Making space matter: A space journalist’s journey

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Space Journalism, where science meets storytelling. We meet a leading voice in the field this week on Planetary Radio. I'm Sarah El-Ahmed of The Planetary Society, with more of the human adventure across our solar system and beyond. From reporting live at space shuttle launches to helping shape how we talk about space in the media, journalist and author Sarah Cruddas has built a career sharing the wonders of the cosmos with the world. Today she's bringing that insight to our show. Then stick around for what's up with Bruce Betts, where we'll explore what we think makes a good science journalist. If you love Planetary Radio and want to stay informed about the latest space discoveries, make sure you hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcasting platform. By subscribing, you'll never miss an episode filled with new and awe-inspiring ways to know the cosmos and our place within it.

We've got a Special Planetary Society event coming up on June 25th and wherever you are in the world, you're invited. Our very own Matt Kaplan, our senior communications advisor at The Planetary Society, is going to be hosting a live discussion with Jim Green, Rob Manning and Emily Loctewalla. They're the authors of a beautiful new book called Mars: Photographs from the NASA Archives. If you happen to be near Pasadena, California, you're welcome to join us in person, but space is limited. You'll find links to RSVP for the live stream or claim free in-person tickets on this week's Planetary Radio episode page.

Now, on to today's guest. Sarah Cruddas is a space journalist, an international television host, an award-winning author and a longtime friend of The Planetary Society. With a background in astrophysics and a gift for storytelling, she's made it her mission to make space accessible and meaningful for everyone. You may have seen her on BBC, CNN and the Discovery Channel, or read one of her many books about space exploration, including The Space Race: The Journey to the Moon and Beyond, Look Up: Our Story With the Stars and Moon Paradise. She's also written for outlets like The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, Politico and The Royal Astronautical Society.

She also hosts the podcast, Where's My Jetpack?, a show that investigates retro-futuristic and asks whether there's still science fiction or if they're just around the corner. Over the course of her career, she's reported from Rocket launches, interviewed astronauts, authored books for all ages and worked with leaders across the space industry in many different nations. But her path into science communication wasn't always straightforward, something I super relate to. In today's conversation, Sarah Cruddas shares how her childhood dream in the UK led her to a global career in space journalism and why telling these stories matters now more than ever. Hey, Sarah, it's nice to see you again.

Sarah Cruddas: Hey, nice to see you. Nice to be back here in Planetary Society HQ as well.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: How did you first get involved in coming to The Planetary Society?

Sarah Cruddas: I moved to Los Angeles few years ago and I was connected to some of your team members by a friend who had set up. Harriet Bretel is her name, and she now works at Caltech. I was kind of her mentor and she'd done some volunteering with The Planetary Society, and then we both ended up living out here and she introduced me to you guys. Shout out to Harriet Bretel if you're listening. And I've had a lifelong fascination for space and of course, moving to Los Angeles, it was just something I wanted to be involved with because when you think of space and particularly space in the US, of course you think of NASA, but then there's also The Planetary Society. And yeah, I just wanted to meet you guys and be involved and yeah, just an incredible organization, so privileged to be allowed to be here.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Well, thank you for such kind words. I didn't expect LA to be such a hub of space science when I was growing up, and I've had these conversations recently with people who ended up coming here for space science. You think the glitz and glamour of Hollywood and everything, but then you learn about JPL and the observatories and the entire burgeoning commercial space sector in this area and suddenly, you realize this is a wonderful place if you want to be into space, either engineering or communications.

Sarah Cruddas: Yeah, the first time I came to LA, I think I'm allowed to say this is the British person, I hated it because it's the most un-European city you can imagine. I love San Francisco. I'd been working in the US for quite a while, I knew I was in the process of emigrating, so I can't... Obviously, I was working in the media so it had a lot for me, but just this concrete jungle and these giant freeways, literally three times the size of the freeways in the United Kingdom. But then you realize there's all this space here, there's all this culture here, there's all this communication work of course, with it being Hollywood and everything. But yeah, LA's a pretty special place for space. And obviously right now, we're in Pasadena, also known as Nasadena because of JPL, so it's just a privilege to be here. And to be a tiny part for the US space story is just an incredible privilege.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: I do feel very privileged for growing up in the United States and having that access to so much space content and so many things to look forward to. My dreams were shaped by the fact that I knew that if I wanted to and if I worked hard enough, maybe someday I could work at NASA, but those opportunities aren't available to everyone. Do you feel like that's part of why you ended up going into science communication instead of trying to pursue solid science instead?

Sarah Cruddas: That's an interesting question. I always wanted to either be an astronaut or a cosmologist. I ended up studying astrophysics at the University of Leicester in the UK, which is a leading center for that. And nothing kind of like... I always knew the US was a place to go. When I was 16, I won the Young Scientists 2000 Awards and got to go to NASA's international space camp in Huntsville, Alabama, which was just, I grew up in a very small, lower social economic town in the UK and then I was at NASA, at Space Camp, and so it blew my mind. But I actually fell into science communications by accident. I had worked in the US just before university, working for a summer camp as camp counselor, but I always knew I wanted to do science.

And then I remember in, I think it was in between my second and third year of university, so degrees in the UK are only three years long because we start school much earlier, like elementary school, we start at four. And I remember I traveled around South America, really foolish to do as a student. Used my credit card to fly to South America for three months, backpack around. And I remember just seeing a different side of the world. I went to most of Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay and Argentina, and just seeing, obviously this was 2004, so there was a lot of poverty in some areas, a lot of wealth as well. But there was a lot of poverty that I saw and a side of the world I hadn't really seen before. And I kind of came back a changed person and I knew I wanted to tell stories, I didn't just want to be a scientist.

My plan had been to do my masters and then do a PhD. And when I got back, I continued with my degree when I started volunteering at the local BBC unpaid, and eventually I hung around enough they had to pay me to hand out leaflets and working on a Sunday radio show. I remember in my last year of university, getting up at 4:00 AM, which is crazy for a student to go and help on the Sunday morning breakfast shows, answering the phones and stuff like that. And I just kind of fell into storytelling and knew I could have pursued science, but knew I'd probably only, I hate to say this, be an average scientist. But I knew I found this new passion for telling stories. So for me, it wasn't really driven by geography, but more about having my eyes open to the world and seeing different experiences.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: I love that journey because I had a similar thought in that I really liked doing the science, but I met so many people who were clearly, I'm not going to say more skilled at it, but they knew exactly what research topic they wanted to go through, they had this perfect passion for it. Meanwhile, the thing that I found really exciting was when I got to talk to people in my everyday life about the stuff that we were learning. And once I started having those conversations with people and realizing that it was impacting them, I finally found the part of the science that not only fulfilled that need to learn more, but also to share. And so that made me want to go into science communication and all these years later, I'm really glad it turned out. But breaking into science communication can be a little complicated.

Sarah Cruddas: See, I never even wanted to do science. I wanted to tell stories, but I think I've always loved space my whole life, but I almost fell out of love with space for a few years. So I finished my astrophysics degree, went and worked, did a post-grad in broadcast journalism, and then just started working at the BBC, reporting on human interest stories. And I developed a passion for foreign stories and I was involved in everything from floods to very unpleasant stories as well, like murders, deaths, things you don't want to cover, but things that really open you up to the world. Because I feel like journalism, you get to be a bystander on the best and the worst of humanity.

And throughout my career, I've kept that kind of non-science side of journalism going and it's enabled me to go through some very difficult places and complex situations, but to really play a part in telling a story of humanity and telling a story of the world. And it was only after I got a job, almost by accident, I screen tested to be a weather presenter with the BBC. And obviously I was like, "I only have a degree in astrophysics," and they hired me because apparently that helps with forecasting. Whilst doing the weather, it enabled me to do more science and then I would, in my free time, I remember starting to do science stories to sell back to the BBC. So I'd work breakfast television shifts, and then in the afternoons I'd go off and report on science stories.

I was working in local TV news, but then I'd go off and do national radio stories for the BBC. I remember interviewing the British-American astronaut Piers Sellers, who, he'd become an American to follow his dreams of space. And he was a climate scientist, he took bark from Sir Isaac Newton's apple tree into space with him as an NASA astronaut. I think he did six spacewalks, helped build the International Space Station, sadly passed away about five, six years ago now. But he really inspired me. Interviewing him made me fall in love with space again and made me want to start telling stories about space exploration. And I did have this kind of niche being a journalist, but also understanding STEM, understanding mathematics and having an astrophysics background

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Yeah, that really ends up helping. People ask me all the time, "Should I go into just the communications and learn how to write a really good article, or is it actually valuable to take that time to get the degree in the space science?" And I have found that both are very, very helpful, but you're going to need to know some of the science in order to communicate around it effectively, so it does super help.

Sarah Cruddas: And in journalism, the whole, and I see this now, one of the things I'm doing now, almost fast-forwarding to my career, I'm setting up a company called Get Your Story Straight, which is the communications company. But what I've seen throughout my career is that there's a STEM illiteracy problem across the media and science stories don't get communicated. And I'm talking all media, everything from social media now, which is a big part of life, through to standard news channels and stuff like that. But at least in the UK, we finish our general education at 16. And then if you want to become a journalist, you might not have done STEM since you were 16 years old, but then you're reporting on science topics and complicated topics, and I think there's topics where numbers can bamboozle you.

And it doesn't mean the story is getting wrong, but I think there's this STEM literacy problem both from a PR and marketing ,communication side, but also from the media side really means we sometimes miss the mark. And if we want science to be successful, if we want people to understand what we're doing in space and in the science industry as a whole, it's so important. We need to address that STEM illiteracy problem on both sides. And it's the job of people within industry to effectively communicate, because otherwise your story's going to get confused and it's the job of journalists to address the STEM issue and to ask more questions about STEM.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: I do find that because of this issue around the misunderstanding of science, when a lot of people try to communicate it, they can sometimes sensationalize or get things incorrect. And that does us a disservice because I feel like on our end as science communicators, we're being very reactionary to the way that broader media is reporting on these things and trying to disabuse people of things that they heard that were incorrect, rather than getting to add on to this beautiful story that's already been told to them.

Sarah Cruddas: Yeah, I think there's a lot that needs to be done, but one of the thing I kind of like that we're seeing now, at least with journalism, and one of my passions being foreign news reporting as well and reporting in difficult parts of the world, is the role of satellite journalism. I almost think it's come 360. So we do have this huge STEM illiteracy problem within the media, but at the same time, space technology is enabling us. The biggest problem with journalism right now is trust. The people don't trust the media, rightly or wrongly. There is terms which have meant that people don't trust what they're told in the news, but satellite journalism is enabling us to build back trust.

The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize a few years ago for hospital bombings in Syria using satellite data because you have irrefutable evidence when you have satellite data. And I'm seeing satellite journalism being used, everything from that kind of situation where you don't have to have a correspondent on the ground literally putting their life at risk, through to, for example, with the Los Angeles fires. The first rule of rolling news and I worked in rolling news in the UK for quite some time, is that when a story breaks, you throw to a map because you need to show people where it is and rolling news has to have images.

But now with satellites, we can throw to images. We saw with the coverage of the Los Angeles fires, maps our satellite images showing us before and after and enabling us to build up a picture of how severe a situation is. So even though we've got this stem illiteracy problem, it's exciting to see how science, how space is actually saving the day and finding us a new way to tell stories and to communicate, and just show the gravity of a situation and really takes journalism and storytelling to that next level.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: You really have been all over the world during your time in journalism. I even saw while I was looking up your career online, you've been to places like North Korea. How much of that was your adventures through your pursuing of science communication, and how much of that has just been your other adventures as a general journalist?

Sarah Cruddas: I think exploring the earth is the closest many of us can get to space, and I think it's a terrible cliche because to explore the earth is a privilege. And it's easy to say, "I love travel as a hobby," but you've got to have the means and the ways to do it. And I feel extraordinarily privileged through my journalism hat on to have been to North Korea, to Tibet, to Uganda, the Congo, Rwanda Transnistria, which is this fake state. Well, not fake state, rogue state in between Ukraine and Moldova. And part of that was I in the UK, once I left the BBC, when I realized I've got to take a risk in life and leave this steady staff presenter job at the BBC to work more in space and to follow my dreams of telling stories about space.

And it all ties back to that trip on my credit card when I was 20 years old to South America. But in order to appreciate what we have off this planet, we need to understand what we have on this planet. And I think it's important even for science communicators as well, many of those non-science communication stories, to look at the world and see more about what's going on in the world. I remember working in Uganda, horrific, interviewing people who had been sexually abused their entire lives and grew up in abject poverty, but all of them asked about space. Because I'd be talking about space and they asked about it because they grew up under the stars.

And you don't realize the appreciation that across the world, people have for space. And in all the horrors of the world, understanding more about the world and understanding that we're all the same makes you better science communicator because it's good to get out that bubble and just see other perspectives, because that makes us better as communicators and better as science communicators. And it helps us understand more why people might get frustrated sometimes about space stories or about STEM stories.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Well, I think it's that general connection to space that makes people want to go into space science. I didn't do it because I loved the math necessarily, although I love math.

Sarah Cruddas: I love math.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: But it was because of that feeling you get when you're looking up at the sky and that connection you feel to the space all around you, but also just the general human experience of what that means for all of us here on earth and the small, little space in the cosmos, right?

Sarah Cruddas: I like to almost say that my love of space is as much about philosophy as it is about science because it's asking... And I remember as a kid, literally, it's probably a cliche story, but one of my first memories is of looking up at the moon, at the night sky as a kid. And then that sense of wonder like, some people don't like say this, but it almost does tie up to religion because it's like, "Why do we exist? Where did we come from, where are we heading?" It's so profound and I think all of us have that innate curiosity and all of us, I don't care whether you're six or 60, looking up at the night sky inspires you. And it inspires you, it's less about science as it is about wonder and a search for meaning that all of us want no matter where we come from. We all care about similar things and we all have that same curiosity.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: I love that. It's so true, though. It's something that unites us and it's part of why this show has such an international audience and why we want to make sure that we can welcome as many people into the space community as possible. Because it can be kind of insular when you're in your little bubble, but when you step out and you begin talking to people around the world of their experience, it might not be the story of NASA rovers, it might be just sitting out underneath the stars.

Sarah Cruddas: It is the great unifier. All of us have looked up and I know a lot of people as communicators as well, focus on inspiring children. But I think everyone, no matter how old you are or where you are from, you deserve that same passion and that curiosity that can come from looking up. And it's why the observatory in Los Angeles is such a draw. I've had friends come to visit from the UK and I take them there, people who aren't into space so to speak, but there's still that opportunity to look through a telescope and see Saturn's rings or something crazy like that. It is the great unifier. And I think as science communicators and just communicators as a whole and as a space industry, we need to talk less.

And I say this is someone who talks constantly, but we need to listen because we can do better as an industry if we listen to society as a whole about how they feel about space, how they feel about space stories and what they really care about. Because sometimes we miss the mark when we are communicating about topics or we get so insular. The space industry likes to congratulate itself on everything, instead of listening to why it doesn't resonate with the public or why they don't quite understand. And even though all of us can't go to space just yet, most of us can all look up at the night sky and appreciate what it is that we're a part of and how we're all citizens on this spaceship earth.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: It sounds though, that in order to get into this career in science journalism and space journalism, you basically had to fight for it. You had to take the initiative to be like, "Well, I'm going to record these space-related stories and submit them and hope that they get through, and that this establishes me on this part of my career." Is that the kind of advice you would give to someone who's trying to break into space journalism today, or do you feel like it's a different kind of atmosphere?

Sarah Cruddas: I obviously started my career in the UK, I started my career at the BBC. Space didn't rate, is what I constantly got told when I was pitching TV shows. In fact, my first primetime TV show was in the US and Discovery Channel, it was actually the US who took me first, compared to... And people in the UK love space, but TV editors don't as much and news channels don't because news is normally to do with the economy, politics and tragedy, unfortunately. So there's always been a fight there.

I've failed so many times and actually, my advice to people who want to start out in space journalism or communicating science is just to fail. Give it a try and fail, because what's the worst that can happen? It's better than never trying at all. So if this is something you are passionate about, yes, you've got to earn money, yes, you've got to pay the bills, but if you can make this work, go for it because that matters more. So my advice would be fail and go for it, which might be terrible advice, but I don't know what is good advice.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: I think that too, when people ask me, "How do I get into space journalism or podcasting?" All I can say is chase your dream and never give up hope, but I can't tell you that it's necessarily going to turn out the way that you planned. I guess that's true in all of life, but it can be difficult in that there are limited jobs in this field. That being said, I'm seeing a lot of people online who are breaking into their own form of science communication and journalism just through social media. Do you feel like that new kind of burgeoning science communication field on social media is changing the way that the more broad kind of classic forms of journalism are operating around science?

Sarah Cruddas: I come from traditional media, so I come from, I've written newspapers and online articles and TV and radio, so I do social media, but begrudgingly because I always worked in TV from a young age of 22. And I guess that in itself is a privilege. I think it's great that people are communicating about science and wanting to tell stories. Where I personally feel that there needs to be almost room for improvement is the understanding of journalism and storytelling and bias and legal sides of things. And if you're a science communicator, not allowing your own bias and passion. And anyone can put a video out on social media and you don't... Anyone can be who they want to be online. I think it's great that everyone follows their dreams. If that's what you want to do, absolutely go and do it. But there also needs to be checks and balances to ensure that the information we're actually getting is correct.

Because in a newsroom, you would get fact checked. You would get someone else editing your work, even if it's to triple-check the facts. But you don't always get that because most social media people are [inaudible 00:21:03] earth, they're working on themselves. So there is something to be thought there in terms about how to eliminate bias from the work that you're doing, how to ensure what you're putting out is factually correct. This is how we get so many false stories online and crazy stuff, because a video goes viral. And it's because of an algorithm, not because of the truth. So some of that frustrates me. It's almost like you're playing to an algorithm instead of actually playing to the story in itself.

But at the same time, social media is here to stay and it is the future. TV is great, but if you look at... I'm a news junkie, I have all news channels on. I watch across the spectrum because I think that's the best way to get news sources, is to look at different points of views. But most people and most people under a certain age get all their news from social media, so there has to be, I think a way of also credible broadcasters and news people to work with these new platforms to make sure they're factually correct information. And for Planetary Society, which I know you guys do a great job of, to make sure that you've got credible people from credible institutions, meeting people where they're at, instead of just anyone making anything up online because it's going to go viral because of an algorithm.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Absolutely. I mean, you've got to be careful what you say, and we can get it wrong. Even as people who have studied the science, sometimes you can still get things wrong, which is why collaborating with others on your work is always so important, because sometimes you need that fact check even if you thought you got everything right the first time.

Sarah Cruddas: And science is ever evolving as well. And that's one of the things I've always loved about science I guess, is the more questions we ask, the more questions we're left with in terms of just how the moon formed and how that's changed over. Or scientific questions about how planets form or rogue planets. And every time we discover everything new or get new imagery, we're now left with more questions and we just don't have the answers, although most of the time the answer is not aliens.

I do get a lot of people emailing me, asking me where the aliens are, and we don't know yet. We could discover life beyond our own solar system tomorrow, it could be 100 years from now. We don't know, although probably simple life will be in the next few decades. But I think there's so much evolving and it's a gray area, it's not a black and white. But I think meeting people where they're at, but institutions and having that kind of backup and collaboration and credibility, it's what's really going to shift this new way of consuming media.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Well, to that point, you've worked on some documentary series that address these kinds of more conspiracy theory topics or topics of life out in the universe. How do you balance talking about those subjects in ways that engage the public, while also making sure that you're factually correct and making sure you give people the skeptical tools they need to analyze these kinds of thoughts?

Sarah Cruddas: I think this goes back to meeting people where they're at. Unfortunately, those type of science shows rate better or those type of shows rate better so they get commissions. That's where the opportunities come up from. In an ideal world, we'd all have super serious science documentaries. One of the shows I did in the UK was a comedy show. It was done with, I don't know whether anyone listening is a fan of Red Wolf. Me and Craig Charles, who's one of the characters he plays, Lister and Red Wolf, did this show looking at conspiracy theories and looking at hunts for aliens. And then we had to decide whether it was fake or real. Setty was involved with it, we had Seth Shostat, we had Bill Diamond, who's the CEO. We had credible people on board, but also took more of a comedy spin for it.

And then I did contact with Discovery Channel, which is still addressing that, are we alone? Is there life out there? Have aliens made contact with humanity? Unlikely not, but it's about staying true to science. But it's also about using unique opportunities to inspire people about science. And people see things in the night sky and they immediately, it goes back to almost like all of us wanting to have meaning and wanting to feel important and wanting to know what else is out there. You see something you don't understand, you go, "It's aliens." It's much easier to say it's aliens than actually to really recognize it's something maybe we don't understand. We don't know everything about our own earth and stars, or maybe it's just a cloud or maybe it's an airplane, but it's about meeting people where they're at and it's about saying, "Look, there's a lot of rough out there, but one day we might get the diamond in the rough." And is that diamond in the rough a form of looking at martian soil samples and saying, to quote Sagan, "Extraordinary claims require an extraordinary amount evidence," and we haven't got that evidence yet? So it's about addressing people, addressing their concerns and being like, "Actually, all the credible evidence doesn't lead to this, but there are still things we don't understand in the universe." There are places like Europa or Enceladus and then worlds beyond our own that, anything I guess you can imagine probably exists out there. So it's about using unique opportunities to hear people out and to listen to how people from a different life and a different background might view the universe. And then using that as an opportunity to educate and hopefully inspire.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Yeah. And to connect with people because the reason that they're curious about this, it's that innate wonder at the universe. Whether or not they have all the facts, that still speaks to the fact that they're curious. And that's a great place to start when we're beginning to communicate with people.

Sarah Cruddas: And I think that's why The Planetary Society is so popular, because people love space. And then I think most people like us, Sarah, I guess the Sarahs, it's a privilege to be involved in the space industry, it really is. And I don't care where you come from or who you are, but just to have that sense of wonder, everyone deserves it and it's what makes us human.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: You've gotten to travel to see all kinds of cool space launches and people going to outer space. You've worked with ESA and Ariane and Space for Humanity.

Sarah Cruddas: Yeah.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: What are some of the coolest launches you've been able to go to and have interactions with the people while they're watching?

Sarah Cruddas: Oh, that is a good question. I've been privileged to be at commercial launches, I've been privileged to be at... I think for me, actually, it would have to be the final space shuttle launch. It was 2011, that's where I was working as a weather presenter at the BBC and I took leave. I saved up on my vacation. I was in the UK, we get a lot of vacation. And I used that vacation time to fly out, to live in a house with some fellow space nerds and a friend from the UK and cover, sell the coverage back to the BBC. And just that kind of like I knew I could do it. I knew there wasn't that much appetite for space, but at the same time, I knew there would be when it comes to the launch. And just being there, I was suddenly part of a space community.

And I remember this was in the days of big satellite dishes as well. So I had to take this big satellite dish, which is not very fun to fly with and to get through customs, I had to [inaudible 00:27:20] it, and then I had to put cones in front of it because I was radio broadcasting. Technology's moved on a lot in the last 14 years. For me, it was truly special because it was the end of an era. And I remember being live on BBC radio as the space shuttle all landed for the final time. And to be part, I remember sitting up all night at the landing strip at Kennedy Space Center in basically a swamp. I was covered in mosquito bites, I was burnt because there's a phrase called, "Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun," so I don't understand about sun protection, being from a cold country. I do now, I do now. But just the end of an era.

And suddenly, I'd gone from almost being like a bystander watching the space age, to being kind of a little tiny bit part of it. And then it was the end of the era and a lot of people got laid off after that. I remember going back to the Cocoa Beach area a few years later and seeing the negative impacts, but it was also the beginning of an era. And I guess throughout history, governments had gone, first private industry has followed. And that for me really opened my eyes up to the opportunity to come from space exploration and this new space era. And so for me, it has to be the final shuttle launch. I don't know how anything's going to beat that, just because on a personal note, it transformed my own life and it was a pivot point. But yeah, I've been there for the first Falcon Heavy launch, I was there for one of the first Blue Origin launches. But for me, final space shuttle launch and what it meant for the future and tying up that era in space exploration.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Well, it is a really interesting transition right now. We still obviously have many government funded missions to space, but the commercial space sector is expanding rapidly. And I understand, correct me if I'm wrong on this, that you sit on the board for Space for Humanity?

Sarah Cruddas: I recently left, so last year I was on the board pretty much from the get go. Space for Humanity was founded by my friend, Dylan Taylor. I was involved in early marketing back in 2018, 2017, in the very early days of Space for Humanity, going to SEDS conferences and recording video applications. And then I sat on the board for five years, which is crazy.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: But I love this idea of the potential democratization of space. We're still in this phase where it's still very expensive to send people to space, but we all long for a future where space is accessible to everyone. But I do see how difficult it is to communicate these two different kinds of space travel in this era. Do you feel like as we have more commercial space, as it becomes more popular, that the ways that we communicate about space in general are going to change?

Sarah Cruddas: Yeah, I think so. And no longer, I know there's a big debate over are you an astronaut or not if you've paid to go up. And I think we should listen to people and listen to how the public feel, because I think by listening to how people feel about things, it addresses the coverage. I do think there's a change, particularly with the new commercial space era. I think I'm going to go ahead and say it, there's anger sometimes as well. "Why are billionaires doing this when I can't even pay my rent?" And we need to listen to people like this. Sometimes certain launches get too much coverage, sometimes other launches or other missions or earth science don't get enough. So we need to, again, it almost comes back to a STEM illiteracy problem and how we should be readdressing how we listen to people to communicate space effectively.

But also at the same time, won't it be cool when going to space is just normal, when it doesn't get the news coverage in the same way that plane flights don't get news coverage? Like, "Oh, I took off on a flight on LAX today, so many other people did as well." Won't it be cool when we get to that point where we don't have to cover space flights because they are so common? I'm thinking of the movie Gattaca. Do you remember that one with Ethan Hawk? I think I might watch it tonight, actually. But I remember the frequency of those space launches and we're not there yet. But won't it be cool where they're not covered as much and maybe watching space flights is akin to train spotting or plane spotting or something?

So I think the way we communicate does need to change because I think there's anger and there's inequality in the world, and I think we need to do more to work with communities that might not understand how space is benefiting them, the human element about how it benefits people back here on earth. And I think one of the things we're really missing, and particularly in this day and age, is all the planetary science stuff and how we go to space for earth. And I think if we can help tell stories, all of us, and I know if The Planetary Society does a great job, but just tell stories about how space is benefiting us here on earth, I think it works for the industry.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: We'll be right back with the rest of my interview with Sarah Cruddas after this short break.

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Sarah Al-Ahmed: What do you think are some of the biggest space exploration stories that aren't getting enough attention right now?

Sarah Cruddas: Oh, that is a great question. You tripped me up now with my own. I think it goes back to planetary science missions. I think it goes back to, I'm biased here, about how organizations such as Maxar and other space imaging companies are disrupting journalism. I think how we're disrupting disaster relief, how we're responding to disasters, how we're making the world a better and a safer place because of utilizing data from space.

And I know it doesn't get as sexy a headline as Katy Perry goes to space, but it's about utilizing that and being like, "Hey, we're able to do better for you, we're able to serve your community better. We're able to look at farming and use less fertilizer and chemicals and irrigate the land better because of space technology." So maybe this isn't breaking news stories, but it's longer form stories and it's taking space into communities. And maybe it's not even putting it on the news or putting it into a TikTok video or something like that. I don't have TikTok, unfortunately, but maybe it's showing them how their community is benefiting.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: I've definitely had those interactions with people. We've done outreach with people in our area and at different conferences. But before that, I actually worked at Griffith Observatory and doing these outreach events, particularly with kids. And there was so much about the kind of spin off effects of NASA programs, but also space exploration around the world that they weren't aware of. And I always tried to bring up the camera in your phone, the reason that even exists is because we needed some way to digitally take data from telescopes, and then we made it better by going to Pluto. And that's why you've got this crazy level of megapixels in your phone. But it impacts so much of our lives in ways that people don't understand. And once you begin having those conversations, it changes the way that they think about space more broadly and why we need to be funding these things.

Sarah Cruddas: I always like to say, just to pick up on that point, imagine a day without space and without space technology. Even like, I'm from England, so we like a lot of tea. We use these things called a kettle. But imagine even turning on your kettle on the electricity grid and the banking, you want to do a bank transfer, and we're using satellites in space for that. We live in the space age. We live in the best age in terms of technology. I know it doesn't feel like it, but we live in the best age in terms of technology, and we are living in a space age. We jumped into cyberspace instead of outer space.

So people who were children of Apollo, who grew up seeing people walk on the moon, I can understand why they're frustrated because they didn't get those holidays in space in the way they imagined, they didn't get humans on Mars. Instead, they got your cell phone. You've got your iPhone, you've got cyberspace, you've got the internet. But it's because of that and because of how space technology is benefiting our life on earth right now that we're able to start looking at doing those really cool things. But really, I'm going to borrow from the late, great Gene Cernan, still the last person to walk on the moon as the commander of Apollo 17. I worked with him on a documentary about his life called Last Man on the Moon.

But I always remember him saying, "We just got the timing wrong. All of these things will happen, we just got the timing wrong." And we live in a world which is built because of space technology and the astronauts, who were the tip of the arrow, so to speak. And it's all this other stuff that has enabled us to live in this really cool world we do today. So we might get the news coverage of people going to space, but it's all the other stuff behind the scenes that we don't hear about. And yes, it's not sexy to put on the news, but it's that what's disrupting all of our lives.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: You've gotten to speak with a whole bunch of astronauts. I am jealous. I mean, you've also worked with Buzz Aldrin and Tim Peake, and what are some of the behind the scenes moments you've had with these people and how do they feel about space after personally experiencing that?

Sarah Cruddas: The funniest one probably is Tim Peake, who is, for those who don't know, obviously every single UK listener will know exactly who Tim Peake is. Tim Peake is Britain's first official ESA astronaut. We had Helen Sharman, who went to space, was going to be part of the UK, then became part of Roscomos, and she went up on Russian Soyuz Rocket in the '90s. I think she was only 26 as well. She was a chemist with Mars. Worked with her, incredible woman. I remember her being a very nervous public speaker, and I'm like, "How? You've been to space." But incredible, incredible woman. But Tim Peake is Britain's first official ESA astronaut. We've also had Brits who became Americans, such as Piers Sellers, to follow their dreams of space, but they never got to wear the union flag. They never got to wear that flag in space.

Tim Peake is a rock star in the United Kingdom. And I remember hosting a night with Tim Peake and his colleague in space, Tim Kopra, at Usher Hall in Edinburgh, which is, I think it's the second biggest hall in Scotland. And this hall was packed, absolutely jam packed with people coming to see Tim Peake. Because suddenly, and I can say this as someone who grew up in the UK, suddenly we had a piece of space. It wasn't just something the Americans or the Russians were doing, and occasionally the Europeans. Suddenly, there was someone who represented the UK and represented us. So this hall was packed and Tim Peake had to be snuck out the back of Usher Hall. And I think the last time they'd done that was with The Rolling Stones or something crazy like that, because people were waiting just to see Tim after having him watch this evening with myself.

No one was there for me. Tim Kopra, no one was there for Tim Kopra either, even though he's a phenomenal NASA astronaut, because Tim Peake became a rock star. I think that's kind of cool about space becoming more equitable and more people from different countries getting to go to space, that you suddenly get people inspired by space in the way they couldn't relate to. Because suddenly you could grow up in the UK and be like, "I can be an astronaut now. I don't have to move to another country, I can represent this country and stay in my home country." And yes, so working with Tim Peake.

Michael Collins of Apollo 11, he wrote the foreword for my book, Look Up: Our Story With the Stars, which was the honor of my life to have him involved. I remember proofreading it and being like, "I can't have any mistakes." But these people, I'll tell you what, all the astronauts I've met, NASA astronauts, Apollo astronauts, commercial ones, the one kind of unifier with them is they're humble. You never saw Michael Collins bragging on social media or maybe less so, Buzz. But they're just so humble and I think that's one of the great traits of being an astronaut, I guess being a NASA astronaut. They just say it's no big deal, they were just doing their job. And it's incredible how humble these people can be, given the sacrifice and the risks they've taken in their lives.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: But I guess looking down at the earth from the moon or something could really give a person perspective on-

Sarah Cruddas: Yeah, and Michael Collins, he was the loneliest man that whole time. When Neil and Buzz were on the moon, it was Michael on his own, on the dark side. Can you imagine how terrifying that would be? You're on the dark side of the moon on your own. And I remember him saying, and I'm sure he's done this in many interviews, but all the stars, he could see it. And it's just a different perspective. I know this is said a lot, but those Apollo astronauts are made of something different. But then also on the flip side, I've spoken to, and this is important to note, they were dubbed the Mercury-thirteen, but the women astronauts, the women who wanted to be astronauts but couldn't, A, because they were women, but B, because you couldn't be a fighter pilot if you were women. So it wasn't NASA saying no, technically. That's the technicality they got them on, but it was more, "You don't qualify because you're not fighter pilots." They did some of the medical tests and obviously, Wally Funk we know, eventually got to space. In my children's book, The Space Race, I did a whole spread on the Mercury 13 and women who aspired to go to space, because it's not fair. And there were lots of talented people. And even today, there's lots of talented people who don't get that opportunity, not because they're not talented, but just because of luck. Half the success in life, most of the success in life is luck, who you're born into, which country you're born into, connections you might have, opportunities you might have. So I think it's cool to acknowledge the astronauts, but also acknowledge all those other pioneers who are part of that, who might not have got the accolades in history, but enabled others to fly after them.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: It's a similar situation to a conversation I was having with Ed Dwight, who was supposed to be the first African-American astronaut. As part of the documentary that they were working on at National Geographic called The Space Race, they were talking about this exact loophole here, that they needed someone who was in the Air Force to go to space, but they couldn't find Black astronauts because the people that they allowed to do that kind of Air Force stuff were the Tuskegee Airmen, and they were at that point, too old to go to space. So finding someone like Ed Dwight that had that specific skill set was very complicated because of these kind of hurdles that they'd put in the way. But it wasn't because people weren't skilled enough or deserving enough. I'm really glad that we're now in a place where hopefully more people can be represented in space over time because that's so important.

Sarah Cruddas: Ed Dwight got to go to space, he flew to space, Humanity partially sponsored him. He flew to space. I'm actually internet friends, Instagram friends with his nephew and just the pride. And there's another guy, Livingston Holder, who was due to go up after the Challenger, and obviously that didn't happen. But he deserves to go to space. He now works within the space industry. He was part of the secret kind of military side of things in the '80s.

And there's so many people who just didn't get their chance. Sometimes the people who shout the loudest get the most attention, but there's so many people there who don't shout about it, who have really put in the work, who might just have through circumstances which weren't their fault, might have missed the mark. And that's why I am always a journalist at heart because I love telling stories about other people and in particularly, voices that often don't get heard.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Well, you've told stories in so many different fashions, not just in documentaries and on radio, but you've done podcasts, you actually started a podcast, Where's My Jetpack?

Sarah Cruddas: Yeah.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: But you've also written all of these books. Do the opportunities just kind of appear to you, like someone goes, "Hey, I'm looking for someone to do this podcast," or, "We need someone to write this book," or do you just chase whatever vision of communication you're feeling in the moment and hope it works?

Sarah Cruddas: I remember being told by an old agent that I would never write a book, so I wrote five, plus, I co-wrote another one. It's a lot of failure. I think people only see, A, successes. With my books, yeah, I was approached by Dorling Kindersley from my first one, did this tiny little book about space. Then I did another one with Dorling Kindersley, then a book agent approached me because she'd seen I'd done a couple of books. I think she'd watch me on the News channel in the UK, and then that's how I did The Space Race, and then Look Up: Our Story With the Stars. And then Martine Assouline, who runs Assouline, which make these incredible coffee table books, they approached me to do a... They normally do Chanel books or Dior books, and they wanted to do one about the moon.

So they approached me to write this book about the moon, and they did all the art imaging and I did the words, which is really cool. I think it's a mix of both. And when I did the Contact TV show, I just got a random email in my inbox, saying, "Do you want to go screen test for this show?" And I remember I was in Los Angeles at the time, flew back to London the next day, and then three days later got flown out again to LA to screen test. So I think it's a mix of both, but putting yourself out there always helps.

I worked seven days a week for 10 years, which was crazy. I don't recommend doing that. I used to do a lot flying, a lot of international travel. But the more you put yourself out there, the more opportunity's going to find you, but it's a mix of both. I don't know whether I even have a plan. I've just always cared about telling stories and always cared about space and always just been curious. And I think some opportunities have found me, and a lot I've tried to create, which have just never happened. I've met with so many producers and so many TV channels. I once got told I was too blonde to be a scientist on TV.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Oh my gosh.

Sarah Cruddas: I know. This was the BBC, I'll say it. But I was too blonde and I had too much eye makeup on. And it's like, "But I have a degree in astrophysics." And it is changed now, this is 12 years ago. But I remember being told that and just, media's hard. Everyone thinks science is hard, but the media's landscape is brutal because it is as much on how you look and how you appear and how they want to be typecast. So there's lots of challenges, but then I got interviewed in Vogue about that very thing that happened to me, and then I got to talk about it on Vogue, so things always come full circle. But yeah, opportunities, sometimes you have to create yourself. Sometimes you just have to be out there enough for the opportunities to come to you. And I'm sure you find that as well, Sarah. I mean-

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Yeah, I didn't expect to be where I am in life, but I chase that passion for trying to tell stories and communicate space to people. And what I found was that as soon as you kind of found your footing in one place, the opportunities begin to appear. Which is kind of unfortunate because it does mean that you have to kind of find that lucky break and build your name. But then once you have that foundation, things happen. That being said, it is so important, what you keep saying about the fact that you are going to fail along the way, because you really do have to prepare yourself for that. There's going to be a lot of failure that people might not see along the way. And you got to build up that resilience and just never give up hope in yourself. But hopefully, don't burn yourself out by working seven days a week either.

Sarah Cruddas: That's not good advice, don't do that. But I also feel it's like never give up, but also accept that things change. You shouldn't have a fixed thing of what you want to do because life gets in the way, so just accept. You don't see the behind the scenes of sat in sweats, pitching book ideas or the tears when you've been rejected for how you look or how you sound, or because space doesn't rate, people don't see that. And I feel like, obviously I use social media and I recognize its importance, but it only gives the veneer of someone's life, it only gives us the parts. And we all try and do this, but don't compare yourself because you don't really know, A, what the truth is about that person, and B, what they're going through behind the scenes.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Absolutely, it's such good advice. I hope everybody out there who's listening, who's thinking about doing this, really though, don't give up on yourself and be kind to yourself when you hit those hurdles, because sometimes people are going to say some mean things to you.

Sarah Cruddas: Yeah. And find me on Instagram at SarahCuddasTV, but don't compare yourself. I wanted to use that as a terrible [inaudible 00:46:26]

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Well, what's next for you? You've done so much already and in this moment in time, there are some troubling times for space exploration. What is next for you?

Sarah Cruddas: I'm in the process of setting up a company called Get Your Story Straight, kind of helping space companies, tech companies, science companies tell their story correctly. Because so often, especially science companies or tech companies, and especially startups, they get so bogged down in the detail that actually, communication is often the killer of many startups. So getting your story straight is all about how can you figure out what you are about and effectively communicate that both to journalists and to investors and three year olds? Because I've given talks to investors where I've rehashed talks that I've given to children, because we've got to assume we've got to change the way we think about STEM communication and STEM illiteracy. So next for me is within industry, doing science communication. And then also, I always say never. I feel like five and a half books co-wrote one is enough.

People say that having books or writing books is like having children. I don't have any children, but I can tell writing a book is exhausting. I'm sure many parents won't agree with me, but it is kind of like this labor of long nights and edits and maybe another book, but we'll see. And maybe looking at some more TV opportunities. But for right now, I'm focusing on just being a part of the space industry. I came to the US under the extraordinary abilities visa. I worked my whole life just to have the opportunity to come to the US to start on a level ground with everyone who's born here because of, don't me wrong, I've been very lucky and privileged in my life, but the luck of being born in the right country is also huge. For me, it's about being a part of the space age and using my skills to play a small part in helping the space industry and helping US success in space.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: And there's never been a more exciting time to be into space exploration. There's so much to look forward to, even with everything at stake right now. There's so much to be grateful for as people who are into space and so much to look forward to in the future, especially if we can continue to communicate about these things effectively. Hopefully we can build a feature that's even more full of awesome space exploration.

Sarah Cruddas: I hope so. I feel like maybe it's a naive optimism, but technology, we face a lot of challenges. We face a lot of challenges on earth, politically, socially, but also in terms of our changing climate. But technology has always found a way. Maybe that's too naive, but I have confidence in the best of humanity, that we will overcome the many challenges we were facing and use the advantages we have to benefit everyone on earth.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Well, thank you for joining me here at Planetary Society Headquarters and giving us your perspective and hopefully giving some people some hope that their dreams of being space journalists can come true.

Sarah Cruddas: Thank you for having me.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Coming up next, it's What's Up with Dr. Bruce Betts. We'll talk about what makes a great space journalist and of course, share a new random space fact. Hey, Bruce.

Bruce Betts: Hey, Sarah.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: This week we're talking with a space journalist who's been to launch sites and space events all over the world, which sounds like just such a fun time, but also, she's been through some really harrowing experiences doing that, which I very much respect. But as someone who's literally spent their whole career doing both science and science communication, I wanted to put it to you, what do you think makes a good space journalist?

Bruce Betts: Curiosity, knowing their boundaries of what they know and what they don't know. I mean, that's the same thing that's true for scientists as well. And then usually it's valued to try to build up a network of people to talk to. But I think the important thing is that they're really interested in credibility, in making sure that they get the story right. And I must say my experience with most people who are actually like Sarah, a space journalist, that they tend to be quite accurate and do a good job. The fun starts when you talk to the journalist who's never covered space or even thought about it and gets assigned to go interview you. And then things can get a little squirrely, for better or for worse. But the actual ones in the field tend to be pretty careful in general, I find, which is nice. It's not true of most fields, I would say, I'm guessing.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Yeah, reporting on space things when you don't understand them has got to be a really difficult experience, right?

Bruce Betts: Oh, I felt very sorry. And again, they can approach it and I've had ones who are great. The key to me is knowing where the boundary of your knowledge is and being careful not to cross it without getting some assistance or some research. And the thing having almost nothing to do with what makes a good journalists, hey, could we stop the click bait titles? That usually leads to a bad article, but occasionally I know the reporters get stuck with the titles that they didn't create.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Yeah, we've definitely had that happen to us in the past where we write a really solid article and then the news outlet you pitch it to decides it wants to change the name because they think it'll be more flashy. But then you get flack for having a bad name on a very solid article. And a lot of the times that's not the reporter's fault, which is something that I didn't understand for a long time.

Bruce Betts: Right.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: I'm trying to give a little bit more leeway there in how I judge people when I see that kind of thing. But it's so important not to over sensationalize. These things are already so amazing to learn about, we don't need to make them any more exciting than they are. But I think that points to something else for me. It's not just about explaining the actual science of the thing and the facts, but also sometimes it's important to contextualize why it matters at all. Because in a lot of cases, people don't get why these things matter. And especially in a time like this when we're looking at major funding cuts potentially to NASA science and other things, I think giving that reasoning behind why these things are important to our lives is a useful thing to do.

Bruce Betts: Yeah, that's a good point. And there are a lot of other aspects. Obviously, if it's a written thing, you want them to be a good writer. I mean, they're obvious things. You know who makes good space journalists? People like you.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Aw, but you too. You spent so much time-

Bruce Betts: People like The Planetary Society staff.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: We have some really impressive science communicators on our team.

Bruce Betts: We do.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: I've learned so much, watching people write. And our space policy team recently has been absolutely crushing it, talking about subjects that are so complex. I learn more and more from all of our coworkers every day so I'm really grateful for that.

Bruce Betts: But you started with so little knowledge that really, it's not our... I'm kidding. Getting very competent astrophysicist type person.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: But I think that's something that was really useful for me to learn, coming out of school. You learn all this stuff, you learn how much you don't know, but it was by talking to science communicators and seeing the way that they interacted with people that I learned more than honestly, I ever did in school. I learned the math, I learned the things I wanted to learn there, but the actual way of expressing it to others, now, that is an art that I truly respect.

Bruce Betts: Would you possibly like to continue this into the arena of random space facts?

Sarah Al-Ahmed: What have we got this week?

Bruce Betts: We are talking about highly magnetic neutron stars. Yes, that's right. Huge, incredibly strong magnetic fields of neutron stars, so much so that they needed a cooler name so they're called Magnetars.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: I always thought that sounded like a Pokemon name or something, Magnetar.

Bruce Betts: Totally, it's like a super villain. Anyway, they are super villains because you have to be careful. Because according to the Chandra X-Ray Observatory website, if you get your credit card magnetic strip within 150,000 kilometers or about 100,000 miles of one of those, it'll erase it.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: Diabolical.

Bruce Betts: So let's be careful out there. All right, everybody, go out there, look at the night sky and think about a leaf falling from a tree and gently resting in the green grass below. Thank you and good night.

Sarah Al-Ahmed: We've reached the end of this week's episode of Planetary Radio, but we'll be back next week with more space science and exploration. If you love the show, you can get Planetary Radio t-shirts at planetary.org/shop, along with lots of other cool spacey merchandise. Help others discover the passion, beauty and joy of space science and exploration by leaving a review or a rating on platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Your feedback not only brightens our day, but helps other curious minds find their place in space through Planetary Radio. You can also send us your space thoughts, questions and poetry at our email, [email protected].

Or if you're a Planetary Society member, leave a comment in the planetary radio space in our member community app. Planetary Radio is produced by The Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and is made possible by our dedicated members from all around the world. You can join us as we help support the science communicators and the people that make the missions happen at planetary.org/join. Mark Hilverda and Rae Paoletta are our associate producers. Casey Dreier is the host of our monthly space policy edition. Andrew Lucas is our audio editor. Josh Doyle composed our theme, which is arranged and performed by Pieter Schlosser. And until next week, Ad Astra.