Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Stay Curious & Keep Exploring with Emily Calandrelli

Episode Date: September 24, 2021

Sit down with Sharon as she interviews the one and only @TheSpaceGal, Emily Calandrelli. Most people are fascinated by space and the myths surrounding space. In this episode, Sharon gets Emily’s thoughts on aliens, life outside of Earth, how the space industry has changed and expanded, and what is next in space development. In addition, Sharon dives into STEM education and Emily’s career and how she made a name for herself and forged her own path in helping people stay curious and keep learning. For more information on this episode including all resources and links discussed go to https://www.sharonmcmahon.com/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Red One... We're coming at you. ...is the movie event of the holiday season. Santa Claus has been kidnapped? You're gonna help us find him. You can't trust this guy. He's on the list. Is that Naughty Lister? Naughty Lister?

Dwayne Johnson. We got Snowman! Chris Evans. I might just go back to the car. Let's save Christmas. I'm not gonna say that. Say it. Alright.

Let's save Christmas. There it is. Only in theaters November 15th. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those.

Goaltenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those, too. Hello, my friends. I am delighted to share my interview with emily calendrelli with you today you might know her from the netflix show emily's wonder lab or exploration outer space you might follow her on tiktok or instagram at the space gal she is hilarious and so smart. She's a former MIT engineer. I absolutely love following her. If you love to learn new things like I do, you are going to enjoy this conversation so much. So let's dive into my talk with Emily Calandrelli. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Emily, I'm so excited to talk to you today. Thank you for having me. If you guys are not following Emily yet, go to TikTok or Instagram and follow Emily. Tell

everybody what your handle is so they can just like literally go follow you right now. Yes, the space gal. The space gal. I am fascinated by space. I have always been fascinated by space. I think a lot of people are. I grew up next door to an astronomer who was always in his yard with his solar telescope, his telescope at night. And he was very nice to me and would let me be an obnoxious 10 year old and go over there and be like, what are you doing out here? Yeah. I mean, when you say solar telescope, that's when you know that's like the real deal astronomer. This isn't just some like amateur astronomer that stares at the moon. Like they're looking at the sun. They've got some fancy equipment. Yes. So I have always found it

fascinating, but yet it's so mysterious. Tell me about your journey. How did you become the space gal? Oh my gosh. Well, so it's funny because I was not a kid that loved science when I was younger. I didn't have anybody in my family that loved science. So I'm the first person in my family to pursue a degree in STEM. But my dad, he grew up in poverty in West Virginia and worked his way to middle class. And so when I was tasked with finding what I want to do when I grew up, I had that legacy in the back of my mind. And so literally I Googled when I was a high school senior, all of the majors one could major in in college. And I looked at their starting salaries and I saw that engineers made some of the most money. And I thought, okay, this is going to be

not a fun college career, but we are going to have a good job in the end. And I had this like sort of martyrdom syndrome where I was like, this is going to suck, but it's going to be worthwhile. And then I got there and I was just totally blown away by all of the opportunities that a student can have when they pursue a degree in STEM, especially in aerospace, all the internships and extracurriculars. I got to fly on the vomit comet. I got to travel the world with engineers without borders. I got to do so many things. And so sort of hesitantly joined and then enthusiastically stayed.

I love that. And why this type of engineering instead of like building bridges? Yeah, there's so many types of engineering. It's a very, very wide array. But for me, when I was a freshman, I saw a poster on the wall where there was a young student floating weightless like an astronaut, but they were way too young to be an astronaut. And on the poster, it said something along the lines of do your homework weightless. And it turns out that it was a class that you can take if you studied aerospace engineering, where you could design a

science experiment to fly on NASA's vomit comet, which for people who are not familiar with the vomit comet, it is a plane that flies in the air like an 8,000 foot roller coaster. It creates the feeling of weightlessness like an astronaut would feel in roller coaster. It creates the feeling of weightlessness like an astronaut would feel in outer space. And it's kind of like a laboratory in the sky. It's also how they filmed movies like Apollo 13. And so it looks so fun and so cool. And I was like, okay, I'll study aerospace engineering so I can take this class. Oh, I assume it's called that because it produces motion sickness. It is, yes. It is famously known for making people sick because it goes up and down and up and down

and up and down and you feel weightless and then you feel twice your weight and then you feel weightless and then twice your weight and the ride lasts for an hour and a half. Not everybody can handle that. I definitely could not. I for sure could not. No, I helped give it its name for sure. What is that like? The coolest feeling in the world. So I have since wrote on it three times, once for undergrad research and then twice for my TV show. Because when you get your own TV show

and you get to decide what you want to do, you try to do the coolest things that you want to do. And so I was like, let's ride on the vomit comet again. It doesn't really feel like you're floating necessarily. It feels like you're flying. Like if you've ever had a dream where you're flying and it just feels so cool that you don't want your dream to stop, that's exactly what it feels like. And then does it feel really bad when you start going the other direction? You're like, no. It doesn't feel great. The 2G is what usually gets people motion sick.

It's not the weightlessness necessarily. It's usually the 2G portion because people will move their head and the fluid in their inner ear will start acting up. And the fluid in your inner ear is what allows us to balance. will start acting up. And the fluid in your inner ear is what allows us to balance. When that starts moving in ways that doesn't correspond with what we're seeing with our eyes, our body starts feeling sick because it thinks that maybe we've ingested poison to cause this difference in our fluid and our eyesight. That's what usually causes the vomit. Tell me more about what led you to wanting to work in science communication. Yeah. So I studied science and engineering for eight years. And then in the latter part of my career, I sort of shifted from like pure engineering to more policy related work.

One of my masters is in science and technology policy. And so I started learning how policy and science intersect, how science interacts with the public, interacts with the government, interacts with legislation. How do we ethically and morally support science? What do we fund? What don't we fund? And that framework of thinking was fascinating to me. And I found myself to be better at that aspect of science and engineering than the hands-on stuff. The hands-on stuff was never my forte, but this part was the part that got me really passionate. And so I started shifting that way towards the latter part of my career. And I was already going to be applying to maybe like the Office of Science and Technology Policy

in DC. But when it came to graduation, I got an email from a production company that was doing a new space TV show called Exploration Outer Space. And they asked me if I wanted to be the host of it. And I'd never done any TV production before. I'd never been a host on TV before. They found me because I had done a bunch of outreach.

There were some YouTube videos of me talking about science and technology. And it sounded like an adventure. And I said, yes. And I suppose the rest is history. How did that lead to having your own Netflix show? Well, I mean, it was a long road of maybe like seven or eight years because it started with Exploration Outer Space, which I still do today.

It's been eight years because it started with Exploration Outer Space, which I still do today. It's been eight years now. We've just got renewed for season seven, which we're producing right now. And after that, I started working with Bill Nye on his Netflix show, Bill Nye Saves the World. And so I was a correspondent for him. I started writing books in between and doing a lot of public speaking and just like building out my little niche in the space of science communication. And then in the middle of all that, I was pitching other science shows. And one of them was a children's show. We brought it to Netflix. And at the time I was actually very, very nervous because I was five months pregnant and I was desperately trying to hide it. But we got a call maybe a month

later that said, not only did they want my science show, but they were totally fine with me filming it eight and nine months pregnant. And so now there is a pregnant lady hosting a science show on Netflix in 190 countries. And it is just the coolest type of representation that I'm just like so happy and proud to provide. Truly you are a pioneer. First of all, the idea that, you know, women who are visibly pregnant, they lack authority or credibility, or you should go home. You should put your feet up, whatever. The idea that you should try to hide that you even probably experienced those feelings of like, I don't know how they're going to react. So I probably should try to hide that. You even probably experienced those feelings of like, I don't know how they're going to react. So I probably try to conceal this. You're sending the message to not just other

girls, but other boys that it is more than acceptable for women to pursue their dreams, even if they're hugely pregnant. I love that. Yes. Wildly pregnant. I know because we don't see pregnant people doing things other than being pregnant. Like that is their whole purpose at that time in their life. And we forget that all of these pregnant people have jobs or, you know, many of them have jobs and careers and passions of their own, and they do more things than just creating a human life inside their belly, which is also amazing. But yeah, I think so many times we make assumptions about what they're capable of rather than giving them the agency to decide what they're capable of. I love that. People want to know about UFOs. Oh gosh. Yeah. People are like, Sharon, what is it? I'm like, how do I know? I don't know.

The thing that I always say about UFOs is UFO stands for unidentified flying object. That means that it's unidentified to you. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's not identifiable to somebody else. And it usually is. It is usually easily identified by somebody else. It's either a weather phenomenon, it's an optical illusion, it's a weather balloon. Weather balloons cause so many UFOs. When Google Loon was testing their product around the globe, it accounted for many UFO sightings off the coast of like New Zealand because they'd have this two-story balloon that was crashing in the ocean, and it looked very weird to see. Or it's usually like a flying aircraft from another country that maybe they don't want you to know about their technology. And so they're not going to admit what technology they're testing. But yeah, that's what I usually say on that subject.

I bet people ask you about aliens a lot. Yeah. It's a fun topic. I mean, it's fun to think about aliens. It's so just like imaginative and it's fun to imagine that maybe we're not the only ones in the universe. And personally, I believe that it would be very egocentric of us to imagine that we are the only ones here. Any time in history that we've assumed that, we've been wrong. Oh, we're the center of the solar system and the sun and everything revolve around us. No, that's not true. We're just one of many planets.

Oh, well, then we're the center of the galaxy. We're not that special. We're unique because we're intelligent life and we haven't yet found other intelligent life. But our technology for searching for intelligent life is just very new. We've only really been looking for the last 50 or 60 years. And so I think that there is other intelligent life out there. We're just too young in our technology to be able to find it just yet. Do you think it's possible that alien life has visited Earth? No, I think that's silly. I think that's very silly. I think that

like the idea that alien life has visited Earth and not made themselves known or crash landed here and we weren't sure why, like they had the advanced technology to travel across the universe and get to our little planet. And then they trip at the finish line and crash into the planet. Like that doesn't check out to me. And so usually what that is, like Roswell, for example, that was at one point a classified government project that the government was perfectly happy with the town of Roswell claiming that it was aliens because at the time they didn't want our adversaries to know what type of technology we were testing and especially not what type of technology we were currently failing at testing. And so the government oftentimes is very happy with just having

the general public say, oh, it's aliens. And not like the government's working on something that they don't want, you know, their adversaries to understand. And then later it was declassified and that was brought to light, but still the alien theory took hold. And now the town of Roswell is like all about alien culture, which is fun. There's usually a pretty easy explanation. Aliens is just the laziest explanation. We don't want to really think too much about what this is. So we're just going to claim aliens. It's hockey season and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats, but iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice?

Yes, we deliver those. Gold tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly.

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Get access to primetime dining reservations by adding your Visa Infinite Privilege card to your OpenTable account. From there, you'll unlock first come, first serve spots at select top restaurants when booking through OpenTable. Learn more at OpenTable.ca forward slash Visa Dining. How has the space industry changed? I mean, obviously we're not flying to the moon regularly, but one of the questions I get asked too is, is this a waste of money and how has that changed over time? Yeah, so how has it changed over time? Mostly in the beginning,

the only people who could afford to do space exploration were these large government agencies. So the United States with NASA, Russia or the USSR, China, and now sometimes, you know, Japan and India. But today there are thousands of private space companies that are investing their own money in commercializing this technology. We still have NASA and Russia and big government agencies doing a lot of the work, but now we have a lot of private companies too that are employing like tens of thousands of people with these really cool jobs. And what's interesting about that is that when we talk about, are we wasting our money? Well, we can only focus on the efforts of NASA

when we're talking about that, because that's only focus on the efforts of NASA when we're talking about that because that's where taxpayer money is going. But when we think about SpaceX or Blue Origin with Jeff Bezos and some of these other ones, those are private ventures. Yes, they get some government contracts for sure. And so NASA is paying them to help them in their mission. But for a lot of the work that they do, they're getting paid by some other private company, a business-to-business interaction, where they're launching a satellite to bring like Sirius radio to your car. You're not paying for that. That's another company.

You might be paying for Sirius radio, but like you're not paying to launch something into space. So we've just expanded our economic influence a little bit higher. Several months ago when NASA landed the newest rover on Mars, I literally, I watched that and bawled. What humans have become capable of is so inspirational. Like we built a helicopter that flies in a very different atmosphere than our own. Just the idea of like testing it under atmospheric conditions that are so different than ours. And it's like 150 degrees below zero. It's crazy. The pressure to get that right, because once it's there, there are no technicians on Mars to fix something. If it goes wrong, like everything has to be perfect. Yes.

Once it gets there or all of the energy that we spent getting it there is wasted. And what's really cool is NASA has a huge success record when it comes to Mars and many other countries do not. And I have friends that work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, JPL, that sends these robots to Mars. And it's just, it's really cool to watch somebody work on something for like five to 10 years and then have that moment of success. 10 years and then have that moment of success. Because it's like, I don't know many careers that are quite like that, where it all builds up to A, like you watch this launch, you watch everything you've worked on, you go to the rocket launch, you watch your project leave the planet. Literally.

Literally leave the planet to go to another planet. And then like six to nine months later, you get to watch it land on another planet and then send back images from another world or send back the first sounds of another world with perseverance. It was the first time we were able to hear wind on Mars. And to me, that was just like, oh, that felt like a really cool human experience. Yeah. The idea that you're building something that has to fly like at a ridiculous speed for months. My mind doesn't work that way. Like I don't understand it, but I have so much appreciation for it. Yeah. It's so hard to understand just the precision that they have to achieve and the speeds that they're working with and the distances that they're working with. It's like

people at NASA, man, they're awesome. I absolutely love it. I have so much respect for it, even though I have zero understanding of it. What do we get out of going to Mars? Yes, we get pictures, we get recordings, we get to analyze rocks, we get to say, like, water used to be here. Could there have been life on Mars in the past? Like, I get that we gather all of that scientific information, but what do you think makes it worth it to spend taxpayer money going to Mars? For me, I think one of the big points is that we're not throwing money at Mars. We're not putting money in a rocket and sending it to Mars. That money is spent here on Earth for these really

awesome jobs that Americans are working on all the time, which is really cool. And the pursuit of science in general is just worthwhile. That's part of the human experience, understanding our place in the universe and how it works, building that knowledge base that humans have of how everything works, I think is inherently useful. But also, it helps us learn about our own planet. Because right now, when we study Earth, that's an N of one. We are looking at one planet in the history of one planet. And right now, we're trying to predict what the future of our planet will be based on our own history. That's not usually how things work in science. You want to look at many, many

different types of things in the same category to be able to predict how one is going to change in the future. And so by studying other planets, we get to expand that database. We get to look at how Mars' history impacted its future and things like studying Venus, for example. Venus is our other planetary neighbor. Closer to the sun is often referred to as Earth's evil twin because it's very similar to Earth in size and composition, but it has a runaway greenhouse effect that has made it a fiery hellscape where nobody could live on. And we're like, how do we not become Venus? And we learned that by going to Venus and studying how Venus became Venus. And so similarly, just studying Mars, studying Venus, all of this data helps us better understand our own planet. That is a really good point. People are like,

why are we spending all this money just driving little cars around Mars? Yeah. And I see, I mean, like I totally get that perspective. Sometimes earth is a fiery hellscape and there are many, many things that we could dwell on here on earth that needs solving. And so when people see a rover on Mars, it's like, what? Why? So I get the perspective. But I'd love the idea that science is worth pursuing because science is worth pursuing. Yeah. What are some misconceptions that you think people have about space or about space exploration? What do you see in your work that you're like, people do not get this? Yeah. I think the recent billionaires in space caused a lot of conversation, which was valid and important conversations. For me as someone who has seen the full picture, I feel like I had a little bit of a

different perspective on the situation because the message that I saw was we have billionaires paying to take joy rides into space when we have so many other issues here on earth and how are we allowing that to happen i think the thing that people don't often realize is that it's not that expensive to go to space in the general scheme of things i mean it's expensive for normal people but you don't have to be a billionaire to go to space it's like five hundred thousand dollars which is a lot of money but you don't have to be a billionaire to do it. McLaren cars are $500,000. They sell like 5,000 of those a year. We don't really blink an eye at that. Rich people spend a lot of money on a lot of things. That's true. I think that's the

takeaway here. But space is just so visual and like getting on a rocket to go to space is so visual that that's why I think it drove a lot of that conversation. And that perspective was sort of like, why aren't billionaires solving climate change? And I'm like, if we've gotten to the point where we're relying on billionaires to solve these collective human issues, we've gotten ourselves in a hard place, my friends. We did not end up in the situation well. And I think the main point was that there's just so much inequality in the world, which I agree with. Space companies are not the reason that inequality exists. Space companies do not make people a lot of money in general. The joke in the space industry is to become a

space millionaire, start out being a space billionaire. Because there was a reason why mostly government agencies invested in space exploration in the past. It's super high risk and super costly to do all of the research and development necessary to get to the point where you can launch something into space. You're going to have a lot of failures, a lot of explosions. You're going to lose a lot of money in the process. So you need to just have a lot of money to start with to be able to create a venture like this. Anyways, I think the point for me was that space companies are not the reason that billionaires exist

and it's not as expensive to go to space as people. Would you go to space if given the opportunity? Oh, this is a question i've been thinking about a lot lately um i think it would depend on the ride because not all rides are created equal some of them don't have much of a history at all i think that for me i would want to do a lot of work making sure that the rocket and the capsule that i was riding or the space plane that I was riding had at least a hundred plus safe flights in the past before. Because for me, I'm like, why do I want to go to space? For me, yeah, it would be cool. It would be fun for sure. But also I think that going to

space would allow me to come back home and talk about things that I care about. And I think that I don't necessarily need to go to space to do that ultimate goal. And so I wouldn't be willing to take a super high risk. There are people that are like, if I had a 50% chance of survival, I would go in a second. I'm like, ah, that's not me. I have a daughter. I'm not trying to get on a bomb built by the lowest bidder just yet. But if NASA invited you, you would go? Oh, yeah. Like SpaceX, for example, they have a really good success record. I think that would be one that I would say, yes, please, choose me.

Would you go on an extended mission? Like would you go to the International Space Station and stay there for a month? Oh, definitely. Oh, yeah. Like, if there was a lot of research that could be done, if I could do a bunch of different science experiments, like the science experiments I did on Emily's Wonder Lab, if I could do them in space and show kids how it worked differently in a weightless environment, That sounds very project-driven, very purpose-driven. That sounds fun. It would be fascinating. Do you know the story of Judith Love Cohen? You know who she is? Oh, yes. Jack Black's mom? Yes. Yes. When you were talking

about being pregnant on TV, it reminded me of her story of working on the Apollo 13 abort guidance system when she was in labor. Oh my gosh. I heard that story just recently and it blew my mind. And it has that little happy surprise at the end that it's like, and the baby was Jack Black. Yes. Yes. I love too that she's like, no, I'm going to finish this. I'm finishing it in the hospital. It's important. And, I'm going to finish this. I'm finishing it in the hospital. It's important. And it was important because they needed it. They ultimately needed whatever problem that she was solving to make sure Apollo 13 came home safely. And I had never heard that story. When I first heard it, I was like, this needs fact

checked. And then I looked and I was like, wait, that's real. How did we not know about that? That's really cool. That is super cool. Another pioneer of a woman in STEM. Yes. Let's say you are a high school student and maybe you are considering a career in STEM. What are some resources that you would suggest for how to find like a good option for them? Yes. Okay. So for me, speaking as someone who didn't know anybody in STEM and had absolutely no idea what I should be applying to, what I should be doing, for me,

the best resource was my NASA Space Grant. Every state has one. They're located across the state. You'll have different representatives at many of the schools across the state. Just Google NASA Space Grant, like Wisconsin or whatever state you're in, and you'll be able to find the representatives there. They'll tell you about all the NASA scholarships and internships and fellowships that you can be applying to throughout your collegiate career. Absolutely do that. Another one is for undergrad students, for women and non-binary students who want to work in the aerospace industry. The best fellowship that you can apply to is called the Brooke Owens Fellowship. I'm an executive member of the team right now, and we're promoting the application because it's open now. The deadline's October 8th. And that one, you get a paid internship at a place like SpaceX or Blue Origin or NASA or Boeing. You get an

executive mentor, like an astronaut or a CEO that you can literally call and ask for career advice, which is wild. I'm like constantly impressed by the mentors we have in this program. And then you have a summer retreat with all the other rookies that are selected that year. It's the coolest program. That sounds amazing. Yeah. It's something I wish that I had when I was younger. Yes. And like just the ability to make those kinds of connections are amazing. Who is Brooke Owens? I assume it's named after somebody. Yeah. So the co-founders of the fellowship had a dear friend in the aerospace industry, Dawn Brooke Owens, who was just a pioneer in this field. And she died at a young age of cancer. She had a dear friend in the aerospace industry, Dawn Brooke Owens, who was just a pioneer in this field

and she died at a young age of cancer. She had a lot of heart. She was a pilot and she had a lot of passion to make the aerospace industry even better. And so we're just trying to carry on that legacy with all these other little Brookies who are already making the aerospace industry a better place. That is super cool. I'm sure you know that people who follow you love little fun space tidbits, little fun facts. And I know that people who follow me love that kind of stuff. Can you give us any fun space tidbits? Yes. Okay. Let's see here. Let's see here. So one is that some shooting stars are astronaut poop. That is because when you go to the bathroom on the space station, they have to put that feces somewhere. When they pee,

they filter that out and it ends up water that they drink, potable water. But the poop and trash and all the other things that are on the International Space Station end up in a capsule that they will throw at the Earth, which will disintegrate in the atmosphere and completely just like burn up in the atmosphere. And we can look up and see that as a pretty shooting star in the sky. I absolutely did not know that. That is hilarious. I would have just thought you let it float out into space. I know. Yeah. We tried very hard to make space not filled with debris because it already has a lot of orbital debris. And orbital debris can be bad for satellites because if it runs into a satellite, it can break it.

And somebody paid a lot of money to put that satellite there. So we don't want poop running into satellites. Turns out that's bad for satellites. Turns out. I truly had never thought of that before. One of the other things that has always absolutely blown my mind about space is just how insanely vast it is. Like the idea that it takes 140 million light years to get somewhere. Like I know so hard to even conceptualize how vast it is. I know. I think that helps people understand why maybe we haven't found other life in the universe just yet, because these distances are so mind-blowingly large. distances are so mind-blowingly large, when we say 40 light years, that means if you shined a flashlight from Earth, it would take 40 years for that light to get to that other star or whatever you're shining it at. And that also means because radio waves, for example, are a different form of

light waves, and they also travel at the speed of light. If we try to send a radio signal to them saying like, hi, we're here. It would take that signal, that message 40 years to get to that location to talking to other people in the universe is not the easiest. A little lag time. Yes. I love your motto too. I love that you just encourage people to stay curious and keep exploring. How did you come up with that? Oh my gosh. So when I first wrote my Ada Lace books four years ago now, kids would ask me to sign their book, which felt like the coolest thing ever because I'd never been asked for my autograph or anything. And so that was really fun. I had to think of something to write on the book as just like a fun, inspirational message. I thought

that sounded nice to tell kids because that is kind of what I would hope kids work to do, always ask questions. So stay curious and keep exploring. And then when it came to our Netflix show, Netflix asked, do you have a tagline? And I was like, well, I guess I kind of do. And I write this in my books all the time. And so we kind of ran with that and that became the tagline. And I was like, well, I guess I kind of do. And I write this in my books all the time. And so we kind of ran with that and that became the tagline of the show. I love it. That just applies to everybody, regardless of age, regardless of subject, that we should always be curious to learn more. Yeah. Like lifelong learning is a skill set that I don't think that I knew about

when I was younger. You sort of have this idea that there's a certain set of knowledge that you must learn. And once you're done with school, you've done it. Good job. And go live your life. But there are so many aspects of life that are very important to us to be kind of productive human beings, productive citizens citizens that it takes a while to learn. So luckily we have communicators in many different fields. Yeah. I love that. I just have a couple more questions for you. One of them is about TikTok and how has TikTok made a difference in your life, either positive or negative? Oh, I mean, for me, it's all been positive. I was so lucky to come across TikTok when the pandemic hit because my work is very in-person. I do public talks. I go

to schools. I do book signings. I film in person. And then once the pandemic hit, everything got canceled. And I was sort of sitting at home thinking, what am I going to do? And I started playing around with TikTok. I started doing science videos on TikTok, which was not something that I saw a lot. I was like one of the only people that I noticed that wasn't dancing to songs. But it was a fun way to communicate something really quickly. And it was a fun challenge because I had 60 seconds to communicate a scientific topic that I found interesting in a visual way. Because in TikTok, you just like, you have those short attention spans, you got to get it across. And it was a really fun challenge for me. And

people seem to like it. There were a bunch of Gen Zers that were excited to learn about science and space. And now I think it's at like 800,000 followers. That is incredible to me that one social media platform can gain that much traction in a year or so. And so it's been absolutely wonderful. You're obviously very entertaining, very watchable. So you have that going for you. It's not, everybody is good at communicating science facts clearly. And you are, but I love that there are people like you on Tik TOK. So people like me who are like, how do we do that? Can learn something new every day. I called them brain tingles. Brain tingles. That's really good. My philosophy with science communication is all about empathetic

science communication and meeting people where they're at. Just assuming a certain intelligence level of your audience and not talking down to them, but not using jargon, not talking over anybody's heads because that's the kind of stuff that people do when they want to sound smart, not when they want to communicate. Communication, I think, takes just a certain level of empathy that I love seeing on your channel. And it's something I try to emulate in my work too. That's so nice. Thank you. I would love to hear more about what you're working on now. I'm very overwhelmed at the moment, but right now we're producing season seven of Exploration Outer Space. We're going to be filming that one soon. I have a new book coming out next year called Reach for the Stars that I wrote after my daughter

was born. It's my first picture book. And then I have another called Stay Curious and Keep Exploring that will have 50 science experiments for people to do. Because after Emily's Wonder Lab, people started coming to me for ideas on what they can do at home to inspire a love of science and their kids. Yes. And I really wanted to collect ideas that didn't cost very much, that could be done mostly with the stuff that you find in your kitchen cupboard, and that were just really easy and exciting. And so I came up with 50 science experiments and put them in a book, and that'll come out next year, too. I have a nine-year-oldold and that sounds right up her alley. She is all about that kind of stuff.

Yep. And you have another book series for children as well. So the Ada Lace Adventures. It's for ages six to 10. It's a book that I wish that I had when I was a kid, which is a book about science and adventure that features a little girl as the main character. Ada is a third grader who loves adventure and she goes on these little trips to solve mysteries with science and technology that she built herself. And then someday she can grow up to

be a pregnant host of a science TV show. Exactly. Exactly. Just one more time, where people can find you on social media. Yeah. I'm at the Space Gal everywhere on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Well, it's nice and simple and memorable. I like it. Yes. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you so much. This is truly delightful. I love your platform. I cannot wait to get my hands on your books that are coming out. Emily, thank you so much. This was absolutely delightful. I cannot wait to get my hands on your books that are coming out. Emily, thank you so much. This was absolutely delightful. I really appreciate you coming. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you

could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or review? or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. I cannot wait to have another mind-blown moment with you next episode. Thanks again for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast.