Closing Bell - Manifest Space: Space Influence with Virgin Galactic Astronaut Kellie Gerardi 11/2/23

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

Virgin Galactic set off its six human spaceflight this year and tenth to date—and the first of many planned by one prominent space commentator. Flying to suborbital space, the publicly-traded commercial space company launched its Galactic 05 mission carrying three passengers along with Virgin Galactic crew aboard its VSS Unity space plane. Kellie Gerardi, the mission’s payload specialist, is what some would call a space influencer: a mission operations lead at Palantir Technologies, a former board member at The Exploration Club, and published author with a social media following of over 700,000. Kellie joins Morgan Brennan just hours after the launch to discuss the mission, the microgravity research conducted, and her fulfillment.

Today, Virgin Galactic completed its fifth revenue-generating commercial flight, and its sixth flight of the year, continuing the once-a-month launch cadence. Galactic 5 carried two research scientists and one other private passenger plus company crew to the edge of space for several minutes of weightlessness. It was a research flight, meaning the VSS Unity spaceship was converted into a suborbital space lab for research, and the company could command higher ticket prices than those paid by so-called private astronauts. Kelly Girardi flew with three payloads aboard Galactic 5,

including two evaluating healthcare technology in microgravity. Fresh off the flight, Girardi joins me here. She is a payload specialist and a bioastronautics researcher for the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences, a missions operations lead for Palantir Technologies, an author and a social media influencer focused on STEM education. I'm on a little space sabbatical, which is a first for our company with an epic out of office message today. I'm Morgan Brennan and this is Manifest Space. Kelly Girardi, thank you so much for joining me. It's so great to speak with you. What a major

milestone today. You just returned from space. How was your trip? Thank you so much. It exceeded all of my wildest expectations and imagination. How? Thank you so much. It exceeded all of my wildest expectations and imagination. How? In a number of different ways. So, you know, first I was there as a researcher, which is, you know, a really interesting and novel new era of access to space on suborbital spaceflight. And I had on my wrist checklist that my team made me put down, take a moment to look at the Earth. You know, I was so task focused and task oriented that I really had to carve out that time. Once I got the science that I needed to get,

I was able to turn around, look at the earth from space. And then the entire cabin had to hear me exclaim, oh my God. And I can't wait to get a video and audio of that moment because it was just something so profound. And as much as you try to anticipate that moment, having it actually happen was just, you know, it's something I'll carry with me for the rest of my life. I can only imagine. I mean, it was a couple minutes of weightlessness. Did time just slow down at that moment? Yeah. You know, I did experience some really interesting time dilation, especially when I was so focused on the science. I was free floating a payload, a fluid cell that I needed to make sure was safely free floating around me. And in those seconds, I was counting them on two different stopwatches.

And that was really extraordinary because those seconds did seem to drag out. My goal was to maximize our free float time. So every second really counted. But it went flawlessly and better than we had even hoped for on the ground. Yeah, let's talk a little bit more about that research because you carried three payloads with you to space, correct?

Very focused. Correct. And in your area of expertise and focus, even leading up to this moment, has been around microgravity. So what was some of the scientific research you were doing? Yeah, I had three payloads with me on this flight. Number one was a continuous glucose monitor.

It's one of the first times that a CGM has been deployed in the space environment. And so that's really exciting. There's some interesting research suggesting that spaceflight and long duration spaceflight can induce insulin resistance, but still questions as to how quickly that might happen. So we're hoping to contribute to that data. And then I also have a number of parents in my community who are parents of type 1 diabetic children who aspire to be astronauts one day. And so I'm excited to see that opportunity continue to contribute to that research and to see the first diabetic astronaut in the future.

I also am wearing an Astroskin, which is a biomonitoring device that is currently worn on space station by astronauts. But this flight was the first time that we were also collecting data during the launch, re-entry and landing portions of flight. And then finally, the star of the show from a sort of visual perspective was the pre-floating fluid cell. It was a thermodynamic fluid experiment designed to see how liquid behaves in a container in microgravity. And so that was really exciting to get to free-floated and continuous seconds of microgravity like that in such pure, pure microgravity. So cool. So what happens with the experiments now?

Now we publish. So now the work starts. The fun part, unfortunately, is behind me. And now we're going to take some time with the team and really go thoroughly through all of the data that we collected in space. And in the week preceding the flight and in the week after the flight, all of our baseline data will collect all of that. And we're looking forward to publishing our results and sharing them with the scientific community. You mentioned the fact that this suborbital flight was a research flight and that that's still something that's novel. In terms of space flight, what does this do to help kick that door open a little bit further? Yeah, it's the access. You know, the limiter to human space flight has always been access and not aptitude. And the ability for researchers like myself, like my crewmate Dr. Alan Stern, to be able

to access a suborbital spaceflight platform like Virgin Galactic's is unprecedented. You know, you have the International Space Station to conduct research, but it's bottlenecked, both being cost prohibitive and, you know, also a long pipeline of research waiting to fly. And then you have parabolic research or zero-g flights here on Earth, but they're very accessible. But the amount of time that you get during each parabola is quite limited. So to have that continuous stretch of microgravity exposure to carry out research

is just really the beginning of a new era of access to space for researchers and scientists. So this is addressing an area of the market that's been needed but hadn't existed until now. Exactly. So I do want to go back in time a little bit because it was announced a little over two years ago that you were going to be an astronaut on board one of these Virgin Galactic flights. What was your process to get to this space flight today,

both in terms of the training in the last couple of days, but even more broadly in the last couple of years to be able to do these experiments? Yeah, absolutely. You know, one of the things that my crewmate, Dr. Ellen Stern, and I both reflected on was how grateful we were, both for the training program provided to us

by Virgin Galactic, but also for our significant experience in microgravity prior to flight. I've crossed 100 parabolas in my career, and that enabled me to maximize every second of my flight with Virgin Galactic. From the minute that we were cleared to unstrap that five-point harness, I was out. I was able to maneuver in a very confident way and be able to use both of my hands to extract my payload and then to re-secure it when it was time and to be able to take away the focus and concentration from having to learn all of that in a very dynamic environment to already be familiar with it. So I would credit a lot of

the preparation to both, you know, aerobatic flight, high G exposure, making sure the sensor placement was all validated, and then a ton of zero-G exposure and practice to just nail that choreography. So on game day, we were ready. And so as a researcher, were you doing this on behalf of the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences? And I ask that because I know you also work for Palantir. You're also prolific in terms of social media influence where STEM education is concerned. I could just keep going down the list here. No, no, I appreciate it. I know I just, I could never pick just one thing in life, but I was representing IIAS today, my research institute. And I am very grateful for

my parallel career at Palantir and they've been unbelievably supportive in my journey. And I'm on a little space sabbatical, which is a first for our company with an epic out-of-office message today. I'd love to read that message. I'm sure it's pretty great. So I just want to get your thoughts now. You've been to space. You've been advocating for space for so long. What do you think this next chapter, as we do start to see more access, what it actually looks like from a commercial standpoint, from a science standpoint, from a science standpoint, from an everything standpoint. Yeah, you know, it was really profound. So of course, you know, my focus was on the science, but I think what I really came back to earth with was an appreciation

for the broader societal impact. You know, I'm looking at this through the eyes of my daughter, who's five, Delta, who was here today watching her mom fly to space. And I was also reflecting that still, even after this flight, fewer than 100 women in history have ever had the opportunity to fly to space. And I believe after this flight that Virgin Galactic is now responsible for producing 10% of female astronauts to date in history. And it's just a profound moment in time. And I really believe that that representation is critical. It's the difference, you know, and I see it in my daughter who just believes, of course, that's an option for me and option for any of my classmates. And that's the type of future that I'm really looking forward to. And it gives me a lot of hope. Yeah, that's a that's a that's a wonderful thing to think. And I've got a seven year old myself and I would love for her to feel like she has that type of access too. In terms of Virgin Galactic specifically, the fact that this

was the sixth spaceflight in six months is pretty impressive in its own right. It was unbelievable. Yeah. Kudos to the team. I mean, the talent density at this company and the professionalism. We've been working in tandem long before this week with the payload integration team, with the research arm of Virgin Galactic, really maximizing all of our science return and every single bit of hard work paid off on all ends today. So it was just an extraordinary effort across the board. And the fact that this was pilot flown in spaceflight was particularly important because the pilots were really able to work with me and give me the most stable, you know, I was listening for a call from the pilots

from the cockpit for stable when the vehicle was really parked and there was no other acceleration forces being imparted on us. And I was using that specific time to really conduct that important free-floating research. So it was just tens across the board. I want to give everyone a high five.

All right, Kelly Girardi, thank you so much for joining me. It's so great to speak with you after your flight to space. Congratulations. Appreciate it. That does it for this episode of Manifest Space. Make sure you never miss a launch by following us wherever you get your podcasts and by watching our coverage on Closing Bell Overtime. I'm Morgan Brennan.