Living on a Prayer comes
8:56
on and my friend is dancing there
8:58
and the guy next to her who's dancing
9:01
she said something like, I love this song
9:03
and he said, oh yes, it's my mum's
9:05
favourite song. She was crestfallen. I
9:08
had the thought that, oh my
9:10
goodness, I'm now being likened to someone's mum. And
9:13
so every time I hear the song I will
9:16
snap a picture, if it's on the radio or
9:18
something, I'll snap a picture and text it to
9:20
her and she will do the same so we
9:22
can be anywhere in the world and immediately think
9:24
of one another with one note of Living on
9:26
a Prayer. Bon
9:50
Jovi and Living on a Prayer. it
12:00
is Lara's theme, Dr.
12:02
Schavago. I mean, as early as I
12:04
can remember, this was her
12:06
favourite song. If it came on
12:08
anywhere, we had to immediately stop and listen
12:10
to it, and she would put her hand up and say, oh, it's
12:13
not a nice song. Lara's
12:46
theme, from the soundtrack to Dr.
12:48
Schavago, with its composer Maurice Jarre,
12:50
conducting the MGM Orchestra. Nikki
12:53
Fox, you studied physics at Imperial
12:55
College in London. Now, what
12:58
do you remember about the transition from school to
13:00
university? Because I know that the girls' school that
13:02
you attended was very nurturing. It was a positive
13:04
environment for you. What was it like being in
13:06
a bigger pond? So it
13:08
was a very difficult adjustment, actually, and one
13:10
I don't think mentally I was ready for.
13:12
You know, I'd come from a small
13:15
all-girls' school. There were only six of us
13:17
who did physics for A-levels, and
13:20
so you had really great attention. If
13:22
you didn't understand something, there was a teacher who was
13:24
always going to explain it to you, and
13:26
then I went to Imperial College, where
13:28
you are just an indistinct
13:30
head in a sea of students. So
13:32
a competitive environment. There was a very
13:34
competitive environment, and if you're in a
13:37
study group and you're with people that
13:39
are like, oh, yeah, I got this,
13:41
I know that, and you think, I
13:43
don't have that, and there
13:45
is no fear to speak up. And
13:47
I realized sort of later in life that
13:50
I definitely identified with the imposter syndrome. I
13:52
know that when you got your current role
13:54
at NASA, Nikki, you've described having
13:56
what you called a wily coyote moment. to
14:00
drive me through that. Oh
14:02
my goodness I did. I was obviously
14:05
very excited about doing the
14:08
job but I described it as
14:10
a mix of total joy and
14:12
total paralysing fear. My
14:15
previous job I had a wonderful deputy
14:17
and I used to liken myself to
14:19
Wale Coyote because I'm quick to come
14:21
up with solutions and quick to want
14:24
to implement them and she is very
14:26
calm and very, very
14:29
grounded in the way she thinks. And
14:31
so I would often describe it as I was
14:33
Wale Coyote, I'd run off the
14:36
cliff and she would calmly reach out her
14:38
hand, grab onto me, pull me back on
14:40
and say maybe we should think about this
14:42
before you leap off the cliff. And so
14:45
it was just sort of the extension of
14:47
that metaphor. I no longer had her reaching
14:49
over and stopping me so I was
14:51
like oh I'm going, I'm going, I'm just
14:54
going. That moment in her eyes, the
14:56
moment of realisation and the head of science
14:58
at NASA. Yes and then then you know
15:00
the little acne sign comes up and down
15:03
he falls. So that was that moment. I
15:06
think we'd better have some more music, Nicky. Your fourth
15:08
choice today, what is it? My fourth
15:11
choice is Danny Boy. I chose it to be
15:13
sung by Andy Williams because that covers my whole
15:15
family because my dad always really liked Andy Williams.
15:17
But Danny Boy reminds me
15:19
of my grandmother because she would always
15:22
sing Danny Boy and she sang it
15:24
beautifully. I actually had it at my
15:26
wedding. All my bridesmaids walked in to
15:28
Danny Boy which I know is an
15:30
unusual choice for a wedding but
15:32
I very much wanted my grandmother, she died
15:35
many years before, to be somehow present
15:37
and that was the way that I
15:39
did that. And then my son's middle
15:41
name is Daniel and when
15:45
he was little and I would be rocking him
15:47
to sleep, I would sing Danny Boy to him.
15:49
So this one covers the whole
15:51
family. Oh,
15:57
Danny Boy. So,
16:02
Nikki, for your
16:04
PhD, you researched
16:07
solar
16:09
sub-storms.
16:29
Now, this subject obviously appealed to you,
16:31
and you do have this enormous affection
16:34
for the sun, even though I
16:36
think you've called it an average
16:38
star. Why do you feel so passionately
16:40
about it? So, our star is
16:42
just an average star, but it is
16:44
our star. It's the only one that
16:46
we know that has the responsibility for
16:48
sustaining life on a planet. So that
16:50
makes it, you know, an extraordinarily ordinary
16:53
star. But the sun is also
16:55
a very active star, and so it does have
16:57
storms and it throws off billions of tons of
16:59
solar materials that can travel towards our planet at
17:01
millions of miles an hour. So you want to
17:04
be able to predict and understand what
17:08
star can do to us here at Earth. So
17:10
obviously you found the subject fascinating, and you
17:12
started to research it, you did your PhD,
17:15
and then in 1995 you presented your research
17:17
at a conference in Alaska, and I know
17:19
that proved to be a life-changing moment for
17:21
you. Tell me what happened. I
17:23
had a poster presentation, so I'm standing in
17:26
front of my poster, and I
17:28
saw a scientist sort of standing off to one
17:30
side, and when everybody else had gone, he came
17:32
up and I told him about the work, and
17:34
he said, it's really interesting. Would you be at
17:37
all interested in a postdoc at NASA? So
17:40
I think Bell's told somewhere in the back
17:42
of my head, and I said,
17:44
probably tried to play it cool. Yeah, I could
17:46
do that. But inside I'm sort of like screaming,
17:49
and so that was my sort
17:51
of ground-changing moment. So it
17:54
was at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center that you
17:56
became the operation scientist for the polar mission, and
17:58
that was set up to measure... energy
18:00
input into the Earth's polar ratings.
18:02
So that meant studying the Aurora.
18:05
Absolutely. The Northern Lights. And
18:07
underneath him you met your husband, John.
18:10
It's a magical meet-cute. He was
18:12
a scientist too. He was a
18:14
scientist and actually he designed cameras
18:16
that imaged the Aurora from space.
18:19
And I was out with a couple of friends
18:21
and we were, it was in Sweden, and
18:24
it was really cold and
18:26
we were sort of traipsing through
18:29
and we heard other people talking and
18:31
so we went over to say hi
18:33
and stood there and that was where I met
18:36
him and then we had this beautiful auroral display.
18:38
Well anybody would fall in love. What did you
18:41
talk about? Were you talking about the aurora? Was
18:44
it on science? Oh yeah, we would, I
18:46
mean unashamedly a pair of nerds, absolutely. I
18:48
was asking you about the resolution of his
18:50
camera actually and what wavelengths that it looked
18:53
at and you know what about if we
18:55
tweaked it and looked at a different wavelength.
18:57
Yeah we had a great conversation. We all
18:59
have our own love language. It's crazy, isn't it? I
19:01
know. Let's have some more music. This is disc number
19:04
five. What are we going to hear next? So
19:06
this is When You Know by Sean Colvin.
19:09
This is actually my first dance song from
19:11
my wedding because in the moment I met
19:14
John under the aurora I knew. When
19:29
you know Sean Colvin,
19:32
Nikki Fox in 2010 you
19:34
became the project
19:37
scientist
19:46
for the Parker
19:51
Solar Probe which launched in 2018.
19:54
So the spacecraft is named after
19:56
Professor Eugene Parker who correctly predicted
19:58
the existence of the Earth. of
20:00
solar wind in 1958, though
20:02
his work was ridiculed by many scientists at
20:04
the time. 60 years later
20:06
the probe is currently flying through the
20:08
Sun's atmosphere, where it's collecting data that
20:11
proves Parker's thesis. I know this mission
20:13
is very close to your heart. Why?
20:16
It's the coolest, hottest mission under the Sun. But
20:19
it was the highest priority of science
20:22
that anyone in the space science community
20:24
wanted to do. Go into the atmosphere
20:26
of the star and understand how this
20:28
connection that we have with our star,
20:30
how it's powered. But
20:33
it's hard to fly into the atmosphere of
20:35
the Sun, and it took about 60 years,
20:37
it was 60 years till the launch, for
20:40
the technology to catch up with our dreams.
20:42
So over the next couple of years, the
20:44
probe is going to get closer to the
20:46
Sun than any previous spacecraft. What does that
20:48
mean? How close are we talking? It's
20:51
actually Christmas Eve of 2024. It's my Christmas
20:53
present. The spacecraft
20:55
will pass to within 3.9
20:58
million miles of the Sun's surface.
21:00
Now I realised when I said
21:02
million, you're immediately thinking, well, that
21:04
doesn't sound very close. But
21:07
if I put the Earth and the Sun one
21:10
metre apart, Parker's Solar
21:12
Probe will be four centimetres from the Sun. Wow.
21:16
So that is close. I'm finding
21:18
these numbers mind-blowing. Do you? Yes,
21:21
I do. Although I'm more used to them
21:23
now. The one I still find mind-blowing is
21:25
that at that final flyby, the spacecraft will
21:28
be travelling at 430,000 miles an hour. That's
21:33
about 112 miles a second. I
21:36
can just about think about 112 miles an hour, but 112 miles
21:41
a second. So that's like New York
21:43
to Tokyo, isn't it? Under a minute. And
21:48
the thing that makes the mission
21:50
even more challenging is when we
21:52
go into these close approaches, so
21:54
the very close cut through the
21:57
Sun's atmosphere. Often we
21:59
lose contact with the spacecraft
22:01
completely because there's a large glowing star in
22:03
the way. So
22:05
we will often get a signal from the
22:07
spacecraft right before it goes into the encounter
22:10
and often we have to wait many
22:12
days to get that signal back.
22:15
And so the former project manager that
22:17
I worked with so closely will always
22:19
send me, all I get on my
22:21
phone is a green heart. And
22:24
a green heart means it was a green beacon tone
22:26
so everything is okay with the spacecraft. And
22:29
then the last one will tell me
22:31
that the spacecraft data recorder is
22:33
full and that means all the instruments worked.
22:36
So that's how we know that it's good.
22:38
So yes, it launched in 2018, five
22:41
years later I'm still a nervous wreck. Well
22:45
then of course, you know, its mission
22:47
is going well so far but all being well it
22:49
will come to an end in 2025. What
22:52
happens to the spacecraft then? As long
22:54
as the spacecraft is functioning perfectly, we'll extend the
22:56
mission and it will continue to take great science
22:59
until we run out of fuel on
23:01
the spacecraft. And so unfortunately the spacecraft
23:03
will start to turn and then all
23:05
of the very sensitive equipment that is
23:07
not designed and it will not be
23:09
able to cope with all that total
23:11
solar illumination on it. And so
23:14
the spacecraft will sort of gradually break up
23:16
into large pieces and then smaller and smaller
23:18
and smaller and it will eventually become dust
23:20
that orbits the sun forever. Will you feel
23:22
sad when that moment comes? Oh
23:25
yes, it runs out of fuel. It
23:27
will be terrible but it's already doing
23:29
groundbreaking science and so I know that
23:31
Gene Parker is smiling down from heaven.
23:33
You know, Gene was very excited.
23:35
I actually got to travel out and show him
23:37
some of the first data
23:40
that we'd got back and I just
23:42
remember him saying, wow, that's what the
23:44
solar wind looks like. Just
23:46
beaming happy of this
23:48
thing that he predicted and not
23:50
only is it right but he was actually seeing
23:53
it and that was a wonderful
23:55
moment. It's time
23:57
for your sixth disk, Nicky. What have you
23:59
chosen? So this one is very
24:01
related to Parker Solar Probe. This was
24:03
the one that I played every morning
24:05
when I was driving onto Kennedy Space
24:08
Center, doing all the final stuff before
24:10
launch, and every morning I would
24:12
listen to Reach Up for the Sunrise
24:14
by Jaron Jaron. Reach
24:35
Up for the Sunrise
24:39
by Jaron Jaron.
24:50
Nicky Fox, in 2010 your professional
24:52
life was going brilliantly, but not
24:54
long after you joined the Parker
24:56
Solar Probe team, you experienced a
24:59
terrible personal tragedy. Your husband John
25:01
died suddenly. What happened?
25:04
So I was away actually. I was
25:07
in California at the big conference that
25:09
we all go to in December, and I left
25:12
John with the children. So my daughter was 13 months
25:14
old and my son was three and a half. And
25:17
I went out to an evening meeting
25:19
and a dinner. So
25:21
I remember I was walking back through San Francisco
25:23
and I went to go into
25:25
Macy's thinking I'll get something for the children. And I
25:28
put my hand on the door and I had this
25:30
sort of really weird feeling
25:32
like I must go and call
25:34
home immediately. So I ran back
25:36
to the hotel and I
25:38
called home and John didn't
25:40
answer. And I thought, oh, it's fine. He's gone to
25:42
sleep. And then in the morning I
25:45
got up and I was getting ready and I was
25:47
calling home and
25:49
didn't get any answer at home. Left a
25:51
message. No answer on the cell phone. Call
25:53
work. No answer at work. But
25:56
I kept calling home.
25:58
And After. Probably about forty
26:01
five minutes of me cooling the phone with
26:03
answered and I just heard this voice say
26:05
hello and I thought it was driven circles.
26:07
I said oh my since I've been so
26:09
worried about you and how to be been
26:11
and then there's this sort of pause and
26:13
then I heard. Me: And.
26:16
I realize it's my son hit close with
26:18
not allowed on the hands of so he
26:20
answers the phone and I said james and
26:22
he said yes and I said where's where's
26:24
daddy and he said oh he's asleep and
26:27
I said. Can. You a company said
26:29
know he's sleeping by his clothes it
26:31
and sell. I actually dog nine one
26:33
one and I mean I think every
26:35
emergency vehicle known to man went to
26:38
my house but I stayed on. the
26:40
same with my son to talk him
26:42
through. Various. Things in it
26:44
because I still don't know what happened and
26:46
he's only three and a half and he
26:48
doesn't know what's happened either and I knew
26:50
he was terrified. So you know and I
26:52
when they told me okay the police are
26:54
on their way and I said the country
26:56
down the door I can't have this image
26:58
in my son's head and so I said
27:00
okay on or I'll get him to open
27:02
the door and so I said because he
27:04
told me was hungry and I said oh
27:06
we can't reach the cereal costs on the
27:08
high self I said so I've asked to
27:10
policeman to come over and help you get
27:12
the serial down. Sign needs is be.
27:15
Very brave and go. Downstairs and unlock
27:17
the door so the police can come
27:19
in and help you get some food
27:21
and not. He went down and open
27:23
the door and and then it. It
27:25
turned out that sadly John had died
27:27
from an aortic. Any reason. I
27:30
mean, that his inexperience, that's that's going to change.
27:33
He. Has it. It changes so
27:35
in in some ways that kind of
27:37
made me realize. That.
27:39
The happens to people. In and I think
27:41
that sometimes you can go through life thinking bad
27:44
stuff happens to other people and then it it
27:46
happens. You and you realize you can survive it.
27:48
That's one of the other reasons the Parker Solar
27:51
probe is so special. Because I
27:53
just started in this role
27:55
and. I literally was
27:58
saying how can I survive And to. With
28:00
this sort of cost of
28:02
thousands, it felt like that
28:04
cared. Enough. To always
28:06
make sure that I was okay. And.
28:09
Then you know my kids are amazing. Ah
28:11
you know my son at three and a
28:13
half years old process Greece in in the
28:15
most incredible manner. One night we were driving
28:17
home and as a pizza sand and he
28:20
said money to angels. Like pizzas. And
28:23
so she said yes I'm sure they do James I'm
28:25
really so that it he does. Okay so the we
28:27
should order one and send it to happen and then
28:29
we can follow the pizza trump. You
28:32
know this this way of like maybe
28:34
the scientific method Vanier he is a
28:36
problem. What can I do to deal
28:39
with this? I know that you did
28:41
something very special to commemorate John Slice
28:43
and in his contribution to space research
28:45
focuses on so we launched the Van
28:48
Allen probes in know Twenty twelve and
28:50
out there some little balance masses that
28:52
you put on the spacecraft. When he
28:55
said during the precision balancing that light
28:57
little plates and are we have an
28:59
engraved them. Might. Mine was engraved
29:02
and you know it's is a has his name
29:04
on it but it also has seen it to
29:06
daddy from James and us. I
29:11
think that it costs a nice we've had
29:13
a had yes I'm so this is boulevard
29:15
of broken Dreams by Green Day and this
29:17
is something that when I first when I
29:19
heard it said of in the throes of
29:21
Greece you know it. It was a very
29:23
sad. Song cause they talk about you
29:26
know I will Cologne. When the
29:28
empty streets with only my shadow and know.
29:31
It just really. Kind of
29:33
spoke because that was how I felt.
29:35
I felt like I'm on my own.
29:38
I'm And then. Now listen
29:40
to it, it's much more empowering.
29:42
would have thought of. Greeted with.
29:45
Me: This. Green
30:18
Day Boulevard Of Broken Dreams.
30:20
Niki Box The big question for
30:22
space scientists is all the alone
30:24
in the universe. How close I
30:27
wonder is Nasa to answering that
30:29
question? Our Planet. As said of
30:31
the Goldilocks planet, it's not too close
30:33
notice on in the bag, that is
30:35
small, not too hot, not too, and
30:37
it's sustained life so. Why
30:39
is that unique? As. We start
30:41
looking in Sydney with the James
30:43
Webb Space telescope and looking at
30:45
these very distant galaxies in a
30:48
were looking for other stars like
30:50
ours that maybe have a rocky
30:52
planets. Orbiting. Them with an
30:54
atmosphere and that sounds said a very
30:56
easy as really hard as he go
30:59
look for those things but we'll have
31:01
a seat to misinform Habitable Worlds observatory
31:03
that will be designed to literally look
31:05
for planets that could sustain life. How
31:07
clearly the kind of envision that and
31:09
how far off do you think will
31:11
let is having the tools that we
31:13
need To Ashley's that of search for
31:16
planets that could be earth like is
31:18
not too far away. The ability to
31:20
go and visit them is obviously. I
31:23
don't. Know how? I don't know how you
31:25
think about that, but you're talking millions billions
31:27
of light years away from taking it back
31:29
into theoretical stay we are sent to say.
31:31
Or it's because they probably hurling wealth cs
31:34
better than me. Now it's time to send
31:36
you off somewhere a little bit closer to
31:38
home than your often thinking about the desert
31:40
islands to the eagles than time. Contemplating.
31:43
I know I was content analysis time looking
31:45
at the sky because as soon as you
31:47
go to like the Desert islands Oda in
31:49
a place as far away from a lot
31:51
alike police and. Many see so
31:54
many stars so. Many stars laughing
31:56
with I'll give you will more track before
31:58
send you have to around and. You're
32:00
lactose today. What's gonna be This is my
32:02
daughter's choice and say we're it had to
32:04
be a hairstyle son and she picked a
32:06
couple and then then she said no i
32:08
really want to the canyon mean she said
32:11
because whenever I hear it it just makes
32:13
me smile and I think of you and
32:15
so I thought of that that some of
32:17
the skin the take that very nice sentence
32:19
before it changes and I'm just gonna go
32:21
with Canada Main because it makes has. Scar
32:27
never blue, blue, Hard
32:29
to leave. Groping,
32:50
Her the same girl
32:52
gets her school. Harry
32:54
Styles and Candy name. So Nicky folks
32:56
the time has come on going to
32:59
send you a way to the islands.
33:01
I'm giving you the Bible, the complete
33:03
works of Shakespeare, and another book of
33:05
your choice to take on this mission.
33:07
What will your book? me? My book
33:09
is ah the Pale Blue.by Carl Sagan.
33:11
In others there's so many great images
33:13
of space, the semi great images of
33:16
our planet. but that in his from
33:18
the Voyager One spacecraft it it's handbag
33:20
witness. Journey. All the way
33:22
out there and took this image of
33:24
this. Tiny. Tiny
33:26
Planet. This actually ah planet and in
33:28
a call Sagan called it the pale
33:30
Blue.but it's that feeling of you know
33:33
that sauce that home and house it
33:35
is fragile. It is is a tiny
33:37
little.in space and so I've always loved
33:39
the book and I've loved the image
33:42
That that sums up my i would
33:44
take up a Christmas a perfect as
33:46
island regionals have a luxury item Nothing
33:48
oh my Lox the ice and please
33:50
I would take a big bucks and
33:53
letter says is actually my stress release
33:55
and there are. Times when I've had it been
33:57
a tough day and I will come in as I just
33:59
need to build. And I had
34:01
a particularly tusks week at what's the weeks
34:03
ago and I built the entire Titanic assailants.
34:05
that is when you know it's own a
34:08
bit of a week. yes this is just
34:10
really isn't really stress relieving for me since
34:12
been a thing of to the as it
34:14
is not going to drink sankey and finally
34:16
which one track of the eighties says with
34:18
us today would you to save from the
34:21
way So that was a really really really
34:23
tough decision but in the end I went
34:25
with Green Day and Boulevard of Broken Dreams
34:27
because it's my anthem. Cynical
34:30
folks. Thank you very much for letting us
34:32
here your Desert Island Discs. Thank you so
34:34
much. Hello
34:55
a home. Enjoyed my conversation with
34:57
Making I can pretty much guarantees
34:59
she's gotta love the constellation she'll
35:01
be able to see from the
35:04
Island Castaway. Many space enthusiasts including
35:06
scientists Maggie a daring poke up
35:08
and astronauts Tim Peake and Chris
35:10
Hadfield. And you'll also find the
35:12
astronomer Carl Sagan, the author of
35:14
Nicky's Castaway book in our back
35:16
catalogue thing he can find those
35:18
episodes in a Desert Island Discs
35:20
program archives and three Bbc sends
35:22
the Studio Manager for Today programme
35:24
with Sarah Hockley. The system
35:26
Pg said was Christine Pavlovsky and
35:28
the producer with Paul Mcginley. The
35:30
series editor is John Gotti. Next
35:32
time my guest will be the
35:34
hottest Marino Abramovich. I do hope
35:36
you'll join us. Oh.
36:08
Wait, I'm.
36:15
Not sure what skewer skill
36:17
skewer The news shocked and
36:20
shows neighbors Shadow Chancellor Rachel
36:22
Reeves has promised to get
36:24
Britain for emotional moments. We
36:29
need. To know. More.
36:32
The cyclical the test
36:34
screenings was deliberately south.
36:38
Shop down the street or. Stories
36:41
We've got three.
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