Michaela Musilová has been dreaming of visiting Antarctica since 2007.
As an astrobiologist, he has two goals: to determine the limits of life on Earth and to evaluate the possibility that life as we know it exists elsewhere in the universe. Investigating how life behaves in Antarctica’s extreme environment is key to his work; Microbes that manage to survive the frozen environment at the end of our world can also teach us a lot about their potential beyond Earth. Musilová tried to sail to the southernmost continent a dozen times over the years, but it never worked.
This wasn’t because task suggestions were lacking, he says.
“Unfortunately, most of the time it was because an older male colleague or professor wouldn’t let me go or would take my place,” he recalled in an interview with Space.com.
Women had only been working in Antarctica since the late 1970s. officially banned By countries organizing research programs on the continent. Apparently, “the challenges of the continent were too great for women, and the difficulties of providing separate bathing facilities were too great for the program managers.” Analog astronaut and former director of Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, on his 12th attempt (THE SEAS) living space is now on a cruise ship bound for Antarctica with more than 100 women working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Relating to: Satellites reveal a disastrous year for emperor penguins amid climate crisis in Antarctica
While on the journey and on the Antarctic ice, this trip is designed to encourage each of these women on a journey to become strong scientists in an environment where they feel safe and relaxed.
“I really love the idea of having this global network of women to work together, to help each other, to inspire each other,” Musilová said, adding that working on leadership skills inspired her to create platforms where women and girls can come together. It is located in STEMM fields.
“Together, we have a support network and education around a lot of the normal challenges that women have to deal with in general, especially in STEMM fields,” she continued, “whether it’s discrimination, harassment, bias, all of those things are so negative about fitting in, having a family.” and at the same time being able to maintain a career, which is something women often have to face more than men.”
Astronomy leaders fighting climate change
The journey now underway has brought together early, mid- and upper-career female climate researchers, medical doctors, ecologists, civil engineers and a handful of astronomers. Travelers from at least 18 nationalities are connected by a shared interest in sustainability and climate action for a rapidly changing World.
“The sustainability of our planet is in crisis, and so is the state of leadership in our world,” he says Web site From Australia-based Homeward Bound, a non-profit organization that has been leading all-female Antarctic expeditions since 2016. “It’s not that men can’t or won’t do it. Rather, when time is short, a balance of men and women on leadership teams can serve us all.”
As of late last year, women only 20 percent If current hiring practices of astronomers worldwide remain unchanged, it will take another 60 years for the female workforce in astronomy to grow to 30 percent. researchers have found before.
“More than 50 percent of women in tech roles leave the industry before they turn 35,” said Pamela Sutton-Legaud, CEO of Homeward Bound. expression. “We exist to enable more women to take part in this industry by helping them use the tools they need to succeed in their industry, especially in the fight for the sustainability of our planet.”
To demonstrate the need for sustainability, regions of Antarctica that are rapidly warming due to human-induced activities were chosen as fragile backdrops during the journey. These are regions experiencing record low sea ice levels and alarming penguin losses. among other worrying trendsdue to crisis.
“I’ll be wearing a citizen’s hat instead of an astronomer’s hat,” MIT physics professor Anna Frebel, who is also on board, told Space.com. “Everything will be great, of course, but the scientist’s eye will also reveal pretty quickly things we haven’t seen, like not enough ice and not enough live penguins.”
The program aims to create a network of 10,000 female scientists in leadership positions ready to help solve climate challenges worldwide by 2036.
“Most of us feel very strongly about what is happening in the world, how our environment is changing and how we humans are affecting that,” Musilová said. said. “It will be so transformative to go to Antarctica and see it for ourselves.”
As part of the program, Musilová and others completed a preliminary assessment of their leadership qualities and are taking those results to the trip. Building on these results, the group will participate in workshops, conferences and networking sessions to further develop their leadership skills, focusing particularly on principles such as empathy and inclusivity. In this way, the program highlights “many values that are unfortunately not as popular as they should be in work environments, including in the space industry,” Musilová said.
“It’s still an industry mostly dominated by men.”
Over the next three weeks, the group will cross the Drake Passage, a huge, particularly choppy body of water prone to 12-foot waves. The scientists will then – weather permitting – land in the remote Falkland Islands and the island of South Georgia in southern Antarctica, and then sail around the Antarctic peninsula, returning to the drop-off point in Ushuaia, Argentina.
“We’ll make a lot of friends for life, we’ll probably hold each other’s hair when we throw up because we’re seasick,” Frebel said.
During this self-funded trip, the group will be disconnected from the rest of the world with only occasional internet access. “We’re out of reach with our day jobs, our families, all these things that we care about but eat up our mental bandwidth,” said Tiffany Vora of Explore Mars, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit. Space.com.
Long after her Antarctic journey, Vora plans to continue advocating for women’s leadership in the space industry, bringing home the leadership skills she learned from the trip. He said another of his main goals is to show that there is no fundamental contradiction between improving life on Earth and expanding human civilization beyond our planet: “We don’t have to choose between Earth and space if we make the right choices from today.”
In addition to the trip’s leadership skills-building agenda, participants can look forward to having some fun during the trip, including taking a “cold dip” in the Antarctic sea, building some arts and crafts projects, and even dressing up for a costume party.
“I’m still deciding on my outfit; my top three options are dressing as Barbie, disco ball or Ernest Shackleton,” Isobel Romero-Shaw of the University of Cambridge in the UK told Space.com before the trip.
make an impact
While the trip is generally aimed at inspiring leadership for a sustainable, climate-friendly future on Earth, Vora and several other astronomers see stark parallels with space exploration.
“In my opinion, space is fundamentally a sustainability issue,” he said. “You are working at the edge of what is possible. Not everyone is on board With you. How do you lead in those times?”
He hopes to spark conversations among participants on the ship whose expertise lies outside astronomy about how they can contribute to the space industry, ultimately creating a long-term support network.
“To me, this maps out very nicely what we need to do to think about the coming decades when humans will make their home outside Earth,” Vora added, “like learning to work in resource-limited environments in the face of polarity, confusion, and disturbance.”
“We need broad collaboration and a very large network to make a significant impact,” astronomer Mariya Lyubenova, editor of The Messenger, the quarterly magazine of the European Southern Observatory, told Space.com. Lyubenova added that she plans to use her leadership skills to advocate for the protection of dark skies, where international cooperation is vital.
While scientists are known to have well-educated, highly logical minds, and this helps them approach problems in systematic ways, strategic planning alone does not translate theoretical solutions into effective actions. Therefore, astronomers on board also hope to learn social skills through the program’s teamwork tasks.
“We need to learn certain transferable skills,” Debatri Chattopadhyay, a research fellow at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom and a passenger on the ship, told Space.com. “Of course we know physics, but physics will not teach us how to deal with people.”
Others on the all-female trip see the trip as a “giant focus group.”
“We are honest with each other, but we also focus on what our goals are and how we are going to get there,” Frebel said. “At the end of the day, we all agree that we want to do something for the planet.”
The diverse backgrounds of the group will play an important role in having difficult conversations about leadership; Because this trip will force them to take them out of their daily echo chambers and look critically at creative solutions to climate problems.
Frebel will carry paintings by a local artist of different species of penguins, whales, krill and seals. She plans to photograph these images placed in the Antarctic snow and exhibit them in a future exhibition in Massachusetts.
“Climate change is real and we better do something if we want to keep seeing penguins.”