This episode was recorded at the Inter Astra Retreat just outside Washington DC last November (2023) where I had the pleasure of sitting down with Lisa Marrocchino, the CEO of Proteus Ocean Group.  

Starting in the world of Wall Street, Lisa has a profound passion for advancing our understanding of the ocean through innovative technologies.  

Proteus, is being designed as the 'International Space Station of the Ocean,' aiming to revolutionize our approach to sustained underwater research. 

In this episode, Lisa shares the inspiring origins of Proteus, conceived by co-founder Fabien Cousteau, Grandson of Jacques Cousteau, and the ambitious goals they have for this pioneering project. Lisa details the technological and scientific advancements they hope to achieve and the broader implications for environmental research and space exploration analogs. 

In this episode, you'll discover: 

• Challenges and triumphs in creating a state-of-the-art research facility beneath the sea. 
• The role of Proteus in simulating space mission conditions and its implications for future space travel. 
• Collaborative initiatives with global scientific communities aimed at fostering significant advancements in ocean research. 
• Lisa’s aspirations for Proteus to leave a lasting impact by bridging the gap between oceanic exploration and space discovery. 

Quote:  

"Proteus isn't just about pushing the boundaries of ocean research; it's about creating a legacy that ties the mysteries of the ocean with the vastness of space."  

- Lisa Marrocchino 

Episode Links: 

• Learn more about Proteus Ocean Group 
• Connect with Lisa Marrocchino on LinkedIn 
• Follow Inter Astra on LinkedIn 
• Discover more about Inter Astra 

Credits:  

Production by CxS Partners LTD  

Executive Producer: Toby Goodman  

Audio & Sound Design: Lee Turner  

Artwork: Ryan Field 

Main interview recorded on location with Nomono Sound Capsule 

Explore more episodes at Kathy Sullivan Explores... https://kathysullivaneexplores.com/ 

Find even more podcasts on the Inter Astra Podcast Network HERE 

Lisa Maraccino. I'm the CEO of Proteus Ocean Group, a Fabian Coucheau led company. We're building Proteus, which is the International Space Station of the Ocean, a habitat, and a living workspace if we could study the ocean.

And I'm Kathy Sullivan, formerly of NASA as an astronaut and NOAA as the head of our the American Ocean Agency. And I've heard of Proteus and seen some press about it. And, of course, I know of Fabienne as much as probably he knows about me or paths we've crossed episodically, but we've never we've never found something to make useful mischief about together. I am the only person to have walked in space and gone to the deepest point in the ocean. Hi. I'm Kathy Sullivan, and I'm an explorer. Exploring doesn't always have to involve going to some remote or exotic place. It simply requires your commitment to put curiosity into curiosity into action.

So join me on this podcast journey as I reflect on lessons learned from life so far and from my brilliant and ever inquisitive guests. We'll explore together in this very moment from right where you are. Spaceship not required. Welcome to Kathy Sullivan Explorers. Today's conversation with CEO of Proteus Ocean Group, Lisa Baluchino, was recorded in person back in November of 2023 at the Inter Astra retreat. The Inter Astra Institute is a nonprofit established by the Bolen Group. And along with various podcasts, including this one, it hosts and attends a number of events throughout the year. The retreat itself is a small gathering of leaders, workforce, and students from different industries around the world who come together once a year to discuss the business of space through the lens of creating equitable access and opportunity.

Now retreat sessions take place under Chatham House rules, meaning they are strictly not for attribution. But casual hallway conversations are fair game, especially if you've asked explicitly for permission to record. I managed to capture a few such conversations in the corridors along with my producer, Toby Goodman, and I'll be sharing these with you over the coming weeks. Because after all, Inter Astra's intent is to open the doors of opportunity to everyone, surely including you, my explorers. Now another thing that makes the InterAstra retreat unique is that it's not just another gathering of all the usual space industry insiders as the conversation you're about to listen to will make clear. And just as with any fantastic conversation among friends, Lisa and I carried on for a few more minutes after we sort of had agreed to end the conversation. Fortunately, our recorder was still running. So you'll hear a short transition at what was meant to be the end of our main chat before that last in the moment piece, that wrap up bit, which I hope you'll also find valuable.

So now on with the show.

Where did the the birth of Proteus happen? Maybe a colleague that you know well, doctor Sylvia Earle.

Oh, just a little bit.

Just a little bit. I figured that. And she's iconic and epic and just as you are. And and she went down to Aquarius, which is the last habitat in 2012. Yep. And I've been to Aquarius.

I think it was a bit before that.

But Exactly. And so she was concerned that they were going to take it away and take it out and that we would we'll lose that wonderful tool in in the ocean. So Fabian went to visit her, and that's where this kind of idea was born of maybe doing a longer expedition. Now he wanted to do 31 days, which is meaningful because it was one more day than his grandfather spent Yeah. In Con Shelf. Yep. And he was very intent on that. And they fought fought him a little bit on that front.

They said, no, 17 days. And he was like, nope, 31. They also fought him on the front of having 2 women down. He plucked this wonderful women, Liz McGee from Northeastern and Grace Young from MIT, and they fought him on those two aspects too. And he said no. So he went down in 2014.

2 women was too few or too many or Yeah.

It was they were not experienced, that they were concerned about the close proximity of how everyone was going to be down there.

We don't know where to go to the bathroom.

All these things. And they said, just make it easy. Do all men. And he was like, no. And they still to this day, Grace and Liz

Since when is all men easy?

Exactly. Exactly. So to this day, they really still are excited and want to experience the the second, Proteus or the the second round of the missions.

So so a little preamble to your backstory just, for point of interest. When I was quite young, 9, 10, 11 ish kind of time frame, Fabienne's grandfather, Jacques, was a figure on television. And I remember vividly for a year or so of my life, we would get, my mother was an avid reader, so we would get 2 weekly magazines that were sort of feature story magazines. One was called Life, one was called Look, and of course National Geographic would come every month. And for, I think, about a year of my life, every issue of each one of those magazines had at least one story about the exploits of the new thing called emerging exploits of aquanauts. And I remember very much reading about Conshelf and the notion of we're gonna have people living and working in space, and we're gonna have stations underwater where people live and work. So those 2 they they did not those 2 motivators, those 2 inspiring, adventurous stories did not right away plant in my head, I want to be an astronaut or an aquanaut. But I was very much drawn to these are curious people.

They're they're asking themselves big questions. They're thinking of very new things, and they're they're learning how to learn how to do those things. And it's very adventurous. So that adventurous and the inquisitive combination, that was very attractive to me. And I knew I I somehow want my life to be like that. So it's That's so exciting. Sort of a circle and a half kind of

Well and it's so that's so super interesting. And I always think a lot about what happened back then. Right? Because the ocean and space really were almost equal. And if they had Side by side.

They were side by side.

Yep. I think that a lot of the planetary issues that we have today and problems that would would be less, I would I would hope that would be the case. We have a very large obligation and opportunity to get back there, and, you know, we must go to space. Should have been like we must go to space and ocean. That didn't happen, but I think we to Jacques' credit, we're having the same conversations we had back then. And I think that's what's exciting about working with Fabian. He's wants to pick up that torch and say, I'm gonna take that from my grandfather, everything I've learned from these past pioneers, and build this. So when he came up from mission 31, he was asked, what do you wanna do next? And he said, I wanna do this bigger, better.

We gotta put more scientists down there. And so he embarked on this long journey. I wish I had met him in 20 15 because I think we would already have 1 in the in the ocean, but it took a while for him for us to find each other. But when I asked him one thing that really drew me to the project, just so many things, his passion and and the whole idea, but I said, Fabian, how am I gonna sell this to investors? Because we need capital to build these. Right? And we wanna do it in a way that we don't just build 1 like with the past. We wanna change what we've done in the past. We wanna build multiples of these, create a business and industry so that we can keep it sustainable and keep it moving. And I said, what how am I gonna sell this to investors? How am I gonna sell this to the public? And he said, well, these are the things that happened on Aquarius.

And I said, well, okay, tell me. And he said, we talked to a 100,000 students underwater. I was like, wow. That's a big number for back in 2014. We we got 34,000,000 impressions, so people cared about what was happening. And we tested technologies. It could be a revenue stream for the future. But the most important piece that he said to me is, we did 3 years' worth of equivalent research in those 30 one days.

I go, what? Wow. Did you do that? So because we saturate, we were saturated, we got to dive 10 to 12 hours a day. We were only limited by our human capacities. And I was I found that just super exciting. And I said, I can sell that. We can accelerate time. We can't get it back, but may we might be

able to catch up. Fascinating. Yeah. The other thought that occurs to me, motivated partly by the different conversations we've been having here at Inter Astra, you know, I mean, NASA nowadays, the the the finale of Sylvia's story of hoping to preserve Aquarius, I had a little bit of an oblique, hand in that, because many years before that, in the early nineties, I was trying to urge NASA to recognize the value of that as a training vehicle for astronauts astronauts who are gonna go start to spend, you know, not just the the kind of weeks, long time frames we did in shuttle, but longer it's gonna become longer durations. And that some lessons of you you are here. You are stuck here. This is this is the place. Everything about maintaining it, owning it, cleaning it, knowing how to operate, and what does it let you do in that environment.

It's it's a microcosm. It's not as demanding, but that also means it's more accessible. It can be cycled through more people more rapidly. It took a long time before NASA finally got to that. And, of course, they do now use NEEMO. NEEMO as one as they call it. One of the training modes to get astronauts ready for long duration stays on the space station. And it's also partly the human factors of honing your ability to work together very efficiently, very effectively as a team.

Because once you go underwater, I don't care where you came from, what your name is, who your daddy is, what your bank account is. It's just us. And so we've gotta get we've gotta arrive at that working mode together that's built on enough trust and confidence to be effective when the bad stuff happens. So I think a lot of the discussion here at Interastra has been about, you know, how how do we expand the aperture? How do we open the aperture so more people, younger people, people of more diverse backgrounds can start to be part of can get into the game and get some experiences that help them find their way into a space career or a space adjacent career. It's not gonna happen by suddenly magically having more and more astronaut seats readily available. Mhmm. But it could happen. It's a different economic challenge.

It's a lower economic hurdle. It's a lower logistics hurdle to give some of these young students or would be entrepreneurs a chance to try some of the living and working in an exotic and challenging environment. And it might look a bit like a detour from your space path, and it is a bit of a detour from your space path, but it will give you some insights and some lessons about how to navigate your space path. It will be very worthwhile. So, you know, that that aspect of it's a capture function. It's a it's a booster step that will be easier to get to for a larger number of people that can become feedstock Yeah. Both to ocean careers, to ocean sciences Science. Or to space.

And, you know, we don't it's not for us to pick which direction or which point. More science is more science. Yeah. More intelligent people Exactly. Was equipped with the skills to help tackle complex problems. The planet needs those.

I love that. I love that way of thinking. I agree. I I mean, we'd love to see every young person kinda come through Proteus and then decide, you know, do I wanna be an astronaut? Do I wanna be an aquanaut? Do I wanna be a scientist? I think we will have that opportunity. I think it is much more economical. Right? So we will have that opportunity to, have a place for them to go in that under we call it the suborbital, maybe under 47 minutes where you can come down, get a little glimpse of what it is, and then go back up to the surface. Maybe we have an Obama and, Anderson Cooper interview. That would be fun to have them come down.

But the idea is to give that accessibility to students, artists Yeah. And all that. And what I love about Che and Che's mission and the Bolden mission here with Charlie and what they've been able to create is that accessibility. When we sort of started talking, I don't know, maybe a year and a half to 2 years ago, we talked about this idea. How do you give young people more access? How do you give the how do you create more equality? And I think it is it's difficult because there aren't people that have access, but we have an opportunity to create more of that access. Even the idea that I'm here, I'm an ocean person here at a space conference, and then we've had to stop thinking about it. You know, space, it's really inner space, outer space. It's space, and we need to think of it as one one big ecosystem.

And a different, even different way of thinking about it occurs to me as you say that, not to compete with it or correct it, but just another angle is it's just 2, 2 different venues for inspiring and preparing people to help solve problems on earth. And I think, you know, maybe borrowing my own personal example a little too much here, but let's give them those experiences and let's not let's not even worry about whether and at the end of these 3 days, they decide they're gonna be an astronaut, they're gonna be an aqueduct. That's lovely if they get that far. But, you know, kids at different ages are at all sorts of different frames of mind about life or career or their who who they are, how well they know yet who they are. I was clueless at their age. But if if the experience, where you get to go, the wonder of the place you're in, the intrigue and and interests and and model of the people you're with, if that sparks in a young person, if that serves as the same kind of magnet for a young person that the exemplars of Cousteau and the early astronauts were for me. They didn't look like me.

Yeah.

They were the wrong gender. They were a different age. But what they were doing was so magnetic at a human level. And and our family was not highly binned like girls do this and boys do that. So, I mean, my parents, if you're interested in something, we're interested in supporting you, and it doesn't matter whether you wear a dress or slacks, that doesn't matter, you pursue it. So I was a little inoculated against these stereotypes of this is not something you should be interested in. But if you can if you can light that bit of a spark of fire in a young person, because there's no getting around the need for each individual to have some drive. We all have to propel ourselves forward to great degrees.

Wonderful to have help and mentors and guideposts. Take all of that you can find, but at the end of the day, it's on us as an individual to prepare, to show up, and to persevere. So why am I excited and compelled to prepare and show up and persevere? Because I want my life to be you know, something is drawing me in. So We're missing that. Not to forget that aspect.

I love it. The power of it. Moments. Yeah. I wanna we wanna bring those back Both, I think, in space and ocean is so important. You're so right. It I have a question for you because you're one of the few people in the world probably. I mean, you can count them that have done both.

I'm

actually the 1st person to do both.

You're the 1st person to do both in one of a very, very small club. I know Ron Garan has has a quote in one of our decks that that talks about his experience. But I wanna hear from you. What was what was it like to to look back at Earth, but then also to be underwater and and have that experience? Can you describe it a little bit?

Well, so, you know, true confessions. My real big reason for even applying to be an astronaut was because of the possibility of seeing the Earth from orbit with my own eyes. I had studied as an Earth scientist. My my interest was always this planet, map, every aspect of geography that that exists. Maps, where people live, how they live, cultures, economies, landscape, all of that was always what fascinated me most. And so I ended up in college and grad school studying earth sciences and then shifting into geology of the deep sea floor in part because those kinds of expeditions gave me that similar kind of adventure and inquisitiveness to the astronaut and aquana missions. Those were I could get my hands around that and do it. And it might have been where I ended up, or it was a stepping stone.

You know? I didn't know the time. So that's what inspired me even to go into space. And so maybe that puts a little extra sizzle or value to me of how getting to actually do it because Yeah. It had been on my mind for so long. I think I had looked at I guarantee you, I had looked at every single photograph any astronaut had ever taken of the earth before I flew. Amazing. And then I got to see it myself. And it certainly enriched the experience for me.

Everyone is blown away by that first glimpse, but it was for me, it was like it was like climbing up to the Olympic gold medal platform, something that you know, aimed for for so long. I mean, you just can't beat, I think, the inspirational value of having that perspective on this planet that we live on. You see whole continents at a glance. You're lapping around the planet in 90 minutes. Just so many things that that take all your frame of reference for living on earth and blow them up and, you know, just shape shape shape them and shift them completely. It's it's very powerful. You know, Frank White calls it the overview effect. I I'm fond of calling it the small self effect that you suddenly realize how small you are and how big the big reality is, maybe we're just all on this little planet.

That's the big reality. I'm not the big reality. So you can't beat that.

So powerful. Giving you chills.

That's amazing. Wow. Yeah. Conversely, going deep in the ocean, beyond, you know, beyond a couple hundred feet, there's not much light. You can't see. You know, we are visual creatures. You know, your most powerful input sensor, your eyes, kind of stop being useful Yeah. Below about a 1000 feet or so in the ocean.

So and that's powerful. That means it takes us we are easily inspired by beautiful views with it. That's a natural avenue for inspiration, and you lose that going deep in the ocean. And the other thing, not to discount too much, is that in, you know, popular literature and and human literature going back as far as you can find, the ocean figures as a mysterious and ominous foreboding place. You know, the cold, gray fish bearing sea of Yeah. Homer and, the ship sailed, but they never came back. And there's there'll be monsters, all that kind of stuff. So there's a I think we come to the ocean with a different many people come to the ocean with a more of a leaning away instead of leaning in.

But what's magical and vitally important about the ocean is the ocean is the life of this planet. Yeah. It it is the largest living volume on the planet. The greatest amount of biomass on the planet lives in the ocean. All the stuff on the dirt are smaller, fractions, and it is the life support system for everything else that lives on the ocean. So it's it's vital that we invest more intellectual pursuit than just the aspirational pursuit. So we've gotta find ways to get over that hurdle.

We also bring back the storytelling, and I think that's the opportunity with putting Gusteau back in the ocean and being able to connect the storytelling, the magic inspiration. We're at 60 feet, so there is some great light. And I do agree we have to study the deeper ocean, but the good news about Proteus is we will be

at that point. Magic and wonder. Right?

Yes.

I mean, what what was the draw of the the oct my octopus teacher? Yes. It's a very human story. Yeah. And it's just the the wonder of this interaction between 2 intelligent creatures. Exactly. And that revelation that the the slimy one with 8 tentacles is about as intelligent at least as the guy with flip with flippers on. Right? He taught him something. Right? Yeah.

Exactly. Who's teaching you? Well, and it's great that you bring that up. Up. We're actually working with Off the Fence who won the award. Mhmm. We've been working with them for about a year and year and change. They're working on a sizzle reel and and pitching the Proteus story. And so we have a lot of confidence that they're gonna come up with something just as wonderful, about Proteus and connecting humans and changing

the way humans interact with the ocean. So that that would be my avenue of entry and key selling point for the general public wanting to come to Proteus. It's experience the magic and wonder of the sea for yourself. Exactly. Come come meet the magical creatures. Yes. Make make an octopus your friend. Exactly.

That's get it back to a very human visceral experience and just, you know, dazzle them, but let them feel just enjoy enraptured by the experience.

Some

of the stories.

Absolutely. Some of us. People fall in love. Fall in love with the ocean again.

Yeah. 30 seconds or a day or 2, they will follow you. They will continue the journey. But so the first thing is give them something

they can fall in love with. Yeah. The stories that came out of mission 31, and there are so many that I probably haven't heard, but some of the few that I have heard is they were down there for the 1st day, and there was this little fish that came to the window. And then the 2nd day, they thought it was the same fish, and then the 3rd day. And for 31 days, they were like, that's impossible. And then they started doing the, you know, the tracking and the striping and, like and it was the same fish that came to the portal window at 4:31 days, watching the humans inside. And they did

Well, you guys you guys invaded my neighborhood

down here. And then the 2 big groupers I'm

the neighbor I'm the neighborhood watchers. Exactly.

The 2 big groupers that they ended up naming Jacques and Sylvia that lived under Aquarius that would have these big cavitational barks and, you know, like, oh, there's Jack and Sylvia again. But those are the kind of stories I think that we can share with the world and so many more. The discoveries, you know, the failings and the successes that I think are so important to show people out there what is happening in our ocean. How can not just the doom and gloom, but how can we save it? How can we find that little coral that's surviving all this bad stuff, and what why is it surviving, and how can we take that learning and bring it to the rest of the coral system?

One of the reasons I think it's important to show the the learning how to do it as well is, again, all many different motivations will bring people to this. But the planetary issues, the societal issues that plenty of us are worried about, those are big, hard things to do. And, you know, how do big things get done? Well, this is an environment where you can learn some lessons about how to get big things done. You're gonna be learning they're they're smaller building block lessons, but they're they're the same basics at a bigger scale. So it's it's also that kind of a training ground for how does something big get done. And so that whether that's a a video or TV show that's bringing people along as viewers of your experience, but then showing that experience and showing how did we get around this hurdle. And to be honest about, you know, I was I was really pissed off at least about this. We you know, we went tooth and nail at this argument, and and here's how we solve that.

So it's not just we both shouted at each other and then decided to never talk to each other again. We've gotta find ways to get past those shouting moments, those disagreement moments Perfect. Back to we still disagree on these things, but can't we just try this? Resolve the problem. Yeah. Or at least can we just find a step we can both agree to take and keep keep learning together to find our way forward?

That has been the biggest lesson in this whole thing is really, it's about pivoting and changing being fluid to adapt because there have been lots of things that have come out that have not been our control. We started before COVID, and that was devastating. We didn't know if we could go forward. We persevered. And I would say that's my one big advice to any young person trying to do anything is you've got to stay strong to what you believe in and figure out ways around. If you can't go over it, go under it, go on the side of it, but you can get to that solution if you think out of the box and you stay strong and you persevere. And I joined in late 2019, and I've been, it's been a story of perseverance and and surrounding myself with really great people who believe in the same mission. Don't surround yourself with the people who are are negative.

Surround yourself with the people who are positive and who are gonna help you lift in those times of, adversity or that something is not going well. So those are great wise words, and I've I've taken them to heart.

Sometimes pays though to at least listen to what the naysayers are saying. There might be a nugget of wisdom. There might be a nugget of real wisdom you should be humble enough to take aboard and rethink. There might also be a hint or a clue about I can deflect or I can overcome. I can counter their negative argument. I just I didn't see it through that angle.

Right. So Absolutely. Every conversation's worth having. You're right.

Yeah. That's true. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. At least listen.

Yes. Exactly. So here we are and in 2024, our plan is to get in the water by 2026 2027 in Curacao, and we hope to have a lot of astronauts. We're planning on a a a similar simulation of a lunar landing so that we can have astronauts come and train exactly what they were doing on Aquarius and and more astronauts. Hopefully, we can accommodate more and more astronauts.

So is the European Space Agency also engaged? Is NASA then responsive support? We,

we I mentioned we have a a creative with both NOAA and Navy. We are, in discussions, with a lot of the people in particularly in HRP program who are very interested in kind of how do we train what And HRP is? A human resource program in within NASA. Okay. And they're the ones who kinda are doing the training. Yeah. And then they've asked as many questions about how many people can we train at once or what kinds of facilities. So those that input from all those agencies is gonna be very important as we're entering this next stage of design and engineering because we wanna design those simulated modules for for those agencies so that we can accommodate what their their what they want

out of, of the facility like this. So another challenge I wonder if you've thought about, there are logistical and other factors that certainly would be interesting challenges to overcome. But, you know, one of the big challenges, and concerns about the ocean is getting governmental and the big economy decision makers to recognize the importance of and understand take a deeper understanding of the ocean. You know, one way to do that, you know, the Sierra Club will take policymakers out into the field and, you know, away from their comfort zone and have them really experience the wilderness. Sven Lindblad, some years ago took a bunch of people from, you know, former president Carter to some science. They just put them on a ship and they sailed together to the Arctic. So kinda like in Jurassic, you're not you are now having experience together. All the protocol is kinda stripped away.

You're being dazzled by something together or and it you get a different kind of conversation. You get a different you accelerate some relationship building that can pay some dividends later because it's not now just the foreign minister from so and so. It's Lisa, and I know her, and we have we communicated well together. So you open up you widen communication channels. Yes. Sixty feet of water going under 60 feet of water is a little more of a hurdle for someone who's maybe in their fifties or sixties or seventies, maybe isn't a scuba diver. Right. Thought about whether there are ways to bring some people like that down to Proteus.

Yes. In fact, one of the things that we are really looking at if they don't wanna scuba dive is having a submersible that they would get into and then they and then they would have about 47 minutes on the on the outside, but really we'd leave them there for 30 minutes. They could do a tour. They could get a sense of what that living underwater is like, look out the portals, and then we would send them back up. And I think that ability And it would be 47 minute limit because? Because of the decompression, issues. And yeah. Yeah. So we would want to make sure.

The submersible if you wanted to go longer than 47 minutes, the craft that took them back to the surface would have to be able to sustain a pressure. It would have basically be a diving chamber Exactly.

And help them adjust their bodies back. And anything's possible. So those are things that we would consider if that would something would be something that's important. But, I think in the beginning, just having just giving access to potential students, like, we could do all kinds of challenges that some students would win or teachers, artists, you know, having, I don't know who come down and sing a song and having the world kinda see that, I think are all things that we will, will entertain because I think that's really important to open that lens up to a broader view. You know, how many people have, you know, besides scuba diving or being on a boat on top of the ocean, how many people have experienced what it is to be in an almost in an aquarium under the ocean looking out? So I think that's that important lens is something that we want to share with the world.

You talked with the Atlanta submersible operators. Is that might they I mean, they still operate in close

out on We we're, in partnership with U Boat Works. Okay. It's a Danish Netherlands company, and they're working with us on this. But, obviously, we we're somewhat agnostic on that. Yeah. We want to work with others. Thinking as the,

you know, the Atlanta Submersibles are a couple of dozen people, if I remember right. Little lovely little white submarines that usually meet you at some raft and you go down to 60 or maybe a 100 feet on some lovely reef and it's a 30 to 45 minute, maybe hour long experience. But Exactly. But, you know, destined to to drive by a station to see people living underwater

Yes.

At 60 feet, just just making that vivid and real to someone who's driving by Exactly. Could still be an

interesting that offering for sure. And and with your your U Boat Works, we're working on that idea that we could have rides, you know, within within approximate yeah. A safe, of of Proteus, but having that, that accessibility to show people what it is. This are people living and working in that facility over there. And there'll be obviously the ecosystems includes robotics and other pieces, so they would actually get to see what does the lunar landing look like. They might even see astronauts out there working on robotics. And so that is really just brings it to life. Yeah.

And I think also makes the connection of ocean space. Wait a minute. There are astronauts training on the seabed here. I think a lot of people don't know that you have to be, you know, you you train They

don't appreciate the parallels and the commonalities. Yeah, absolutely Absolutely.

So I think that, having, Scott Parazynski had just joined our team, helping us with some of that and and he's you know, it's it's really wonderful to see what he's been able to share and and all the use cases, and he really believes in this as as a big tool for space to create more cohesion, to train more astronauts, to potentially even train some of the less professional. Right? Because you have a lot more private citizens now wanting to come

out with the cohort I was thinking of. Yeah. Exactly. They've never been in any kind of operational environment where you had those those realities from the human interaction to the technical to the I I didn't really study my repair manual very well. Well, that's that's too bad because that's your toilet just broke.

Exactly. The

Maytag repairman does not live nearby, so you better break out that manual and figure it out.

I should mention the rest of the team just slightly. Like, we have just an incredible a plus team. My business development person, Lisa Truitz from Nat Geo, 20 5 years. So she knows how to tell stories.

And

she built an immersive experience in Times Square. And that's who's working on both creative and biz dev. And then we've got director of marketing from AOL. Our director of partnerships is, Formula 1. Our senior VP of engineering is a Raytheon person. So we really are 2 lead scientists are Northeastern. The talent that we've been able to attract to this project is just really class a, and I really appreciate and grateful for them because we've been able to advance to where we are because of the teamwork and the vision. And then, of course, Vic with Fabian being the visionary at the top.

So it's really Very cool. Incredible team. Yeah. I will track it up closely. Well, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to share your thoughts and hear your perspective and your vision. It's really beautiful, and I appreciate that. My pleasure.

So another piece of the space ocean connection that I think about a lot is our understanding of the ocean accelerated at warp speed thanks to the space age. Mhmm. Because it it was not until we had, you know, satellites, remote sensing satellites in orbit, that could help us image the Earth to get data from all around the Earth in essentially a snapshot. So for the first time in human history, we could kind of have a snapshot of the conditions on the surface of the ocean, thanks to satellites. And it was that snapshot in 1973 that helped us realize, for the first time realize scientifically, what is an El Nino? Why do the herring fisheries off Ecuador crash every now and then? Because that was known. They crash and then sometimes they don't and they crash. And so it happens and it's not super regular. It's like every 4 to 7 years.

And I think it's just the Ecuadorian herring fishery until we got satellites who realized, no, no, the reason that's happening is a slosh across the entire Pacific. So we it's like scales fell from our eyes and we could understand the dynamics of a full ocean basin. So better understanding of our ocean, practical understanding of our ocean, tracking and monitoring of our activities in the ocean, nowadays, all depend critically on space assets. Space has helped us understand the ocean. Understanding our ocean is about understanding how we sustain life on this planet because the ocean is the life support system of this planet. Every other breath you take is oxygen generated by marine organisms. That's how much you personally depend on the ocean no matter where you live.

As Kathy articulated so beautifully, really the it is where life began, the ocean. There are so many, things we don't know about it. We've only explored, you know, less than 10%, probably less than that. And so we do need to get back into that space and study it 247. And I know that this is an analogy that we use a lot, like the Jane Goodall or Dian Fossey. If they had been dropped down from an air balloon for 30 minutes at a time, taking some snapshots and then gone back up, they would have never given us the kind of knowledge that we have today. We've learned about our primates and their ecological, biological environment. It's the same with the ocean.

We have not done long term time series in situ permanent studies. And so that kind of knowledge that we are missing, that Proteus will allow the platform will allow that continuous study and not just in one location, but if you think 5 years from now or 10 years, I think you asked me the 10 year someone asked me, what is the 10 year model? And I said, we hope to have at least 6 habitats in different parts of the ocean interconnected. So they're all speaking to each other using whether it's a Starlink or satellite systems to communicate. So now you've got information, data being transferred from space, as you said, is so important. What kind of deeper knowledge can we now learn being in the ocean? And there you go. Now you've made that full connection why it's so important from from medicine to food to energy. The answers are there. We just haven't discovered them yet.

My other thought for the young professionals would be and I I think I would make this argument I would offer this argument to someone regardless whether their goal is become an astronaut or go to space or just run a business in space. There's some challenging experiences that you can have on Earth that are among the best skill building experiences you can get while not in space that will help you, equip you, prepare you better to either know what the realities appreciate the realities of operating a business in space or flying in space or whatever. And it's, you know, it's remote research stations on earth, like the Antarctic. It's, an underwater experience, like, you know, Nemo and Aquarius or Proteus. And, you know, I spoke recently to Christina Koch, who's the woman who's on the Artemis 2 mission, slated to be the 1st woman to fly to the moon, probably 2025. Her pathway to becoming an astronaut, was was not motivated just by I wanna collect all the beads on my string that will make me an astronaut. It was motivated by a deeper drive of what experiences can make me a better, stronger, more versatile person in the world of sciences, because that was her thing. She did the Antarctic.

She did American Samoa field station. She did those things sort of recognizing that these are analogs useful analogs from a skills point of view to the kinds of things and skills I will need if I ever do get to go be an astronaut. But they're worthy in their own right, and they're valuable to me in their own right. It was forging a career path that met her aptitudes for adventure, for inquiry, for science, and for purpose. So all of the right reasons. But the punch line point is, I wanna be an astronaut, so I only want space internships. I only want this. I only want that.

You've made a checklist of what you think will get you there, and you're probably right with a lot of them. But don't ignore, don't overlook the value of a real world, mission style, challenging experience in the Antarctic or in a Proteus. That's different. Get you out of the building away from the coffee pot. Change your working environment completely and still look you in the eye and say, figure out how to put all that aside. Get this done. That's a kind of challenge that will hone and forge all the aptitudes, all the resilience that you need. So take whatever building blocks you can.

Thanks so much for joining me on today's mission. For more solo shows and deep dives with incredible guests, along with all the ways to get the podcast and much more, head over to kathysullivaneexplorers.com

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