YouSaid · the spoken record

Thomas Zurbuchen

lines on the record: 92
first: 2021-04-06
most recent: 2021-04-06
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“How to do that, right? And we should include those lessons there and not kind of get into down the road so far that we say, oops, you know, we're back to where we were on Earth and which we have an environment. So again, the regulation in innovation speaks need to adjust, right?”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really, a fail core. That body has more value than any other body we currently know. Because frankly, we cannot get that from the earth, digging a hole into the earth to where we need to go is actually harder than just going out there and collecting that. And so for me, I think the kind of mining world, the mining approach to the world is in space is inevitable. And it's something that will matter for both purposes, again, to survive, but also to build new commercial entities. And that's why it's so important that we regulate it up front in a way that actually protects those environments. I mean, for me, I think Mars is beautiful in its own, right? Look at these images. It's incredible. We don't want to destroy it, right? And we know how to, we've learned a lot on Earth.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I think this is our lifetime kind of issue, the mining colon. I'll give you, I think what you said about Mars is a highly appropriate kind of resources relate to living there, living off the land, but it also is creating business models that make it viable. It's feasible and viability, right? Both matter. I want to talk to you about another celestial body just to amplify your point. It's called psyche. It's like psyche, like the psyche in me, you know, P-S-Y, C-H-A-G. So it's an asteroid. We think it's a failed planet. So it's a planet that has a core, that it, you know, a metal core and kind of enormously pressures if it's true, right? Kind of decide we know the size, we know its orbit. We're building a mission. We're going to launch in 22 to go there and go orbit it and learn about it. But assume this.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Talking about that other world. I don't think, so if I, I mean, again, I don't know. Never underestimate the power of innovation. That's really important, right? But what I want to do is just break down these kind of take the first few miracle down because it's good for all of humanity. Just take them down, put them in the bucket from the miracle bucket into the bucket of that's possible now. So that's what I'm going to do.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“with our families, and on that whole spectrum, right? I don't know where we're going to end up. If I had the hypothesis right now and I know many people, I mean, kind of depending on who you are, some people think there are thousands of people who will live on Mars, it's like that may very well be. So that's more on the island side of things. Instead of Hawaii, an island in Hawaii, go to Mars, find resources, do that, perhaps even Terraform Mars. That's what people talk about. Make it a different planet so we can live there. One good way of counting is just number of miracles you need, right? This is at 10, 20 miracle type of scenario. The other one, kind of the Antarctic research station, is maybe only a five miracle thing. So the path to that certainly goes through the Antarctic research station, right? I mean, first we need to do that. That's what I'm focused on. And, you know, I understand Elon, Musk, and many others.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think over the timescale of multiple generations, I think it's very much possible that we could stay there for a long time. It's not clear how, right? We don't know enough. And it has everything to do with the resources that are there. And so for me, the question is, is the way we're going to live there? Like we live in the Antarctic research station, right? There are people living there, but it's kind of a tough life, right? It's in the middle of ice, you know, airplanes come and drop them off. They stay there for the summer. And then, I mean, the southern summer, and then they take off, you know, and there's kind of the only people who are there are just, you know, that go through winter are very healthy individuals who, you know, just keep the thing afloat. So it doesn't, you know, it's still ready for the next summer. So that's one version of living, right? And then the other version of living is like we have here on earth, right? Go to an island and build houses and live.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I believe I don't think it's me, or it may be at the generation of my children, but it's not my generation. I think we will go to Mars with humans in my lifetime for sure.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Piece kind of to go pick up kind of deposits of these sample kind of flasks that we have super clean things then put them on the spacecraft and that launch vehicle go up and then drop kind of an orbiting sample satellite put it there remember the thing that's in orbit and waiting it's going to put it up you know that Austin Powers movie it's that right kind of just scoop up that”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We're going to collect those samples in 26 or 27. Our next two spacecraft will take off, one in 26, 1 and 27, we think today. The first one will go up there. And its job is to fly to Mars and using a propulsion method, I'm propulsion, electric propulsion, moving into Mars and waiting. So it's kind of the carrier ship. So it's there with camera and calm. And the other one comes and it puts a rocket down on the surface of Mars. It's a total functional rocket. It lands a rocket. Then the rover that we have will go and drop off samples, by the way, just because we don't know whether that robots will work. We have a sample fetch row where that actually is done by Canada. And it may actually turn out to be the most important part of that entire.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It wasn't July, yes, in July the 30th of July, I remember it exactly how it took off and it was incredible. It was named by a schoolboy, is up called Perseverance. And it's like the best name ever, especially for the time we're in today. And it's on the way to Mars. It's beyond halfway to Mars, and it's going to land in February 21. It's going to land on Mars. And then it will has one task. And it really has to prioritize on, and that is to collect samples, identify and collect samples. So we're going to land into a crater, a former crater that, you know, most a lake used to be a lake. We know from remote observations. So we're going to collect samples kind of in places where on earth we would go find fossils, right? So that's where you would go. And so basically that...”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm so excited about it. So, first of all, This summer, we did launch a mission called Mars 2020 Perseverance. And it's basically a sampler.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Face the astrophysics community. They're actively darkening their bodies, right? Their spacecraft. Frankly, people didn't want to do this. It's not that, oh, like, I don't care, right? It's really hard to do some of these calculations the right way. And frankly, sometimes you don't know what the question is you're supposed to ask, right? I mean, who would have guessed that that's going to be the big discussion in Starlink, right? Of course, having internet everywhere is a great equalizer. I mean, I worked on this when I was a university professor. I mean, I work with Google on this problem, right? And did due diligence of company kind of investments with them. And so for me, that's a good thing. And SpaceX is really pushing the envelope. But yes, this is an important part.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was the US approval. So the relevant US entities both focused on launch on the frequency was approved in the process that is agreed upon in the United States. So they went up there. Of course, what happened is the element of surprise is always there when you're working with innovation. So they were a lot more bright. And, you know, everybody looked at their imagine myself in Switzerland on top of that roof. I would see Starlink, right? I mean, it's like you can't miss that, right? And that raises questions that are beyond the regulatory, right? Is there a right to a dark sky, right? So it's questions like that, especially as an astrophysicist, like how does that affect the future observation? I just want to tell you space and the Starlink team have been nothing but collaborative.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Leaky bucket, right? Can't be that kind of certain countries just pollute the space by whatever means, right? Whether it's the frequency, the communication piece, or whether it's the orbital debris pie piece, or whether it's how they're setting their orbits, they need to be part of a common kind of community that actually enforces those standards and holds them. And I think that kind of commercial, by the way, the commercialization of this is a great story. So for me, especially from the US perspective, that is the goal, right? Our goal is not that in 50 years the government does the same stuff that we did 50 years ago. That's crazy, especially when it's a research entity like NASA. We want to kind of attack the next frontier. We want to go beyond what's possible today. Increase the box of what's possible.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do believe back to my top five, this is one of those also, you know, as always, the speed of innovation is the relevant speed on this one, right? And the speed of regulation like so many places, it's just not matching the speed of innovation, right? And so it's because of that that I worry, right? It is because of that, you know, you believe, I mean, it needs to be, it can't be.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“compliant with the frequency interference stuff. How are you going to communicate those checks are done by your nation state? And then you can launch based on that. So it's really there's both national and international community that works together on those things. We know, of course, whenever there's a launch somewhere. So it's not like you can't hide. If there's a launch, we know it's almost, you know, I mean, everybody knows whether there's a launch. That's why we actually tell everybody there is a launch. There may be we may be launching or I'll just call it the Russians may be launching a top secret asset, but they're saying we're launching.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So each space is the United Nations Office for Outer Space with its signatories of the relevant acts that came internationally. For example, it says we will use space as a common good. We will not weaponize it. We will be act on a non-interference basis. So those things are kind of the international framework. Then the national framework, each country is now responsible for access to space. So for example, if we wanted to launch and you're in Canada, you would work with your country on how, in fact, the access to space. Are you, for example, compliant with the orbital debris guidelines, right?”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If that is failing, right, the space is solely the domain of governments, right? Kind of the question we just had about one of my worries, right? It's a totally different discussion than when others are there also, right, in which we basically say, hey, look, this is, you know, just like we do a trip to Paris, let's do our anniversary trip to Space, right? I mean, and you say, well, that's crazy. No, it is not. That is precisely what five companies are working on right now. And for all, I see they're successful. I mean, it's looking really promising. It's moving into domain of entrepreneurship. So in other words, it's no longer a technology. The question is, does the business model close? So that's what that one is.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I mean, I think a challenge now in this case, I don't know whether it's a challenge or an opportunity. I mean, I think we're at the verge of really opening space for commoners, right? For my family, your family, right? To do a trip to space and utilize it both as a commercial entity by imaging the Earth, for example, and selling those images, those data, that information, or also as a tourist destination and so forth. And so for me, if we can do that, right, it creates a very different dynamic in this whole thing. And so for me, that's also decided I would argue in the next 10 years, right? Frankly, it's incredible what has happened. In the last 20, you know, the question is, where are we in the next 20? So for me, for me, it just, I mean, that's another big question. And, you know.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because of that challenge is that space deserves a lot of attention and we can still use space as a domain from which to support the US or our allies and so forth without crossing that line. But my worry really is that discussion is one of the discussions in the next decade that's really serious.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“God, I hope not, right? We've seen in history, we've seen cycles in which we armed ourselves to the teeth and we said, this is insane. Let's step back. Let's get rid of all these nukes. And we have done that with people at times, you know, we were in a cold war with, you know, and so for me, my hope is we get to a place in which we kind of really say, look, we're going to create lines and we can accept those lines. You know, the fact that people say, oh, we're going to do this and that, you know, that's one thing. It's the important thing is that we, you know, if you look at the Cold War, we went and checked each other, right, and made sure that we followed the rules, right? So for me, I think there's a fork in the road in the next decade or so in which we do that. Needless to say, the United States put a space force together in part.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Lower Thorband, what is my biggest worry right now? It is that we take the common good of space that we've over decades, we've used that way in a non-interference basis with international community that we take that and move it into a place where this becomes a domain of war almost or a domain of potential war. And that, you know, I mean, and frankly, we're moving at a larger speed than we would like in that direction, unfortunately. And it's not, you know, because we want that. But, you know, of course, we observe what is happening.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I do believe that one of the things we really want to be careful about is to keep space peaceful. And I think that's something we've been watching with trepidation. We've signed treaties both in the US and otherwise. And we see, and it has been discussed, we see some countries, nation states, that are out there that are really putting in question whether they're serious about the peaceful utilization of space. And it is really worrisome because, of course, they can use space like other countries use. They can put telescopes there, observe whoever they want to, their own people or other people, right? They can do that. But they can, by law, right? But they cannot, for example, weaponize space. So for me, if you ask me.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Within years it's gone, right? So it's out of the space. You know, the upper atmosphere kind of has a drag force and it falls onto the earth like a meteor, an artificial meteor and it disappears. So that's really critical problem.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really worry me at once that we don't see like if you took a sugar cube worth of metal and you shot it at 10 kilometers per second you shot it against the spacecraft if it hits it at the right place. That spacecraft is over, right? So if it's tiny, you know, it may take a solar cell out. If it's you see the size really matters. So we have a problem as an international community that especially lower Earth orbit is clocked with debris. And it's really one of those things. I think in the next 10 years we have to solve it. We have to, in fact, clean that garbage. And also what's important, you know, the rule number one in digging holes is stop digging, right? So kind of so we have to make sure that everything we launch, we either fly out or we create such a short timeline.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There for decades. And so basically, what actually is one of the biggest challenges we have is as we launch into that space because of our history, but also because of new things, that debris is frankly becoming a real challenge. Now, just imagine the speed by which these spacecraft move are kilometers per second. That's also the speed by which the debris moves. So what we have is we have an observation program both by the Department of Defense, but also other places, international, places with telescopes. And we try to catalog all the debris. So on an average month, we have one sometimes multiple almost hits. So sometimes we have to fly a spacecraft away. I have tens of spacecraft that are there operating. We have to move it away to make sure that the debris can pass. Those are fine. The ones that...”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, if I was organizing the kind of whole spaceflight according to its challenges, this would be a top five challenge that you're mentioning. It may be even a top two or three challenge. So basically the issue is these particles, especially in low Earth orbit, right? Most spacecraft that we have are in lower Earth orbit. The second most sight is in geostationary orbit. That's where you're spacecraft are at to both weather observations, but also the TV satellites, you know, the intent on the roof points towards geostationary orbit. But that's why I can point one place. It doesn't have to move at low Earth orbit. There's a lot of spacecraft, thousands of spacecraft that are operating. And tens of thousands have not hundreds of thousands of debris. Now, so what happens is depending on where you are in height, that debris stays.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So think of that particle I just described at the equator. So at the particle at the equator, it goes away because remember the magnetic field force is always perpendicular to the magnetic field itself. Now let's go at the polar region. At the polar region, the magnetic fields are coming in, right? Kind of just look at Google, magnetic field of a dipole. You see the magnetic fields are coming in. So up there, the particles are like a funnel. They're coming down. They're not deflected. They're like funnel coming in. And they come in and they hit the atmospheric oxygen and whatever is there. And it makes them light, like a neon light or whatever, you know, a light that you have in which kind of high energy particles are exciting them and they radiate. So the northern lines are energetic particles, both from the sun, but also from the back of the earth magnetic field kind of funneled into the”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If you want the shields, the magnetic field shields the inside of the Earth, including all the way down here, but also in a space station, shields us from energetic particles, debris, you know, which are dust pieces and some of them human-made, kind of spacecraft that blew up or that are no longer used or, you know, upper stages that were used, of course, to propel spacecraft up there. They're way heavier. So the magnetic field doesn't really have a huge impact on them.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The earth magnetic field, you know, by the way, it's one of those things if you really ask in detail, we still don't fully understand why it occurs and kind of the more we know about it, the more it kind of makes us learn. For example, Mercury as a magnetic field, the Earth as a magnetic field, Jupiter as a magnetic field. Mars does not have a global scale magnetic field, neither does Venus. And so basically we learn from that. Okay, so what does the Earth magnetic field do? So what it does, it stands there, you know, like a dipole from north to south. And what it does is the very particles I just talked about, but especially lower energy particles, the ones that come from the sun, they come into the magnetic field and they hit the magnetic field. And whenever they hit the magnetic field, think at the equator, right? When the magnetic fields look like a dipole, it's kind of right over the magnetic field. It turns the particles around. So it...”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Stars, they're out there, most of them never come to the ground because between if you take a square centimeter and go all the way to space, there's a kilogram of air per square centimeter that shields us, right? So we're very radiation shielded. Well, if you're in the space station, that is not the case, right? Because you're on top of the air. So basically what now happens is that radiation goes through your body. And if you close your eyes, you see these flashes that are going through your eyes. And many of the astronauts, some of my friends have told me, it's like, how kind of tough it is to try to ignore that when you want to fall asleep first, right? These kind of flashes that occur in your eye, just one tiny example.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There are lessons about sleep, about the immune system. I'm not sure whether any of them Genoese is in a not form in which I could just basically say, well, this is what we know, we know, for example, the various levels of sleep, right? The astronauts just like here are kind of being observed constantly. They're wired, you know, the way it's in movies it is, the way it happens, right? We make sure that the astronauts are healthy. And we are sleeping, you know, kind of the depth of sleep. I talk to a number of the astronauts very easy to just recognize, hey, this is a really different life. And it's hard. Give you one example. You close your eyes. You see flashes going through your eyes. Why? Because cosmic rays, you know, that come from the deep galaxy, from exploding.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To put work on the space station and then coordinate that. Now what we have done, especially for companies, we have kind of adopted IP laws in a way that does not undercut the ability of actually commercializing some of the results that are there. That's deliberately, but for the science work, it basically is public data, we're trying to enhance, rise all boats, right, kind of in science. That's a principle we really, really deeply believe in, and I think it's exactly the right principle. It wasn't managed long before I came to NASA, so it's something that we went through in the last 20 years, and it made us all much better.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For most of the data, let me just talk about NASA first, for all of our experiments. We have a policy of sharing all data. And I love that because frankly, so much of the work we do, whether it's about astrophysics and especially about Earth science, we're all better off if we share all the data because it's kind of a common good, right? As the taxpayers are paying for it, let's make it as useful as possible. And it's incredible what people figure out with those data. So what we have done in the space station work is we have actually created partnerships in which multiple countries are participating and they have their own channels up there and there's an integration board that kind of makes sure that, you know, we're not doing twice the same thing that we partner when we can, but we encourage and empower both government agencies, but also companies.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Public, there's an abundance of research that really talks about how gene expressions are changing in space. So for me, that is a super exciting part, you know, and a question we can't really answer on the ground. The other one, I just want to say the space station has been the site of much research. And there's a lot of experiments hanging on the outside of the space station. And for me, probably the most exciting one relates to neutron stars. high energy, high density stars that were frankly right now measuring the ingredients of. And we're doing that from the outside of the space station using a telescope that's taking advantage of that unique orbit and they enhance data rate. So that would be the second answer.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really good question. I do believe, you know, and it depends a little bit who's asking, right? So for me, I'll give two answers depending on who's asking. I think the most important one is really kind of a series of answers that relate to one question, and that is how is the human body or even life itself kind of evolve or change without gravity? And there's important, very, very important work that has happened relative to our bone structure, relative to our visual system, but also now, relative to our just genetic expression, right? We have with the twin study that one of an identical twin went on the space station for a long time. The other one stayed on the ground. With that twin study and kind of generosity of those individuals to make the DNA.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“towards a belief or kind of a sense that yeah you know life just like planetary systems life could also be very much distributed in the universe”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“First of all, I believe it's very likely, right? I mean, as a scientist, that the answer must be, I don't know. And by the way, that's not a cop-out. It's the answer to most questions that we ask in science. I don't know or I don't yet know. So for me, you know, that question we actually are making a ton, a ton of progress towards. I mean, frankly, during my professional lifetime, it's probably the question where we've made most groundbreaking discoveries. When I started my kind of master's degree in astrophysics, we had no planets elsewhere other than the ones in our solar system. In the meantime, we have thousands of those planets, and some of them look awfully like, you know, like our own, kind of relative to the data we have, which are really, really, really sparse. So we're on that track.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A first book, it's still in my office, by the way, at NASA, really about the possibility of exploring those stars. And, you know, it just keeps on going and that question becomes more intense.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The most important question really is about is somebody else watching the other way? I mean, for me, it just, what is there? Just a whole point, right? Growing up in that religious environment I thought a lot about bigger purpose and bigger things, like, you know, with the name the Lord, perhaps, or with the name creation. For me, really looking at the stars, the patterns of them, the fact that they're there the next day also kind of made me really ask, what is it? How does it actually look, right? And what can't the relationship of that amazing sky to us here, like to my little self on my back, on the roof in that little village? What is that big thing? You start opening up books. My godfather gave me.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I grew up in the mountains and Switzerland and frankly quite isolated. I grew up in a quasi Amish community with a father who was a religious leader. And so I didn't have a lot in my life that other people have. The only book I really read was The Bible. So what I did have, though, is an amazing environment in that little village where I grew up. I saw the sky kind of in a way that, frankly, I've rarely ever seen since my youth. And I was outside a lot at night on my back, frankly on the roof, and looking at the stars. Over time, I bought a map, a star map, and I started looking at it. And so for me, the stars were always both a goal, but also an escape. For me, it was just amazing. So I started, of course, asking questions just like we all do. That was the start for astrophysics for me.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As a scientist that the answer must be I don't know. And by the way, that's not a cop-out. It's the answer to most questions that we ask in science. I don't know or I don't yet know. So for me, you know, that question we actually are making a ton, a ton of progress towards. I mean, frankly, during my professional lifetime, it's probably the question where we've made most groundbreaking discoveries, you know, kind of when I started my kind of master's degree in astrophysics, we had no planets elsewhere other than the ones in our solar system. In the meantime, we have thousands of those planets and some of them look awfully like our own, kind of relative to the data we have, which are really, really, really sparse. So we're on that track towards a belief we're going to ascent.”
2021-04-06 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · #108 Thomas Zurbuchen: Adventures in Astrophysics · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT