Intro Episode
Transcript
Emily: Welcome to the Art Astra Podcast. I’m Emily Olsen.
Alexa: I'm Alexa Erdogan.
Emily: And this is our podcast about art and space. Now, before we begin exploring, we wanted to provide you with some context for what our backgrounds are and from what perspectives we're approaching this project.
Alexa: We'd also like to set the scene for what you can expect from the show moving forward. So, in this episode we're introducing ourselves and giving a bit of a sneak peek into what we have in store.
[pause]
Emily: …Should I start?
Alexa: [laughter] Go for it!
Emily: [laughter] Okay!
Well, I've always been a space enthusiast. I came into working with space from a museum context. I was working at the United States Pavilion at Expo Milan in Italy in 2015, which is essentially the World Fair - we still do those internationalle very two to five years. One of the highlights of my time there was giving tours of the American Pavilion exhibits. The exhibitions were all about how the United States was addressing global food security challenges. What I mean by that is, the whole Pavilion was dedicated to showcasing how the United States was working to help feed the predicted 9 billion people to be living on Earth in 2050. And a lot of these efforts and research dealt with satellite technology - how NASA was helping farmers and monitoring our ecosystems. So I got to meet a lot of NASA officials and employees and give tours to several of them, and even some astronauts, which was extremely cool.
While I was giving a tour to this visiting delegation of NASA officials, someone in that delegation asked me if I had ever thought about working for NASA. And off course the answer was, “Yes. Absolutely. In my dreams!”
Alexa: Right?! [laughs]
Both: [laughter]
Emily: But I had explained to them that I had an English degree. Then they said something that had never occurred to me before – and that was that NASA needs people from all disciplines to be able to do the work that they do at the scale that they do it.
After that tour – after Expo – I applied to be a NASA intern. Then it turned out that I didn't actually qualify because I wasn't a student at the time. I had graduated already from American University in Washington D.C., prior to Expo, and then at that time I wasn’t in grad school yet.
About a year and a half later, I got into grad school into NYU’s Arts Administration Program, which is similar to Museum Studies, if you've heard of that? Arts Administration is essentially the nuts and bolts of how arts organizations work. And this can be for both non-profits, like museums or community organizations that deal with the arts, either in public programming or in public art installations, or for for-profit spaces, which are galleries and auction houses and art fairs. When I was an officially enrolled student in this Arts Administration program, I tried again to intern at NASA. It took a few tries, but eventually I got in. I did so through the Virtual Student Federal Service. I was supporting NASA Headquarters in their Office of Human Capital Management. From then on, I was encouraged and excited about these opportunities to explore both space and the arts. And I followed that thread throughout my professional life.
So I currently work on the Science and Pop Culture team at Sotheby's Auction House here in New York, which deals with the sales of space artifacts, the history of science and technology, natural history, and pop culture. And I'm so excited to be launching this podcast with you, Alexa, given your background and our mutual interest in that intersection of both space and art.
Alexa: Yeah, likewise! So it's interesting - my background also didn't originally start out in space, although I was interested in it from an early age, as well. I actually started out in molecular and cellular biology. And I did a little bit of research in neuroscience as an undergraduate looking at brain immune cells called microglia and their involvement in stroke phenomenons and potential protective mechanisms that were involved. But towards the end of my time doing my research at this neuroscience lab, with a team of other researchers, I actually had the opportunity to go into Space Studies and get a graduate degree in it.
So I took the leap, and it was really eye opening to how interdisciplinary space really was once I got started in the field. For example, one of the courses I got the opportunity to take was Space Law. And it brings to mind a lot of the issues that are more commonplace today, or at least more covered by media today, when we think about things like orbital debris or some of the fines that companies could take for not deorbiting satellites correctly, things like that…
What was really cool, too, was I was able to bring my background in neuroscience to the realm of space studies and do a literature review of the state of space neuroscience research at the time. I also happened to be abroad at this time. I was studying while I was visiting Tokyo in Japan and had the amazing opportunity to talk space neuroscience research out there and geek out about a bunch of really cool space stuff with some of the locals there and other folks that were living in Japan at the time. It was really interesting to see – you know, we all have different cultural backgrounds when it comes to space. We all have different cultural views and histories. But one thing that is really universal that I saw during my time there, and I'm sure that you've seen this too, Emily, in your experiences internationally is that: there is a real universal passion for space. Everybody gets a little bit “starry-eyed” when we talk about it.
Both: [laughter]
Alexa: So, you know, of course afterwards, I really wanted to dive into space right away, but I also needed and wanted to develop more technical and engineering skills to do specifically what I want to achieve in this field. So, I went back to school and just last year finished my second masters in Space Systems Engineering. …That’s a bit of a mouthful, what does that actually mean?
Both: [laughter]
So in a nutshell, Space Systems Engineering is essentially a big picture view of space engineering. It involves two main things: connections and process. So, you know, first off, what is a “system”? It can include things like spacecraft, a space station, even a space suit is considered a system, and how do all the little things that are a part of it come together to make that system work? So how does your communications interact with your thermal, interact with your power, to make your system operate? So that's the connections part.
There's also process. So how does a system even get built in the first place? This involves things like looking at the development of the concept, exploring different ways that we can build something, running trade studies to find the best approaches, to the actual building of the system itself - the “engineering” that a lot of people think of, right? Testing and operations are also part of systems engineering.
Throughout this whole program and this whole process, I've continued to see that same interdisciplinary presence. For example, while most of my peers were already engineers, there were actually quite a number of folks that went through that program or exist in this field who are also teachers and doctors, artists, mathematicians, people who work in marketing, all kinds of people from all kinds of different fields. And they've always brought such an interesting and really crucial perspective to space studies and space systems as a whole that, I think, really enriches the field.
So, yeah! I'm really excited to be able to explore more of these kinds of intersections with you and not just modern intersections between art and science, but maybe we can also travel back in time a little bit and dive into some of the historic connections and follow those threads, as well.
Emily: Absolutely. No, that's such – such a good point about how the inspiration and how the excitement of space is just universal. And not only interdisciplinary but intercultural, as well.
The purpose of this podcast, as we've both laid out in our respective backgrounds and how we approach this is that we are so excited to explore those intersections of space studies and the humanities, both historically, as you mentioned, Alexa, and in popular culture. Where we hope to go with this is to also highlight the opportunities for people from all walks of life to get excited about and participate in space.
Alexa: So, we hope you'll join us every other week as we chat with people working in a variety of industries to discuss how space and art meet and continue to inspire each other.
Emily: And if you like what you hear – tell your friends, leave a review, and follow us on your podcast platform of choice and also on social @ArtAstraPodcast on Instagram, Twitter or X, and Bluesky.
Until next time!
Alexa: ‘Til next time!