it’s a pleasure to be here today and
when first kind of asked to talk about
the human condition I actually struggled
for a little bit think about what I
would talk about gonna be about asteroid
impacts and things and then it really
got me thinking about my biggest passion
and what takes me up to the Arctic which
is what you see on the screen behind me
which is exploring to me that is kind of
an integral part of what it means to be
human and as part of the human condition
and so behind me is a map of the world
and today I’m going to kind of flip back
and forth a little bit between kind of
learning about the past and looking to
the future
we take this for granted now none of you
would ever question this none of you
would ever think about being America in
the right place as Madagascar are really
over there but of course if you were if
we were sat here in the 1500s thinking
about the earth this is this would be
your view of the world you actually have
to put your head on the side over here
but we don’t really question this now
but the question is kind of how we went
from know from this map how do we go
back and forth and of course I think you
all right Oh press this press this very
gently okay how do we go from this to
the map that was on the previous slide
well the question is all of our
ancestors at some point left the safety
and comfort of their own homes and they
went out and explored they decided to
make that leap if they had done we
wouldn’t be here today so what does it
really mean to explore so one of my
other passions is rock climbing and
mountaineering and I’m often actually
asked would you like to climb on Everest
my answer is usually usually always no
to me climbing Mount Everest today is
not exploration it’s getting in line
with hundred other people you’re
probably paid to go there and getting to
the top of a mountain getting a trophy
and putting it on your mantle shelf but
there are places on this earth and I’ve
been privileged to kind of go through
quite a few like no human has ever
stepped foot this is one of those places
why no one has ever been to this is a
mountain Micucci SHhhh in a Karakoram
range where no one has ever been to the
summit of this is the second highest
mountain on Earth that no one has known
as climbed yet there are many parts of
this world that we have never explored
either at all or in detail of course the
other extreme is the the deepest parts
of the world’s oceans James Cameron
behind me of course a director a
Canadian and actually quite an explorer
we know less actually about the deepest
part of the world’s oceans that we do
about the moon that I’ll get to in a
second and so there are lots of parts of
the world and space they’ll come to in a
second that we know little about its
James Cameron as Superman what causes
some people to explore and others not I
would argue as many of them before me
that every single one of you was born an
explorer we’re all explorers and we’re
all born and made up of the same things
so you might not be able to see them
because they’re trying to hide for me
this is my seven year old and five year
old in our GaN Quinn Park earlier this
summer
they are just out there exploring and
having fun if any of you have kids you
know it’s quite a young audience
maybe nieces and nephews just think
about the evolution of babies in the
first kind of few years they’re crawling
around and then the kind of sceptic
their first steps and then it’s like
they come into the kitchen and they can
stand and reach onto the counter it’s
like OMG I need to completely rebei be
proof this house because they can pull
that glass of wine off the counter find
those knifes that are on the counter
that they really shouldn’t be touching
I’d like to think they’re not being
malicious when they’re first doing that
maybe later when they see the reaction
they’ll do it on purpose but they’re
exploring they want to always know what
is around the corner
what is witchery what is around that
next corner and to me that’s what drives
exploration so I think it’s an
unfortunate thing that a lot of that is
bred out of us as we go through school I
know we have constant battles with my
kids and their schools about just let
them go outside and play and explore in
their own with no structure and we kind
of lose that but you are all explorers
there’s kind of a little bit of Explorer
at least in all of you so let’s all now
actually go beyond Earth and explore a
little into space so if I asked you to
close your eyes and pick up one image
that conjures up space for you I’m sure
we can have maybe a hundred different
kind of visions of space maybe it’s
something like this this is a Hubble
Deep Field image the Hubble Space
Telescope has done amazing things for
space exploration in general it’s
brought us back just some amazing
fantastic images of what is truly out
there and this image is mind-boggling if
you’ve never kind of looked at this just
google it Hubble Deep Field image back
to one of the earliest speakers there
you’ll come up with this so there are
three thousand objects on this screen
what are they you may be forgiven for
thinking they’re solar systems like our
own with a Sun in the middle and planets
around them but these are all galaxies
all 3,000 objects on this
screen galaxies each of those galaxies
probably has something between 100 and
500 billion stars and around each of
those 500 billion stars that could be
planets and solar systems and so I mean
and this is a tiny portion of the night
sky that we’re looking at so if we’re
ultra conservative and assume one
habitable on in an inhabited planet in
each galaxy which is probably far
fetched then you might be looking at
somewhere in each of those 3000 galaxies
another life form and of course you
multiply this across the universe and
you see what drives some of us to go out
and explore space many of you myself
included we’re not around when this
image was taken this is Neil Armstrong
of course the first human to ever take a
footstep off our earth and land on
another planet we’re born of an age
where we really didn’t kind of witness
this sure if you talk to your parents
about this this was an iconic moment
everyone was glued to either the radio
there’s tiny little black-and-white
televisions watching or hearing this
happened the best time of course many of
you may have imagined a satellite we
again wouldn’t be here today doing the
things that we’re doing without
satellites think of a world or an era
without GPS with our satellite
communications that are accurate weather
forecasts they do in a pause for a
second to point out this is the Alouette
one spacecraft that was launched in 1962
again I should probably do a raise of
hands and ask you if you didn’t know
about this spacecraft and I’m guessing
the answer is no this was Canada’s first
satellite with its launch in 1962 Canada
was actually the third country in space
not long after Russia and the US so here
in Canada we actually have a proud
tradition of exploring space of course
this satellite was actually designed to
look at the earth and of course that’s
what many satellites we have are
therefore going back to some of the
early speakers kind of looking at
climate change this satellite was
studying the ions
yeah of course we are in Canada this is
now on our $5 bill and of course this is
the iconic Canada um and this is
something else I want to bring to you
today which is if there are engineers in
the room designing things for space is
really one of the greatest engineering
feats space is an innovation driver as
the term that’s been used we didn’t know
how to do this until MDA located in
Brampton just up the road from here with
funding from the Canadian Space Agency
design in the first Canada arm and then
mrs. Callendar on to that is now still
working on the International Space
do all these space technologies just
stay out in space and just get used in
space the answer is no again because of
the innovation and the sheer imagination
that it takes to design things for space
designing a microchip or computer that
can run at 100 degrees Celsius and at
minus 100 degrees Celsius it just breeds
and brings innovation into our
communities to a point where now he
might not be able to see this well but
this is the neuro arm this is a robotic
basically a robot that is doing brain
surgery on a human being this is not a
dummy down at the bottom there so Canada
arm technology design for space was
taken brought back down to earth
obviously miniaturized and applied to a
very specific problem that we had which
was very fine accurate brain surgery
so when I think of space if I’m asked to
think of space this is what would appear
in my mind it’s much about where we’ve
come from is where we’re going we really
have come a long way if you think about
this 100 years ago we were exploring by
sailing ship hopefully looking around
this room well statistically some of you
guys are going to live to be a hundred
years old just think about how far we’ve
come in this past century – it boggles
my mind as to what technological
advances and what discoveries will be
made in the next century and I think
again the past here is the key to the
present and how we can and should
explore so if I was asked recently
actually rather morbid question but who
would you meet which dead person would
you most like to meet this would be it
for me now there are many scientists out
there though I’d love to meet Einstein
Newton but this is Sir Ernest Shackleton
so many of you may know his name he’s
infamous now because of what happened to
his ship the endurance he’s by far I
think personally one of the greatest
explorers ever to have lived I’m one of
the greatest leaders so if you ever do a
leadership
you may well and hopefully hero Sir
Ernest Shackleton it’s good a long story
short his ship was crushed in the
Antarctic sea ice and about eighteen
assortments later he miraculously was
able to get his entire crew out not a
single fatality back to kind of
civilization to 1915 in two weeks today
– a hundred years is when this ship was
crushed in the ice and again 100 years a
lot has changed and again just think of
where we’ll be in the news I also want
to touch on this – so Shackleton if
you’ve ever heard of him you probably
one of his early expeditions on this
expedition he did many things he got
through within ninety seven miles of the
South Pole I mean that’s within throwing
distance but he made a conscious
decision to turn his body around and
turn back because he knew that he went
any further they probably wouldn’t
return on this expedition
they also found mine everest an active
volcano near their base camp and took
geological samples and they mapped the
South Magnetic Pole the location of that
for the first time so to me this is what
exploration is about it’s about
exploring and making scientific
discoveries hand in hand and so let’s
return to this Hubble image now why do
we explore so maybe we just want to
explore space for the sake of
exploration bill nye has said we should
do this Bill Nye you ago gave a talk
here at Western a couple of years ago
says if we don’t keep exploring
essentially our civilization and
humanity will just dry into a halt if we
don’t keep that urge of exploring and
that part of the human condition going
perspective I’ll come back to this later
being in space gives you an amazing
perspective of our own planet that we
never would do and would have or without
it answering the big questions I mean is
the life out there this to me is what
drives a lot of my research are we alone
in the universe it’s a pretty big
question made some big minds to tackle
it that’s why we explore space that’s
why we’re we have rovers around Mars now
looking for habitable environments where
life may have once existed misses
driving a lot of space exploration to
answer some of these big questions once
some survival what do I mean by this
well you may have heard of the
introduction part of my research
involves studying what happens when
asteroids and comets strike the earth we
all know I think that the dinosaurs and
about 60% of all species on earth were
wiped out about 65 million years ago
from an asteroid or comet 65 million
years ago is not that long ago and we
think about the age of the earth being
four-and-a-half billion years old
so some people think we have to
eventually leave the earth at least some
of us so that the human civilization
protecting and understanding our world
we’ve had thoughts today about climate
change again the the network of earth
observation satellites right now are
integral to understanding what is going
on on their own planet new technology
you mentioned the Canada arm there are
so many examples now technologies that
have been designed for space that
actually bring benefits to all of us
here on earth again my reasons the kind
of going through this is to show you
that maybe you each aligned and think
about one of these or maybe many more of
these the economy so you have to think
about this for a second but there’s not
a bank in space as many people
every penny that we spend on space
exploration they spent here on earth
it’s not like we just go up to space
don’t cash out into low-earth orbit that
is spent here on earth designing
technologies helping kind of students
and people get highly qualified and I’d
like to think that this is another
reason as well for exploring space just
to inspire the next generation it’s
something that we can all connect no
matter where we are on this planet it is
inspiring to look up on a clear night
look at those stars and just wonder
about what is out there and maybe one
day and so in the closing few minutes I
just want to I think a personal view of
what is exciting in the next few years
so I don’t think there are only 15
year-olds in this room but we meet which
they’ve done an incredible milestone
last Monday if you were born before the
2nd of November 2000 you have never
known a time when there was not
continuous human presence in space and
that’s pretty incredible we have now had
people on the International Space
Station continuously for 15 years we’ve
never had that before there’s some
really fun things going on to Google
Lunar XPrize okay let’s back up a second
if you have a mere I know 150 200
thousand dollars lying around which some
of you may hopefully have in your future
careers you will have the opportunity in
the next year or two buy a ticket to go
into space I mean how cool is that we
have never ever had that before in human
existence that you and I ordinary men
and women can actually pay to go up into
space which of course right now is in
the remit of national space agencies and
of course one of the biggest things in
happening right now is this called new
space it is not just government agencies
like the Canadian Space Agency and NASA
exploring space we have space companies
that are trying to make a profit out of
launching things up into orbit and in
this case we may have a private company
landing something on the moon in the
next year or two it should be another
revolution and so to bring this to a
close though I do want to leave you with
this iconic image known as the Blue
Marble where was this taken this was
taken by the astronauts on Apollo 17 on
their way to the moon so to me it’s
actually it comes full circle this is
the icon of the environmental movement
on earth and we have it because we took
some decision to leave our earth and go
off and explore other worlds and of
course one of the biggest things about
exploring space and in my research it
really makes us understand and aware of
how special our planet is and so to kind
of go back to the early speakers those
of us who are into space exploration and
exploring space firmly have our feet
rooted here on earth and implore
everyone to kind of do as much as we can
to protect this little blue marble that
really is actually the only place we
have in the universe right now to
survive I’m going to leave you with a
younger version of nice that on the South Pole where my hero Shackleton