First Aussie astronaut in space!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Drive safe, take it easy on those roads. It's a
bit weight out and about Gaylien Emily Jade for one
O to know on hot tomato. The next sunny day
according to the Bureau of Meteorology, is next Monday, so
there's a chance rain every other day around that.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
Hey, space Talk, it's been around a lot lately. There's
been a lot of rockets going up and down, and
then of course the astronauts that were stuck in space
are back. But this is super duper exciting news and
I wanted to get it in before all the kids
get out of the car and go to school. We
have our first Ossie astronaut wearing the Ossie flag on

(00:35):
his astronaut outfit up in space right now. Very exciting,
that's pretty cool. So his name is Eric Phillips and
he's become the first Austrained astronaut to enter orbit under
the Ossie flag. Now he's not the first Ossie to
go up. We had a couple of astronauts called Dandy
Thomas and Elaine cheer Hide, but they flew up in February.

(00:58):
But they flew up because they're part US citizen as well.
They flew up with the American flag on their shoulder.
So that's why this is so momentous. And we have
to remember Eric Phillip's name because it's going to come
up in trivia nights everywhere, and I think perhaps students
will be studying him. So how he's got into space
is he hasn't done years and years of astronaut study.

(01:19):
He's actually an explorer. So he's a little bit like
doctor Jeff who explores. He does all polar exploring and
has been monitoring our two Arctic and Polar areas for
a long time. And the reason why he's in this
particular space trip is because he's going up to observe
what it looks like from space the two different poles

(01:42):
because they're in crisis at the moment, they're melting. So
that's why he's up there very importantly. But he's also
going to be going up and he's going to be
one of the first in the world to ever try
and grow food up in space, and they're going to
try and grow mushrooms up in space, because really there's
no point sending us all up there and then we
can't sustain ourselves should something go terribly.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Surely, the new Brand's got to be called moonroom, Moonroom, Moonrooms.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Miroom, so that'd be a real trip. Yeah. So anyway,
like most people, he was inspired to become an astronaut.
But then obviously the pathways in Australia are just not
there by watching the first moonlanding as.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
A seven year old, I was sat down in front
of a sort of black and white, fuzzy television with
my classmates in nineteen sixty nine and we actually watched
the moon landing. And even though as a youngster I
didn't really comprehend the magnificence of all of that, it
kind of resonated with me, and for the rest of
my life, I really wanted to visit remote, isolated, desolate places,

(02:49):
including space.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
I've been googling him and honestly, yeah, he spent his
life just like trudging through snow and all that kind
of stuff. Now he's trudging through space. Now he's only
meant to be up there for four days.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
But we've heard that before, we have.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
But let's hope this time he'll be safe because they're
not stopping at any space stations. He's just literally going
to orbit the whole Earth. Try grow some mushrooms. Have
a look at everything, and then come home to report.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
His first speech is going to be one small mushroom,
one giant mushroom time.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
We love it anyway, Eric Phillips, remember that for your
trivia