Now on bbc news, its time for hardtalk. Welcome to hardtalk. The impulse to explore is taken human beings into space and to the remotest corners of oui space and to the remotest corners of our own planet. My guest today has experienced both. Kathy sullivan was the First American woman to walk in space and she has just returned from a journey to the bottom of the deepest ocean floor. She is first and foremost a scientist. Right now as we try to navigate our future, are we humans respect in the science . Respect thing. Respecting. Kathy sullivan in columbus, ohio, welcome to hardtalk. Thanks, great to be with you. You i think can be described as a scientist, an explorer, but im wondering what comes first pu. Is it the science or visit the filled adventure . I would say its the exploration. Ive never been that much of an adrenaline junkie but exploring has always intrigued me from my youngest days, torturing mercury astronauts and Jacques Cousteau and reading about the people in national geographic, learning all sorts of things like that fascinated me and i wanted Something Like that in my life. What fascinates me about that is you dont feel adrenaline is your thing because you would yourself in circumstances far above the earth and right at the bottom of the earth where, frankly, you are in life or death situations. Surely adrenaline has to be part of it. I dont do those things for the rush of the adrenaline. Where they go and what they let me learn, sometimes the challenge, cannot fly an aeroplane, its not about i want to feel all the adrenaline in my body coursing through my veins, that has never been the draw for me. What strikes me as you are a woman whos pushed against frontiers and of course thats in the most literal, physical sense, frontiers in space and far below the sea and we will talk about both but there is also a different kind of frontier. You were one of the first women to be involved in the first women to be involved in the space programme, to be an astronaut within the organisation. Did you feel at the time in the 19705 did you feel at the time in the 1970s were pushing against barrier, breaking against the glass ceiling. Those six of us who joined in 1978 realise this was a notable step forward , realise this was a notable step forward, it was a big change, a piercing of what had been a barrier since the United StatesAstronaut Programme started. We felt that rather keenly and we recognised may bea rather keenly and we recognised may be a bit dimly, some of us were straight out of grad school. We recognised we had both the opportunity and sense of obligation to step up a really good job if we got the jaw at the x men door ajar and squeaked through, we wanted the door opened wider behind us. How bad was the sexism and misogyny you had to face in nasa in the late 70s and 805 . To face in nasa in the late 70s and 80s . Honestly, it was not that terrible. It may impart have been because we did not come in as the mostjunior people because we did not come in as the most junior people and because we did not come in as the mostjunior people and new rookie junior people often get a dose of teasing and hazing in many organisations but we walked in with about the highest prestige and status that nasa can bestow, the title of astronaut and i think to some degree, that caused people to stop a bit and say, you know, i know how i always treated astronauts, even though ive never seen one that look like these six but you get a bit of a window of time to prove yourself and before long, you are standing on your own track record as everybody has to do. Youve written very frankly about your feelings during this period and it seems youre more frustrated by some of the attitudes on the outside world and you were inside nasa. You wrote that he quickly realised, i wasnt going to be the one who everybody was chasing, talking about the media scrutiny, because there were four women who looked outwardly more like good stories that the media would want to chase. What did you mean by that . I think the other sort of archetype of beauty or good looks in any society, i looked myself and my five other colleagues and reckoned several of them just sort of fit more what i had seen of the stereotype on magazine covers than i reckon i did so to a degree, the degree that image and fitting a certain stereotype would appeal to people making the decision about who flies first, i thought that might actually give them an edge. I didnt ink that would ever in any way outrank confidence and judgement in our ability to perform but i think it would public coloured the decision and if indeed it did, i reckon it would put the outer bit of a disadvantage. Ive never been a cover type. Im fascinated to know if with the distance of time it fundamentally did affect the way those six womens careers progressed. There is really no way of telling because all the decisions having to do with what we are assigned to do in the tasks we were given were very opaque. They were never really laid out or explained. So whatever factors went into those decisions, i have no clue that i look back now with the distance of time at the pathway that opened up before me and all my other colleagues, shannon and anna and ray, and again, i cant imagine any of us having complaints and our class racked up the first female to fly in space for the United States, the first to do a space war, the first to be awarded the space congressional medal of honour so maybe that actor played a role one way or another now or then but we all had a very good ride, very good run and made really meaningful contributions to the technical side of the Us Space Programme as well as i would like to think the cultural side of opening the door wider for women to come in behind us. And in terms of achievement, you had one extraordinary historic achievement to your name that will never be taken away from you. You were the First American woman to conduct a space walk. I am just wondering how galling it was for you, not to put a negative spin on it but the fact is the americans wanted you to be the first woman to make a spacewalk but you are pipped to the post by a russian. Wasnt that galling . Not particularly, we quite expected. When the press release came out announcing my first flight, there was mention of sally on the mission to make her the first woman to fly twice and sally and i reading that press release, we just looked at each other and said, they are not paying attention, this press release is already in moscow, svetlana is going to get a flight and they have months to fit that in before we are slated to fly and sure enough, lets just what happened. So we always teased that svetla na just what happened. So we always teased that svetlana owed us her second flight in the spacewalk. And the second flight, when astronauts come back to earth, they often talk about what a humbling experience it was, it gave them a new insight into how fragile and tiny planners is in the great vastness of the universe. Was all that in your mind or was it very prosaic about just was all that in your mind or was it very prosaic aboutjust doing the mission, getting through it, surviving and doing it as your bosses at nasa wanted. You are performing well getting the mission done, thats got to be top of mind and what you are really focusing your attention on. Thats why you are there. You are not therefore tourist roosting but having said that, our schedules always had enough nooks and crannies and enough moments may before you go to bed but if you wake up a bit during your sleep. Where you could take in where you were in the spectacular sight of the earth. You just had to be stunned and sort of recalibrated by that. How both fragile and elegant and at the same time immense and powerful the planet is in that duality really struck me. The systems on our planet, big storms, hurricanes, a hugely powerful yet you would see elegant signs like little tendrils of dust coming off the sahara that would remind you of how finely balanced and elegant the planet is as well. Its Pretty Amazing to fly at 17,500 miles an hour from the daily at side of the earth across the terminator onto the nighttime side of the earth and look down at the dark earth below you and see sunshine still shining on your spacecraft and realise you could be a little kid right there on the earth now looking up at the sky and pointing up and saying to their mum or dad, look mummy, there goes a satellite and that look get is pointing to you. Those are mindbending and wonderful moments. Were talking about the 1980s. I believe your last mission was 1990. Its a long time do you fear that nasa, that is, the federal space operation, its commitment, its mission as lost momentum, sort of lost its way in the last two or three decades. I think nasa has struggled in the United States has struggled in the United States has struggled to really seize on and target the right scale of old objective for nasa and stick with it long enough to really attain it. I think it will turn out in the long run to be a good thing that nasa has been able to turn over the ferrying of cargo and people from the surface of cargo and people from the surface of the earth to low earth orbit, turnit of the earth to low earth orbit, turn it over to private sector players. I have confidence now that is heading in the right direction with some real momentum and that does let nasa focus on broader goals, bolder goals, whether that is the outer planets or mars or the moon. The trick of course is to be able to get beyond the glossy place press release on the cool announcement and the powerpoint drawings of what it all will look like and alike and do the doing of it and that takes time, firm commitment, the kind of commitment that will get you through the setbacks that are going to happen. If im concerned about anything, its more about the political stability and political will of our country that can give nasa a charge and really hold to that charge until we achieve it. Ijust wonder if and really hold to that charge until we achieve it. I just wonder if you feel that in some ways, there has been too much of an obsession with putting humans into space because in some ways, i think youve given your writing about your career a sense your greatest achievement was your involvement in putting the Hubble Space Telescope into position and its given us this extraordinary window into the universe which is given us unparalleled knowledge about the way the universe works but maybe there should be more of a focus on that and less of a focus still to this day. People putting them back on the moon and men on mars. Maybe that is of a lesser secondary importance. What do you think . I think deciding what that balance is as a critical decision. I rejected the dichotomy of it is either or, one is right, run is wrong. Reject. Explanation calls for both. If you know what you are after. We can develop Automated Systems that know just what you know to ask and direct. But there are so many unknowns, including about how the human body works and the opportunity to examine the both in microgravity and reduced gravity. There arejust huge frontiers out there. Isnt it daunting and maybe even depressing. Now that we know thanks to hubble in part, just how corrosive the ferociously massive the end how its expanding another to know so much more about galaxies, far beyond our own. We have a sense of the vastness and the distance even in galaxies far beyond ours, we find the conditions perhaps for planets a little bit like our own where they might be life forms. We are never, ever, ever, in any imaginable future, going to be able to reach those places. All we can actually reach in bodily form are dead chunks of rock that arent going to yield very much. There are a number of presumptions on the way youve put that question that i would reject. Im nota that question that i would reject. Im not a proponent of the life theory, that we should send people to the moon and mars because we are going to have to abandon this planet eventually after weve spalled it. Thats an immoral and unethical posture. I look at it a different way i guess. I look at apollo. One can be dismissive of apollo, 12 guys walked on the moon, they brought back rocks, so what . I look at apollo and i see something else. I see a list to advance science and technology across a wider front than any other goal i can imagine would have done and that bled over and fed into medicine, telemedicine, digital computing, advanced materials so the cascade of benefits that earthlings received and that are now embedded in woven into the fabric of our lives, the cascade of benefits that came out of apollo happened because the goal was so demanding and so audacious and we stuck with it and got it done and that, to me, is really the underlying fundamental value of setting a Bold National goal and sticking to it. I mean, few people think of apollo this way but its true to point out apollo marks the moment in the history of computing when people stopped bragging about how large their computers were and started to brag about how small they were on the reason was you needed more Computing Power with some high speed in a small and highly reliable package than any other goal had ever forced humankind to develop and those advancesin humankind to develop and those advances in semiconductors and manufacturing and scaling set the stage for the digital computing revolution that we all lived with and now enjoy in our everyday life. If it took years and you were a little bit younger and there was opportunity for you, as an astronaut for you to take part in a mission to mars and beyond, which would take yea rs, mars and beyond, which would take years, potentially, would you sign 7 years, potentially, would you sign up . I would. I am years, potentially, would you sign up . Iwould. Iam a years, potentially, would you sign up . I would. I am a geologist and vulca n up . I would. I am a geologist and vulcan ologist originally by training andi vulcan ologist originally by training and i would love to see the chasms and volcanoes of mars so im holding out to get the glenjohn deal so five but another ten years, i may get a ride we would love to get you back on the show for that in the meantime you mentioned apollo when it was perhaps the absolute pinnacle of us based when it was perhaps the absolute pinnacle of u. S. Based achievement, getting those men on the moon in 1969, a long time ago and one could argue the reason that kennedy and successive administrations community that was because they were locked in a cold war with the soviet union and space appeared to be the new frontierfor space appeared to be the new frontier for that hostility. Perhaps right now investment from governments in space may be ramped up governments in space may be ramped up because of a new phase of nationalistic, possibly militaristic perception of what space means the nation states. Do you embrace the new investment or worry about the militarisation . A bit of both have to say. Its unequivocal that space nowadays and in the decades ahead will be characterised by three features, it will be more congested, more contested and it will be increasingly commercial. All of that will add a lot of compressed complexity, legal and technical, to everybodys business in space. Complexity, legal and technical, to everybodys business in space. complexity, legal and technical, to everybodys business in space. If i may interrupts, cathy, when your president , donald trump described space as the world s newest war fighting domain when he creates what he calls the new space force which he calls the new space force which he says will control the ultimate high ground, do you as a very senior former official worry about what your president is saying . former official worry about what your president is saying . I look at those words against the backdrop of what i know has already happened in space and another of number of other actors in space but that horse is out of the barn. Our president s recent labelling is not withstanding, space is a highly and hotly contested arena now with all sorts of offensive dabbing at each other that have already gone on and still going on, not at alljust by the United States. You for a number of years with the chief of americas oceanic and atmospheric agency, you we re very oceanic and atmospheric agency, you were very much involved in the american debate about what to do about Scientific Evidence pointing to significant and serious Climate Change. He ran into trouble with republicans on the senate who accused you of doctoring information, of trying to pursue a political agenda because you are supportive of ba rack political agenda because you are supportive of barack obama. Given your experience, do you fear there isa your experience, do you fear there is a real problem with america and following the science on Climate Change . I do. We seem to be in quite a phase of quite intense anti intellectualism, antiscience, and i grew up and started cutting my teeth in the National Policy arena in an era when scientists and technologists like myself were attacked and appointed by president s of both parties because there was a widespread and shared confidence that the data are the data and the size of the science. You want them to be bringing the best insights that science and engineering can rely. They were never fully answer policy questions will tell you what to do. Policy makers and elected officials have to go beyond that. But we have moved on now, u nfortu nately, but we have moved on now, unfortunately, and it worries me greatly, to an era when, since i have served under president obama, i served under more democratic president s than republican president s, but in the current political climate, this means that a whole slew of other elected officials were never touched me for an appointment and probably doubt anything i say, even if it was two plus two equals four. That is a recipe for grave harm and disaster ina highly recipe for grave harm and disaster in a highly Technological Society in our advanced world but sadly that seems to be where we are. Continue with the theme of what human beings are currently doing to the planet, just a short time ago you went on the most extraordinaryjourney in a submersible vehicle, write to the bottom of the earth, i think some 38,000 feet, roughly 11 kilometres down to the challenger deep, the deepest part of the Mariana Trench in the pacific ocean. One thing i believe you are trying to do or at least the whole project was trying to do is figure out the degree t