The Next Astronauts Part II: The New Right Stuff

How It Happened

Axios

News, History, Politics

4.8 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 September 2021

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Axios space reporter Miriam Kramer unpacks who historically has been able to go to space and why the selection of Inspiration4 crew members Sian Proctor and Hayley Arceneaux is a break from the status quo. Kramer shares what she asked Elon Musk in 2020 as the Dragon capsule flew humans for the first time on the same day of nationwide Black Lives Matter protests — and how he answered. She learns Proctor's story, from her birth in Guam where her father was a contractor for the Apollo 11 mission to becoming a NASA astronaut finalist and to her chance to make history as the first Black female pilot of a spacecraft. Kramer also explores Arceneaux's story, told by Hayley and her mother, of Hayley overcoming childhood cancer, becoming a physician assistant for the hospital that treated her and getting the opportunity to be the first person in space with a prosthesis. Credits: The Next Astronauts is reported and produced by Miriam Kramer, Amy Pedulla, Naomi Shavin, and Alice Wilder. Dan Bobkoff is Executive Producer. Mixing, sound design, and music supervision by Alex Sugiura. Theme music and original score by Michael Hanf. Fact-checking and research by Jacob Knutson. Alison Snyder is a managing editor at Axios and Sara Kehaulani Goo is Executive Editor. Special thanks to Axios co-founders Mike Allen, Jim VandeHei and Roy Schwartz.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Fewer than 600 people have ever gone to space.
0:05.0	Most of them have been white men.
0:09.0	In fact, it's not even close.
0:11.0	Only 67 have been women.
0:13.0	And NASA has sent just 15 black Americans to space.
0:17.0	Last summer, in the midst of Black Lives Matter protests around the world,
0:21.0	NASA, with SpaceX, launched two men
0:24.0	as the first ever crew members in the Dragon capsule.
0:27.0	It struck me at the time that there was a pretty clear analogy between this launch
0:32.0	and the Apollo 11 mission that brought people to the moon for the first time in 1969.
0:37.0	Both moments in American history were marked by civil rights struggles
0:41.0	and historic missions to space that felt completely disconnected from them.
0:45.0	It made me think a lot about Gills Scott Heron's 1970 poem, Whitey on the Moon,
0:50.0	and the incredible disconnect between the space industry and the lives of ordinary people.
0:55.0	I can't pay no doctor bills, but Whitey's on the moon.
1:00.0	Ten years from now, I'll be paying still while Whitey's on the moon.
1:04.0	You know, the man just up my rent last night, because Whitey's on the moon.
1:08.0	No hot water, no toilets, no lights, but Whitey's on the moon.
1:13.0	Last summer, I even asked Elon Musk about the juxtaposition of the launch in the protests.
1:18.0	The first question comes from Miriam Kremeer. Kremeer.
1:21.0	I was just wondering, so this launch has often been referred to as a moment of hope for the nation.
1:26.0	But it's also happening against the backdrop of protests and demonstrations around country today.
	...

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